Gaffe Prone Walker sticking with it: Wants conservative voters to think being gay is a choice, are pedophiles.

Remember this memorable comment from presidential wannabe Scott Walker saying gay Boy Scout leaders are "pedophiles." Cap Times:

I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.”

You'll notice the press has not used the word pedophile...anywhere. Yet that's what Walker meant. Continuing to avoid that word, CNN's Dana Bash got the strangest answer from Walker when asked to address the controversy:

Walker clarified that he thought that the ban on gay scout leaders didn't offer physical protection to children as much as protection from the spotlight of the debate on the issue.

Wow, major bullshit right. Even "stand with Walker" supporters will recognize that...I hope? 

Insulting, and a complete take-back...let's call it damage control, for purely political purposes, Walker notched another major gaffe. 

It was so easy for Dana Bash to make Walker squirm, watching him tripping over his own incredibly embarrassing word salad, that I just had to post it here. It was incredible:

Walker: "I just think it pulls Scouting into a whole larger political and cultural debate, as opposed to just say Scouting is about camping...instead of pulling all these other issues out there. And I would hope that we can stay focused, that's all. 

Bash: "But should there be a gay ban on allowing gay men to be Scout leaders?

Walker: "That's up to the people that run the place. One thing that people find unique, I guess, whether you like it or not, is I answer your questions. People ask me a question and I'll answer a question..."

Bash: "But you're not really answer this one..."

Walker: "Sure in this case that's what I thought, I thought the policy was just fine..."

Hold on, "previous membership policy ... protected children" doesn't sound like "I thought the policy was fine," right? Walker can't think on his feet without pulling out some well rehearsed line from previous speeches, and he didn't have one. In fact, a conservative Walker supporter and pundit casually acknowledged that on the radio this morning, humorously conceding, "who would believe that?"

Walker tipped his hand when he avoided the whole "choice" thing, which of course he obviously believes. After all, that's why gay Boy Scout leaders are pedophiles:

CNN's Dana Bash asked the Republican presidential candidate whether he thinks that being gay is a choice. "That's not even an issue for me to be involved in," Walker said.

Compliment Bash for tough questions and staying on topic:

Bash offered that to act on behalf of people as a president does, "you have to understand or at least have an opinion on who they are and where they're coming from."

Walker: "I don't have an opinion on every single issue out there. To me, I don't know.

"It's appalling that a candidate for president in the year 2015 could botch such a fundamental question," said JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president of policy and political affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. "Of course it isn't a choice. If it was, Scott Walker would be able to tell us when he chose to be straight."

Wow, Since Conservatives began "protecting marriage," time honored institution takes plunge.

Where Far Right Wing Politics is Headed...next week.

I don't watch Glee. I don't know much about the show, but I thought this parody bit about one of the main characters going into politics was real close to reality-"sneaky gays."

West Bend Gay-Straight Alliance wins Federal Court Battle for Recognition.

Great news from from West Bend, and a victory for gay rights in their district high schools. I’m posting this energizing student protest video, I never had a chance to use, to show how incredible it was to see this kind of on campus activism. They made it happen…along with a bunch of lawyers:

jsonline: A federal judge decided that the West Bend School Board must recognize the Gay-Straight Alliance as an official school-sponsored club at the district’s high schools.

The decree also prohibits any current or future board members from retaliating against the club or anyone affiliated with it while under the court’s supervision for the next seven years. If the school board violates the terms of the agreement while under court supervision, the GSA can ask the same federal judge to enforce its ruling without having to file litigation again.

Waring Fincke, a lawyer for the club, said “The judge’s order is as clear as a bunch of lawyers can make it.”

The dispute began when the school board denied the student group official status — even though the club had been meeting unofficially for years —  at its May 9 meeting. Official recognition allows a club to be in the yearbook, raise money on campus, post information in the schools and use the schools’ equipment and resources. 

The Bachmann Family

This Marcus Bachmann radio audio is so bizarre, is it any wonder Michele was attracted to him. What a disastrous moment in campaign history.

Calling a gay person a barbarian is a new one on me.

"We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. And just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to go down that road. That’s what’s called a “sinful nature.” And we have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings [from] moving into the action steps."

In an MSNBC report, The Daily Beast‘s David Graham alleges that Bachmann has practiced reparative therapy. When asked whether Bachmann believed in a “gay cure,” Graham said he hadn’t explicitly admitted it, but “that appears to be his attitude.”

Minnesota State Rep. Steve Simon on Marriage Amendment to their constitution.

This really is one of the best articulations yet by a Democrat defending gay marriage, that should embarrass most homophobic Republicans attempting to mark their territory all over their state constitution:

Federal Judge who Struck Down Gay Marriage Ban in California, Gay!! Should have recused himself? Huh!

Opponents of California's same sex marriage law have decided to attack the Federal Judge who ruled in favor of the law, claiming because he's gay, he should not have taken the case. Radio host Michael Smerconish points out how ridiculous their case is, with a half dozen examples of other situations that would preclude other judges, and would pretty much destroy our judicial system. 

Zack Wahls Defends Gay Marriage.

They're Not Listening to us. We want gays in the military. Military's own study confirms public sentiment.

They're not listening to the American public again, and we won't forget who they are. If they don't carry out the will of the people, they will be replaced by those that will.

(CNN) - A national poll released Monday indicates that a
majority of Americans say they favor allowing gays to serve openly in the armed
forces.

According to the poll, 58 percent of the public approves of
allowing homosexuals to serve openly, with 27 percent saying they are opposed.

Republican obstructionists in the Senate have decided not to listen to us:

Newser – The military's controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays isn't going away anytime soon, predicts South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. "There is no groundswell of opposition coming from our military. I don’t think there’s anywhere near the votes to repeal DADT on the Republican side,” said Graham, who backs the law barring gays from serving openly in the military. “I think in the lame-duck session DADT isn’t going anywhere.”

Tea Party Republicans: The same old bigoted song.

So many villains: Liberals, gays, Obama, public schools, universal health care, unemployment, Social Security, nonprofit Medicare, alternative energy, the media, George Soros and other wealthy Democrats, whiny liberals complaining about our country...

It's all bad. Rachel Maddow uncovers the growing Republican culture war plan against gays:

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Republican Moments in Bizarro World...

Rep. Phil Gingrey tells a crowd of drooling conservatives that delivering on tax cuts should be more like a covenant with America, a pledge and sacred honor, signed in blood to keep taxes low.

And then there's crazy candidate Christine O'Donnell, on the "gay"...

Sarah Palin's thoughts in gutter: "Impotent" and "Limp" reveal what's really on her mind or Gay Bash?

I don't get into discussing Sarah Palin much, she has so little to offer and is just plain stupid, but the latest look beneath the surface of this political celebrity should raise some good questions. The clip from Morning Joe asks those questions and more.



Keep in mind that the supposed hit piece might be very negative, but if she were a generally nice person, such extremes are impossible to create. Here are a few perspectives:

Huffington Post:The author of the blistering Vanity Fair profile on Sarah Palin says he wanted to write a positive piece, but was shocked by what he learned as he
researched his story. "The worst stuff isn't even in there," Michael Joseph Gross said on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "I couldn't believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I'm a small-town person, I'm a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story."

In the profile, Gross paints Palin as an abusive, retaliatory figure with an extreme ability to lie. "This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about," he said. "She lies about everything." Asked about Palin's political future, Gross said it depends on what the media lets her get away with. "If we decide to let her keep lying and getting away with it, she's gonna still be around," he said. "But if we start returning to the standard that a politician has to talk with people, and a politician has to tell the truth, then she's outta here, because she can't stand up to that."

Gross added that he takes exception to criticisms that he wrote a "hit piece" against Palin. "I started this with every good intention toward her," he said. "I was just shocked and appalled at every step at what I found. And I wrote this story sort of against my will. It wasn't what I wanted to write, it wasn't what I wanted to find. It was what was forced on me by the facts."

There's more from the Washington Post:

The former Alaska governor weighed in herself: "Those who are impotent and limp and gutless and they go on their anonymous -- sources that are anonymous -- and impotent, limp and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references," she told Sean Hannity. "It just slays me because it's so absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today that they would take these anonymous sources as fact."

The Advocate wonders that Palin is gay-baiting, as Gross is gay.

GOProud's chairman, Chris Barron, defended Palin's language to Slate: It is The Advocate, not Sarah Palin, who is guilty of "gay-baiting." I don't think most people associate the words "impotent," "limp," or "gutless" with being gay - I know I certainly don't."

Impotent and limp are ways to describe a soft dick. Am I missing something here...? Kind of makes you wonder what Sarah does "read." Is Katie Couric around?

Biting the Hand that Feeds Corporate Profits, Political Donations May Hurt Customers.

Image via Wikipedia The best reason given so far for disclosing campaign donations; Target.

The head of Target Corp. apologized … for a political donation to a business group backing a conservative Republican for Minnesota governor, which angered some employees and sparked talk of a customer boycott.

Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel wrote employees to say the discount retailer is "genuinely sorry" … would set up a review process for future political donations (to MN Forward)… MN Forward is running TV ads supporting Republican Tom Emmer, an outspoken conservative opposed to same-sex marriage and other gay-rights initiatives that have come before Minnesota's Legislature. Steinhafel said the contribution from the corporate treasury to a political effort, which until this year wasn't allowed, was designed to support his stance on economic issues.

But in the broader context, politicians often support other policies that might hurt a businesses customer base, like Target's. Disclosure prevents a company from biting the hand that feeds them, their customers, just so they can focus solely on profits. They cannot ignore the negative social impact of their donations, as acknowledged by Target’s CEO Steinhafel:

"While I firmly believe that a business climate conducive to growth is critical to our future, I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry," Steinhafel wrote.

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Protecting a religious tradition not in the Constitution. Civil aspects of marriage a government function offering legal rights.

While the right wing bigots give every excuse in the book why a gay judge shouldn't have decided this case, even thought straight judges preside over traditional marriages, conservative attorney Ted Olsen and liberal attorney David Boies break down the simple nature of the ruling...equality. Rachel Maddow conducts the interview.



The constitution says nothing about protecting tradition. The constitution says nothing about marriage. The constitution does require equal protection. Simple.

Marriage is a civil, governmental function, bringing with it certain legal rights. The choice of couples is perform that ceremony in a church, with the religious head of that church acting as a surrogate facilitator of the paper work. I'm only going by memory here, so correct me if I'm off on the church function processing the paper work.

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Upcoming Elections All About Jobs, Jobs, Gay bashing harassment, Jobs, Jobs….

It looks like Wisconsin voters are up for getting sidetracked with "gay bashing" this time around when you might have thought economic issues would have been front and center.
The Young Republicans are trying to make it easier to find our gay Representative, Tammy Baldwin.

Republicans have filed a challenge to U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin's nomination papers. The Young Republicans of Dane County allege Baldwin, a Madison Democrat, listed her campaign office as her address on the papers rather than her voting address.

That sounds innocent enough, until…

However, state Government Accountability Board spokesman Reid Magney says state election officials have allowed Baldwin, who is openly gay, to use her campaign office as her address for years because she received threats after she was first elected in 1998.

The Young Republicans only want Baldwin's voting address. They didn't mean anything by it.

Finally a Supreme Court Decision I can Agree with

Don't you love it when an out-of-state group comes in, organizes a petition, riles of the public with advertisements meant to incite, and win at the ballot box through fear? Shouldn't we know who they are? They didn't think so, but so what.

(AP) - People who sign petitions calling for public votes on controversial subjects don't have an automatic right to hide their names, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it sided against Washington state voters worried about harassment because they advocated repeal of that state's gay rights law. The high court ruling (was) against Protect Marriage Washington, which organized a petition drive for a public vote to repeal the state's "everything-but-marriage" domestic partnership law.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the 8-1 judgment for the court, said it is vitally important that states be able to ensure that signatures on referendum petitions are authentic. "Public disclosure thus helps ensure that the only signatures counted are those that should be, and that the only referenda placed on the ballot are those that garner enough valid signatures," Roberts said.

But Roberts also said that Protect Marriage Washington could go back to the lower courts and try to prove that the release of their names would put them in danger. One justice in the majority, Samuel Alito, seemed to suggest that such an argument
might be successful.

But Justice Antonin Scalia said there already are laws against threats and intimidation, and "harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance." Scalia said he does not look forward to a country that "exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny or protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave," he said.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and the retiring John Paul Stevens also seemed skeptical.

The worst Supreme Court justice ever, Justice Clarence Thomas, was the only dissenter.

Homophobia, Mark Nuemann and the Republican Party. Should there be Gay Discriminated for Jobs? Yes!

Here in Wisconsin, former congressman and now gubernatorial candidate Mark Nuemann has garnered the important Senatorial endorsement of Tom Coburn. Two peas in a pod according Neumann’s campaign. But in an article by Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reporter Dan Bice, that similarity might not be saying much.

Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, once said gay people represented a greater threat to America than terrorism. "The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power," Coburn said in 2004, according to Salon. "That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda."

Wow, not only is that enough to take your breath away, it’s also something your campaign would immediately distance itself from with a press release. But that didn’t happen. Is it possible to believe such fiction and gay fear mongering? Mark Neumann does!

While still a member of Congress, he told The New York Times: "If I was elected God for a day, homosexuality wouldn't be permitted, but nobody's electing me God."

In an address to the Christian Coalition as he geared up to challenge U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, Neumann also suggested that he would not hire an openly gay staffer. "If somebody walks in to me and says, 'I'm a gay person, I want a job in your office,' I would say that's inappropriate, and they wouldn't be hired because that would mean they are promoting their agenda," he said in 1997, according to the Journal Sentinel and other media outlets.

It’s interesting to note some commenter's criticized Bice for focusing on the gay issue, instead of the more important pursuit of creating jobs and cutting taxes.

But do you think for one minute Republicans won’t resurrect every wedge issue imaginable and then some, like legislation prohibiting lawmakers from voting on bills after 10 p.m. and before 9 a.m. and a constitutional amendment to ban preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, and national origin?

Can we even afford considering the last two pieces of legislative incoherence in these tough times?

Republican Mantra: With Power, Comes Greater Irresponsibility.

This is a little round-up of some conservative "droppings" spread around this news cycle: Newsbusters:

With Katie Couric drawing him out, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed the Times Square car bombing was likely “homegrown” as he proceeded, in an interview excerpt run on Monday's CBS Evening News, to speculate it could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Could be “anything,” but the first thing Bloomberg thinks of are those who don't like ObamaCare, presumably conservatives or Tea Party activists.

Daily Kos:

Notorious NARTH member and vigorous gay adoption opponent Dr. George Rekers was caught by the Miami New Times as he returned from a ten-day vacation with a young male prostitute that he hired on Rentboy.com. Rekers is a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that systematically attempts to turn gay people straight. And the Huffington Post recently singled out Rekers as a member of the American College of Pediatricians — an official-sounding outfit in Gainesville that purveys lurid, youth-directed literature accusing gays of en masse coprophilia. (In an email, the college's Lisa Hawkins wrote, "ACPeds feels privileged to have a scholar of Dr. Rekers' stature affiliated with our organization. I am sure you will find Prof. Rekers to be an immaculate clinician/scholar, and a warm human being.")

From Think Progress, if you ever wanted to know how crazy conservative voters are getting now, this should clear things up:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) delivered a national security screed at the Heritage Foundation, a DC-based conservative think tank.

And here's an actual audience member question:

Guy in audience to Rep. Eric Cantor: My question is – and this is something I personally don’t understand – if it’s a naïve question then I apologize: in light of what Obama has done to leave us vulnerable, to cut defense spending, to make us vulnerable to outside enemies, and to slight our allies, how (pause) – what would he have to do differently to be defined as a domestic enemy? (applause)

I couldn't resist this beauty from Rush at Media Matters: "Limbaugh: Obama "looks at people of color as the genuine owners of the world's wealth who have been shut out of it"".

McCain's J.D. Hayworth Ad Skewers Republican Party too.

As much as I dislike John McCain, his ad against whack job J.D. Hayworth is a classic,. Having been in the advertising business, I think this is slick and effective. Man horse marriage wouldn't normally be an election issue.

The Election is all about JOBS! So Say Republican Primary Candidates, When they're not arguing about gay marriage.

Republicans keep saying, it's jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs….only after they determine who most personifies "family values" and sufficiently bashes gays. Keep reminding yourself, as you read the following Republican "debate," that's it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs....

Wisconsin State Journal: A GOP challenger in a northwest Wisconsin congressional district is condemning his primary opponent and former reality television star for having appeared in a movie dealing with gay marriage. "I will not keep quiet or look the other way on these issues. It is in my heart and in my soul and I cannot keep still," Dan Mielke said in a statement about his opponent Sean Duffy. Mielke said Duffy's appearance in the movie amounts to condoning gay marriage and goes against conservative principles. Mielke's site states, " Sean and Rachel both participated in has an admitted long history of promoting acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle."

Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.....

Duffy is the Ashland County district attorney and a former cast member of the MTV reality show, The Real World. He said "The film my wife and I participated in 11 years ago was a mockumentary - a spoof of reality television. Mielke's … latest attempt to smear my wife and me is shameless, and a clear indication he is grasping at straws."

Jobs, jobs, jobs...How did Duffy's wife get "smeared?" This is almost too surreal to believe:

WISCNEWS: Rachel approached Mielke's booth … Mielke said Rachel tried to rip a duct-taped label, which described the video, off his table. Duffy spokesman Darrin Schmitz said, "He responded by violently grabbing her by the arm. She’s 5-feet tall and eight-and-a-half months pregnant and is a threat to no one, including someone twice her size. "She was getting ready to rip them off," Mielke said. "I stopped her and pushed her hand off the tape..." After the argument … Mielke said then he called police to document the incident. Schmitz said the call was an abuse of the 911 system and "a publicity stunt to save his failing campaign."

Officer Brion Stecky spoke with Mielke … Mielke suggested he put a piece of paper with "view at your own risk" over the computer screen so only people who wanted to see the video would see it.

Honest, the election is about jobs, jobs, jobs….no really.