Instead of convincing the kids to go to the polls, this expensive and hilarious PSA instead shows voting for what it is: a pointless charade enjoyed by gullible old people.

Seriously, when the corporation that manufactures the voting machines guarantees a win for the incumbents, you might as well exchange the “I voted!” lame flag sticker with “No. 1 Dupe!”

I have hated the GOP for my whole life. But I have never seen a GOP campaign like this one. The people of Nevada and South Carolina have spoken, or at least the people in the Democratic and Republican parties of those states have, respectively, and the message is clear: Nobody likes Jeb Bush. What we do like is a lot of nonsense, one-upmanship, snide innuendo, and general insanity, wandering around the debate stages lost, yammering on about how President Obama has caused such damage to this country, never being asked to back up any claims, or for any specifics. I guess 7 years of economic and job growth, doubling of the stock market and restoring this country’s reputation with our allies is so damaging. If Obama had been a white Republican President during the last seven years, they’d want to change the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term.

Then there’s the sort of sideshow candidate who only appeals to resentful, poorly educated voters on the margins of society who want their country back, but will never get it back:

Trump 2016

– Huns, Norsemen, Tatars, Saracens Ishmaelites, Goths, Visigoths and Ostrogoths are crossing our borders with impunity, burning our villages, raping and carrying off our daughters and they’ve even started farming our land. Only our own feudal overlords should be allowed to burn our villages, rape our women, seize our land, etc. No to foreign pillagers, rapists and raiders! Only I’m tough enough to be your rapacious master! We need to build a big, fancy, classy wall to keep them out. And who will pay for that wall?! They will! ‘Cause we’ll just enslave them and make them build it!  Them we create a genetically modified corn plant that will drive their farmers out of business and into the arms of the drug cartels.

– An earthquake just destroyed the Dome of the Rock! Muslim conspiracy! We need to get tough on those Moors! I’ll be tough!

– Trade with foreign non-white peoples is corrupting our way of life. Asian and Arab imports are bringing in alien things like tableware, medicine, preservative spices, sanitation, literacy, math. Unacceptable! Pretty soon somebody will be telling us we have to bathe regularly and eat our tasteless, rotting food with something other than our hands, out of a trough! Protect our way of life! Get tough on trade!

– The Art of The Bible. Who does this Bishop of Rome/Pope think he is, telling us to respect our neighbors, give mercy to our enemies, who we can marry and that we can’t beat our spouses with impunity? How dare he impinge on our feudal rights! Time to put Rome in its place!

– Torture, the Romans tortured people with machines soaked in pig’s blood. What do we have? Weak, weak torture only… Whips, some hot pokers, waterboarding, smashing people with rocks. Weak! Bring back real torture.

from the NYT:

Disconsolate Republican operatives spent much of Saturday night in dismay, over the death of the Bush dynasty and the success of Mr. Trump. Even in the face of polling that documented Mr. Trump’s appeal, and even after his win in New Hampshire, they privately doubted that he could sustain his momentum.

“It’s bad for the party and bad for the country,” said Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign four years ago. “I don’t think there is anything good about it.”

Hahaha. Joke’s on you- the “base” doesn’t care about the good of the Party, and neither do any of the candidates. They learned it from watching you. Only difference between the GOP donor class and GOP base is the size of the bank account. Other than that they’re all hateful racist sexist homophobic greedy liars. The party is rotten from the roots to the uppermost branches.

via reverbpress

There are all types of statistics that could lead one to believe that liberals are smarter than conservatives. These include the fact that “Blue States” have higher graduation rates than “Red States” and the fact that most people who seek higher education have liberal ideologies.

But in reality, these numbers provide circumstantial proof at best. We need something more. Something that fully delves into the minds of conservatives and liberals to see just what’s going on. Though the right-wingers out there might not want you to know it, studies that do just that already exist.

Conservatism, Racism And Low IQ

“Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes” is a study performed by researchers at Brock University, and it caused quite the commotion when its results were released. The researchers found that having lower general intelligence in childhood could predict conservative and racist ideas as an adult. That’s right: having a low IQ score makes you more likely to vote conservative… and be a racist.

Now this isn’t to say that all Republicans are stupid. On the contrary: I fully believe that rich Republicans are some of the smartest people in the world. They literally trick poor Republicans into thinking it’s the big bad government’s fault that they’re poor, and in doing so, they make these people vote against their own best interests.

Even though being conservative doesn’t make you stupid, there’s no doubt that being stupid makes you more likely to be conservative.

[click to continue…]

Why are Republicans heads are exploding this week? it’s because the now safely dead Antonin Scalia was such a pure originalist about the Constitution. An originalist like Scalia would tell them that a supposed precedent of the last 80 years doesn’t matter. What matters is what people originally understood

“[The President] shall nominate, and, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the supreme Court”

to mean. I sincerely doubt they thought it meant “do nothing until after the election”.

If we followed dead Scalia’s originalist process, we really shouldn’t have an Air Force, or seat belts, because the founding fathers missed that White Paper from Ben Franklin. Actually, the internal combustion engine was first developed in the 1890’s, so let’s forget cars, much less seatbelts, unless you want to put them on your buckboard…. and might as well forget any legislation pertaining to telegraph, telephone, smartphones, texts, social media, computers, intertubes, wifi, bluetooth, digital anything, etc. I suppose we should go back to the pigeons and the Pony Express to communicate over long distances….except that the Pony Express happened in the 1840’s so that’s out also. The doctrine of originalism so beloved by Nino and so many RWNJs just makes no fucking sense. None. As in zero fucking common sense. Waitaminute…what if positing a doctrine of originalism allows you to “interpret” the founding fathers’ intentions any fucking way you want? As in, “I believe, despite the fact that abortion is never mentioned in the constitution or bill of rights, that the founding fathers intended that particular medical procedure should be banned.” Or “Hmmm, the founders reference to ‘a well-regulated militia’ in the 2nd amendment really means that deranged gunnutz can get together in someone’s garage and plot ways to prevent overreach by the jackbooted feds by using assault weapons and .50 caliber armor-piercing shells, no problem.” I get it. Originalism allows those who espouse it to just make shit up and claim a constitutional basis for it. Just like Bible-beaters (or Koran-beaters or Torah-beaters) & religion. So will someone please assplain to me how comes none – like zero –  of the andreachucktodds of the MSM have seen fit to point out the justice’s absolute lack of clothing in regard to this “judicial philosophy?” No? I thought not.

It still make me want to vomit when I remember that GW Bush was appointed president of the USA by Scalia. What bridge did Reagan find Scalia under, anyway?

The four remaining Morans/militants at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are engaged in a direct confrontation with the FBI agents that have surrounded the federal compound since one of the gunmen was killed two weeks ago. They broadcast the noises last night, live. And it was a hoot, a fucked up mix between webcam porn, snuff film, and blooper reel

I listened for about 45 minutes felt a wave of anxiety, all of my feelings fighting each other and I didn’t know what to do. It was both comical and completely depressing and morbid at the same time. Part of me wouldn’t be sad if they fired the first shot and all died, because these people are so extremely dumb and violent, but at the same time, they cant help that they’re so dumb, and the logical conclusion of a decade of listening to Rush Limbaugh. I guess, really. Does that mean they still deserve to live?  I feel like maybe they are legitimately mentally ill and are being used as cannon fodder by the “leaders” of the “movement”. The fat guy most certainly is. Right after the last takedown, one of the captured ones told the feds the tubby was “Schitzo” and “Lavoy the Hero” had been the one keeping him on a leash. Since then, he is the one with the constant barrage of threats and “come and get us coppers!” bullshit.

It’s sad but these people are fucking morons. ’They are were the dregs of the takeover and they got left behind after everyone else bailed out. And now they, the dumbest of the bunch, have become the face of this insanely stupid occupation. They want freedom but don’t think that Hillary should be “allowed to run for President”? How do those ideas mesh?

They referenced Braveheart, “Social Contract”, propane heaters took up a good ten minutes, pork fried rice, “Let’s pray…” “I DONT WANT TO PRAY WE NEED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TO COME HERE!” “Well… I’m coming. You see that? A miracle. Let us pray.” “The world is watching”, because these guys are so delusional it’s hilarious, “due process rights”….from the government they say is illegitimate. “We fighting for FREEDOM. FREEDOM AIN’T JAIL!” . They alternated between saying they are going to Molotov the FBI and yelling at them for a phone number while 4 people were on speaker phone. It roped in the likes of Dingbat Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, Franklin Gramm who were egging the militia on to their death, and a whole bunch of youtubers. It was fucking insane

Dingbat Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore  asked if everyone had eaten and “drinken” because you know how we can get if we haven’t eaten, officially entering Snickers™ territory.

“They allowed Hillary to run for President!”  said guy in middle of illegal occupation of tax payer owned refuge. They want freedom but don’t want Hillary to be allowed to run for President? How do those ideas mesh? Well, you see what they want is their freedom to do what they want. They do not give a shit about your freedom, my freedom, a woman’s freedom, and if your skin tone can be defined as darker than “Swedish person in a snow storm” they give negative fucks about your freedom.

And to think that all this could all have been avoided with a civics 101 class. Knowingly went to break the law, did so, and now they are willing to DIE because “they don’t want to go to jail.” Am I a bad person for waiting for this moment to happen?

An Ohio political blog called Plunderbund originally posted this video of Gov. John Kasich’s obnoxious interview with the Ohio newspaper Plain Dealer’s  editorial board. It shows Kasich pointedly ignoring Democratic candidate Ed FitzGerald and refusing to answer a question about why he’d signed a bill preventing rape crisis counselors from telling rape victims that abortion might be one of their options. It shows the true nature of the union-busting Ohio governor – slumped in his seat like a petulant 5-year-old, refusing to acknowledge the existence of Democratic candidate FitzGerald, talking around questions instead of answering them.

The Plain Dealer website had originally published the video of its interview. But the video was later taken down, for reasons unknown. Plunderbund posted to YouTube a clip that it had captured from the longer video, because its editors “felt the video was important. Plunderbund then reported that NOMG had threatened to sue if the video was not removed. They received a very scary lawyerly takedown letter threatening all kinds of legal hell for infringing copyright of an intellectual property that it had chosen to hide itself. They alleged that Plunderbund had “illegally copied” the video and demanded that it be taken down or the blog would face legal action:

“We insist you delete the material immediately. We have registered the copyright, which means your illegal use of it entitles us to statutory damages, which can be quite steep, and recovery of all fees we pay our attorneys as we compel you to adhere to the copyright law”.

Well, this being the internet, and digital files being endlessly reproducible, it’s up on Youtube again.

In the entire six-minute clip, Kasich gives a boilerplate speech about just how pro-life he is, but he never answers the question about the gag rule he signed into law. He doesn’t even acknowledge the question. It’s just not what he wants to focus on, and therefore it does not exist.  And apparently, at least for one of the editors, that’s just fine. In fact, that’s such a just fine answer, the Plain Dealer eventually endorsed Kasich anyway, because he reminds them of Reagan or something.

I’d love to know why the editors were satisfied with Kasich’s non-answer and more about the decision to remove the video, and whether the Plain Dealer agreed with its corporate overlords that it was a good idea to remove a pretty important tool for assessing the candidates.

Listening to Kasich for 15 seconds made me want to slit my own throat. If Kasich is one of “America’s leading lights”, we should just surrender to ISIL now.

(i apologize for any typos i wanted to get this out and I am late for work)

Sure, these bozos and fuckups can run the country.