Sometimes it really surprises me how “outraged” republicans can be over something innocuous, or even miniscule.  But something big by republicans?  It’s glossed over like, “Who cares?”

Case in point.  Remember back in 2003 when there was an uproar over a submission of a commercial where someone compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler?  People were up in arms!  And they still are.  I mean, just in 2009, some guy said that Rachel Maddow lied when she said MoveOn.org didn’t have such an ad.  This guy is so disingenuous that you’d think MoveOn.org actually did this.  But no, it’s been proven that MoveOn.org did no such thing – not that any whackjob with their own agenda (and no tolerance for facts or truth) will admit it.  (And I love the irony that any teabagger can whip out a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache and call it “freedom of expression”).

But this latest whackjob idiocy comes from the Kansas Speaker of the House, Michael O’Neal.  There’s the typical namecalling, which I expect from republicans (because who needs cogent facts when you can call the first lady “Mrs. YoMama” and the like?).  But he’s also been emailing around quoting a Psalm from the bible that states:

“May his days be few; and let another take his office.”

So everyone on the right goes into a rage when someone compares Bush to Hitler, but it’s okay for people on the right – leaders on the right – to openly pray for the President of the United States to die?  That’s bullshit.  Speaker O’Neal, you need to be ashamed of yourself, and you need to resign your office.

I saw that the students of Penn State were rioting last night, in support of their long time football coach, who was fired.  You can do that, sure.  You can support the man.  But by supporting a man who “looked the other way” on the issue of child rape, you’re showing what an asshat you really are.

I’m serious.  Asshats.

None of these people are concerned about the 9 people who were sexually abused.  They’re mad because their football coach was fired.

Since when does the love of football trump our love and concern for our fellow man?  That’s just disheartening.  And to those of you that wreaked havoc by your violent actions (tipping over a news van), do you feel better about yourselves?  Or are you just even bigger asshats than those that can’t see past football to the abuse perpetrated on 9 human beings?

We all know that DOMA, the so called “Defense of Marriage Act” from the 1990s, is discriminatory.  States are allowed to regulate marriage, and several have done so (along with the District of Columbia) to include gays and lesbians.  Senator Dianne Feinstein brought forth a bill in the Senate that repeals DOMA earlier this year.  And even better news?  Today, the President endorsed the repeal of DOMA.

So thank you, Senator, and thank you, Mister President.  We continue to need your leadership for equality in this country.

And by the way, speaker Boehner?  How about you STOP paying the tab for the expensive lawyers to defend DOMA?  You’re wasting precious funds on an unconstitutional law.

I, for one, think the Murdoch empire being under such tight scrutiny because of the phone hacking scandal is awesome.  I mean seriously – the man has been supporting illegal search and seizure, phonetapping, and lord knows whatever else for decades.  And he’s finally being brought up and questioned about it.

And then an idiot with a foam pie attacked him in a hearing.

Way to TOTALLY distract from the proceedings, dickhead.  Murdoch is finally getting his.  And you have to go and do something that changes the narrative, and actually makes people sympathetic to the aging right-wing moron.

The internet is a wonderful thing – for people like me who like to dig around to find things.

Previously, I’d posted a story from Minnesota.publicradio.org that talked about Michele Bachmann, among others, who used taxpayer dollars for a political rally.  You can read that story here.  Then I decided to go digging through her website.  And I found something quite interesting.

If you go through her website (use this link) you’ll find the following archived stories for 2009. Here’s an image (clickable):

Now, if you’re familiar with the wonderful thing that is the Internet Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org), you can plug that same website into the search engine, and it takes us back to how her website looked less than a month after the supposed “press conference” took place.  Here’s what you’ll see (clickable):

Wow… There’s an article there from November 2nd, 2009.  Wonder why that’s been removed, eh?  So let’s just take a gander.  You can click here to read it (or, just in case she gets it deleted), a cached copy here:

So, Michele?  Since when do Congressmen have press conferences WITH ACTORS AND REPUBLICAN TALK RADIO HOSTS?  Umm, never?  No – never.  This wasn’t a press conference.  It was a Republican Tea Party rally, plain and simple.

You and the other three representatives (Tom Price R-GA, Steve King R-MO, and Todd Akin, R-MO) need to EACH cough up $3,407.50.  I don’t think you’d like it if Barney Frank (D-MA) used public funds for a Democratic rally, and neither would I.  A political rally should be paid with POLITICAL dollars, not TAXPAYER dollars.

I’m so sick and tired of the stupid, narrowminded crap that passes for a political message these days.  Yes, what Representative Anthony Weiner did was a distraction.  Yes, it’s an annoyance.  But for the establishment, including DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to call for Weiner’s resignation?  Please do us all a favor and shut the hell up.

What Weiner did WAS NOT AGAINST THE LAW.  It is an inconvenience.  It’s a distraction.  But again, NOT AGAINST THE LAW.  He’s a stupid man.  Men lie when it comes to sex.  They always have, and they always will.  Deal with it.

We’re not the puritanical society that these people want us to be, and I don’t hold political leaders to any other standard than I would a stranger on the street (though in this day and age, I’d probably be nicer to a stranger on the street than a Congressperson).  Get over it and move on.  This is a distraction that’s keeping you from doing your jobs.  And to the media?  Same thing – STFU.  Who cares?

But here’s the hypocrisy of the situation: All of the Republicans who are calling on Weiner to resign haven’t said SHIT about Republican David Vitter.  Senator Vitter (R-LA), who actually broke the law by using a callgirl service.  He did far worse than Weiner ever did, and yet Republicans start whistling like nothing’s going on when you bring that up.

Seriously.  I want to ask this question of Republicans.  What, exactly, are gay people to them?

A few weeks ago, The Advocate, a leading GLBT magazine, posted a story about how Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) was so ga-ga to meet Chris Colfer, the actor from Glee (he plays Kurt).  She got a photo-op with Darren Criss, a straight man playing a gay teenager, but they couldn’t find Chris, though they desperately wanted to.  Bachmann said:

“We don’t watch TV, generally speaking. But the kids were thrilled. What kids don’t watch Glee?”

Okay, that’s cool.  But wait a minute.  Another headline from Towleroad.com screamed another Bachmann story this afternoon.  What was the headline?  It was “Michele Bachmann Encourages More Inequality“; it was a story about how Michele, a Tea Party favorite, got up in front of a bunch of supporters and said that she thinks “marriage is under fire” from the gays, and she’s glad that there’s going to be a ballot measure in 2012 to try and outlaw marriage equality in Minnesota.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I’m sorry for my profanity, but it’s all I can do to keep from screaming.  Bachmann loves a television show that has gay characters on it that she wants to get pictures with the cast, but in the same breath, demonizes gay people for having the audacity to desire equal rights under the law.  Representative Bachmann: What are we?  Just play things that are here on the Earth to amuse you?  Things that you want to entertain you, but you don’t think should have the same rights as everyone else?  You know what you are, Bachmann?  You’re not only a hypocrite, but you’re a sad, pathetic excuse for a human being.

Chris Colfer did an interview, saying how he doesn’t really mind the hypocrisy, but that he’s doing the photo-ops, etc for GLBT rights.  Here’s the thing Chris: They don’t care about you.  They’ll take your picture and use it for their own messed up being, but turn around and curse you in the name of their religion the first chance they get.  Maybe I’m just old and crotchety, but I wouldn’t be as kind as Colfer; I’d tell them to take a hike.

This is ridiculous!  The Republican party wants to do away with the EPA, so that polluters can trash our environment.  They want to gut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid to kill off the poor and the elderly.  They want to give billionaires even MORE tax breaks – like the ones under Bush worked.

There is so much damage that can – and will – be done by Republican lawmakers.  And what are Republicans up in arms about?  That Gingrich disagrees with Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to gut Medicare.  Remember – dissent isn’t allowed within the Republican party.  They’re all supposed to be dittoheads.  Only the Democratic party is allowed to have multiple opinions on the same subject.

You know, when you read the Declaration of Independence put forth by the Founding Fathers, you have to notice one fact.  There are no footnotes or asterisks that direct the reader to some subsection saying that “well, we didn’t mean it applies to this group or that”.  The most famous line is, of course, this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Yes boys and girls, that is exactly how it’s written.  It’s not:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal (see note 1), that they are endowed by their Creator (see note 2) with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note 1: This may not apply to those Catholics; we just don’t get their religion.  Oh, and not the homos.  No offense, but ewww…  And not those Italians that come over here.  You know, looking all swarthy and all.  And don’t get us started on those crazy Indians!  We’ve got some smallpox blankets to take care of them!

Note 2: When we say “Creator”, we mean the good, PROTESTANT God.  We don’t mean a Catholic God, or some heathen race God like Ganesha or Mohammed or Zeus or Odin.  Nope, the only Creator we mean is our good, Protestant God.

So what does this mean?  It means that A) we are ALL meant to be able to pursue Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and B) every person has the right to their own beliefs about their Creator.  It means that black people have the right to marry white people.  It means that people should be allowed to be hermits in a cave, or be the life of a party in downtown Manhattan.  It means that people are allowed to pursue Mormonism.  It means that people are allowed to howl at the moon, if that is their want for worship.  And it means that men should have the right to marry other men, and women should have the right to marry other women.  You see, it all comes down to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  I have been with my partner for over seventeen years.  But someone took away our rights of the pursuit of Happiness in a popularity contest back in 2004.

We should be granting rights, not taking them away.  Because honestly, no one person is better than another.  No one person’s rights should be granted when another person’s rights are taken away.  We are all equal.  We should all BE equal.  That is the way that our Founding Fathers wanted.