Tony Perkins is REALLY not happy...

Everyone's  favorite oddly effeminate white supremacist   has not been having a good month.   Perkins is  head of the  "Family Research Council".  An organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified  as an extremist  hate group .

First  there was his recent  disastrous appearance on MSNBC's  Hardball with  Chris Mathews.  Where after numerous past guest spots where he was faced with nothing more than softball questions.   Mathews apparently  noticed  he had been giving  free network airtime to hate mongering  nutjob, and decided  to do an actual interview based on real facts.   Perkins, came on the Mathews' show to vent his standard faux-Christian  outrage over  President Obama's statements  in support of  Marriage Equality.  Instead, he got his anti gay talking points served back to him with a big side order  reality.  The result was not pretty.

Then today, a double whammy.   First  the U.S. Government  released a new  international television ad to  encourage  tourism to the United States.  The Ad shows  a diverse range of people and sights from all over the  USA.

What  could  Perkins possibly find offensive about that ad?   Well if you look carefully at the  0:34 mark,  for less than a fraction of second,  the  ad shows  (gasp!)  a  GAY COUPLE!!!  Aiiiiirrgghhh!   The horror!  The Gays are going to come to America and spend their filthy pink money!   The website  Right Wing Watch  has Perkins'  hyperventilating in all its wing nut glory.

In 236 years, America's never had an international tourism ad. So when Congress passed the Travel Promotion Act, people thought it'd be a great chance to highlight American attractions. What they didn't know is that it would highlight same-sex attractions. That's right. The commercial invites people to America-not to see the Grand Canyon, but to celebrate homosexuality. In one scene, a gay man is sleeping on his partner's shoulder in a trolley. 

Really??

Then if that wasn't enough,   the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal definition of "marriage" and "spouse" -- as unconstitutional. (Hat tip to Metro Weekly)

Writing that "Supreme Court review of DOMA is highly likely," the appeals court has stayed, or put on hold, the implementation of its decision pending any appeal.

Judge Michael Boudin, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, wrote for the court: "[M]any Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

I have blogged regularly and extensively about Tony Perkins and his hate group the FRC. So there really isn't much more I can add to everything I have already said. I know I should not be surprised by Perkins' hysterical rantings in light of today's events. But I find his whining about a split second image of a gay couple in a thirty second television ad , to be over the top, even for him. Yet it's in that I find a refreshing honesty for a change.

Perkins' whole shtick is to go on television and pretend to be this reasonable guy who doesn't "hate" gay people, he just doesn't want them to have any rights.... at all. Now we see that it's not just rights for Gays and Lesbians that sticks in Tony's craw, it's the idea that Gays and Lesbians are visible in anyway that bothers him. He doesn't just think LGBT Americans don't deserve equal rights, he honestly believes Gays and Lesbians don't deserve existence. The idea that Gays and Lesbians should be visible like any other group of Americans really bothers him.

Whether by chance, or by design, the issues of LGBT Rights has been put center stage in the 2012 Presidential race. With Mitt Romney desperate to show the American Talibangelicals like Perkins, just how much he hates the gays. 

All the while desperately hoping people won't remember things like, then Gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney promising the people of Massachusetts that he'd be more pro-Gay Rights than the late, great Senator Edward Kennedy.

So once again we will see the idea that all Americans should be treated equally under the law portrayed by Tony Perkins and his assorted ilk, as the greatest threat to the country, and to American Families. Desperate to find something they can get scared, angry racists teabaggers to vote against, the GOP will jump on the "Be afraid! The Gays are gonna get you! Aiiiiighh!" bandwagon and try to ride it to a 50.1 % electoral victory this November. 

The bad news for Tony, Mitt, and all the other bigots is the arc of history is clearly bending in the other direction. The trend in  Gallup polling on the issue is not going to make Tony Perkins feel any better .

The ridiculously mis-named  "Defense of Marriage Act", is going to end up in front of the United States Supreme Court.  Maybe not this year,  But certainly  next year.  As the  legal issues  are not different from those in the case of  Lawrence v. Texas,  it would be unusual for the  court to violate its own precedent.   Combine that  with  the likelihood that  President Obama will  more than probably  win  re-election  and  2012 is shaping to be Tony Perkins' own annus horribilis.

Generally, I take no delight from the misfortunes of others, but in Tony Perkins' case, I am more than happy to make an exception.

The American Taliban Picks Their "Anti-Romney"

The  wingnuts of the  America Taliban.  (the ultra religious conservatives who form the power brokerage of the base of the  Republican Party.  The folks who want to take their religious beliefs and  turn them into civil law and inflict them on the rest of us.).  Apparently these people can't bear the idea that  a Mormon who once supported mild, timid steps towards  equal rights for  Gays and Lesbians might end up as  the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee .

So  the nuttiest of the nutty  all gathered in Texas this past week  to  anoint their preferred uber-evangelical  alternative to  former  Massachusetts  Governor Mitt Romney.


So  more than 150 ultra religious conservatives met at a Texas ranch this past Friday and Saturday. Among the bigger names: Tony Perkins of Family Research Council; Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate; James Dobson, who used to head Focus on the Family; and Don Wildmon, who once ran American Family Association.

The mission of this "emergency meeting" was to unite behind someone who  they feel is a  true-blue religious conservative for the Republican nomination. This group is  desperate to defeat President Obama, but  they distrust Romney on key issues such as their desire  to ban reproductive rights and  marriage equality.  In addition,  many of them feel Mormonism is not a true Christian religion, and  as a result, Romney isn't  "one of them".

Add to this  the problem that despite his  best efforts to  run from  his  pro-gay rights past,  Romney's  past statements  in favor of basic civil equality  for  Gays and Lesbians,  are regularly coming back to haunt him as he has sought to  woo social  conservatives.

One of the problems of living in a digital age, if you happen to be Mitt Romney, is that  his  pro-gay rights past  keeps cropping up in archived footage and  flyers.   Which makes it  kinda awkward when you are trying to show the American Taliban base of the GOP   that you  hate Gay Americans, and love Jeebus  as much as they do.  (Cue Rachel Maddow with the details...)

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Tony Perkins,  the  head of  the ridiculously misnamed  Family Research Council.  (A group the  Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified as a Hate Group),  tried to lower expectations  going in to the meeting down in Texas this past week.  Perkins  claimed that  the meeting was not "anti-Romney" but rather  pro-issues that mattered to social conservatives.

Yet earlier today  Perkins triumphantly  tweeted the  Texas  bigotfest  has crowned  former Pennsylvania Senator and gay sex obsessed nut job Rick Santorum as their preferred  choice  for replacing President Obama and thus bring their brand of  Sharia law to the country starting on January 20,  2013.

Which is actually  pretty funny given  what  Rick Santorum's  name is a euphemism  for.

For those of you who are not aware of the definition of word "Santorum", you can google it. It stems from the former Senators personal obsession, (and yes that is the right word,) with gay sex. Rick Santorum is consumed by thoughts about gay sex. It is what he talks most about. 

Jobs? National Security? The environment? Nope, none of those issues even come close to being what turns Rick Santorum's crank the fastest. Seattle advice columnist and activist Dan Savage is responsible for  the former Senator's name taking on a new meaning...

So now we have Senator Frothy Mix  as the  official "not Romney"  candidate of the  American Taliban.   What is  most interesting about all of this,  is not  the crazy stuff  Santorum regularly  says, or even the entertaining spectacle of  Mitt Romney  desperately trying to run from every  position he ever held prior to 2004.

The real story here is  how at least on the front end of the GOP primary process,  the 2012  Presidential race is largely a bizarre  repeat of what happened  at this point in 2008.  (cue Rachel).

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The Republican Party faces a tough choice.  Go with  Romney  and  face a  campaign that from an electoral standpoint would be a replay of  2008, and  risk alienating  the only  real core  constituency they have left.  Or,  go with  Santorum and  be saddled with a candidate and a campaign that  is  completely  removed  from  the issues  the vast majority  of  Americans  actually do care about.  Namely, jobs and the economy, which would  take a far back seat to  Santorum's preferred  crusade to ban birth control and  forcibly  divorce  thousands  of American couples currently  married under state laws in places like New York, Iowa and  Connecticut.

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I say the GOP should follow their hearts, embrace the bigotry and start uh.... spreading the Santorum message!

 I have made no secret of my disappointment with President Obama. I have found him to be an ineffective centrist corporate apologist, rather than a bold progressive leader. But what is now crystal clear, is that while President Obama may be largely ineffectual, he is not, like ALL of his potential Republican challengers, completely insane.

The Sound of Silence....

Hey there  folks...

Yes I am  still  alive and kicking.   I know,  I   have not posted in a while. Sorry about that.   I don't really have a good excuse other than  "well, I've been busy...ya' know?"   Which really isn't  all that good of a reason.    Truth be told,  after watching  the start of the  U.S.  2012 Presidential election  campaign kick off  last month,  with the  Iowa straw poll.  I wanted to blog about it,  but every time I would try  to write something,  I'd just get annoyed and develop a headache. 

Why?  Because,  as the 2012 campaign begins,  it looks like  United States  is once again poised to prove our stupidity  to the rest of the world.  

The current  crop of  Republican GOP  candidates are at best,  mindless dolts who honestly think destroying  the  middle class,  and turning America into a third world nation of  a few have-it-all's and a mass of  have-not's is a good idea.   Or,  they  are  at worst, Anti-American right wing theocratic wingnuts,   who truly  hate our freedoms as much as any Islamic extremist  ever did.   At this point, it is honestly hard to tell which is the case.   

The most  recent Republican to throw his ten gallon hat into the ring is current  Texas Governor, Rick Perry.   Who, among other things,  thinks creationism should replace teaching evolution in schools, and thinks that  God is telling him  to run  for President. 

People over here on this side of the Atlantic  ask me if  the  Republican Party could be even remotely serious about nominating "another one".  Meaning another Texas Governor with a frail grasp on reality and a penchant for confusing the voices in his head  with divine instruction.  I'd like to  assure them that  America is not THAT stupid, but  the most recent  CNN Republican presidential poll, suggests that at least, on the  Republican side, America may be just that stupid...

According to a CNN poll released this week, Perry has a commanding lead among Republican voters nationally.

The rest of the crop of  GOP candidates is just as much  fun.  You have  former Pennsylvania  Senator Rick Santorum, and  Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman.  Both of whom think the greatest  crisis facing America,  is all those Gay couples getting married.   According to both  Santorum and Bachman, recent moves towards  marriage equality in the U.S. are responsible for;  (among other things...)  Unemployment,  the recent earthquake that rattled the American East Coast,  Hurricane Irene, and  bad weather in general.  

Not to be left out,  Perry, along with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney; ( who up until  Rick Perry joined the field, was himself the GOP front runner).  Quickly signed on to a "pledge" by the right wing hate group  "The National Organization for Marriage",  basically  promising to ban all civil rights  for LGBT Americans,  and make fighting for those rights a crime. 

If that isn't enough fun and frolic for you ,  according to the  entire GOP field,  ALL forms of government regulation are  bad.. very very bad.    Especially anything that  regulates  what corporations can do to their employees,  their customers or the environment.   Oh, and  anything that protects workers,  consumers or  the environment is now  referred to as  "job killing"  in all GOP/Fox News talking points.

Along those same lines.   Anyone who is in the top one-tenth of one percent in terms of income in the United States,  according to the GOP should not have to pay taxes. 

The reason being , the uber-wealthy are  all magical  "job creators".  And paying taxes  might hurt their feelings, and then they wouldn't  create all those  wonderful jobs that  they  did during the Bush years thanks to those magical tax cuts...  Oh, wait,  I guess that  didn't  actually happen.  

Not ones to be  held back by facts, the  GOP candidates are once again  preaching  the gospel  of  "trickle down economics".   If we just give more money to those who already have  lots of money,  then  it will all somehow trickle down to everyone else.   (Remember that one from the Reagan years? )

 But  according to the GOP, we can't  require the "job creators" to use all that money to create jobs,  because that would be unfair.  So  when the top one-tenth of one percent  takes all that money and  just pockets it,  creating no jobs whatsoever,  folks like Perry and Ron Paul will insist it's not really their fault,  it's (wait for it... )  according to  GOP hopefuls,   all that Government Regulation that  has gotten in the way. 

These people are seriously insane.   So if the current  2012 GOP field is  so  utterly  wacktacular,  why am I worried?  Simple,   I am worried because  the American electorate  has a ridiculously short attention span and a  track record voting against  their own best interests.   

Add to that,  the painful truth that  President Obama's first term  has been one long experiment in  poltical  weakness.   

The Republican Party discovered early on, the sad and very inconvenient truth that  President Obama, is a good man, an intelligent man, who is very weak.   President Obama is not a Leader, he is a negotiator, and not a very good one. On issue after issue, from Health Care Reform, to Wall Street Reform, Congressional Republicans, found that President Obama, would accept a really bad agreement, if they simply threatened to leave him with  no agreement at all.

As a result, the GOP learned very quickly , that it was all too easy to back the President into a corner, where his natural urge to "find common ground", meant he would abandon his stated principles and simply give in.  All the while making very eloquent statements about the value of bi-partisanship.  

So now  we have the beginning of  the 2012 election campaign where President Obama's one major accomplishment,  health insurance reform, is in fact a motivating issue for Republicans,  who are now campaigning on  the "I promise to repeal Obama-care" bandwagon.   

Obama-Biden 2012, will be a tough sell to many Americans, who vote based on one question and one question only;  "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"   The answer for far too many Americans is sadly,  no.   

It doesn't  bode well, when the only real answer the Obama Administration has come up with so far to that stark reality,  is to say;  "But...think how much WORSE it COULD have been if we hadn't been here!" 

It's like telling someone who is unemployed, "Hey!  At least you don't have malaria!"   Factually true, but unhelpful.

My fear is President Obama will simply campaign like  he did in 2008,  and the American electorate will do exactly what  he told them to do back then...   Vote for change.