Republican Jackass of the Week

Little-known Kansas representative Tim Huelskamp (R).

As you know, on Wednesday the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, forcing the federal government to recognize legally married same sex couples, and provide to them the same thousand rights that are bestowed upon opposite sex married couples. In essence, it said that treating some legally married couples differently from others is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

As most polls show, the majority of Americans approve of same sex marriage, and strongly disagree with Regressive republicans on all social issues that discriminate against women, Hispanics, blacks, the LGBT community, etc.

Enter Little Timmy Huelskamp.

He and other far rightwing House Regressives want to immediately begin attempts to revive the Federal Marriage Amendment in the next few days. This would amend the US Constitution to make same sex marriage illegal.

Would you believe that?

Considering this group of rightwing nutjobs, I'd have to say yes. Doesn't surprise me. An amendment to ban gay marriage right on the heels of the Supreme Court granting equal rights to same sex couples -- how typical. And how out of touch, as usual.

I thought after the Official Regressive Republican Autopsy a few months ago, these fringe lunatics vowed to steer clear of making idiotic, scientifically bizarre abortion statements, stop attacking gays and lesbians, end their War on Women, and get on track with immigration reform so as to stop alienating Hispanics in America.

How silly of me.

Of course a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage probably won't pass even John Boner's uncontrollable House; it definitely won't pass the Senate and you can bet the house on the fact that President Obama won't sign it. It's just another fundraising scheme.

What a waste of time. Hey, shouldn't you Regressives be doing something useful? Like pretending to repeal Obamacare for the 38th time?

Timmy Huelskamp, our Republican Jackass of the Week. Congrats.

Republican Jackass of the Week

I know it's not Friday, but there are so many...

This first one's Don Young.

“My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, 79, told radio station KRBD on Thursday. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”

Yep. Didn't have a clue how repulsive his casual use of that racial slur was. Not a clue. And some were actually defending this Jackass, saying in his day it was perfectly acceptable.

Well guess what? A lot of derogatory, racist words were "acceptable" to people like him four or five decades ago. Has he been in a coma since 1960?

And then there's Ben Carson.

Here's a guy who's a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, so you'd think he'd have a brain of some sort.

But during a recent interview on Fox Noise, he actually said, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [the North American Man/Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn't matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.”

Subtle, isn't he? 

Good job, Benny. Make your point by comparing American same sex couples with criminal child-molesters and criminal animal-molesters.

Two more Republican Jackasses of the Week. 

And the Regressive Party has no idea whatsoever why women, gays, blacks, hispanics, young people and so many others will never vote for it. They are clueless, living in their own hateful, bigoted little world.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Rob Portman, Regressive republican of Ohio.

Sit down, kids, Uncle RadioVegan is going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, Rob Portman was a good little Regressive republican. He did as he was told. He didn't use thought, common sense, logic or an ounce of empathy. He vehemently opposed same sex marriage. He voted to amend the US Constitution to ban same sex marriage. He voted to prohibit adoptions by same sex couples. He was an automaton.

In other words, he was a perfect little Republican.

And then his gay son came out of the closet.

And now, suddenly, he's in favor of same sex marriage, and all the rights that come with it.

"I've thought a great deal about this issue, and like millions of Americans in recent years, I've changed my mind on the question of marriage for same-sex couples," he wrote.

Translation? "Now that I know my son is gay, I don't want to inflict upon him the disgusting institutionalized discrimination and hate that I was gleefully willing to inflict on millions of other Americans."

Just like Dick Cheney, these people only care when it concerns them. Dick, the far rightwing criminal war monger who lied us into the Iraq war, is only a Liberal on one issue: same sex marriage -- because his daughter's a lesbian.

Richard Lawson, of the Atlantic: "Rob Portman's sudden conversion perfectly illustrates the flippant, careless cruelty of the positions he once held. Until gayness in all its complexity and simplicity was staring him right in the face, in the shape of a person he helped create, Portman ultimately did not care about any of the country's [millions of] gay people. He did not value their love, or the love they might have for their children. He didn't think them deserving of simple rights because he figured their relationships inferior to his own."

Now, you may be thinking, "But, but, but, didn't President Obama's stand on the issue change?"

Yes, but President Obama never legislated against anyone or tried to Constitutionally remove anyone's rights. He was always, at the very least, in favor of civil unions as well as gay adoptions. His move endorsing same sex marriage was just the next logical step forward.

So, yes, it's good that Rob Portman finally has gotten on the right side of history. But it's too bad he had to do it the hard way, exposing himself to be the huge hypocrite that he is -- as well as being our Regressive Republican Jackass of the Week.

Same Sex Marriage Passes First Hurdle in Illinois

The Illinois State Senate approved marriage equality legislation today by a vote of 34-21.  It's expected to pass the Democratically-controlled House in the state as well. Illinois' governor Pat Quinn (D) has already committed to signing the bill into law, so it looks like Illinois will be the 10th state to pass marriage equality legislation!

Recent PPP polls show that Illinois voters support marriage equality 48-42%.

For voters under the age of 45, it's 58-37% in favor.

Minority voters approve by even bigger margins:

Black voters approve 60-16%; and Latinos say yes 70-23%.

Happy Valentine's Day!

"That Happened!" by Rachel Maddow

That happened! That really happened. We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade. There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.

We`re not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get themselves health insurance.
We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a 20 percent tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid`s insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.
We`re not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you`re on.

We are not going to redefine rape.

We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay
people from getting married.

We are not going to double Guantanamo.

We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of
Education or housing at the federal level.

We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the
military does not want. We are not scaling back on student loans, because
the country`s new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents.
We are not vetoing the DREAM Act. We are not self-deporting. We are
not letting Detroit go bankrupt.

We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.
 We are not going to have, as a president, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared, gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help and there was no apology, not ever.

We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton.
We are not bringing Dick Cheney back.
We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq war. We are not going to do it.
We had the chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country.
And we said no, last night, loudly.

Now, to be fair:  If you are a conservative or if you are rooting for
the Republicans, a few things did go your way.
Republicans did not lose that Senate seat that they might have lost in
Arizona. Jon Kyl`s old Senate seat goes to another Republican, to Jeff Flake.
Also, Republicans did not lose that other Senate seat they might have
lost in Nevada, the old John Ensign seat that was given to Dean Heller.
It stays with him. It stays Republican just barely.

And while President Obama carried 28 states last time, he carried 25
or 26 states this time, depending on how Florida goes. That means
Republicans did lose everything else, but they got back Indiana and also
North Carolina.

So it was not a totally hopeless night for Republicans.

Big picture in the House, thanks mostly to redistricting the
Republicans were not in danger of losing the House, and they didn`t, even though the Republican majority appears to have shrunk there.


Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts lost by a lot to the nation`s foremost authority on the economic rights of the middle class.

After marriage rights for same-sex couples were voted down in state
after state after state for years, more than 30 times in a row, this year,
all change in Maine, they voted on marriage equality and they voted for it.
In Maryland, they voted on marriage equality and they voted for it.
In Minnesota, they were asked to vote against marriage equality, and
Minnesota refused to ban it.
In Washington state, the vote is not called yet. They are still counting the vote and we will be watching it closely, but if you are on the pro-gay right side in Washington state, it should be noted that it is looking pretty good.

Nevada elects its first African-American congressman this year.

America gets our first openly gay United States senator.

America gets our first-ever Asian American woman senator from Hawaii.

Her seat in the House, I should note, gets filled by this woman, a
Democratic Iraq war veteran. I`m going to tell you right now that her name
is Tulsi Gabbard, because she is on the fast track to being very famous
some day. Tulsi Gabbard.

Speaking of Iraq war veterans, Tammy Duckworth, veteran helicopter
pilot, she lost both her legs in Iraq. She is going to Congress and she is
sending home the opponent who mocked her for her war record, Joe Walsh.
California relaxed its "three strikes you`re out" law and rejected a
law to cripple the power of unions.

Decriminalization of marijuana was approved in Washington and in
Colorado.

The astonishing tide of dark money spent against Democratic Senators
Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio turned out to be pointless.
Both those Democratic senators won, they held on to their seats.
Democrats won a Senate seat in North Dakota, of all places, a seat
that nobody thought they could win.

All of these states that had this hugely aggressive total Republican
takeover from the 2010 elections, Ohio and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and
Pennsylvania and Virginia and Florida, all of those states that went so red
in state government in these past couple of years and that then had these
big fights inside their states over how Republicans were governing there.
In Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and we will see about
Florida, last night not only did Republicans lose the presidential election
in every single one of those states, Republicans lost the Senate race in
every single one of those states too -- Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin,
Debbie Stabenow, Bob Casey, Tim Kaine, Bill Nelson. Depending on Florida,
a Democratic sweep of the presidency, and definitely a Democratic sweep of
the Senate race -- in those states that the GOP was so excited to have
supposedly turned red in a way that was going to stick.

Last night, Democratic women swept every major office in New
Hampshire. Last night, California Democrats won Democratic super majority
in the state House and in the state Senate. Not just majorities in
California, but super majorities. Wherein, if the Republicans don`t turn
up, any of them, any day at work, nothing will be different in California.
They`re completely legislatively irrelevant.

Allen West lost a seat.

More women got elected to the U.S. Senate than at any time in U.S.
history.

The Republican presidential nominee and vice presidential nominee both
lost their home states.

Missouri and Montana and West Virginia chose Democratic governors.
West Virginia chose its first gay state legislature. So did North Dakota.
West Virginia and North Dakota? Yes, seriously.

Joe Lieberman`s old seat went to a real Democrat in Connecticut.

The proportion of young people voting compared to 2008, it went up,
same with African-Americans, up from 2008. Same with Latinos, up from
2008, not down, up.

If you are a liberal or if you are rooting for the Democrats, last
night was a very, very, very big night.

And, oh, yes, this happened. President Barack Obama, yes, will go
down in history as our nation`s first African-American president. But he
will also go down in history as the most successful Democratic presidential
candidate since FDR.

President Clinton got re-elected too, I know, but only Barack Obama
got re-elected with not just big Electoral College margins, but also with
majority wins in the popular vote, twice.

The guy who predicted this outcome, almost exactly, is Nate Silver, of
course, who writes the political statistics blog, "FiveThirtyEight" at "The
New York Times." For accurately predicting, it appears, the exact outcome
of the race, and I mean down to every single state. We`ll see about
Florida, Nate was, of course, pilloried, pilloried on the right and by
right-leaning beltway media types, including Politico., for having the
audacity to print what his poll averages told him was about to happen.
But Nate was right, the polls were right, even without Florida being
decided, we now know that President Obama won in pretty much exactly the
way the state-by-state polls said he was going to win. He won with more
than 300 electoral votes. It was not magic, it was just math. Math that
was completely invisible to the political right.