Evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins on Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry (via Washington Post): There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today's Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous 'GOP' nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered 'grand') is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party 'in spite of' is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.
Red state governors continue to pressure their education boards to "dumb down" scholastic standards. Kids don't vote, but it's embarrassing for conservative pols when children know more about science than they do.
As you can see below, not everyone in Texas is a Rick Perry admirer ...
Our Quote of the Week comes from John Huntsman (via SFGate), one of the few Republican presidential contenders who doesn't make gay-bashing and climate change denial his top causes célèbres: "I can't remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a — a party that — that was antithetical to science. I'm not sure that's good for our future and it's not a winning formula." Well, I can certainly remember when that happened. It's when Religious Right zealots wrested control of the GOP from mainstream voters.
HuffPo's Jennifer Bendery reports that House Budget Committee Chairman/Tea Party poseur Paul Ryan wants to reward his wealthy donors by creating tax loopholes big enough to fly a corporate jet through. Color us unsurprised.
So how out of touch with minorities is Rick Perry? Maria Diamond at Think Progress notes that the Texas governor is now comparing the Republicans' fight for lower corporate taxes to the Civil Rights Movement.
Professional homobigot Brian Brown who heads the hate group National Organization For Marriage continues to promote the ludicrous assertion that marriage equality will lead to rampant pedophilia. (He and the shrewish Maggie Gallagher really should take a flying leap off that slippery slope they cling to. Like ill-fated lovers in some mythical kingdom of Deep-Fried Fanaticism, I see them clasping hands and jumping into the cesspit of their own propaganda.) Carlos Maza walks the dog for Equality Matters. Speaking of NOM's Christianist Taliban, they're joining forces with GOP Oval Office hopeful Herman Cain in calling for the President's impeachment. (They all think Obama should be meaner to Teh Gays.)
In case you've been wondering why fedophobic Michele Bachmann was once employed by the IRS, it's really very simple. Greg Sargent explains on Plum Line: She worked for the IRS as a kind of secret anti-tax mole whose mission was to get to know the place in order to better undermine it later. As she put it: The first rule of war is "know your enemy." (I wonder if that's why Michele was once caught lurking behind some bushes at an LGBT rights rally. Does anybody really consider this conduct acceptable in a presidential candidate? For what it's worth, Bachmann said she wasn't spying, that she crouched there because her heels hurt. I'm sure they would, after dragging around that cross all day.)
At Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, Alvin McEwen compiles a list of sixteen reasons why the Family Research Council is a designated hate group (and it's not merely because of the org's fearmongering and extreme anti-gay rhetoric). In pursuance of a twisted theocratic agenda, FRC leaders have been lying to the public.
Wallbuilders' hysterical hayseed David Barton declares that equality for LGBT Americans is "impossible." He also insists that our nation's impoverished citizens can't find jobs because they're lazy and not sufficiently religious. Brian Tashman at RightWingWatch checks for fleas.
From the Associated Press, as reported by Angela Delli Santi: A freshman Republican lawmaker resigned because his wife sent "an offensive and racist" email to the Democratic state Senate campaign of nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, a GOP official acknowledged Monday. Pat Delany stepped down from the state Assembly this month and said he wouldn't seek a full term in November because of his wife's missive to Lewis' campaign, Burlington County Republican Chairman Bill Layton said... Delany and his wife, Jennifer Delany, are white. Lewis, a political novice who's among the greatest athletes of all time, is black.Jennifer Delany's email to Lewis' campaign said, in part, "Imagine having dark skin and name recognition and the nerve to think that equaled knowing something about politics." (Remind me again why so many conservatives are racially insensitive?)
The sound of renting garments and gnashing teeth comes from the Scrooge-alikes at Catholic Charities, a group that purports to help unwanted children find loving homes but restricts placement to non-gay households. Courts have often ruled this churlish discrimination is unconstitutional, and a fair-minded judge in Illinois has just handed the "charity" its ass on a plate. Head over to The Advocate, where Trudy Ring swings the incense.
FURKIDS INTERLUDE
I swore after Spot the Cat passed away that we would never allow another cat outdoors, but Rowdy's ceaseless mewling finally broke my resolve. In the video below you'll see our persistent feline traipsing along the long drive and across the pasture, following me and the dogs to the fish pond. (The video itself is nothing fancy; it has been ages since I used Windows Moviemaker - aaaaand, the version that came with this laptop unfortunately lacks bells and whistles.)
Readers who've been with us awhile may remember "Rowdy's One-Minute Adventure" (co-starring Spot the Cat).
1. For some reason, the pup in this first video has a difficult time choosing between pizza and dog food. Do you think it's because the pizza is frozen? Via PersonalNick.
2. In the video on the right, a cat chows down on a slice of pizza - although you get the feeling she would much prefer deep dish since the crust she's gnawing on is awfully tough. Via ethirty.
Kenneth Vogel and Lucille McCalmont describe how presidential hopeful Rick Perry has transformed the Texas governor's office into a whorehouse warehouse filled with expensive gifts. The revolving door of political favors and extravagant deposits into the Republican's campaign war chest is regularly greased. No wonder it took Perry so long to toss his bright red boxer shorts into the political ring. As the state's supreme executive, he's been riding the gravy train. (Of course as POTUS, Perry will be subjected to closer media scrutiny. That can't be fun - or profitable.)
Below are just a few of Perry's recent job perks, via Politico:
Cowboy boots - 22 pairs. Stetson hats. Belt buckles. Cuff links. A TV. Medical tests for him and his wife. Nine hunting trips. Dozens of tickets to sports games and concerts. Rick Perry earns a $150,000 annual salary and has a blind trust. (Thanks to some questionable real estate dealings, Perry's stock portfolio is the envy of Mideast potentates.) But he’s also received over 90 personal gifts — many of them from top donors and political appointees — during his 11 years as Texas governor, according to personal financial statements he filed with the state... Perry’s gift givers are also among his most generous campaign backers, putting at least $6.4 million in contributions from themselves and their families into his three gubernatorial bids, according to a POLITICO analysis of data compiled by the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice. And at least 10 gift givers have gotten state appointments during the Perry administration. Take insurance company owner Phil Adams of Bryan, Texas, whom Perry appointed to the board of regents of Texas A&M University in 2001 and reappointed in 2009. Adams has contributed nearly $290,000 to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns. Between 2005 and 2009, Adams’s company at times employed one or both of Perry’s two children, then in their late teens or 20s, to do secretarial work. And over the years, he’s given Perry, his wife Anita, and their children tickets to football and basketball games — including the 2007 Big 12 basketball tournament — and picked up the tab for their lodging and transportation to some of the games as well. Houston auto dealer Dan Freidkin, whom Perry appointed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, has contributed $715,000 to his campaigns and paid for a 2007 hunting trip for the governor and his wife. Fellow Parks and Wildlife Commission appointee Dan Allen Hughes, Jr. footed the bill for Perry hunting trips in 2009 and 2010, as well as another trip of unspecified purpose last year ... (This is but the tip of an iceberg. I hope you'll read the Politico piece in its entirety.)
Everybody knows that politicians blithely solicit bribes contributions in exchange for favors and access. But few elected officials so smugly thumb their noses at working-class voters as does Perry - scolding impoverished Texas families who seek minimal assistance while he greedily sucks at the public trough.
Which brings us to S-E-X. By now you've probably heard that there's an advertisement in the Austin Chronicle asking the Texas Governor's many rumored inamoratas to come forward and spill the beans. Over at the website StuffedSuits.com, Robert Morrow, president of Committee Against Sexual Hypocrites, says he's convinced Perry is a born philanderer and he's eagerly waiting for the next high-heeled shoe to drop. Morrow confesses: I know this because I am a patron of Austin strip clubs. My friends and excellent contacts in the Austin strip club community tell me that Rick Perry, a la Bill Clinton, has an enabling entourage who gets him "young hotties" to have sex with – both here in Austin and especially when he is on the road. I learned about this before the 2010 Texas primary. I had an attractive stripper tell me about her direct dealings with Rick Perry. She said that she was attempting a Monica Lewinsky-type act upon Gov. Rick Perry (oral sex) but that in her words Perry was "too coked up" to perform sexually! When it came time for the stripper to leave, Perry gave her an outrageous amount of money, so large in fact that it probably means that Perry is taking cash bribes or illegal gifts to fund his extracurricular activities. Another young woman, who has had direct dealings with Perry's enabling entourage, told me that Perry is especially flagrantly adulterous when he goes on the road. She said that Perry has sex with the "young hotties" and that Perry and his entourage are literally having orgies in his hotel room. They are either calling escort services or picking up “young hotties” impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas.
While I support groups that seek to expose "traditional family values" hypocrites (who are as numerous as grains of sand on the beach), Morrow's ad in the Chronicle seems disingenuous. Any person who dared to present evidence of Perry's sexual dalliances would be persecuted - or worse - by state troopers and the governor's personal thugs bodyguards. (I'm told they can be vicious. And let's face it, the conservative pol isn't above threateninghis enemies.)
All else aside, Mr. Morrow offers no incentives to prospective whistle-blowers, not even the promise of protection from retaliation. Whoever sheds light on Perry's sexual hypocrisy is advised to have their legal ducks in a row and choose a reliable news outlet to break the story. Their reputation - and Perry's future in politics - might depend upon it.
There is one major difference between former president George W. Bush and White House hopeful Rick Perry. Bush Junior, arguably the worst president in the history of the nation, was stupid and stubborn. Dubya will be remembered for two things: lying to the American people in order to justify an unnecessary war, and ruining the economy with tax breaks for corporations and multi-millionaires. Governor Perry is stubborn, but he's also shrewd and perhaps a little crazy. He thinks he is intelligent (always dangerous in a man who embraces theocracy) and he believes that voters are stupid. If Republican Bible bleaters ever learn that Perry holds them in such disdain, they may gravitate to another ultraconservative candidate. Or, if they're as stupid as Perry thinks, they might go ahead and vote for him anyway.
We returned from Houston earlier than expected so I decided to whip together a quick roundup:
Responding to a female caller's question on The 700 Club, cadaverous Pat Robertson suggested that it is appropriate for born-again Christians to befriend "homosexual persons" ONLY if they believe the individuals can be converted. He also warned the girl to stay away from gay bars and parties. David Badash provides video of the exchange on the New Civil Rights Movement, if you can stomach it. (Keep the Pepto handy.)
Over at AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte presents five ways that social conservatives are attacking your sexual freedom. (I'm sure we can all think of more than five.) Marcotte also explains why Fox News blowhard Sean Hannity is "making sexual resentment a right-wing trope."
"God yes, Church no!" That was one of several slogans shouted by thousands of human rights activists protesting Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Spain. A massive "kiss-in" has been planned for the pontiff's arrival on Thursday. After the Spanish parliament legalized gay marriage back in 2005, Roman Catholic leaders stepped up their condemnation of same-sex couples (that is, when they weren't busy shielding pedophile priests from civil lawsuits). Elisa Santafe reports for AFP.
During an interview with Catholic News Radio of San Diego, Newt Gingrich said that gay nuptials are directly responsible for America's ailing economy. This contradicts data which shows states with marriage equality experience an economic upturn. Gingrich's logic is as tortured as always, but then so are his listeners. Igor Volsky has details on Think Progress.
Jason Cherkis at Huffington Post discovers more than a few of Rick Perry's close associates think that Governor Helmet Hair would not make an effective president. After living under his tenure in Texas, I tend to agree. As the nation's Commander-in-chief, Perry would relinquish power to unhinged Christofascists and greedy corporate titans.
The Washington Post editorial board exposes the misfortune of undocumented gay and lesbian immigrants who (thanks to the abominable Defense of Marriage Act) face deportation despite entering into perfectly legal civil unions. The Post correctly argues that Attorney General Eric Holder should declare a moratorium on the removal of foreign nationals in state-sanctioned relationships until our federal courts rule on DOMA’s constitutionality.
I am really sick of hearing about Christine I-Am-Not-A-Witch O'Donnell. Why a legitimate television interviewer would want to chat up this Tea Party harridan (who lost the election and isn't currently running for anything except perhaps Loon of the Year) baffles me. Piers Morgan, please demonstrate some class and tell CNN's producers to stop booking bigots that are no longer newsworthy. Story via Georgia Voice and elsewhere.
This isn't terribly surprising: Jackson Mississippi police officers are unable - unwilling? - to gather much-needed evidence in an anti-gay hate crime, so the the Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking over the case. (It's worth mentioning that FBI agents have been praising the local cops, but it's not too difficult to read between the lines.) From WAPT.com.
And finally, Ned Flaherty has created an interesting chart showing where each prospective presidential candidate stands on LGBT rights. You'll notice Republican Fred Karger, a Republican who identifies as gay, ranks just above President Obama. (Karger's uphill campaign, like that of Kinky Friedman, smells rather like a stunt, and I suspect the moderate conservative has a better chance persuading Marcus Bachmann to wear an evening gown to one of his wife's rallies than he does snagging the GOP nomination. Even so, I predict the "gay conservatives" at GOPround will end up supporting somebody at the bottom of this list. They get soooo turned on by politicians who despise them.)
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