Do you understand radical Islam? Do you know how to protect your children from the commercial sex industry?
It's been a very exciting week in the world of demagoguery politics!
First, Mitt Romney released his most dishonest and racist ad ever! Then Tuesday, Values Voter Summit made a big announcement: Nascent vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan will be joining them in September. Hopefully, he doesn't clam up and get testy when they ask him how much he hates gay people, like he did Meet The Press last February. This is the time to exercise your freedom of speech, Rep. Ryan. Let the vitriol flow!
Perhaps Rep. Ryan will also expand on his plan to segue America into a nation that gives big tax breaks to the very rich and pays for it by cutting food stamps, Medicare, Social Security. You know, as Jesus would do. Or have I confused Ayn Rand with Jesus again?
The Values Voter Summit began in 2006 by a collection of Christian political action groups. This year is sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, Liberty University, Gary Bauer's American Values, and bona fide Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate groups, including the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel and the Family Research Council.
It's a great way for mostly white, affluent, Christian heterosexuals to network and compare notes for hating on and oppressing gays, poor people, sexually active women, uppity people of color and, of course, any of those dangerous religious whackos that don't worship the baby Jesus like all real Americans do. You can learn new strategies for meddling in other people's lives and imposing your own values and beliefs into their most personal decisions.
Superior dance lessons on Saturday
The Summit is a great way to share camaraderie of others who hate the same people as you, and maybe open your eyes to new and exciting groups of people you may never have even contemplated hating before.
So pack your best conspiracy theories, your woeful and willful ignorance of science and history, your persecution and martyr complex, your paranoia, your deeply felt insecurities about your ever-more-tenuous grip on your social and economic supremacy, your unbridled antipathy for your fellow Americans, your racism, misogyny, islamophobia and homophobia and follow me over the fold for your handy guide to the national gathering of some of the most pale but colorful people in American politics.
Oh, and don't forget your Obama Derangement Syndrome. It's all the rage this year.
Know The Haters: Your Values Voter Summit Dancecard
Your primer to the confirmed and invited speakers at this year's Values Voter Summit. Pictured above, numbers beginning at top left.
Washington Post's Dana Milbank tells us this is "mainstream" conservatism today. Unfortunately for America, he's probably right.
1. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, bigot, bird-brain, self-evident delusional whackjob.
2. Glenn Beck. Ditto.
3. William Bennett, former Reagan administration secretary of education and pundit who in 2005 said on his radio show:
[A]borting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."
4. Jerry Boykin, retired lieutenant general, former deputy under secretary of Defense for Intelligence, is apparently a fan of historical fiction writer
David Barton. LTG Boykin
believes:
"[T]here is no question that there was divine inspiration" behind the writing of the Constitution, which is why "the Bible is referenced four times more than any other document in our Constitution"
He knows better than to listen to those
evil libruls at NPR with their fact-checking and all.
5. Gov. Jan "get that finger out of my face please"
Brewer of Arizona. In the past, Brewer said undocumented immigrants were
committing "terrorist attacks" on her state. Brewer is currently
asking the Supreme Court to let her strip health insurance benefits from LGBT couples in her employ, and, of course, from their dependent children as the Bible tells us Jesus would want.
6. Rep. Eric Cantor, of Virginia, House leader. In July, Cantor said, “I’ve always said we need to be a party of inclusion not exclusion,” and agreed the party should "do a better job of accepting opinions on gay marriage." He also said that “It’s a bad thing to look at a Muslim and think bad things. Again, we’re all Americans here and we share beliefs in freedom and the ability to practice our faiths.” I hope he carries that message to the Summit.
7. Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia attorney general who said speculation that Obama was actually born in Kenya "doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility." In July, when he used his office to block certifications for abortion clinics, the Washington Post called him "the most overtly partisan attorney general in Virginia’s history" and said, "the move is classic Cuccinelli: ideological activism masquerading as professional legal 'advice.'" He also thinks homosexual acts should be criminalized. He took the bar before Lawrence, I guess.
8. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, reminder:
DeMint declared that openly gay people should not be teaching public school. "We need the folks that are teaching in schools to represent our values," he said. DeMint later added that he "would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman, who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend, should be hired to teach my third grade children."
9. Cardinal Timothy Dolan. In addition to
personally authorizing $20,000 payoffs to pedophile priests, he has
lashed out at the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) by calling them a "phony victims’ group" and "it’s time the media turned its cameras on the liars at SNAP." His Catholic Bishops Conference has
filed a nuisance suit to harass SNAP for well, you know, asking the church why they didn't protect them from child molesters. Also
said marriage equality was like marrying your mother.
10. Dinesh D'Souza, whose book Roots of Obama's Rage alleges President Obama's rage was created in mid-1960s by "Marxist-inspired, Kenyan anti-colonialism." Sounds reasonable. Except, of course, that Obama is more even-tempered than Sesame Street's Elmo.
11. Gov. Mike Huckabee, enthusiastic Chick-fil-A glutton. When he was running for president in 2007, Huckabee
refused to recant his 1992 suggestion that HIV-positive people should be forcibly quarantined. He also called that adorable
Zach Wahls a
guinea pig.
“I believe that we’re in denial about potential problems as we see more and more homosexual couples raising families. Essentially, these are experiments to see how well children will fare in such same-sex households. It will be years before we know whether or not our little guinea pigs turn out to be good at marriage and parenthood.”
Or was Huckabee referring to Zach's moms? Also
says gays who want to parent think it's just like having a puppy.
12. Rep. Darrel "Fast and Furious with subpeonas" Issa.
13. Gov. Bobby Jindal. Will he be conducting break out sessions in how to perform an exorcism?
14. Rep. Steve King of Iowa who believes marriage equality is ... wait for it ... SOCIALISM!
One of the goals they have to go to, same sex marriage, because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. They want public affirmation. They want access to public funds and resources. Eventually all those resources will be pooled because that's the direction we're going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis.
When the Justice Department challenged Arizona's immigration law, it was King who
had the courage to tell us it was the ALCU, SEIU and Muslims calling all the shots at the DOJ.
15. Mark Levin, conservative talk radio show host. In November 2011, he featured a a man claiming to be a "brain surgeon" with inside information on the new health care law. He claimed that HHS documents "did not call [patients older than 70] patients, they called them units" and stated that "if you're over 70 and you'd come into an emergency room ... you get comfort care" instead of medically necessary neurological surgery. The caller claimed the document mandated "ethics committee[s]," to which Levin replied: "So, Sarah Palin was right. We're going to have these death panels, aren't we?" The caller responded, "Oh, absolutely." This hoax spread like wild fire through the right-wing media of course.
16. Oliver North, some convicted felon who apparently did some hard time for accepting an illegal gratuity, lying to Congress, and destroying government documents back in the 1980s. The Christians at the Values Summit love that sort of thing.
17. Star Parker, failed Congressional candidate, she snagged all of 22.7 percent of the vote. She also wrote
Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It. Basically poor people should stop whining and read the Bible more. It's more fun when she shames and condescends to the poor because she's black, which also makes it okay for her to call government assistance programs slavery. In fact, black families had it better under slavery,
she said last year.
18. Dennis Prager, radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, who believes "America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on." (Spoiler: It's the Christian Bible, not Ellison's own book of faith, the Koran, of course.)
19. Gov. Mitt Romney. Where to start? Mitt Gets Worse as he flounders in the racist sewer of our politics. Romney would appoint a presidential commission to investigate on behalf of those "who have been harassed or threatened" in the course of advocating to "vote for marriage." Because this is a real problem in America today, requiring presidential attention.
20. Lila Rose, anti-abortion activist and the founder of the group Live Action. Has collaborated with her BFF James O'Keefe on undercover sting operations of abortion clinics, hates Planned Parenthood, compares herself to Martin Luther King and thinks abortions should be performed in the public square.
21. Sen. Mark Rubio of Florida, known liar, vice presidential also-ran.
22. Rick "frothy mix" Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator, failed presidential candidate, sweater-vest wearer, early pioneer in equating marriage equality with "man on dog" sex.
23. Gov. Scott Walker, don't let his union-busting marquee act distract you from the work he put in to dismantle a law that affirmed the right of LGBT couples to hospital visitation, because Wisconsin state government functions best when gay people die alone.
24. Rep. Allen West of Florida said in 2011 that the "Don't ask, don't tell" repeal means gays will "break down the military" but is confident they can change orientation if they just try. Also called House colleague and Florida neighbor Debbie Wasserman Schultz "vile," "despicable" and "not a lady." New mantle carrier for Sen. McCarthy's Red Menace Initiative.
I know! It's hard to know whose autograph to get first.
If you happen to see Family Research Council's Tony Perkins around, ask him how purchasing Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's mailing list worked out for him? Oh, wait, better not. It's a sore subject since the Federal Election Commission fined him $82,500 for lying to them about it (fortunately for Perkins, FEC reduced the fine to $3,000).
If you see Maggie Gallagher, that stalwart defender of traditional, Catholic marriage, ask Mrs. Srivastav, why she goes by her maiden name? Or why she never wears her wedding ring. Or why she's never, ever seen in public with her Hindu husband? Also, how does she reconcile her own inter-faith marriage with God's Law as expressed in 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 (KJV):
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?"
Also, ask her what is the current going rate for a new bride? (In goats and oxen.) My niece is getting ripe for market and we want to be sure to get a good price for her.