Dan Savage Responds To Rick Santorum’s Promise To ‘Pray For’ Him

GOOGLE SANTORUM

“Rick Santorum thinks that women who have been raped should be compelled—by force of law—to carry the babies of their rapists to term, he thinks birth control should be illegal, he wants to prosecute pornographers, etc., etc., basically the guy wants to be president so that he can micromanage the sex lives of all Americans…and I’m the one with issues? Because I made a dirty joke at his expense eight or nine years ago and it stuck? I’m the one with issues?”

Savage concluded, “Rick can pray for me. I’ll gay for him. And we can call it even.”

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AFGE Responds to House GOP Budget Proposal

WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President John Gage today issued the following statement in response to the 2013 budget plan introduced by House Republicans:

“The House GOP budget, proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, proposes a staggering $368 billion in additional federal workforce cuts over the next 10 years. Federal employees would have their salaries frozen for another three years and would face massive cuts to the retirement benefits promised when they were hired. In addition, the federal workforce would be cut by 10 percent, jeopardizing the federal programs and services every American relies on.

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NPR: How Do Racial Attitudes Affect Opinions About The Health Care Overhaul? (AUDIO)

In a new paper published in the American Journal of Political Science, Michael Tesler presents survey and experimental data that suggest that the racial attitudes of ordinary Americans have shaped both how they feel about the health care overhaul, and how intense those feelings are. . . . 

The study is part of a broad range of research projects that shows that issues such as race and religion play a powerful role in shaping how people feel about policies related to war, welfare and crime.

Read more and listen here . . . 

David Cay Johnston: The Richest Get Richer

The aftermaths of the Great Recession and the Great Depression produced sharply different changes in U.S. incomes that tell us a lot about tax and economic policy.

The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent.

In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground.

National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.

Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.

The different results in 1934 and 2010 show how a major shift in federal policy hurts the vast majority and benefits the super-rich.

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Taken out of context

I have noticed something that is becoming increasingly common. After a politician says something pandering to appeal to some constituency, and is then quoted those words back and asked to explain it to a different constituency that may not share the same sympathies, the politician simply says that the quoted words had been “taken out of context”. . . .

But if someone makes that claim, at the very least they should provide a clarification of what they actually meant to say and provide the context that provides evidence that supports that that was what they meant. But that is not what happens. . . .

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Does Conservatism Have to Be Synonymous With Ignorance? [You Bet’cha!]

The Catholic Church [the well-renowned international child raping organization] has long been an enemy of emerging technology, especially when it comes to reproductive health, opposing any technology that alters the ‘natural’ scheme of sex and reproduction. . . .

But it is Mr. Santorum whose vehement opposition involves not only emerging reproductive technology but also almost any form of medical intervention in reproduction, positive or negative. It would be tempting to chalk up Mr. Santorum’s medieval views to a devout Catholic fundamentalism, but that is unfair to Catholicism. Mr. Santorum instead represents the very epitome of many among the modern breed of conservative Republicans: Ignorant and proud of it.

Mr. Santorum has steadfastly maintained throughout his career an almost perfect record of opposing the well-known evidence of empirical reality. . . .

Santorum’s proud ignorance is unfortunately not unique. Over the past decade, since the success of George W. Bush’s candidacy for President, conservatism in this country has become synonymous with such ignorance. . . .

Choosing to censor or distort knowledge rather than risk the possibility that such knowledge, or the technologies that result from it, might challenge faith or confront preexisting ideological biases is a something that should better characterize the Taliban or al Qaeda rather than the Republican Party.

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Catholic Church [the well-renowned international child raping organization] tired of being ‘whipping boy’ for that whole molesting kids thing

And the Lord said, “Thou shalt not charge priests who rape and molest children because after all, they do some good stuff sometimes too, and besides, those brats should just get over it already because it happened years ago.”This story is just gonna break your heart:Cardinal [Timothy M.] Dolan criticized a legislative proposal that would, for a year, drop the statute of limitations for filing civil claims for sexual offenses, allowing for lawsuits by people who say they were abused long ago. The cardinal said he was concerned that a flood of lawsuits over abuse by priests could drain the church of money it is using for charitable purposes.

“I think we bishops have been very contrite in admitting that the church did not handle this well at all in the past,” he said. “But we bristle sometimes in that the church doesn’t get the credit, now being in the vanguard of reform. It does bother us that the church continues to be a whipping boy.”

Aw. Poor bishops. They are just so sick and tired of being blamed for that whole covering-up-the-widespread-rape-and-molestation-of-children thing. Don’t you secular ingrates understand that they can’t do really important stuff—like . . .

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A Sarah Palin-style Democrat just ain’t gonna happen

Über-wanker Richard Cohen discovers that Republican GOP candidates are morons (so far so good), then concludes that the Democrats will inevitably follow with its own cast of idiots.

Moron.

Cohen apparently hasn’t noticed politicians railing against Washington since … forever! Heck, every capital of every state and every country gets similar treatment. But that kind of rhetoric has typically focused on corruption and disfunction, not an ideological hatred for the function of government.

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