GOP Primary Continues!

#NoMoreBushes

Death for Drug Dealers and Quarantines for AIDS Victims: The Mike Huckabee You May Not Remember

On Tuesday, Mike Huckabee made it official. The former Republican Arkansas governor and Fox News host launched his second bid for the White House in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, vowing to stop the "slaughter" of abortion and calling for the protection of the "laws of nature" from the "the false God of judicial supremacy."

Huckabee is joining a GOP field that's bigger and more competitive than the one he out-hustled to win the Iowa caucuses seven years ago. The Christian conservatives who flocked to the former Baptist preacher in 2008 can now turn toward other evangelical-minded candidates in the GOP presidential race. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is already in the hunt; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and and ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry are mulling bids. But Huckabee of today is also a far different candidate than the affable ex-gov who once rocked a bass guitar while stumping with Chuck Norris (although Walker, Texas Ranger is officially on board for this campaign, too). Since dropping out of the 2008 race, he's flaunted a more combative, occasionally conspiratorial brand of politics—flirting with birtherism, advising prospective enlistees to avoid joining the armed forces until President Barack Obama has left office, and, just last month, warning social conservatives that the United States is "moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity."

By the standards of his political career, 2008 was in many ways an aberration. As he mounts a second run for the nomination, Huckabee is staying true to the kinds of red-meat issues he first entered politics to promote, in a long-shot 1992 bid for Senate against Democratic incumbent Dale Bumpers.

Huckabee, then a Baptist pastor who operated a small television station out of his Arkadelphia church, made sex and morality the centerpieces of his '92 campaign—and he preached as fiery a message from the stump as he did from the pulpit. The novice politician let loose with eyebrow-raising tirades that occasionally put him to the right of the most fire-breathing conservatives. He endorsed quarantining AIDS patients, condemned efforts to shield homosexuals from discrimination, and called for the death penalty to be imposed on big-time drug dealers. He attacked Bumpers repeatedly as a libertine who supposedly supported giving condoms to 12-year-olds, sanctioned gay throuples, and voted to use taxpayer funds on "pornographic" art.

Huckabee's 1992 platform was an artifact of the Moral Majority's high-water mark. In interviews and on the stump he explained that the nation had strayed toward "selfishness and sensuality" and had been "savaged by radical groups bent on a moral and social agenda" at odds with Judeo-Christian values. "When I was in school, they passed out Gideon Bibles—today, they pass out condoms," he said at stop after stop on the trail. In the new liberal order, Huckabee warned his hometown paper, the Hope Star, a family would consist of "three homosexual men living together."

The gay agenda, he believed, was influencing and restricting the nation's response to the AIDS crisis. He endorsed quarantining AIDS patients from the rest of society—a radical view even among conservatives at the time—while arguing that the severity of the epidemic had been exaggerated because gay people wielded so much political clout. The federal government should spend less money on AIDS, he insisted, and more on diseases that the afflicted had not brought on themselves, such as cancer.

"I realize a lot of people have received AIDS through blood transfusions, but AIDS is basically a lifestyle disease, and when the lifestyle is changed, the disease risk goes significantly down," Huckabee said in one interview. AIDS advocates themselves, not taxpayers, should pony up: "Elizabeth Taylor went before Congress and made a big pitch that we needed more federal funding for AIDS. If Elizabeth Taylor would take one of the rings off her finger and sell it, she could get more money for AIDS research than the average Arkansan will make in two years of hard work. If she's really serious about it, she's got assets that she could dispose of. Why should she make me take money from my children’s future, and take it right off my table when she needs to cough up some of her own coin for that."

Huckabee's campaign literature made frequent note of Bumpers' alleged favoritism toward gays. He attacked his opponent for supporting the Americans with Disabilities Act (because it included protections for AIDS patients) and a 1991 civil rights bill that would have prohibited housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. "Mr. Bumpers voted for all the bills which help to give homosexuals rights but takes away employers and others rights to protect themselves," a Huckabee mailer asserted.

According to Huckabee, being gay wasn't just a sin—it should be a criminal offense. Another Huckabee fact sheet noted that "Bumpers voted no on an amendment saying that 'the homosexual movement threatens the strength and survival of the American family,' and calling for enforcement of state sodomy laws," which made gay sex a felony "crime against nature" in many states.

The ongoing conservative attack on the National Endowment for the Arts fit neatly into Huckabee's narrative of Bumpers as a tool of the gay rights crowd. At the time, the federally funded agency was in the hot seat over a handful of artworks presenting religious symbols in ways critics considered blasphemous. Bumpers had said the art was in poor taste, but he voted not to defund the agency. Huckabee ran a radio ad accusing Bumpers of funding "pornography." Bumpers called the ad "vile."

"What's vile," Huckabee replied, "is having our tax dollars spent on photos of a man urinating in the mouth of another man, using tax dollars to fund a fictional story about the Biblical character of Lazarus having homosexual liaisons with Jesus Christ before and after his resurrection, and funding for a jar of human urine in which a crucifix had been placed and entitled, 'Piss Christ.'"

Then as now, Huckabee was a staunch opponent of abortion, a procedure he believed women underwent for superficial reasons. "Should we take a perfectly viable human being and end that human being's life because the mother wants another semester of college or wants to play in a tennis tournament?," he asked one interviewer. And he proposed expanding the death penalty to include major drug dealers and anyone who, after committing a previous felony, shot someone with a gun—even if the shooting wasn't fatal. "I know that's harsh, but someone who has shot someone in the leg could easily shoot someone in the heart," Huckabee said. (Huckabee did not respond to a request for comment on whether he still holds these views.)

Although Huckabee would later draw the ire of conservatives for raising taxes as governor of Arkansas, he took a die-hard stance on government spending. He called welfare "a new type of dependency and slavery" and warned that "the government has become a plantation system...The master is in the big house and we're the sharecroppers out here."

Late in the race, Huckabee discovered that his rival’s campaign had purchased more than a dozen videotapes of Huckabee's old sermons, a potential opposition research gold mine. He suggested Bumpers watch them. "I hope he listens to the message on pornography that I presented a couple of years ago," he said in a press release, "because then he'll know why I feel so strongly about the way pornography degrades women and children, dehumanizes sex into animal behavior, and why I so vigorously oppose the use of my tax dollars being used to fund it." The Bumpers campaign never did anything with the tapes Huckabee had encouraged the senator to watch.

Fire-and-brimstone Huckabee ultimately fell flat—he lost by 20 points. But the race provided a launching pad for his quick ascent up the political ladder. In later years, as he grew into a more polished politician, Huckabee became more protective of his old sermons. During the 2008 presidential campaign, reporters were told that videos of his sermons had been destroyed—or that they still existed and were open to the public but not to reporters. Huckabee, meanwhile, lasted longer than anyone expected in 2008 by crafting a reputation as a wisecracking pol who poked fun at Republicans who use "summer as a verb."

"I think he's the same guy who started out," says Max Brantley, editor of theArkansas Times, who covered the 1992 race. "He's got a penchant for sort of cheap-shot quips. He thinks a lot of himself. He thinks he can talk himself out of anything. The main thing I still marvel at is how many people think he's a nice guy, because he's got a real mean streak."

But at this point, after spending the years since the 2008 election feeding red meat to his base, the tapes may not even matter much. In just the last six months, he's urged states to ignore a possible Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and attacked Jay-Z for "arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife [Beyonce] as a sex object." Researchers won't have to scour church basements for dusty VHS cassettes containing his stem-winding sermons. They can just turn on the television.

Mike Huckabee: Gays Can Be My Friends, Just Like People Who Drink And Curse

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee says expecting Christians to accept same-sex marriage is "like asking someone who's Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli." He also called homosexuality part of a lifestyle, like drinking and swearing. The former Arkansas governor, winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses and likely 2016 contender's comments came during an appearance Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," as he defended an excerpt from his new book in which he says he has friends and associates who are gay. "People can be my friends who have lifestyles that are not necessarily my lifestyle. I don't shut people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view," Huckabee told CNN's Dana Bash, while deflecting a question about whether he believes being gay is a choice. "I don't drink alcohol, but gosh -- a lot of my friends, maybe most of them, do. You know, I don't use profanity, but believe me, I've got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera -- it's not my cup of tea," Huckabee said.

Huckabee also said today that there's "room in the tent" for Republicans who support same-sex marriage. You may recall that just a couple of months ago he threatened to leave the GOP entirely over the issue.

Huckabee 2016: Bend Over and Take It Like a Prisoner!

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has released a new book that is part fiscal conservative ideology and part Shawshank Redemption.

Great American leaders have long contributed profound thoughts of tremendous consequence to the public discourse.

Roosevelt: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Kennedy: "Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind."

Reagan: "Trust, but verify."

And now, similarly, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee: "Bend over and take it like a prisoner!"

Earlier this week, Huckabee ended his Fox News talk show so he could spend time mulling another bid for the Republican nomination. If the contents of Huckabee's latest book - due out January 20th - are any indication, the overarching message of that campaign will be that the government is, um, having its way with the American public in a method that Huckabee, a Christian conservative, finds rather repulsive.

"Bend Over and Take it Like a Prisoner!" is the title of the 10th chapter of Huckabee's 12th book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy - which, as a whole, is an achievement in the genre of poorly written pandering.

The chapter, ostensibly about the TSA and IRS, is a soaring crescendo of latent homosexuality homoeroticism cloaked in almost libertarian – but not libertine! – conservatism.

It opens with Huckabee's dramatic recollection of going through security at the airport. "Where else would I be ordered to stand still, put up my hands, and have my personal belongings taken and searched without a warrant or probable cause?" He asks. "After years of this indignity, much of the flying public thinks little of it, and they usually don't complain. They just dutifully stand there, bend over, and take it like a prisoner."

Tea Party Presidential Hopeful Ben Carson Busted Plagiarizing From ‘SocialismSucks.Net’

BuzzFeed is at it again. After calling attention to passages in Senator Rand Paul’s 2013 book, Government Bullies, that were lifted verbatim from a Heritage Foundation Study, the website is now honing in on Dr. Ben Carson’s 2012 book, America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great. 

Some of the segments of the book that BuzzFeed highlights all draw from an un-cited source: socialismsucks.net, a website that started in 2002 but is now down. Researching a cached page on Archive.org on the history of socialism reveals the multi-paragraph plagiarism. It includes this passage below, from Carson’s book:

Anytime you give to government the responsibility and authority to provide government-made jobs, old-age financial security, “free” health care, and “free” education and indoctrination of children, it will control the lives of the people who live under its jurisdiction, and individual liberty and freedom of choice are sacrificed.

Looks like Carson could’ve used a little more “indoctrination” in the art of not plagiarizing.

It doesn’t end there, though; BuzzFeed also found passages from The Five Thousand Year Leapby W. Cleon Skousen. If that name sounds familiar to you, that’s because Skousen’s books have made waves before (relevant part bolded):

The book, for the record, tells the “story of slavery” by quoting “historian” Fred Albert Shannon at length; on particular quotation talks of white boys who envy the freedom of black slave children, and described newly sold slaves as “a cheerful lot.” It also said that abolitionists spread false rumors about the mistreatment of black slaves, and states that “slave owners were the worst victims of the system.”

Arizona schools were pushing his book, The Five Thousand Year Leap, in 2014. Skousen was a byproduct of the absolute worst of the 1950s, and good god if that’s not saying something. This odious human being was an ardent supporter for the John Birch Society, a historical revisionist, a New World Order conspiracy theorist, and an end-times crackpot. This also isn’t the first time Carson has had a run in with Skousen’s books, either; he was shilling for The Naked Communist on Fox back in July.

Sealey Yates, a spokes person for Carson, told BuzzFeed that “If it is determined that additional citations or attribution are required, the appropriate revisions will be made in subsequent printings.”

Judging by the BuzzFeed article, they’re going to need a lot more attributions.

Mike Huckabee Quits Fox News Because God Might Tell Him to Run for President in 2016

After six and a half years together, Mike Huckabee and Fox News are parting ways - a devastating blow to anyone who enjoyed getting their misinformed Republican Party propaganda in a neat little 700 Club-esque wrapper. 

Said the Pat Robertson-lite on Huckabee last night:

"I've never had so much fun in my life. I've met people I never dreamed I'd meet and I've played music with legends in the music business. But I also realize that God hasn't put me on Earth just to have a good time or to make a good living, but rather God has put me on Earth to try to make a good life. There's been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president. And if i were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can't make such a declaration."

Huckabee added that he wouldn't make a final decision on 2016 until late next spring.

Why Bobby Jindal Will Never Be President of the United States

Bobby Jindal, Image courtesy of The Bayou Progressive.

My friend Lamar White, Jr. over at cenlamar.com recently penned the most intelligent, blistering critique of Bobby Jindal that I’ve yet to see. One of the important points made is that ahead of Jindal’s almost certain run for the White House in 2016, he has done everything possible to align himself with the people who influence the early primaries – the far-right Christian conservatives.

For anyone who has paid attention to Louisiana politics, Bobby Jindal has been setting this up for years. In fact, I am pretty sure that becoming the first Indian-American president has been a goal of his ever since he first got into politics, and maybe even before that.

President Obama ended the long succession of white men as President of the United States and showed the changing, diverse face of America to the world. What’s more, he showed that it was possible for a skinny kid with a foreign-sounding name to become the leader of the free world.

Yet, Bobby Jindal is no Barack Obama. He’s not even close. Don’t get me wrong, President Obama has his faults, as does everyone else. However, President Obama has excelled despite his flaws, but Bobby Jindal has seemed to embrace the far right in order to make up for his massive shortcomings as governor of Louisiana. From Lamar White:

As he takes steps toward a presidential run, Jeb Bush is resigning from the board of Tenet Healthcare Corp.

The health care company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that the former Florida governor told Tenet's board of directors that he would step down at the end of the year. Bush has been a director since 2007.

The move comes as Bush explores a presidential run and unwinds some of his business commitments. A Bush spokesman said last week that the potential Republican contender will leave his advisory role with British banking giant Barclays by Dec. 31.

Bush's ties to Tenet, as well as other financial firms, could complicate a potential campaign. The health care giant supported and promoted President Barack Obama's health care law, which remains deeply unpopular among the conservative activists who play an outsized role in presidential primaries.

Bush, however, has been a vocal opponent of the health care measure, calling it "flawed to its core."

In its filing this week, Tenet noted that Bush is "not resigning on account of any disagreement" with the company.

Advisers have long said that Bush would review his business ties should he run for president. Opposition researchers in both parties have already begun sifting through his connections seeking fodder for attack.

According to corporate filings, Bush sits on the boards of three other companies — Rayonier Inc., Empower Software Solutions and CorMatrix Cardiovascular Inc. — and is chairman and manager of Britton Hill Holdings, a Florida-based private equity and business advisory group.

While some strategists have said Bush's private-equity work could open him to some of the same criticisms that dogged the GOP's last presidential nominee, business executive and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Bush himself has said his business record would be an asset in a campaign.

"We're creating jobs. We're expanding business. I'm not ashamed of that at all," Bush said of his private-equity work in a recent interview with ABC's Miami affiliate WPLG-TV. "I think that practical experience is something that might be useful in Washington, D.C., to be honest with you."

LSU STUDENTS ORGANIZE PROTEST AGAINST BOBBY JINDAL'S HATE-BACKED MASS PRAYER EVENT

Students at Louisiana State University are organizing a demonstration in protest of the Baton Rouge campus administration’s decision to host “The Response,” a mass prayer event sponsored by the American Family Association hate group. A number of high-profile conservative political figures like Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal will join Christian evangelists in what the AFA has described as a group meditation.

"What we really need in these United States is a spiritual revival. It is time to turn back to God," Jindal explained in a video invitation to the event. "It's time to light the spark that starts the spiritual revival that will put these United States of America back on the right path." 

Earlier this month the AFA published and quickly pulled an official prayer guide for The Response suggesting, amongst other things, that marriage equality and abortion were the causes of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

"As a member of the LSU student community, it saddens and offends me that our administration would welcome to campus a recognized hate group whose vile rhetoric targets gay and transgendered people, Muslims, immigrants, and other marginalized groups," said Maggie Cloos, a student responsible for creating a petition to ban the AFA from the LSU campus. the organizer of the student-led petition.

Organizing Against Hate Groups, the protest, is set to be an all day event featuring workshops teaching attendees how best to speak across political and social differences. So far six organizations housed at LSU’s Baton Rouge campus have signed up to participate in the protest with more expressing their interest in offering support.

Both The Response and Organizing Against Hate Groups will take place on January 24. Watch the American Family Association's video invitation to The Response - Louisiana: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis

BOBBY JINDAL 'PRAYER GUIDE' BLAMES GAYS FOR HURRICANE KATRINA

Louisiana Governor and anti-gay “Christian” nutjob Bobby Jindal is claiming in material for a prayer rally to kick off his possible presidential run that Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters are the result of god’s anger at gay people, reports Right Wing Watch.

Last month, Jindal spoke at an anti-equality, "pro-family" event in Dallas. He has also given anti-gay Duck Dynasty star Phil Roberston an award for Entrepreneurial Excellence.

Jindal is set to kick off the potential presidential campaign in January with a stadium prayer rally organized by anti-gay groups and individuals including listed hate group the American Family Association.

It would appear that Jindal’s campaign is being closely modeled on Rick Perry’s disastrous 2012 run for president. Organizers are actually reusing material from Perry’s 2011 prayer rally in Texas that blame natural disasters on gay people, marriage equality, legal abortion and Internet pornography.

The prayer guide for the rally also appears to be exactly the same as the guide distributed to participants in Perry’s 2011 event. As Right Wing Watch points out, the materials have not “even been updated to include the increased number of states that are bringing God’s judgment on America by allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.”

The prayer guide includes the following nuggets of “Christian” wisdom:

“We have watched sin escalate to a proportion the nation has never seen before. We live in the first generation in which the wholesale murder of infants through abortion is not only accepted but protected by law. Homosexuality has been embraced as an alternative lifestyle. Same-sex marriage is legal in six states and Washington, D.C. Pornography is available on demand through the internet.

“Biblical signs of apostasy are before our very eyes. While the United States still claims to be a nation 'under God' it is obvious that we have greatly strayed from our foundations in Christianity.

“This year we have seen a dramatic increase in tornadoes that have taken the lives of many and crippled entire cities, such as Tuscaloosa, AL & Joplin, MO. And let us not forget that we are only six years from the tragic events of hurricane Katrina, which rendered the entire Gulf Coast powerless.”

Mike Huckabee Says Conservatives Shouldn’t Have to Accept ‘Ungodly’ Constitutional Laws

It’s hard to believe that once upon a time I thought Mike Huckabee was a fairly level-headed conservative. I’m not exactly sure of the year, but I remember using him as an example of a Republican who I didn’t think was all that bad.

Wow, how times have changed.

Now I’ll admit, I’ve never been the biggest Mike Huckabee follower. But I don’t ever remember him being this radical just a few years ago. Maybe he was and I just didn’t notice it – who knows.

Recently, while speaking with Vision America’s Rick Scarborough, Huckabee continued the usual right-wing nonsense about our Constitution being based on “godly” principles and how laws should be based on the Bible. 

He said, “We have people who say ‘well, the courts have ruled on abortion, we just have to live with it,’ or ‘the courts have ruled on same-sex marriage, we just have to live with it.’ And I would suggest, no we don’t! We shouldn’t just accept things that are ungodly and that will cause us to have to stand before God with bloody hands.”

Yes, that’s Mike Huckabee telling conservatives that if our justice system doesn’t side with their radical right-wing religious beliefs, they shouldn’t accept those rulings.

Whenever a conservative brings up the issue of Christianity and our Constitution, I just go back to the one fact they can’t dispute: The words “Christianity” or “Christian” don’t appear in our Constitution even once. 

These men were supposedly such devout Christians, so enamored with the idea of creating a Christian nation according to people like Mike Huckabee, yet they didn’t include any mention of Christianity in our Bill of Rights?

RICK SANTORUM SAYS SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS A COMMUNIST IDEA, NOT AN AMERICAN ONE

In a recent conference call with failed Virginia Lieutenant Governor candidate E.W. Jackson, former Pennsylvania senator and longtime theocrat Rick Santorum responded to a caller waxing poetic about the communist influences in the Democratic Party's support for gay rights and immigration reform by adding that the whole idea of separation of church and state really has more in common with communist Russia than it does with our good old red, white, and blue. 

Listen to the frothy history lesson,

OOPS! Complaints Filed Against Mike Huckabee’s Political Non-Profit

The ADLF filed two complaints against the “Fox News” personality in response to the creation of America takes ACTION, Inc. (ATA), a non-profit they believe exists purely for Huckabee to use corporate cash to test his presidential run.

One complaint was filed with the IRS, and the other with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

With the IRS, the ADLF claims that Huckabee’s organization is passing itself off as a social advocacy organization while public records suggest Huckabee created ATA as a way to “formally organize money and staff in preparation for his candidacy.”

With the FEC, the ADLF claims that Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, is violating federal election law by using corporate money to fund his “testing the waters.”

Hosting your own show on “Fox News” is prohibited if you’re serious about running for president. Potential candidates, like Ben Carson, must sever ties with “Fox News” before running for president.

I don’t know what will come of these complaints, but Mike Huckabee may have to decide soon whether he wants to be on television or run for president.

This is a guy who compared Ferguson protestors to lynch mobs. This is a guy who threatened to leave the GOP over gay marriage.

Even with the “Hunger Games” in theaters, it’s hard to imagine a more dystopian future than one with the likes of Huckabee as commander-in-chief.

Gov. Scott Walker: Refusing health care to low-income Americans helps them 'live the American dream'

I don't know what anti-healthcare conservatives suppose the "American Dream" to be, but I've yet to see one aspire to it themselves:

Defending his fellow Republican governors’ decision to block Medicaid expansion in their states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Friday suggested that denying health coverage to additional low-income Americans helps more people “live the American Dream” because they won’t be “dependent on the American government.”

Denying health coverage to any low-income American would run afoul of living the American Dream primarily because of the living part, of course. Denying the Medicaid expansion is expected to kill thousands of Americans outright, and it's difficult to live the "American Dream" as a plastic bag of burnt cinders tossed very respectfully to your next-of-kin. No "American Dream" I am familiar with involves being plunged into sudden bankruptcy by the slightest of accidents; I have never heard a child say when I grow up, I am going to get a medically treated condition but then not be able to treat it because my employer does not cover that.

“Beyond that, I just ask the basic question: Why is more people on Medicaid a good thing?” he said. “I’d rather find a way, particularly for able-bodied adults without children, I’d like to find a way to get them into the workforce. [...]

Particularly able-bodied adults without children, and screw the rest of them. If you are poor and have a child you are out of luck, and had best hope your janitorial job will allow you to raise young Timmy in the mop bucket while you go about your shift; if you are poor and not able-bodied the American Dream dictates you suck it up, self-amputate whichever of your limbs is giving you the trouble using plastic utensils procured from the nearest fast-food restaurant, and apply for a job at that restaurant as soon as you have cauterized the wound on their industrial grill.

I think ideologically, that’s a better approach, not just as a conservative, but as an American. Have more people live the American dream if they’re not dependent on the American government.”

 Ideologically, it's a wonderful approach. Ideologically, it would be ideal if poor Americans rode unicorns to their fancy Wall Street jobs and got health insurance from the ghost of Ronald Reagan himself, who would smile as he helped them fill out the forms and would then quickly send them off to Jesus Christ to be processed. The chasm between ideologically andpracticality is wide, and at the bottom is a slow-moving river of Not Really Giving A Shit. If you are so determined to find an ideological solution to poor Americans dying from preventable diseases and not-poor Americans always one hospital visit away from becoming destitute, it is a clear announcement that the great vast sweep of those Americans and their problems is not concerning enough to bother with a non-ideological solution. Which would be, of course, the crux of the problem here.

I suspect what Gov. Scott Walker really means is that denying healthcare coverage to low-income Americans is necessary for his own American Dream, which is to be a respected and powerful member of a government that would do such things. The American Dream for Scott Walker means rising to a position where you can tell The Poors that they do not really need health care, and if they did need health care they should have thought of that before becoming Poors. The American Dream for Scott Walker is being able to sit in a very nice office and opine on how all of the Americans who are not governors should be happy to die for the cause of Scott Walker's personal ideology, because we are all in this together, you and I, and if you are not willing to be buried in a pauper's grave in order to provide a slight boost to Scott Walker's planned run for the presidency then you are not really a part of the Scott Walker team, now, are you. You should consider your diabetes or heart disease or sick child from a more ideological perspective, and I am sure then you will be able to appreciate how your existence runs afoul of Scott Walker's American Dream.

Rick Perry Looks Like an Absolute Fool After Net Neutrality Comments Go Terribly Wrong

Have you ever been in a discussion with someone who was trying to sound intelligent, or like they knew what they were talking about, but it was glaringly obvious that they had no clue what they were saying? The result is usually some incoherent babble that sometimes leaves you unable to respond because you really have no idea what the heck they just said – because it didn’t make any sense.

Ladies and gentlemen I introduce you to Rick Perry’s comments on net neutrality. It’s not every day that someone tries to compare the fight to keep net neutrality with anything from the time period of the Great Depression, because that would make very little sense.

Except that’s exactly what Perry did.

“President Obama’s call to saddle 21st century technology with outdated, unnecessary regulations from the era of the Great Depression is alarming and will stifle innovation and growth,” Perry said.

He’s obviously referring to Obama’s attempt to reclassify the internet as a public utility, so that corporations can’t screw over consumers when it comes to internet access. Let’s think about Perry’s comments for a moment. Just because a law (that’s proven to be successful by the way) is from the 30′s, does that mean it’s suddenly invalid and worthless?

By Perry’s standards of “outdated,” couldn’t we then say our entire Constitution is outdated? After all, it was written in the late-1700′s. You’re telling me the quartering of soldiers during a time of war is a big issue in the 21st century? That’s what our Third Amendment addresses.

But what infuriates me most is how Perry, and others who think like he does, continue to perpetuate this ridiculous idea that the internet as we have known it since its inception has somehow been “stifling toward growth.” What the hell are these idiots even talking about? Net neutrality is about keeping the internet exactly how it’s been since it went mainstream. What ending net neutrality does is it gives the right for internet service providers to determine what sites are given access to what speeds based on who pays the ransoms they’ll demand for better service.

Dr. Ben Carson Dropped From Fox After Entering 2016 Race To Be Most Embarrassing GOP Presidential Candidate

Amid indications that Dr. Ben Carson is throwing his hat into the ring for 2016, Fox News has decided to cut ties with the conservative contributor.

Despite the fact that Fox News breaks FCC regulations in every imaginable way, the right-wing network apparently didn’t feel like violating rules like the Equal-time rule which stipulates that the media must offer equal opportunity to opposing candidates if they give free time to another candidate in prime time.

In other words, if Fox News allowed a conservative pundit who is running for political office to do a guest stint during a prime time show, they would have no choice but to give equal time to the Democratic opponent. And we all know how much Fox News hates giving equal opportunities to Democrats.

That may be the exact rationale that caused Fox to drop Carson as a contributor on Friday. The termination of Carson comes after the pediatric neurosurgeon announced his intention to air an hour long snooze-fest titled, A Breath of Fresh Air: A New Prescription for America, introducing himself to the nation.

ABC News reports that the ad/documentary is full of biographical information which will likely exclude those multiple occasions when Carson referred to liberals as “Nazis,” that time when Carson called ObamaCare worse than the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that time when he thanked God for dead and suffering soldiers on Memorial Day in an attack on ObamaCare, and that time when he compared marriage equality to pedophilia and bestiality.

And then there’s that time when Fox host Chris Wallace deflated Carson’s flirtation with running for president on the air by pointing out that he has absolutely no experience in government. Carson, like many conservatives have constantly complained that Barack Obama wasn’t experienced enough to be president. But unlike Obama, Carson has never been in the political arena. Obama spent seven years in the Illinois Senate and worked as a US Senator for nearly four years before successfully running for president in 2008. Obama was also a Constitutional law professor. Carson, meanwhile, has only been a doctor. In short, conservatives are being hypocrites if they think Carson’s experience qualifies him to be president more than Obama’s experience does. Of course, in response to Wallace, Carson claimed that he may not be able to run for president anyway because of the “anarchy” he accused President Obama of fostering.

Carson running for office would be the next big thing for comedians to roast over the next two years. Clearly, Carson has said many things on tape that he will have to answer for if he wants to somehow repair his image as just another right-wing conspiracy theorist who has an unhealthy hatred of liberals, Democrats, and President Obama. Carson is just going to join the ranks of those who failed to win office after previously collecting a paycheck working for the GOP propaganda machine known as Fox News. And like those others, he’ll likely be back soon after his campaign fizzles.

Christie is ‘tired of hearing about the minimum wage’

Poor Chris Christie. The embattled Republican governor realizes there are millions of Americans struggling to get by, working for a minimum wage that hasn’t budged in far too long, and he’s tired – not of so many working for so little, but rather, or hearing about these workers’ plight.

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this week, the New Jersey governor told the business lobby:

“I gotta tell you the truth: I’m tired of hearing about the minimum wage. I really am. 

“I don’t think there’s a mother or father sitting around a kitchen table in America tonight who are saying, ‘You know, honey, if our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God, all of our dreams would be realized.’”

I see. Some leaders get tired of seeing people struggle. Other leaders get tired of hearing about those who are struggling, and just wish the complaints would go away. In Chris Christie’s world, the purchasing power of $7.25 an hour may continue to drop, and millions of hard-working Americans are effectively working for poverty wages, but he just wishes they’d stop bothering him.

For context, it’s probably worth noting that the governor of New Jersey makes $175,000 a year – the fourth highest salary of any state chief executive in the nation.

Also note the part of his comments related to children: as if the minimum wage is primarily for young people.

Whether Christie is tired of hearing the truth or not, the fact remains that the vast majority of Americans who work for the minimum wage are over the age of 20. About half of them work full time.

It’s not about creating economic conditions in which “all of their dreams would be realized”; it’s about creating economic opportunities for those who are struggling to keep their heads above water and combatting systemic poverty.

Of course, there’s a reason this might be a sensitive subject for the Garden State governor.

Christie vetoed a bill in 2013 that raised the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, which was “too much, too soon,” in his words. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. New Jersey voters later approved a ballot initiative raising the state’s minimum wage to $8.25 an hour. That rate took effect in January.

No wonder Christie is tired of hearing about this: he’s on the wrong side and being reminded of this is apparently annoying.

But if the governor finds it irritating to hear about Americans working for poverty wages, he should perhaps try to imagine how irritating it is for those who actually get paid $7.25 an hour.

Watch Rand Paul: Poverty Wages are ‘Tough Love People Have to Accept’

New video has surfaced of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul not only defending the concept of poverty wages for hard-working Americans, but going as far as to claim that they are “the tough live that people have to accept” in order to get our economy out of the Bush Recession that his very own Republican Party’s extremist policies created.

Made during a Tea Party in Kentucky, his comments provide a glimpse into Sen. Paul’s extremely greedy and dangerous “free market” ideology, where large big-box retailers are free to enslave the working class with poverty wages, and if the workers don’t like being forced to rely on government assistance, well that’s just corporate America’s “tough love that people have to accept”.

Do you think that it’s ever dawned on this Tea Party “darling” that the “people” he so callously refers to are hard working Americans who are looking for their own tiny slice of the American dream, becoming a part of our once-great middle class?

Forget about raising the minimum wage. In Rand Paul’s mind, the real solution to putting more money in the pockets of everyday Americans is to give them “lower wages”.

Rand, you can keep your “tough love”. Please watch the video BELOW:

Alan Keyes Says Gay Marriage Leads To Totalitarian Nazi Government

The Nazi thing again, really? Alan Keyes, who in the past has accused gays and marriage equality supporters of committing crimes against humanity and compared to gay marriage to picking one's nose, has gone full Godwin and leveled the accusation that legalizing gay marriage goes down the path of establishing a totalitarian Nazi government.

Said Keyes in his speech:

You think that homosexual marriage is about homosexuality, ethics and behavior; I tell you homosexual marriage is about the very founding principle of our free way of life and it ends up making government the all-powerful, totalitarian ruler of every human being from the cradle to the grave.