See, there is a dirty little secret about a strain found in some GOP circles. People are so desperate to be all ‘I heart my gays! I’m not like those redneck rubes!” that they will immediately jump to be ‘allies’, warranted or not.  Because, ‘hip and enlightened.’ I have no such qualms. I’m a 40 year old broad who embroiders for fun and watches reality shows un-ironically. I drink Miller Lite beer from a bottle. I wear aprons, for cripes sake. Clearly, I don’t care much about  being hip or enlightened; in fact, I’ve seen nothing to convince me that either is a good thing.

While some think it’s being all super cool and allies-y and ‘friends of the gays’, it’s the exact opposite. It’s the same as ‘some of my best friends are black’.  Some of it is silly wanting to be cool stuff, as Stuff White People Like so hilariously explains. But even when it’s sad, little desperate coolness-craving, it is still totally NOT being “a friend of the gays.” It’s ridiculous to claim ‘friend of the gays’ when defending the insistence – and enforcement –  that if you are gay you must hold certain beliefs. It is the opposite of  helping gay people when you condone and excuse those who seek to force them into conformity and who will punish them for the crime of not believing their orientation is indivisibly linked to their politics/beliefs.

It is also absolutely bigoted.

This is the bigotry and the lefty tactics that those who are desperately spinning for GOProud are perpetuating. And some of the spinning is just absurd.

You see, some are claiming that some people already knew that Governor Perry’s pollster was gay (even though that still hasn’t been confirmed nor denied – and shouldn’t be. It’s nobody’s business). See, it wasn’t an outing-0uting! SOME people – like Chris Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia of GOProud, conveniently – already knew. No big whoop! It was just a sorta outing. Sheesh, people!

First, I don’t know who they spoke with other than members of GOProud’s advisory board, but I heard from several D.C. based consultants who have known and worked with Governor Perry’s pollster for years and never knew his sexual orientation. One long-time Republican political consultant who has worked with Fabrizio said:

“We’ve worked with him before and he’s outstanding. And…I had NO IDEA he was gay and had never heard it anywhere. It IS an outing. And it’s nobody’s business. Period.”

Second, Jimmy LaSalvia admitted to the outing himself, before issuing false claims of ‘oh, we didn’t know he wasn’t out-out!’. When asked by a radio host to come on the air to clarify his revolting F-word tweet aimed at Fabrizio, LaSalvia chose not to by replying that what he’d said already said enough and he didn’t want to play in the ‘outing sandbox’. Huh. That’s weird. How could it be an outing sandbox if no one was being outed?

Third, while the outing is reprehensible and vile, even if one wants to fool themselves into believing it wasn’t a purposeful outing, the reasons for the contemptible F-word slur and the tactics involved in everything that occurred thereafter are right out of the Lefty playbook.  I mean, right from the start GOProud showed they were not a conservative organization. One of their ‘we are the victims! Totally not our fault’ excuses is that the press called them up asking about a gay man working for Governor Perry while he ran an ‘anti-gay’ ad. A conservative organization would have said a) the man’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with his job nor his political beliefs. Every person is an individual. and b) while we may not agree with the ad, since we supported the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, it is not ‘anti-gay’. People can disagree with things like same-sex marriage or the repeal of DADT and not be painted as anti-gay H8Rs!!

They did neither. Instead, they demonized Governor Perry as an anti-gay hater and went so far as to call him Un-American (Gee, when have I heard that before? Perhaps from Nancy Pelosi and Senator Reid in regards to the Tea Party and the town hall meetings prior to the passage of Obamacare?) They then employed the tactics of shaming and of personal destruction to punish Fabrizio for daring – DARING – to work for a man who did not agree with their agenda and for being a ‘f**gots who line their pockets with checks from anti-gay homophobes while throwing the rest of us under the bus“.

How dare he? He’s gay (allegedly) so he must think the exact same way we do. And if he doesn’t, we’ll make damn sure he knows he’s punished for not conforming.  And, well, we’ll throw HIM under the bus. We’ll then blame him for ‘not keeping it secret well enough.’ No really. They did:

if Tony Fabrizio wanted it to be a secret that he was gay he probably should have done a better job of letting other people know it was supposed to be a secret.

If he was outed-outed or not doesn’t change GOProud’s intent nor the fact that they are enforcing conformity by blackmail and/or punishment. They demanded Fabrizio resign. They demonized him and his boss. They are still blaming him for what  they did (classic victim mentality; it’s nothing we did wrong. It’s everyone else). Because they disagreed with something his boss said. Because, gay. Andrew Breitbart had it right; he resigned because he knows that we should not and cannot accept such behavior. He could not in good conscience remain a part of such an organization, as he notes in his resignation letter, printed at The Daily Caller:

I have a zero tolerance attitude toward the intentional infliction of vocational and family harm by divulging the details of an individual’s sexual orientation as a weapon of political destruction. As an “Advisory Board member” I was not consulted on this extreme and punitive act.  Clearly, there are more productive means to debate controversial ideas and settle conflicts. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience stand with GOProud. I still stand by gay conservatives who boldly and in the face of much criticism from many fronts fight for limited government, lower taxes, a strong national defense as well as the other core conservative principles.

We cannot and should not ever condone the vile Leftist tactic of ‘Conform or you shall be punished!’ It is no different at all than how the Left insists that all African-Americans or all women or all Hispanics think the same. Nor is it different from how they seek to treat some with preferential treatment – excusing any and all bad behavior – because they know that encouraging and enabling a victim mentality means more control for them while they treat the ‘victims’ like pets who must obey their behavioral rules. Identity politics – race based, gender based, orientation based, whichever – is their bread and butter. It’s how they control and force conformity. It is, quite frankly, political correctness Totalitarianism. And they will blackmail and personally destroy if that is threatened, in order to keep the collective masses in line.

We would not accept this from a woman’s group who maybe sometimes threw in some talk about fiscal responsibility. We wouldn’t accept it if they then also constantly railed against any female politician – or a female employee of said politician – and called her a ‘gender traitor’ because she spoke out as pro-life. We wouldn’t accept an African-American man being called an Uncle Tom if he worked for a politician who was against affirmative action. Why on earth would we accept it in this case?

And if we do, that is the very definition of bigotry. If that’s the new conservatism, then no thank you.

A report surfaced that Governor Perry’s Chief Pollster, Tony Fabrizio, was opposed to the ad. GOProud jumped on that and ran all the way to Vileville with it, exposing their belief that all gay people must think the same way. Granted I’m one of those icky breeders, but I’m fairly certain that gay people are, you know, individuals. With thoughts and beliefs of their very own.  Not so, according to GOProud! Stray too far, and we will shame you into lockstep! You see, in the midst of a stompy foot temper tantrum, GOProud’s true colors came out – and the colors are so not fabulous:

Between updates he made on his Twitter feed and an interview he gave to The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, the co-founder and executive director of the gay GOP group GOProud, Jimmy LaSalvia, appears to be claiming that Rick Perry’s top pollster Tony Fabrizio is gay — and using an ugly antigay slur to describe him….

Reached for comment and offered to appear on my radio progam to discuss the comments, LaSaliva passed, saying that what he said to Stein said enough and that he didn’t want to “play in the outing sandbox.”

Um. You can’t say that you don’t want to ‘play in the outing sandbox’ while playing in the outing sandbox. Further, the anti-gay slur appeared on his twitter feed and is pictured below:

He followed that up with a tweet confirming that he “was talking about Rick Perry’s pollster/strategist.” He reaffirmed both today, including his use of the F word which I can now only assume is fair game, as it has been GOProud Approved ™. Not content with just putting themselves in identity politics-laden boxes, they decided to ‘out’  Tony Fabrizio in a contemptible attempt to force him into the box they made for him. This is a typical Leftist tactic and one that cannot be tolerated by, or on, the Right.

Make no mistake; what GOProud did is a typical leftist tactic. ‘Outing’ is used as some sort of brave action defending the ‘gay community’, for which the outers pat selves on back for being so true to the cause ™ and exposing the alleged ‘hypocrisy’ of the outees. But there is no hypocrisy! One can be gay and also be opposed to gay marriage or the repeal of DADT, for example. That is allowed; people have this pesky habit of thinking for themselves. So, in actuality the bullying ‘outing’ tactic is in no way honorable; it is simply disgusting, nasty, vindictive and super assy. The sole intent is to attempt to shame and marginalize those who don’t bow to a liberal agenda and stray too far from the plantation (just as they constantly try to sexualize or dehumanize conservative women). See, even the slightest hint that gay people don’t all think and believe the same things is a danger to the Left, much like how they believe all African-Americans should think the same.

Remember Barbara Boxer, Ma’am questioning Harry Alford, the chair of the National Black Chamber of Commerce and being all ‘but… but … the NAACP disagrees! How can you not think the same as they do?!” She was shocked and in disbelief that he could possibly disagree with the NAACP and the 100 Black Men of Atlanta. How can this be? This does not suit! All y’all must think the same – race politics are our bread and butter! Or when Harry Reid was flabbergasted at the very thought of a Hispanic being a Republican. Harry Reid is someone whose ivory tower should be padded. He said “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.” Think independently?! Unheard of.

In the same way, gay activists, liberal and faux-conservative alike, want people to believe that political ideology and sexuality are somehow magically and permanently tied together and cannot be separated. One’s sexuality must dictate whether or not one believes in gay marriage legislation, repeal of DADT and the like. The same way that a fancy womb must dictate whether or not one is pro-abortion (you are gender traitor if you disagree). Outing is the blackmail and ‘punishment’ for not toeing this revolting line. And it’s disgusting. It’s vile when the Left does it and it’s even more vile when an alleged Right group does it.

I’ve supported GOProud in the past and this greatly disappoints me. It would have been one thing had GOProud simply denounced the ad. I would have expected that, even if it had shown them to be a one-note organization. That’s to be expected with identity politics groups. It’s kind of the purpose of  organizations founded upon some sort of group identity, no matter how forcefully such groups try to proclaim – or even try to be - otherwise. But they didn’t stop there and they’ve supported similar bullying tactics before. They support Human Rights Campaign and their gestapo tactics against Cleta Mitchell, wherein they are going after her law firm for daring to have an attorney at their firm who is openly against gay marriage. Funny how *some* people aren’t supposed to be “living openly and honestly“, huh?

You know, this is not the way to make nice-nice and convince people that you are right on an issue. All they’ve done is engaged in a circle of jerks smugly back patting – we expose the supposed hypocrisy of men who dare to be both gay and socially conservative! Or who even just work for someone who is.

But, in reality, all they’ve exposed is the reprehensible tactics of gay activists and the Left. Which is, evidently, redundant.

The occupation of Zuccotti Park was always going to have a tough time enduring for much longer. As the initial excitement wore off and the cold crept in, only the diehards — and those with no place else to go — were likely to remain. The numbers in Zuccotti Park would thin, and so too would the media coverage. And in the event someone died of hypothermia, or there was some other disaster, that coverage could turn. What once looked like a powerful protest could come to be seen as a dangerous frivolity.

After the excitement wore off? You mean all the super exciting rapes and assaults and tuberculosis outbreaks? LOLZ rape – such a frivolity! But, hey, at least the Mayor spared them from raping and assaulting while at risk of catching a chill! And maybe some of those raped and assaulted were some of those ‘undesireable’ types who would have ended up costing us more money in the long run, right Ezra? Like babies of those who don’t have the means, according to you, to care for them? Plus, it’s all about The Cause, as always, to you. What’s a little rape, assault, outbreak of disease and homicide? It’s all about The Movement, baby! Everyone, including women and children, are disposable for ‘the greater good.’

In aggressively clearing them from the park, Bloomberg spared them that fate. Zuccotti Park wasn’t emptied by weather, or the insufficient commitment of protesters. It was cleared by pepper spray and tear gas. It was cleared by police and authority. It was cleared by a billionaire mayor from Wall Street and a request by one of America’s largest commercial real estate developers. It was cleared, in other words, in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next.

First, they were in no way aggressively cleared from park. To the contrary; they were indulged and coddled at the expense of all around them.

They were allowed to build what amounted to a squatter city for *months* to the detriment of the entire neighborhood and those trying to do an honest days work in said neighborhood. But who cares about people who are actually struggling, right? I mean, y’all had drum circles! And ‘income inequality’ chants – the irony of those who sit around on their arses all day, squatting in a park, screeching about ‘income inequality’ is lost on you, huh, Ezra? Kind of hard to complain about inequality when one refuses to even bother earning an income at all. Maybe if one bothered trying to earn an income or, you know, live in reality then one would realize that the whole ‘income inequality’ thing is a total myth anyway.

Also a myth? Your entire grossly romanticized idea of the ‘Occupy movement’ – a movement the press has been trying to whitewash since its inception. The rampant examples of violence and degeneracy were spun as ‘fringe’. Well, guess what? If everyone is fringe, then no one is. At some point, fringe becomes the norm – and oh how it did. Not just at the original Zuccotti Park site, but at every major ‘Occupy’ site; the rap sheet is miles long.

Funny how the opposite was true with the Tea Party. In that instance, the press desperately tried to demonize them and continues to try to do so. Two years of frantic attempts to paint the Tea Party with a villainous brush, but to no avail. You can’t invent things that aren’t there, toots, no matter how hard you try and hold your breath and stomp your feet and clench your little juicebox-laden fists. People saw with their own eyes that the Tea Parties were nothing like the Occupy protests. There were no acts of violence, no filth, no assaults, no law-breaking. Because, Conservatives aren’t cretins. Further, Tea Party ralliers played by the rules; they applied for and obtained permits, they paid for them, they assembled peaceably, cleaned up after themselves and left peacefully, always. What squares, huh? Puritans!

With the ‘Occupiers’ you can attempt to whitewash all you want, but contrary to your Oh So Much Smarter Than Us opinion, people aren’t stupid. They can see the difference between the Tea Party rallies and the Occupy degenerates. I would have not one smidgen of nervousness taking my 8 year old daughter to a Tea Party rally. I would never, ever take her within miles of an ‘occupy’ protest, however. They are not safe for grown women, let alone children.

Sane and honest people can see through your spin and see things for what they are. No one’s rights are being squashed – in fact, the ‘Occupiers’ are the ones who seek to trample on the rights and peaceful existence of others. Most people who don’t live in their mom’s basement will understand how Governor Nikki Haley said it today:

Nikki Haley

This news conference was a result of an attempted rape that occurred in the Spartanburg area over the weekend. On Sunday, a woman was walking her dog in a local park when she was grabbed and assaulted by a 46 year old career cretin (convicted of more than 20 crimes, dating back to 1983) named Walter Lance. Lance choked her, forcibly removed her clothing, threatened her life multiple times and attempted to rape her. Sheriff Wright has had enough, as he makes clear in the news conference. He says that “our form of justice is not making it. Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it.” He makes that point throughout the conference and he further encouraged women to walk in groups and said “I want you to get a concealed weapons permit. Don’t get Mace. Get a firearm.”

In case you can’t watch the entire video, key – and awesome – quotes follow below:

Wright said Lance has been in jail more often than he has, and he runs the jail, and he said he gets out easier. He punctuated by saying, “And I’m aggravated.” He said he doesn’t believe every person needs to be kept in jail, but he said, “I don’t think this animal deserves to be out in our society, walking alongside our women.”

Wright said,”Liberals call me and tell me the chain-gang form of justice isn’t working. Well, let me inform you, your form of justice isn’t working either.”

The LA Times highlights this bit from his conference:

Wright suggested that the women of Spartanburg carry their weapons in fanny packs. “You can conceal a small pistol in them,” he said. “They got one called The Judge that shoots a .45 or a .410 shell. You ain’t got to be accurate. You just have to get close.”

Gun control, he said, “is when you can get your barrel back on the target quick. That’s gun control.”

Amen, Sheriff. I have but one quibble – fanny packs? Those aren’t very fashionable. Can someone at least manufacture some cute ones, please?

The stark difference between Liberals/Lefties and Conservatives is most apparent when the good Sheriff expressed his frustration and sadness and said “I’m tired of looking at victims saying, ‘There’s life after this’ … I’m tired of saying, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t keep them in jail.”

That’s it right there. Sheriff Wright cares about women and doesn’t want them victimized. He is striving to help them protect themselves and be truly empowered. The Left, on the other hand, wants them to shut up. Occupy Wall Street is doing one thing at least; it’s exposing the true misogyny of the Left. Their way of dealing with sexual assaults on women at their ‘protests’? Shut the women up, handle it ‘internally’ and ‘counsel’ the RAPIST for ‘his issues‘. Um. His ‘issue’ is that he’s a rapist. How about, you know, counseling his arse right into jail? They even discourage women who’ve been violently assaulted from contacting the police. Instead, they are to go talk to people like some broad named ‘Koala’. Because THAT is what every woman needs after being assaulted – to talk to a Furry.

‘Feminists’ who only give lip service to being For the Women while they are in actuality anything but, are already pish-poshing the Sheriff’s suggestions because guns are super scary and icky. Or something. I have a hard time translating without my Bitter, Perpetual Victim Harpy to Sane Woman dictionary. They will likely take umbrage at this statement made by the Sheriff: “”I don’t think this animal deserves to be out in our society, walking alongside our women.” Our women! What a chauvanist, they’ll fret. Their grievance mongering minds have been so deluded that they don’t even realize that it’s the opposite of chauvinist. It’s care and respect for women. It puts women in a higher position to be respected and cared for and protected. And, of course, there are already the oh-so-predictable cries of ‘but – what about fair trials! Vigilantism!” and ‘oh noes, presuming guilt before innocence’ as an idjit on MSNBC blathered today:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Sheriff’s response? “Well, it’s easy to fix that. Just don’t attack a woman.” But to the left, that’s just pesky logic – reality is hard for them. They are more worried about the rapists and their alleged’rights’ than they are the women being violently assaulted and raped. Let me explain a little something to you, Mr. Craig Melvin of MSNBC – when a woman is being raped, she knows she is being raped. There is no ‘presuming guilt before innocence’ because she is being raped; the assaulter is raping her. And self-defense is not vigilante justice. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference, though. Given that y’all on the left continue to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement rather than denouncing it and the rampant sexual assaults therein. We women should just shut up and suck it up, right? I mean, what’s a little rape if it’s for an agenda?

Well, we here in South Carolina are instead heeding the Sheriff’s words. That is *our* right; the Second Amendment exists for just such a reason. Like the Sheriff said and like all people who are sane realize, the police cannot protect everyone, all at once, all the time. They protect the citizenry and investigate crimes as well as they can, but they cannot – and do not – stop them all. We don’t live in a land filled with unicorns and fairy dust. It’s just not possible for them to do so, no matter what. Citizens must be able to protect themselves. And we ladies here in South Carolina intend to.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook since last night,” said David Blanton, a master instructor at Top Gun Shooting in Boiling Springs.

“I’ve had 16 women call … and maybe eight to ten husbands call who want their wives to go through my class,” Blanton said. “It’s been nuts.”

That’s empowerment, baby.

This new video by the Susan B. Anthony list exposes that truth further and highlights just how deep in bed President Obama is with Planned Parenthood. They pat his back and, hey, he’ll pat theirs – all on the backs of the dead.

To President Obama, Planned Parenthood is ‘too big to fail’ and he will use strong-arm tactics to ensure that they can continue receiving taxpayer dollars to fund their organization; an organization whose aim is to end life. That is not their stated aim, of course, because Lefties lie. But it is what they do – over 97% of the pregnant women who go to Planned Parenthood are ‘serviced’ by getting an abortion and 40% of Planned Parenthood’s income (a profit of over $300 million over the past four years) is derived from those abortions.

It’s time to tell President Obama and his Planned Parenthood cronies that they are not too big to fail and, in fact, should fail.

President Obama and the Democrats made Planned Parenthood funding their line in the sand; they were willing to shut down the government over it. They can’t give up those sweet, sweet blood-stained campaign coffers, I suppose. So, states are defunding Planned Parenthood on their own, listening to the will of we, the people. But President Obama, ever arrogant, says he knows better.

The Obama administration is seeking to over-ride the will of the people and to usurp state sovereignty. All for their buddies at Planned Parenthood. They threatened Indiana after Governor Daniels signed a law defunding Planned Parenthood. They threatened to take away medicaid funding to the state if Planned Parenthood funding was not reinstated. To heck with the poor! Unless you fund the killing of their children, of course. Children are spendy; we are better off just knocking them off, as Ezra Klein not so long ago revoltingly explained:

The fight also isn’t about cutting spending. The services Planned Parenthood provides save the federal government a lot of money. It’s somewhat cold to put it in these terms, but taxpayers end up bearing a lot of the expense for unintended pregnancies among people without the means to care for their children. [my emphasis]

See? No more pesky expenses of a living child! Plus, padding the coffers of your Planned Parenthood cronies.

More recently, when New Hampshire chose (some ‘choice’ doesn’t count, I suppose) not to renew a contract with Planned Parenthood, the Obama administration once again stepped in to strong-arm for Planned Parenthood. They awarded them money – taxpayer funded money – themselves, overriding the will of the people of the state of New Hampshire.

The hubris is beyond staggering. And the fact that this disgusting display of arrogance is on the backs of the lives of our unborn children is despicable.

And some still want a truce? Tell that to President Obama and his fellow travelers who are unyielding in their insistence that abortion should be funded on our dime. Even those who wish to focus on fiscal responsibility should agree with me on this, yes? Start here.

The debate started off usual enough, with ample entertaining moments. Huntsman began the mock-worthy moments with a very lame Kurt Cobain reference. I can only imagine that he was trying desperately to score the key GOP hipster demographic. I fully expected him to later say that Jeremy has spoken and Eddie Vedder will be his Vice President pick. He continued with this trend the rest of the evening; lame, irrelevant ‘jokes’ that did nothing but reinforce his pretentious and non-personable personality. His disdain for we rubes is palpable.

Santorum, bless his heart, finally got people to notice that he exists and actually scored an applause line. The applause caused him to look like he was about to wet his pants in surprise. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself. Which was Ron Paul’s vibe as well. Awkwardly out of place, even in his own suit. Can he please get some suits that, you know, fit? I can only guess that  tailors cannot fit suits for elves. Or, most tailors are Jooos!111, which of  course would mean Ron Paul cannot frequent any of their shops. While Ron Paul did come out with the most hilarious, albeit unintentionally so, line of the night (he said he’d bring ‘common sense’ to the White House – if by common sense, he meant absolute insanity) I was rather disappointed that he didn’t double down on his cuckoo pants with regards to a border fence. Last debate, he said that he opposed a border  fence because it wouldn’t keep people out, but our own government could use it to keep people in. Cue scary music. I expected him to now say that a border fence would be used by Governor Perry to corral young girls so that he could forcibly vaccinate them.

Which brings us to the whole tempest thing and the biggest loser of the night: Michele Bachmann.

When Wolf Blitzer uttered the dreaded G Word That Shall Not Be Named, I desperately wished for a vaccine myself at that moment. So that I could cut myself with the needle. I had enough of the absurd Gardisil debate; a debate that should actually be moot since the law never even went into effect and Governor Perry has said time and time again that he made a mistake for which he takes full responsibility. However, it turns out that it was a good thing that it came up again, if only to expose the cuckoo pants and Jenny McCarthyism in our midst. I liked Michele Bachmann. A lot. I defended her over and over, sometimes even indignantly. Argued with friends and people whom I respect greatly in her defense. That ends now. Blatant lying and demagoguing children, born and unborn, is a deal breaker for me and that is exactly what Michele Bachmann did. The only thing I don’t know is whether or not she is actually cuckoo pants or if she’s just lying and using children and the fears of their parents to score political points. It really makes no difference to me; either way, she has shown she is of bad character. She started exposing herself with this statement, offered during the debate itself:

“BACHMANN: I’m a mom. And I’m a mom of three children. And to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. That should never be done. It’s a violation of a liberty interest.

That’s — little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan. They don’t get a do- over. The parents don’t get a do-over. That’s why I fought so hard in Washington, D.C., against President Obama and Obamacare.

President Obama in a stunning, shocking level of power now just recently told all private insurance companies, you must offer the morning-after abortion pill, because I said so. And it must be free of charge. That same level coming through executive orders and through government dictates is wrong.

Firstly, I’m a mom, too, if we are all playing the mom card. And I call baloney. No one, not one child, was *forced* to have a ‘government injection’, whatever the hell that is. I dare Ms. Bachmann to find such a child – perhaps she can ask Alex Jones for help in doing so. The law did not go into effect. And even if it had, one could opt-out. Easily, for cripes sake. There was even a way to do it online, to save oneself the oh-so-arduous task of physically signing a one paragraph piece of paper. Is this what our founding fathers fought for? Give me NO 1 paragraph simple Gardisil opt-out form requiring only my signature, or give me death!

Secondly, I’m no doctor but I’m apparently smarter than Ms. Bachmann  – a lawyer who also does not seem to know the difference between ‘hey, this is a stinky idea’ and ‘unconstitutional. Because it seems to me that females who GET CANCER do not get a ‘do-over’. Furthermore, she repulsively equated potentially life-saving vaccinations with the morning after pill – a pill that ends life. She not only used children to score political points, but she also did so on the backs of the unborn. I found this revolting. It is inexcusable and the antithesis of what she claims she stands for. What’s next? Mandatory measles vaccines! They are just like China’s One Child policy! For shame, Bachmann.

Vaccinations save lives. What we call ‘mandatory’ vaccinations exist in every state; children cannot attend school without receiving them. This is not new. We vaccinate to both prevent disease and to eventually eradicate the disease, at least for all intents and purposes. This is called ‘herd immunity’ and eradication of disease cannot happen without it. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not a fan of disease and think that trying to eradicate disease whenever and wherever possible is a good thing. The ‘fierce fighter’ Michele Bachmann should understand this. I mean, vaccinations are mandatory in HER state, including immunization for Hepatitis B – a disease that is contracted through behavior. Minnesota doesn’t even offer a parental opt-out. How can this be? Are you encouraging promiscuity in your state, Ms. Bachmann, by requiring girls to get a Hep B vaccine? Are you damaging them and not allowing them any do-overs? Or are you only an outraged mom when it is convenient for you?

Bachmann doubled down after the debate, along with Sarah Palin. Bachmann told a tall tale about a girl who received a vaccine and totally caught the mental retardation:

“I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Fla., after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter,” Bachmann said.

She continued: “The mother was crying what she came up to me last night. I didn’t know who she was before the debate. This is the very real concern and people have to draw their own conclusions.”

I have , in fact, drawn a couple of conclusions, Ms. Bachmann. You are a Jenny McCarthyist and you are a liar. Also, not very bright. One is born with mental retardation. You cannot ‘catch’ it nor can you get it from a vaccination. What you can get, without vaccinations, are diseases. All the fear mongering in the world can’t erase that fact. The science is settled.

Unfortunately, Sarah Palin jumped on the Bachmann cuckoo train and lambasted Perry for ‘crony capitalism’ regarding Gardisil and Merck – the only company to make the vaccine. I suppose Governor Perry should have gone into his lab and whisked up some batches of the immunization himself, so as to avoid any seeming impropriety. Governor Palin said the following last night:

She pointed out that at the time Perry was boosting the vaccine in Texas, she was opposing it in Alaska, and she thought Perry’s order was strange “because it just didn’t sound like Governor Perry,” who she thought was against big government.

“I knew even at that time something was up with that issue. And now we’re finding out, yeah, something was up with that issue,” she said.

But wait, what’s this? Alaska accepted federal funds so that all Alaskan girls, ages 9 to 18, could receive Gardisil free of charge? During Governor Palin’s term? Well, free for them. Of course we, the taxpayers, were charged being that it was federally funded. I guess that kind of big government is A-Okay. I’m just a rube, who is evidently also now an Elitist beltway type, but I far prefer if states decide their immunization requirements – and pay for them themselves – than states running to big daddy government for money. That’s ‘crony capitalism’ of the worst and dirtiest sort; getting in bed with the feds required Valtrex, not just a Gardisil vaccine. Worse, Palin’s administration made us all crony capitalists by taking our money and sending it to Merck, the ONLY distributor of the Gardisil vaccine. Forcible collusion!

Enough. Bachmann has shown herself to be ill-informed, at best and a demagoguing liar, at worst. The entire Gardisil controversy is absurd, regardless. The law never went into effect. It does not exist, much like Obama’s Jobs bill. Not one child was forcibly immunized, nor will they ever be. Even ‘mandatory’ immunizations for school, including the Hepatitis B vaccine which Fierce Fighter Moms apparently have no problem with, can be opted out of easily by parents. Well, unless you are in Bachmann’s Minnesota, of course.

They also don’t seem to teach the what should be obvious idea of “do not tell your enemies when you are leaving” because his plan is as follows:

President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 “surge,” by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision.

These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public…

Two administration officials said General Petraeus did not endorse the decision, though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is retiring, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reluctantly accepted it. General Petraeus had recommended limiting initial withdrawals and leaving in place as many combat forces as possible for another fighting season, to hold on to fragile gains made in recent fighting.

Note, this is a far greater reduction than military commanders advised, but when did that ever stop him? His surge approval, over which he dithered for months, was for far less than they wanted. I’m sure he’d just remind us all how he is the one with the gutsy calls and all. Who needs military experts or the advice of people on the ground? That’s for mere mortals. President Obama once again proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he woefully incompetent as an Executive, but he is also dangerously irresponsible as a Commander in Chief.

During his speech, he claimed that we can leave now because we met committments and there are “new opportunities being created for women and girls.’ Yet, he then also said “America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban.” Um. We spent a decade fighting a war to oust the Taliban and now we are going to return them to a governing role again? So these new opportunities for women and girls are what? New methods of stoning and permanent ‘vacations’ from school?

He also had the audacity to discuss the ‘principles upon which our union was founded’; principles he clearly either does not understand or he holds in utter disdain. Then, during the course of his stump speech preview which, make no mistake, this was, he uttered the phrase – with a straight face, unbelievably – “all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity.” Really, President Obama? First, the Taliban exemplifies neither freedom nor dignity.

Secondly, how about you start practicing that preach here. That’s what we Americans want, actually. Leave us be and get out of our way. Our nation was already built and we like it. We do not want, nor need, your ‘nation-building’, which is in actuality tearing us down. I know reality is hard for you to see from your ivory tower perch, but hopefully you’ll get the hint soon enough. Come election time. He ended, in part, by saying “Let us responsibly end these wars, and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story.”

Then why do you keep doing everything in your power to interfere with the American Dream? And why does your Presidency feel more like a nightmare?

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: I finally felt sorry for Anthony Weiner at that press conference with people heckling him, making him a further spectacle. I mean the guy was finally resigning. You should be able to resign in public with a little, without, and control it a little bit without having people treat it as a spectacle. He’s gone, and it just seemed incredibly mean.

First, forgive me if I don’t take etiquette lessons from someone who wishes AIDS on people and their progeny. Totenberg finds it perfectly acceptable to  wish AIDS on Jesse Helms, and his grandchildren, because she thought his politics icky. But heckle a sexual predator who, in order to try to cover his own depraved arse, also lied and demonized innocent people for merely reporting on his reprehensible behavior? How gauche. And super mean! This isn’t actually surprising, coming from the same oh-so-unbiased ‘journalist’ who claimed that Michelle Obama gives out ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings and asserted that another serial sexual harasser, Bill Clinton, is ‘the most gifted politician she’s ever seen‘.

Since I’m not a liberal feminist willing to sell myself and all other women out for an agenda – an agenda that is itself anti-woman – maybe I can explain a little something to Totenberg. Representative Weiner used and abused his power to harass women online to the point where he sent naked crotch shots to women, unsolicited.  He further had no way of knowing the ages of the women to whom he sent these photos, which he referred to as ‘jokes’. From his demeanor and his own words at his first press conference, he did not even seem to care, either. He referred to his phone sex, which by all accounts was done from a congressional office phone on our dime, as ‘fun and frivolous.’ He referred to his sexting in the same way. Perhaps Ms. Totenberg should take a gander at his ‘fun and frivolous’ sexting chats, wherein he exhibited not only predatory behavior, but misogynistic and abusive behavior as well.

When caught, he preyed on the women further by first refusing to tell the truth, invading their privacy even more. Then again by trying to lure them into lying for him, a man in power. He made the trifecta of reprehensible by then also adding shameless and vile demagoguing of Andrew Breitbart and his team of writers for doing their jobs and reporting the truth about the atrocious behavior and actions of an employee of we, the people. Heckling was the very least that he deserved.

Furthermore, while I’d not ever want to aid Representative Weiner in any way whatsoever, if I were him I would have hoped for more heckling, in order to cover up the sounds of his pathetic and disgusting resignation speech. First, he thanked his parents for ‘instilling his values.’ The gall! If I were his parents, I’d be frantically issuing a statement saying ‘we don’t know with certitude that he is actually our son.’ Secondly, he grossly said that the most important reason for his resignation was so that HE would have ‘time to heal.’ He. As always, it’s all about him. Never mind the multitude of people that he harmed, and is continuing to harm.

So, Nina, not only is your sympathy horribly misplaced, but it shows that like all feminists you are a shill for what you claim to rail against; you are a shill for a Patriarchy. Only, it’s a pubescent patriarchy and one that has no respect for women, nor for the lives of their unborn children. In fact, it is aimed at the basest instincts of the worst kind of men to whom women are expendable objects and are merely reduced to the sum of their girly bits. But, hey, if he knocks you up, he’ll drive you to the abortion clinic and attend a Planned Parenthood rally with you to show how much he respects you, right?

And by the way, Nina, unless Anthony Weiner takes up Larry Flynt on his offer, he’s out of a job. He can’t even leave a hundred dollar bill on your nightstand.

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crossed at Big Journalism

You want to be a country that creates food stamps, in which case frankly Obama’s is an enormous success. The most successful food stamp president in American history. Or do you want to be a country that creates paychecks?

David Gregory, of the monochromatically white NBC, questioned Newt about the “racial overtones” of that statement on Meet The Press, so I suppose we can blame him for getting the absurd ball rolling. But good old Joan leaped right into the moronic mix:

Newt Gingrich and “the food stamp president”

He didn’t call Obama a “strapping young buck,” but his slur is coded racism (and not very Catholic) just the same

Newt Gingrich doubled down on his clever new slur against President Obama as “the food stamp president.” He tried the line in a Friday speech to the Georgia Republican convention, and he used it again on “Meet the Press Sunday.”

…..

But when host David Gregory suggested the term had racial overtones, Gingrich replied “That’s bizarre,” and added, “I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.” That’s not quite as extreme or silly as Donald Trump declaring “I am the least racist person there is,” but it’s up there.

Get it? He said food stamps! That is some hidden “code” word for black people. Because everyone on food stamps is black, even though that is the complete opposite of true.

Gee, Joan, what do you call it when someone automatically assumes everyone on food stamps is black?Or, that anything – ever – said in response to the actions of President Obama must somehow be racist? See, I think that is, in fact, actually racist.

Like Maureen Dowd, who hears voices saying “boy” in her head, Walsh has a history of crying racism where none exists:

Wrong. I never imagined the outbreak of right-wing crazy that Obama’s gesture would provoke, and this time it’s hard not to see racism behind the hysteria. The message is “Obama’s coming for our children!” the standard cry against scary boogeymen in every culture. I mean, really, what besides Obama’s race could make him so scary to these people? That he’s a Marxist socialist fascist Nazi? I’d argue that the only reason those extreme epithets have taken hold goes back to reason No. 1: Our first black president is provoking some outsize and irrational reactions.

Why? Because it is she who is the one who only sees color. She also believes that President Obama is the Daddy In Chief, but that’s a whole separate issue; I don’t really care to delve into Walsh’s fantasy life.

While the Left incessantly tries to paint nearly everyone (except good lock-step Lefties and grievance mongers) as racist, it is actually a case of projection. See, once again, the people constantly hurling the “Racist!” slur at others are the people who only see color.  Perhaps, Ms. Walsh, you need to give yourself a Teachable Moment ™ and go back and read the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who wished that y’all would stop looking at skin color and instead look at content of character. You can start with examining your own.

Bless your heart, Joan Walsh. Excuse me, I mean “Bless your racist heart.”

…

“However, I’m deeply discouraged that Republicans have proposed slashing significant funding for a program that trains workers for a 21^st century global economy, builds good will around the world and promotes public service. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of a highly cost-effective program, we should cut government spending in a smart, responsible way that targets waste and excess while keeping our economy growing.”

Of course, he had nothing to say in response to charges that perhaps the Peace Corps isn’t so peaceful. At least not for the women who were raped – and then blamed for being raped - during their stints in the corps. No ado was made about the House hearing on Wednesday investigating the same either, nor the legislation proposed by Congressman Poe (R-TX) that would require some Peace Corps oversight. In fact, the New York Times reported that Democrats wished to, as always, sweep such things under the rug in fear that their precious funding might be lost:

But whether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding.

Hey, what’s a little rape, with the added insult of victim blaming, as long as we keep our sweet, sweet funding? You know what I am skittish about, Democrats? Funding an organization wherein women are raped, assaulted and even murdered; 1000 women have been sexually assaulted while in the Peace Corps in the past decade alone. And 23 Peace Corps volunteers have been murdered since its creation. This isn’t new, either. Peace Corps volunteer Deborah Gardner lost her life in Tonga in 1976.

Deborah Gardner (pictured above) was murdered by fellow Peace Corps worker Dennis Priven, who turned himself in. After stabbing her – 22 times – to death. The Peace Corps reaction? Try to cover it up:

“Even after everyone knew it was Dennis, already that effort by the Peace Corps to put the blame somewhere else. And to make things go away,” says Weiss. “That impulse has seized the Peace Corps within moments of Deb’s death.”

As revolting as that is, they went one further. The Peace Corps hired, and paid for, the best defense attorney available in Tonga. Priven was found not guilty and the Peace Corps quietly shuffled him back to the United States. Where he lived freely, for decades. Working for the government. No, really:

Weiss says Priven has led a small, anonymous life since then. He’s divorced, and he recently retired after working for decades for the U.S. government.

“Twelve years after Deb’s death, he was working for Social Security,” says Weiss. “And ultimately was their top computer guy in the Brooklyn office.

Kate Puzey was 24 years old when she was brutally murdered, her throat slit, while working for the Peace Corps in 2009. Her concerns about a fellow employee were ignored, and then the subject of an attempted cover-up after her death.

Jessica Smochek was gang-raped in Bangladesh in 2004.  This is how the Peace Corps gave her aid afterward; not only medical malpractice, but they blamed her. For being gang-raped (emphasis mine):

Peace Corps medical officer refused to give her a proper physical examination. Instead, the medic confiscated the former English teacher’s cellphone so that she could not alert her fellow volunteers and instructed her to tell anyone who asked about her sudden departure from the program that she was returning to the U.S. to get her wisdom teeth out. When Smochek arrived in Washington, D.C., a Peace Corps official asked her to write down everything she had done to provoke the attack.

“Shortly after I left, the country director — who never attempted to contact me after I was raped — called a meeting of several women in my former volunteer group and told them, without my permission, what had happened to me,” she said. “Then, he told them that rape was a woman’s fault and that I had caused what happened to me by being out alone after 5:00 PM. As for the other women in the group, who had been very vocal about being constantly stalked and afraid, he threatened them with administrative separation.”

Jessica was one of the courageous women who testified before Congress on Wednesday. You know, that same Congress that contains members more concerned with loss of funding than the actual women, and the violent crimes committed against them, themselves.

Commentary Magazine asks “where are the feminists?” While the hypocrisy is, as always, staggering, that’s not a question I’d bother asking. Who cares where they are? It’s clear that “feminists”, and Democrats, are not For The Women ™ and they have never been. From their embracing of Obamacare, which harms women, to their frantic scurrying to cover up the exploitation of young girls by Planned Parenthood, it is painfully apparent that the end justifies the means to them. Agendas and liberal programs mean all; actual women mean nothing. And, as always, feminist groups do not speak for women, nor should we expect nor want them to. Ever.

The question that should be asked is why the Peace Corps is receiving $400 million in taxpayer funds a year.

Politics Daily points out the original reasoning for the creation of the Peace Corps:

In a 1986 interview, Peace Corps founding director Sargent Shriver, who was hospitalized Monday, described his organization’s raison d’être this way:

When [Gen. Augusto] Pinochet came into power a lot of Peace Corps volunteers were in Chile and they started protesting Pinochet and writing letters to newspapers. I was criticized in Washington for the actions of these volunteers. My response was that we should rejoice that we are the only country in the world that had the vision to send abroad people who are not under government control. Instead, they are independent free-standing human beings. I maintain that they are the greatest advertisement for the American system of government that there is in the world, they are worth a thousand Coca-Cola signs. There is no better advertisement for what this country stands for than an individual Peace Corps volunteer walking down the street unarmed, wearing the same clothes that the people do, eating the same food, living the same life, and being there as an independent free-standing person who believes in democracy and who is compassionate to his fellow man.

Maybe – and I’m not even convinced of this – that was all fine and dandy 40 years ago. Today, not so much. The world isn’t all unicorns and fairy dust. Moreover, this goodwill ambassadorship stuff doesn’t work, right? Doesn’t the world’s view of Americans change based on whether there is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House? I mean, that’s what we are told, over and over. The world hated us merely because, Bush. For years. And now they totally heart us again because, The One, right?

The world is a dangerous place sometimes. And sending women to places that are known dangers without adequate, or even mediocre for cripes sake, support is beyond irresponsible. Especially if the organization itself is complicit in the violence perpetrated against the women who volunteer for them. And, in fact, exacerbates the harm to the women by not only attempting to hide the crimes, but by blaming the victims. Taxpayer money should in no way be used to support violence against women, nor the revolting covering up of the same.

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cross-posted at That’s What She Said