No two ways about it, Rick Santorum had a good night. Not only did he sweep Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri but he also got off the best line of the night.

“I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

A slap to the side of the head of Romney while pushing him aside and casting himself as the one and only true conservative who has the creds to take on the Kenyan guy – and he did it with a single sentence. Impressive.

Is there more to this Santorum fellow than any of us give him credit for?

Not really. He’s still the bigoted, narrow-minded, gay-bashing, religious zealot you always knew him to be. The only reason people are still talking about Santorum at this stage of a Republican primary is that he’s fortunate enough to be running at a time when the GOP decided to put on a clown show instead of a true presidential nomination race where thinking adults articulate intelligent ideas based on strong conservative ideals.

Instead, the GOP has offered the likes of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich who have embarrassed themselves and insulted the intelligence of Americans with…

• Wanting to do away with the minimum wage. (Bachmann)
• Wanting to build a 20 foot high electrified fence at the border that would kill Mexicans attempting to cross it. (Cain)
• Wanting to eliminate Dept. of Education/Energy/Health and Human Services, the Federal Aviation Administration, IRS and implement a $1 trillion budget cut in the first year. (Paul)
• Wanting to deregulate the oil industry further because the Gulf oil spill was simply an “act of God”. (Perry)
• Wanting to colonize the moon. (Gingrich)

You could fill pages with stuff like this. Whatever world Republican candidates are hoping to make better, it sure as hell isn’t the one we’re living in.

And into this field of misfits, loons, pretenders and grifters comes a Rick Santorum whose main appeal is to social conservatives who agree with Santorum that:

• women who get pregnant by way of rape or incest should be forced by their government to give birth to the baby because that pregnancy is a “gift” from God.
• homosexuality is on the same level as adultery, bigamy, incest, bestiality and pedophilia.
• contraception endangers the country and should be banned.

“Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Fear not. Rick Santorum will not be the Republican nominee. While he may be the anti-Romney flavor of the week, he lacks the the organization and money to take on Mitt Romney nationwide. He also lacks the support of the Republican establishment which is putting its money on Romney. They understand that selling Romney to the masses in a general election will not be an easy task but selling a hardcore crazy evangelical like Rick Santorum would be an impossible task.

Enjoy the moment, Rick, as fleeting as it may be.

(The Rick Santorum source image for this illustration is a Creative Commons licensed image from photographer Gage Skidmore.)
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The Planned Parenthood/Susan G. Komen story is another clear example of how right-wing ideology has forced its way into just about every aspect of American life. Pushing conservative social policies involves demonizing organizations like Planned Parenthood which provides vital breast cancer screenings to low-income and uninsured women.

Komen’s choosing to cease funding to Planned Parenthood because the organization is under investigation by Congress is simply another attack on women’s rights. The real reason PP is being defunded by Komen is because the latter is controlled by right-wing ideologues who have allowed politics to guide their decision making.  They have given in to anti-abortion zealots who have been running a boycott campaign against Komen.

Komen has been under pressure from anti-abortion groups to drop its funding for Planned Parenthood, which received $680,000 from the anti-cancer group in 2011. Most recently, abortion foes forced a Christian publisher to stop printing pink Komen bibles and pressured bookstores to take them off shelves. Groups have also called on supporters to boycott Komen entirely, and decried the group as a “lie from the pit of Hell.”

As for those right-wing ideologues controlling Komen…

Breast cancer charity giant Susan G. Komen for the Cure on Tuesday did not renew a grant to Planned Parenthood to fund breast exams. The move comes less than a year after Komen hired a new vice president, who has publicly stated her opposition to abortion, a service provided at some Planned Parenthood facilities.

Komen’s new vice president, Karen Handel, had run for governor of Georgia in 2010 on an aggressively anti-abortion and anti-Planned Parenthood platform and was endorsed by Sarah Palin because of her opposition to reproductive choice. Handel wrote in her campaign blog that she “do[es] not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

and…

Komen’s founder is pretty conservative, too. Komen CEO Nancy G. Brinker, who founded the foundation in memory of a sister who died from breast cancer, was the chief protocol officer for the United States from 2007 to 2009 under the George W. Bush administration, and before that served as his ambassador to Hungary.

Brinker is also a major Republican donor, and has given more than $175,000 to Republican candidates and the Republican National Committee since 1990…

and…

sitting on Komen’s Advocacy Alliance Board is Jane Abraham, the General Chairman of the virulently anti-choice and anti-science Susan B. Anthony List and of its Political Action Committee.  Among other involvements, Abraham helps direct the Nuturing Network, a global network of crisis pregnancy centers, organizations widely  known for spreading ideology, misinformation and lies to women facing unintended pregnancy and to use both intimidation and coercion in the course of doing so.

Here’s the bottom line: given a choice between their personal agendas and helping low-income Americans deal with vital health issues, the Susan G. Komen charity made the decision to go with the former.

That Komen–an organization ostensibly dedicated to scientific exploration of cures for breast cancer–has invited on its advocacy board women so closely allied with organizations that so blatantly ignore science and medicine and spread outright lies to other women about their health and welfare speaks volumes about Komen’s ethical principles as an organization.

And as a result of Komen’s decision, women will needlessly die.

Petition here.
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Give Gov. Rick Scott and his Tea Party pals in the legislature another year to screw around with Florida, its laws and it’s people and he’ll have successfully turned what was once a backwards state into a Bronze Age state.

Florida state Rep. Charles Van Zant (R) is starting 2012 with yet another radical effort to ban all abortions in the state unless the woman’s life is in danger. Declaring that “the Legislature acknowledges that all persons are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that first among these is their right to life,” the Florida for Life Act would essentially (and unconstitutionally) make it a felony to perform an abortion except when a physician meets very specific circumstances.

The proposed legislation would impose a maximum penalty of life in prison for any doctor who contravenes the law.  What?  No lethal injection?  It appears that the right-wing’s call for smaller government only applies to Washington politics.  In their view, states are free to impose their politician’s religious beliefs on the citizenry no matter how unconstitutional those beliefs may be.  How convenient for small-minded anti-choicers.

Meanwhile, on another part of Planet Wingnut, Rick Santorum preaches on the evils of contraception.

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

And that last line pretty much says all anyone needs to know on how Republicans and conservatives view government’s role in people’s lives.  From Florida’s abortion ban, to Santorum’s contraception ban, to the entire Republican party’s same-sex marriage ban, all the way to Newt Gingrich’s call to rid the courts of any judge who renders a judgement from the bench which differs with strict conservative ideology…the entire Republican party paradigm is based on the premise that ‘we’re always right, you’re always wrong – end of story.’

If ever there was a political party that needed to be told in no uncertain terms to go fuck themselves and to simply let people lead their personal lives as they wish, today’s GOP is that political party.

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And this is exactly why you can never have too many Republicans in Congress.  These people are mind-blowing geniuses!

“My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years.  I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them.”

The proposed bill to eliminate all federal regulations from the last 20 years is the brainchild of Alaska Rep. Don Young.  Do ideas get any better than this?  Regulations, after all, are only laws which make federal bills enforceable (see definition below).  It’s not as if they’re really, really necessary.

Federal regulations are the actual enforceable laws authorized by major legislation enacted by Congress. The Clean Air Act, the Food and Drug Act, the Civil Rights Act are all examples of landmark legislation requiring months, even years of highly publicized planning, debate, compromise and reconciliation in Congress. Yet the work of creating the vast and ever-growing volumes of federal regulations, the real laws behind the acts, happens largely unnoticed in the offices of the government agencies rather than the halls of Congress.

A lttle bacteria in your drinking water? Lead in your paint?  Asbestos in your insulation?  Meh, no big deal…better your freedom than your health.

I question why Mr. Young would propose to only go back 20 years.  In the true spirit of Tea Partyism, may I suggest that Congress think big and consider nullifying and voiding every regulation passed in the last 230 years.  That would take the country back to 1780 and give present day legislators a clean slate from which to work and allow them to proceed in a manner that would make any 18th century patriot truly proud.  If that doesn’t put a smile on the face of every brain dead Republican moron…sorry, I meant freedom-loving, tea-guzzling American, nothing will.

Sadly though, liberals still fail to understand the underlying genius present in conservative minds.  The following was written by a liberal dumbass who obviously still doesn’t get it.

Is there any sentient creature dumber than a Republican???

(a few, but not many).

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“You take the blue pill – the story ends,
you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland
and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
~Morpheus [The Matrix]

Andrew Breibart addressed a Tea Party group last week and had this to say.

“I’m under attack all the time. The call me gay. There are death threats… There are times when I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot. Bring it on.’ Because I know who’s on our side.”

“They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country and we have the guns… I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with. ”

A fine example of the dangerous and irresponsible dribble, and nonsense which Obama and Dems have been dealing with for the last three years.  These people are clearly unhinged.

The most frightening part of the right’s complete immersion into their delusional world of crazy, is knowing that there is no rational way to address insanity of this magnitude.  The right has chosen the blue pill.

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As if you needed more reason to be wary of the right-wing’s obsession with religion and in particular presidential aspirants like Rick Perry.

An emerging Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus, is becoming more of a presence in American politics. The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role.

The international “apostolic and prophetic” movement has been dubbed by its leading American architect, C. Peter Wagner, as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Although the movement is larger than the network organized by Wagner — and not all members describe themselves as part of Wagner’s NAR — the so-called apostles and prophets of the movement have identifiable ideology that separates them from other evangelicals.

Two ministries in the movement planned and orchestrated Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent prayer rally, where apostles and prophets from around the nation spoke or appeared onstage.

[...]

Thomas Muthee, the Kenyan pastor who anointed Sarah Palin at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in 2005, while praying for Jesus to protect her from the spirit of witchcraft, is also part of this movement.

[...]

Tabachnick says the movement currently works with a variety of politicians and has a presence in all 50 states. It also has very strong opinions about the direction it wants the country to take. For the past several years, she says, the NAR has run a campaign to reclaim what it calls the “seven mountains of culture” from demonic influence. The “mountains” are arts and entertainment; business; family; government; media; religion; and education.

Do read the full article. It’s downright frightening.

Rachel Tabachnick is an expert on the religious right’s influence on politics.  Here is how she describes the NAR.

“[Their issues are] anti-abortion, anti-gay rights — but they also have … the belief that government should not be involved in social safety nets, that the country is becoming socialist, if not communist … — all of what we’ve come to call ‘Tea Party issues’ of very small government. In the case of the apostles, they believe this because they believe that a large government that handles the safety net is taking away what is the domain of the church and of Christianity.”

Sounds to me like Tabachnick has just described a major part of the GOP platform.  If Republicans take power next year, look for an assault on those “seven mountains of culture” unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.  These people are determined to take Americans as far back into the Dark Ages as they possibly can.

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There exists the ignorant and the stupid, as well as fools, imbeciles and bottom-dwelling scum…and then there is Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association.

“The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours. … Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all.”

No point debating bigots like Fischer.  I can’t imagine anything anyone might offer which could possibly help this guy retract his head from his ass.  Referring to the Israeli army as “emasculated” is a sure sign that the insertion is in deep.

Call out this fool’s homophobia and idiocy, pat him on the tush and move on.

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Anyone who has been watching the U.S. political scene over the last while is quite aware that the process has turned into a circus act with the GOP leadership in Congress playing the role of ringmaster.  The result has been one huge screwing of the poor, the unemployed, the uninsured, the middle class, the environment, immigrants and the economy…basically a royal screwing of the entire nation.  As bizarre as it all was during the Bush years, it is nothing compared to the madness of the last two years.  The election of a black liberal President has truly sent the right over the edge.

Here’s the latest bit of insanity.

With just one more night of competition to go before we find out if Bristol Palin wins the hideous-yet-coveted Mirror Ball Trophy, the executive producer of “Dancing with the Stars” insists the show’s security system is catching and expunging all those votes for her that are being cast by people using bogus e-mail addresses to game the voting system.

…a conservative blogger who’s taking credit for the e-mail voting shenanigans, says he orchestrated the whole thing to pay back Democrats for years of voter fraud at the polls.

And Bristol’s mom, Sarah, last week tried to capitalize on the size of her daughter’s audience to boost ratings for her own, far less popular reality series, TLC’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”

Amazing.  It is only proper that Sarah Palin and her own personal collection of clowns and loons take center stage alongside an unprecedented fine collection of wingnuts.  We live in interesting times no doubt.

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This is what bullshit looks like when you put a camera to it.

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They’re certifiably insane.

Mock at will as the suckers donate their $17.76 in hopes of “breaking the bonds of tyranny”.  Jackasses.

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How many suckers do you think are going to fall for this one?  My guess is a whole bunch.

Conservative talk radio host Michael Reagan, eldest son of former president Ronald Reagan, is selling @Reagan.com e-mail addresses on his website with an appeal to conservatives to stop giving their money to companies he casts as tied to liberalism.

Writes Reagan: “People who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values are unwittingly supporting the Obama, Pelosi and Reid liberal agenda! What do I mean? Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country.”

“Is that where you want your money to go? I didn’t so I changed things,” he continues. “I came up with the very first conservative email service provider. You now can put your name next to the name of the Greatest Conservative of all, my father Ronald Reagan.”

The same idiots who dished out their money to attend classes at Glenn Beck University are most surely going to spend $34.95 per year for a Reagan.com address.  What better way to show what good little wingnuts they are.   And all the while, opportunists like Beck and Reagan are laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of simpletons who cannot see that they are being duped by con artists.

Further fallout from crap like this is the added divisiveness it creates.  Not only do you have Palin’s “real Americans” (aka conservatives) versus fake Americans (aka liberals) but now you have real American corporations versus the traitorous ones who would dare contribute money to Democrats.

Why not just start branding ‘R’ or ‘D’ on American’s foreheads and be done with it.

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