attribution: Gage Skidmore
Rep. Trent Franks: 'The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy is very low.'
We continue our year-end roundup of the year in ridiculousness with June. June is notable primarily for weddings and for rhyming with lots of things. The end.
- The Supreme Court decision nullifying key parts of the Voting Rights Act under the premise that they were no longer needed was met within hours by new Republican-led state efforts to curtail voting. The court's axing of DOMA discriminations, however, were met with considerably more gnashing of teeth.
- June saw the launch of a new Republican site allowing ordinary citizens to "cosponsor" bills in the House, thus proving that House Republicans were listening to the people and whatnot. The only catch was that (1) the Republicans would be picking the bills to "feature" on the site and (2) that the act of citizens voting for individual bills would have no actual impact on whether or not the House took action on that thing. Nevertheless, it must have been terribly successful; as of the time of this writing, the site contains zero bills, presumably because the House has successfully dealt with all issues currently facing America?
- The New York Post got their asses sued for their horrific and reckless Boston Marathon bombing coverage—specifically, a cover identifying two innocent bystanders as the "BAG MEN" sought by authorities.
- Efforts to pump IRS treatment of conservative political-minded groups into the next big scandal took yet another hit with the revelation that the IRS had approved twice as many conservative-leaning groups as liberal ones; as efforts to suppress conservatives go, it seems to have been uncannily unsuccessful. I don't suppose we could suggest Darrell Issa's "investigation" of all this as the "lie of the year", could we?
- Edward Snowden: Hero or traitor? It depends on who you ask, and if you ask a Beltway wag they'll primarily sniffle that the whistleblower should have gone through proper channels, or at least through Beltway-approved reporters. Seldom has there been better demonstration that the watchers of our political elite identify with those elites—and chafe mightily at those that would do more critical reporting.
- Among the June roadblocks to Republicans pretending to not be horrible human beings: a conservative think-tank movement that was all for an ultra-conservative bill ending public financing of presidential campaigns until they found out that the money saved would instead be diverted to medical research for sick children. As the Heritage Foundation took pains to point out, it doesn't count as cutting money if you're just giving it to sick kids instead of pocketing it yourself, so they were aggin'it.
- The College Republicans weighed in with their own retrospective report on how the GOP could better appeal to the young 'uns. Curiously, it did no better than the other dozen or so Republican attempts.
- Republicans simply cannot stop talking about rape. This time around it was Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who asserted that "the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low"—thus justifying why rape victims would need no exceptions granted in Republican-led anti-abortion laws. He was quickly beaten by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) and his soliloquy on masturbating fetuses.
- Rep. Steve King (R-IA) launched his now-famous anti-immigrant carnival, drawing crowds holding signs with such messages as "Rubio Lies, America Dies" and calls for (sic) "Strong Boarders." As Sarah Palin and other ultraconservatives weighed in, it would be the beginning of the end for Republican attempts to pretend they gave a flying damn about immigrants.