Never underestimate the stupidity of… stupid people.
Take anti-union activist and Tea party tool, “interim” AZ FreedomWorks coordinator Stephen Viramontes, for instance. Yesterday on Twitter, Viramontes bragged about how he planned to give out Valentines to AZ ‘s Republican lawmakers with drawings of Hitler, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong as well as Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. Apparently, for it’s unclear, his bright idea was to somehow associate these figures with union-busting legislation SB1182—strongly favored by Viramontes’ fellow dimwits in the Tea party movement—and “humorously” put some pressure on several GOP lawmakers believed to be wavering in their support of the draconian anti-union bill.
Presumably someone close to him convinced Stevie Blunder that this was a total clownjob move that would just make him look like a dickhead and cause him professional embarrassment, as Viramontes deleted his lamebrained boasting.
Maybe it was all in fun, but since The Arizona Capitol Times got a nice screenshot before he deleted his tweet, the joke’s on Stephen Viramontes.
Proving yourself too stupid for a career in AZ Tea party politics is a real accomplishment:
Viramontes’ planned use of cards featuring Hitler, Stalin and other leaders who are estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of more than 65 million people comes on the same day that nonprofit liberal news magazine Mother Jones posted a story on its website about an internal investigation that was sparked after FreedomWorks’ executives made a video of a woman wearing a Hillary Clinton mask having sex with a woman in a panda suit.
The video was intended to be shown at FreePac, a July 2012 conference in Dallas, but was scrapped after FreedomWorks employees complained.
Although he sent out a series of tweets about the cards, some of which showed pictures of them, Viramontes said after an initial version of this story was published that he never planned to give the cards to lawmakers and said he doesn’t support the actions or beliefs of any of the dictators on the cards.
“It was never something I was really, seriously going to do,” he said. “It was probably bad judgment on my part to even joke about it.
“Those that know me get the humor.”
Like this guy?
The Valentine cards are actually the work of artist Ben Kling, who has created other, similar cards with philosophers, authors, celebrities and historical figures. Kling had nothing to do with Viramontes’ feeble attempt at a “joke” and no association with FreedomWorks. He told TPM that he thought the media flap caused by Viramontes’ lame attempt at some Hitler humor was hilarious.