The (Deceased) Elephant In The Room

I'm not going to go all PETA on the "GoDaddy CEO Shoots Elephant" thing. Like most situations, it's not black and white, it's gray... and the really damning aspects are largely ignored because we're too lazy to think past our gut reactions.

For instance, I'll take Bob Parsons' defense: elephants are big, destructive motherf*ckers who trample and eat crops and can spell death for subsistence farmers teetering on the brink of survival. So now, thanks to Parsons' hunting trip, one farmer's sorghum field is saved, a family is less likely to starve and the village got a butt load of Dumbo meat to throw on the grill.

But there's a bad side: in the process, Parsons also gets to indulge his white hunter fantasies and the insane Zimbabwean government gets a sizable cash injection by way of whatever exorbitant fees Parsons paid for his trip. This is some exploitative, culturally chauvinist bullsh*t straight out of a 1940s Tarzan movie.

And then there's the details: While Parsons' PR team have him play up the hunting trip as some kind of humanitarian mission, can anyone seriously picture a billionaire CEO picking up his rifle, yelling "a Zimbabwean subsistence farmer needs my help!" and flying half way round the world out of the goodness of his heart? No. The humanitarian excuses are just plain stupid. Parsons is a redneck who made out selling domain names on the web and, like most rednecks, he likes shooting stuff. Now he just has enough money to pay top dollar to kill really big stuff in exotic locations. He ain't Doctors Without f*cking Borders, so cut the humanitarian crap.

If Parsons was on the level, he could have paid for shock fences to be built to save those farmers' crops. He could have paid for the relocation of the elephant herd. Maybe he could have just sent over a bunch of guns so the farmers could have taken care of the 'pest problem' for themselves..? No. That wouldn't fly because those poor farmers Parsons is supposed to be saving are not allowed to shoot elephants themselves because that would disrupt the very lucrative hunter/tourist business. Sure, says the Zimbabwean government, your family might starve next time an elephant gets the munchies, but you can't go shooting them yourself and thus deprive a rich foreigner like Parsons of things to kill on vacation. So who's helping who and who's screwing who in this scenario?

King of The A**holes

You know something is deeply and utterly bust when a booger-munching bigot like Peter King gets to be Homeland security chair. King is currently (ab)using his position to launch a McArthy-style 'investigation' into the "homegrown radicalization" of American Muslims. Under King's logic, every Muslim is a potential terrorist because, I guess, 9-11 didn't make them all renounce the prophet Muhammad en masse and start going to church.

But that's not all... While King not unreasonably dislikes al Qaeda, he does very unreasonably love him some IRA. So much so that he's long defended those terrorists:

Regarding the 30 years of violence during which the IRA killed over 1,700 people, including over 600 civilians, King said, "If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it".

Seriously, just drop dead of that long-awaited coronary, Peter f*cking King. You are taking up protoplasm that could be more usefully diverted into the creation of, say, a few more tapeworms or cockroaches.

Mitch McConnell's Self-serving Hypocrisy

Bill Moyers on the Supreme Court corporatist putsch:

"After the Supreme Court handed down its decision two weeks ago, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the leader of Senate Republicans, praised it from the senate floor. He dismissed the notion that the decision might allow a flood of foreign money to influence our elections. Now we learn from TalkingPointsMemo.com that Senator McConnell has received substantial funds from a subsidiary of a big foreign defense contractor that's currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery. Senator McConnell has been quite good to that subsidiary -- this year alone he's requested seventeen million dollars in earmarks for its Louisville facility. Yes, the sun, and the dollar signs, shine bright in Senator McConnell's old Kentucky home."

Makes you think. Or rather sadly, doesn't.

Careful What You Wish For

Yet to see an evangelical anti-divorce wagon. Just sayin'...

Now Texas is following California as a possible 'divorce ban' state thanks to the efforts of an unholy alliance of pro-gay marriagers and social conservatives. And good luck to them. As Glenn Greenwald says:

"If our marriage laws must conform to Christian doctrine so as to bar gays from marrying, then it also must prohibit married couples from divorcing, and must also bar them from entering into re-marriages."

This is probably the nearest we've ever got to considering laws to outlaw hypocrisy and I welcome it. As a 'godless liberal' who's been married ten years, I'm sick to my stomach of hypocrites like Limbaugh (3 divorces), Gingrich (2 divorces) and McCain (1 divorce but a doozy) assuming the right to lecture me on the sanctity of marriage. Unlike them, I've never cheated on my wife, never served her divorce papers while she battled cancer in hospital (a la Gingrich), and have never dumped her after she was crippled in a car wreck so I could marry an ex-model and heiress (a la McCain).

And how 'bout that moral paragon Karl Rove? Rove "famously engineered multiple referenda" to outlaw gay marriage in several states to court the Christian wingnut vote. Says The Non Sequitur:

"Rove has argued (however badly) for the legal exclusivity of "traditional" marriage yet at the same time, he has now been divorced twice."

Not that a divorce ban will have any chance of passing. But I guess that's the point. Its failure will demonstrate the hypocrisy of our tinpot moral fascists who use legislation to bully others into conforming to the same 'moral' standards they refuse to apply to themselves. A classic case of 'do as I say, not do as I do' biting thou in thine holy ass.

Let Them Eat Cake

U.S. taxpayers are paying more than $40,000 a month for office rent, staff, phones and an SUV for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert - even as he makes megabank as a corporate lobbyist and a paid rep for foreign governments.

The funding is perfectly legal under a federal law that, for some reason, provides five years of benefits for former speakers. Maybe it's got something to do with the guys benefiting from the rules are the same ones who write them? Just a wild hunch...

Hastert's welfare money could subsidize maybe 40 or 50 people's health insurance payments and chip some numbers off of the annual uninsured death toll. It could put a lot of infinitely more useful members of society through college... maybe save a few foreclosed homes. But that would run contrary to good old fashioned, stand-on-your-own-two-feet conservative principles that regard taxpayer funding (for people who ain't already rich) as anathema. Much better to burn money subsidizing Hastert's fat, rich ass instead.

Sure, Hastert's entitled to the money under the arcane rules of the House - just as multi-millionaire McCain is still entitled to squirrel away his monthly Social Security checks because he's old - but there's always the option of refusing the money because you don't f*cking need it.

Our pols may as well start wearing powdered wigs and keeping po' folk as pets if this is the level of self-serving greed and insensitivity they're at. WWJD? Don't ask.

Republican Welfare Queens

Next time a Republican whinges about big government and overspending, let's remember which red and blue states are recipients of the most and least federal funding.

States Receiving Most in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:

1. D.C. ($6.17)
2. North Dakota ($2.03)
3. New Mexico ($1.89)
4. Mississippi ($1.84)
5. Alaska ($1.82)
6. West Virginia ($1.74)
7. Montana ($1.64)
8. Alabama ($1.61)
9. South Dakota ($1.59)
10. Arkansas ($1.53)

States Receiving Least in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:

1. New Jersey ($0.62)
2. Connecticut ($0.64)
3. New Hampshire ($0.68)
4. Nevada ($0.73)
5. Illinois ($0.77)
6. Minnesota ($0.77)
7. Colorado ($0.79)
8. Massachusetts ($0.79)
9. California ($0.81)
10. New York ($0.81)

May Jesus Protect Obama From His Followers...

Cue wingnut whining about First Amendment stifling... Cafe Press is deleting the "Psalm 109:8" hate speak paraphernalia off it's site after someone checked what Psalm 109:8 actually says:

"Let his days be few and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds and beg. Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places. Let the creditor seize all that he has and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him nor let there be any favor to his fatherless children."

So those good Christians selling t-shirts, mousepads and teddy bears calling for Obama's death will have to find another venue to flog their Christianist/Fascist propganda. I'm sure many megachurches will be happy to oblige.

As a response in kind to the wingnuts, let's just leave it at Matthew 23:28.

Big Fake Ones

Carrie Prejean showing off them big ol' fake ones. Moral standards that is.

"Porn distributor Vivid Entertainment is making a play to distribute the former Miss California's sex tapes — which it allegedly has in its possession."

A letter from Vivid to Prejean's representatives gushes "Carrie is a beautiful woman. We believe the Footage will be a huge success and has the potential of being the most successful adult video of all time."

It's always amusing when Christianist hyper-crites like Prejean or Palin inevitably trip up and get hoisted on their own petard. But why do they always have to make bank in the process?

Palin portrays herself as a Godly, plain-talking woman of honesty and busts herself by bringing out a lie-strewn book exposing her as a major-league hypocrite. Insert laughter. But she still makes a small fortune in the process. Prejean follows the same trajectory.

Is there no way divine justice can apply itself without offering financial compensation? I don't think the message "be a hypocrite, trash your own reputation, and get richer" is what Obama would call a teachable moment.

Schadenfreude

"My ambitions are to work with children, travel the world and help screw over gays..."

Beauty pageant Nazi Carrie Prejean was seeking more than a million dollars during her settlement negotiations with Miss California USA Pageant. That was until the lawyer for the Pageant showed her a sex tape they just happened to have laying around. She then took about 15 seconds to fold and essentially walk away with nothing.

Oh snap. Don't mess with them beauty pageant thugs. They're ruthless. But it really couldn't happen to a nicer hypocrite.

Strom Thurmond's Conservative Sex Offender Showcase

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Princess Lieberman's New Bitch Fit

From smooching Bush to backing John McCain for president, nothing seems out-of-bounds in Princess Lieberman's continuing campaign to draw attention to herself. "It's all about me, me me!" She squealed again yesterday when warning the Dems she'd side with the GOP in filibustering health care reform.

WTF is wrong with this 67-year-old man-brat? I guess he must be buoyed by polls showing that the voters of Connecticut will back Lieberman however much of a giant douche he becomes. That and the generous allowance the health insurers throw her to keep her fully stocked with Barbies and Hannah Montana Blu-Rays.

But an estimated 45,000 people a year are dying as a result of health insurance company abuse and 1.5 million families are losing their homes for the same reason. And Princess Lieberman thinks her pathetic ego is more deserving of attention?

Ted Kennedy gets brain cancer and this pointless f*** is still in fine fettle? The world, as they say, is not a fair place.

Hypocrisy Alert, Threat Level Red

Hypocrisy alert: Michael Ledeen goes spaz over Obama's senior thesis "Aristocracy Reborn" which says all kindsa stuff about wealth restribution.

Big hoo-ha ensues, Limbaugh quotes the paper as yet more damning evidence against Obama then... all goes quiet. Turns out Obama didn't write a senior thesis and the site Ledeen provided for his source was prominently marked 'satire'.

So, just one week after Limbaugh's 'bogus' racist quotes bit him in his fat ass and the whole wingnut blogosphere went ape painting the debacle as a liberal media witch hunt, what does Ledeen say? After conceding he was wrong and apologizing, he said "It worked because it's plausible."

Let's just savor the gigantic irony for a moment. We're supposed to believe Rush Limbaugh's not a racist because two out of his vast back catalog of bigoted quotes appear to be phony. But they stick Obama with a fake thesis painting him as a big ol' commie and all they say is "It worked because it's plausible"?

Eric Boehlert at County Fair says:

"Well, what do you know. Just one week after Limbaugh's pity party to commemorate how some nasty people made up two quotes and falsely attributed them to him, Limbaugh was back doing what Limbaugh does, hyping bogus quotes and falsely attributing them to Obama. In fact, even after Limbaugh found out the quotes were likely bogus, he kept repeating them on the air."

Modern conservatism: the moral vacuum created when no conscience meets no brain.

MC Steele Plays the Race Card

Michael Steele hates people who 'play the race card'. But if 'playing the race card' means deliberately exploiting racial sensitivities by making unjustified claims of racism against opponents, he just proved he can play it with alacrity.

On his recent Univision interview he claimed that he was "called an Uncle Tom by leading Democrats" and that Steny Hoyer called him a "slave."

As David Wiegel at The Washington Independent points out, you can't seriously accuse leading Democrats of calling you 'Uncle Tom' unless, by leading Democrats, you mean a few liberal bloggers with poor judgment.

Then there's the 'slave' accusation he threw at Hoyer. What Hoyer actually said was that Steele had made a "career of slavishly supporting the Republican Party." Maybe a tad inappropriate when 'servilely' would have sufficed, but it's in no way equivalent to actually calling him a slave.

Truly, Michael Steele is more full of s*** than a Taco Bell bathroom.

On This Day...

On this day in 1998, the "Club Love" Website posts racy pics of holier-than-thou, conservative radio personality "Dr." Laura Schlessinger. After denying they were her, she then blew her case by suing the site for copyright infringement. Unexpurgated retro-bush action here.

Christianist Hypocrisy Alive and Well

Before the recent Muslim Day of Unity rally in DC, the Family Research Council dickishly released an open letter demanding that the organizers of the event "unequivocally denounce" terrorism. They also took the chance to remind everyone that the Koran inspires said terrorism because it advocates violence against 'infidels'.

This tired old bloviation about the Koran promoting 'death to infidels' is annoying as hell. Not because it isn't true, but because those Christianists who hold up the Koran as an example of violent intolerance seem blissfully unaware that their Bible is full of the same stuff. Here are a few of the more hotheaded directives straight from God's desk:

"Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death"
Exodus 31:14

"Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities."
Isaiah 14:21

"Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished."
Isaiah 13:15-16

"A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD's work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!"
Jeremiah 48:10

"If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as menservants do."
Exodus 21:7-11

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her."
Deuteronomy 22:28-29

"If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death"
Deuteronomy 22:23-24

"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed."
Exodus 22:20

"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death."
Deuteronomy 13:6-9

"If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known)... you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town."
Deuteronomy 13:12-15

"I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe."
Jude 5

Fake Outrage Loop

"Christianists" is a handy term for wingnuts who use religion as a political wedge. I believe the term was coined by Andrew Sullivan but I'm too lazy to check.

And doesn't the South and that nondescript bit of America in the middle seem rife with these tedious a**holes? Not sure if it's their willful ignorance or their cynicism that prevents them from acknowledging simple ideas like, say, religious sectarianism having no place in federally-funded public schools.

Every day there's yet another fake-outrage story about oppressed Christians being discriminated against by the big, bad school system. Today it's cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High in Georgia being told to stop putting Bible verses on their banners. Shock! Horror! For the 10,000th f***ing time. Yawn...

It would be less irritating if the Christianists could just STFU and re-read the bit about 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render up to God what is God's'. But with all their Old Testament tribalism and ire, I wonder if any of them even remember that Jesus isn't just the guy who mows their lawn.

And as for the most pandered to and privileged sect in America constantly crying 'opression'? Wake me up if the feds start throwing them to lions. Then we'll talk.

Conservative Triple Standards

Most people would give it up to the troops. But the right has raised that common notion to an almost fetishistic level of 'Troop Worship'. So how does it work when the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center puts up this billboard and it's almost immediately torn to shreds? Sorry, we support the troops... but not those troops.