Teabaggers continue to be idiots

Apparently, Colonial Williamsburg has become a gathering place for teabaggers. Not only do they like to pretend it is an older and simpler time...but they think they can ask their hero questions.

"General, when is it appropriate to resort to arms to fight for our liberty?" asked a tourist on a recent weekday during "A Conversation with George Washington," a hugely popular dialogue between actor and audience in the shaded backyard of Charlton's Coffeehouse.

Standing on a simple wooden stage before a crowd of about 100, the man portraying Washington replied: "Only when all peaceful remedies have been exhausted. Or if we are forced to do so in our own self-defense."

The tourist, a self-described conservative activist named Ismael Nieves from Elmer, N.J., nodded thoughtfully. Afterward, he said this was his fifth visit to Colonial Williamsburg.

"We live in a very dangerous time," Nieves said. "People are looking for leadership, looking for what to do. They're looking to Washington, Jefferson, Madison."

"I want to get to know our Founding Fathers," he added. "I think we've forgotten them. It's like we've almost erased them from history."

Ho. Lee. Shit.

That is like wanting to know what General Dwight D. Eisenhower would think about an issue...so you go ask Tom Selleck. Why don't we ask Gary Sinise what Harry S. Truman would do in this situation?

It gets nuttier.

One man, wearing a red, white and blue golf shirt emblazoned with the American flag and the text of the Declaration of Independence, joined the actors in exclaiming, "Well said!" every time a character uttered something patriotic.

The executives who oversee Williamsburg said they have noticed the influx of tea partiers, and have also noted a rise in the number of guests who ply the costumed actors for advice about how to rebel against 21st-century politicians. (The actors do their best to provide 18th-century answers.)

Yes. An influx of idiots are asking actors for advice on sedition.

Mitch McConnell doesn't understand bipartisanship

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated the following:

If you have a big majority, what you want to do is pick off a Republican or two, give it the taint of bipartisanship and do what you want to do. If you’re between 55 and 45, you get genuine bipartisan agreement. And what I hope we’re going to have — and it will be up to the American people — but what I hope we’re going to have is more balance, more balance, which will give us opportunities to do things together, that simply are missing when you have this kind of disparity. But, I’m not going to be very interested in doing things left of center. It’s going to have to be center-right and I think the President is a flexible man and I’ll think he’ll become a born-again moderate.

So....McConnell wants genuine bipartisan agreement. He want more balance. But this bipartisan agreement is going to have to be center-right.

I do not think the word "bipartisan" means what Mr. McConnell thinks it means.

It would be laughable if these guys didn't actually get to make decisions that affect the rest of us.

But that has been the way with the Republican party over the last few years. They call for state's rights...but then use the might of the federal government if they don't agree with what those states have done (see DOMA, medicinal marijuana laws, etc). They claim they are for freedom...but only if it is the kind of freedom they want.

Just like all that secession bullshit they have been clinging to since their guy didn't win the Presidency.

Don't right wingers love those cheesy "these colors don't run" posters and t-shirts? Maybe they should append to the end..."they secede when shit doesn't go their way".

Jimmy Riches can't protest the proposed Islamic mosque near ground zero, because he died in the Sept. 11 attacks nearly a decade ago.

So Jim Riches Sr. says he'll stand against the controversial New York City project on his son's behalf.

"Our sons can't speak for themselves, so we'll speak for them," Riches, 59, told AOL News today in a phone interview.

Getting kind of sick of this kind of prejudice. How much you want to bet the Branch Davidians could build a community center there with no problem?

Republican hypocrisy

In April of 2010, Jon Voight had the following to say about President Obama:

...This will be the first president to ever weaken the United States of America. President Obama uses his aggression and arrogance for his own agenda, against the will of the American people when he should be using his will and aggression against our enemies.

Every loving American for peace and truth and the security of our nation must come out and join the Tea Parties in their states...

In June, Voight penned an open letter to Obama which included:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well...

...You have brought to Arizona a civil war, once again defending the criminals and illegals, creating a meltdown for good, loyal, law-abiding citizens. Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics....

So to recap, Voight has called President Obama a liar, arrogant, the first President to weaken the country, and has claimed that Obama will destroy this country.

Which is all well within his freedom of speech. He is entitled to his opinion.

But here is where I call bullshit.

Back in April of 2007, Voight had the following to say:

And they — what I hear, you know, talking about our president. When I hear people saying quite unthinkable things about our president, when I see our president defaced, which is defacing our country. He's the leader of our country. He's the leader of the free world. It — my heart is very heavy.

Um...wait. When Bush was President, it made Voight's heart heavy that anyone would "deface" our President. The LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD!

But when it is a guy from the other party....well, fuck it. Let's call him any name we want. Only Bush was the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD! I guess Voight just sees Obama as a placeholder for the next Republican President. Now that guy will be the real LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD!

Or something.

I have pointed out hypocrisy like this a few times previously but it still blows me away when Conservatives seriously are blind to the hypocrisy of basically calling it treason when a Republican President is insulted but feel it is their patriotic American duty to shit all over a Democratic President.

Fools Gold

Infographic by The Big Picture

Zinn on Socialism

Let's talk about socialism....I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country... Socialism basically said, hey, let's have a kinder, gentler society. Let's share things. Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism. - Howard Zinn

Happy Independence Day