How to Make Conservatives Look Stupid? ...Let Them Talk.

by Alec Kohut

We’ve reached the point that when a conservative says or does something incredibly stupid, it hardly garners much attention. Or, as is the case today, there is more than one incredibly stupid thing conservatives have said that are competing for attention.

Today’s top two “Wow Conservatives are Really, Really Stupid” stories both hail from, where else? Texas.

On Thursday, Rep. Louie Gohmert in a radio interview added to his list of hair-brained excuses for opposing any reasonable gun control, by including the fear of Sharia law in America if gun control is passed. Get it? Idiots in Texas are convinced that President Obama is a militant islamist, born in Kenya, that would enact gun control as a step toward moving America towards Sharia Law.

Here’s the scary part: This crazy fuck was actually elected to the US House of Representatives.

We also learned that there are no quality colleges or law schools in the state of Texas. Which would explain why Ted Cruz had to leave the state to get a proper education in them ‘dar liberal schools in the Northeast. After high school, poor Ted had to leave Texas and go to Princeton and Harvard Law School for some of that good ‘ol book learning.

Well, it sure was a good thing out young Texan was on his feet, because, as reported this week, he said in a speech two and half years ago, that the faculty at Harvard Law was, “there were twelve [professors] who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

Now, of course this was said in the context of criticizing President Obama as a radical Marxist. So Ted Cruz basically was calling out the President as a Marxist for attending the exact same law school he himself attended.

Here’s the scary part: This crazy fuck was actually elected to the US Senate.

Let’s be honest, Karl Rove and his ideas to make the GOP a tad bit more moderate will be squashed like a bug. And who can really believe that Karl Rove isn’t part of the Marxist orthodoxy himself. After all, he is Karl Rove….not Carl Rove.

The Great GOP War is On! And the Tea Party Will Win, Easily

by Alec Kohut

We all knew it was not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ the battle for the Republican party would commence. And while it has been brewing for some time, it appears the battle lines are now drawn, and the gauntlet has been thrown down. When Karl Rove started a new “Super PAC” to oppose looney tune, crackpot Tea Party candidates, the response was swift.

Mike Huckabee called it “repulsive,” and it wasn’t long before outcry on the right was loud enough for Rove to crawl back to Fox News with his tail between his legs and grovel to Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity that he is indeed a big supporter of the Tea Party. The first battle in the GOP war was little more than a skirmish, ending in a crushing defeat for the “establishment.”

I wrote back in September that a great GOP war at hand, and that the Tea Party would prevail. The reasoning then was the same today: it’s easier to energize anger and resentment, than it is to mobilize logic and reason.

Despite Republicans having watched their party dragged down by not one, but two Tea Party candidates making insane rape comments, not a single one came to defense of Rove. Quite the opposite, the Tea Party decided that not even Marco Rubio was qualified to speak for them, and announced the Sen. Rand “Secret Arms Shipments to Turkey” Paul would be delivering their State of the Union response.

The Tea Party also has a valuable ally in this fight against the establishment: the memory of Mitt Romney. Wherever cries are heard that the party needs to be more moderate, or more centrist, the Tea Party will ask, “You mean like Romney.” Yes the Massachusetts moderate’s attempt to paint himself as a conservative failed, miserably. And that alone will doom the GOP to nominating real conservatives for the foreseeable future, regardless of how crazy, or how white.

As the party looks to change its image, the Tea Party is ensuring the effort will not be successful. As the “establishment” works to put a happy face on the party with Marco Rubio, the crazies have won the day again. This time it was Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas inviting mentally unstable gun nut Ted Nugent to the State of the Union. The attention quickly moved back to just how batshit crazy the GOP has become.

Thank You Karl Rove. For Vetting Ashley Judd For Free

By Alec Kohut

Karl Rove is an idiot. He has handed Ashley Judd and the Democratic Party the most valuable gift a candidate and party could receive, the attention and public vetting of a potential U.S. Senate candidate. His ridiculous attack ad against Ashley Judd before the actress has even decided to run against Mitch McConnell, provides Democrats with knowledge that would have been extremely time consuming and expensive. But thanks to Karl Rove, Judd and the Democratic Party are getting it for free.

While most of the media has focused on Rove’s ad as evidence that the GOP does indeed fear a Judd candidacy, they are, as usual, missing the big picture. So if Karl Rove’s brilliant plan is to scare Judd and nip her candidacy in the bud, it is the handiwork of a rank amateur and worst move a political consultant can make.

If he is “successful” and his very generic attack works to dissuade Judd from running, it will serve as a huge benefit to Democrats. If Judd is at all rattled by this ad, she would make a horrible candidate against the powerful McConnell. In that case Rove essentially forced out what would have been a very weak challenge to McConnell. Yes, Karl Rove is an idiot.

And if the ad is unable to weaken Judd, then the would-be Senate candidate looks to be an even stronger candidate in the eyes of all observers. So in the end, either what would have been a terrible candidate is thankfully eliminated, or a strong candidate, becomes even stronger. Thanks, Karl Rove.

The ad also began what could be called the public vetting of Ashley Judd. The ad gave publicity, and more importantly, to a possible Judd candidacy, thus setting into motion both the press and the public deciding if she is a worthy candidate. Another win-win for Judd and the Democrats. Long before the time comes to actually nominate a challenger to McConnell, we’ll know just how strong a candidate we have in Judd. Thank you Karl Rove.

Just think what the Senate would look like if the GOP had known what horrible people it was nominating when the likes of Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were on the ballot. Thanks to Karl Rove we Democrats now get a chance to run Ashley Judd, before actually having to run Ashley Judd.

But the media is right to point out that this very, very early attack does point out acknowledged weakness in McConnell’s reelection campaign. Which demonstrates another glaring reason why Karl Rove is indeed an indeed an idiot. In both life and politics the old saying still rings true:

If you’re scared…don’t show it.

The Gun Nuts Warped View of America

by Alec Kohut

Gayle Trotter looks normal enough. She could easily be cast in a commercial showing how the Swiffer Dust Mop can change the life of the suburban housewife. But when she opens her mouth in opposition to the most reasonable gun control measures, it is clear that she is just another example of why, as Steve Schmidt says, people see conservatives as “wackos and loons.”

Trotter lives in a different America than the rest of us. She lives in the American fantasy land created in the minds of people like Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre, and so, so many other mentally unstable individuals. An America where you are always in danger.

In her testimony at a US Senate hearing on January 30th Trotter gave an example of actual case in which a woman did defend her home from two criminals with a gun. The problem for Trotter was that the currently proposed legislation would had absolutely no effect on the type of gun the woman used, nor her ability to obtain it.

Then, to explain her opposition to the assault weapon ban, Trotter went all Nugent on us. She painted a picture of young women with “three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background. The peace of mind that she has, knowing that she has a scary-looking gun.”

In order to demonstrate her desire for an AR-15, she had to make-up a crazy story and reveal how she sees America. Whether it’s a band of marauding criminals, or the “jack-booted” government thugs of Wayne LaPierre, these people see America much differently than I.

Theirs is a paranoid delusional view of America that whenever the sound of a helicopter is heard overhead, their hearts race believing that the UN is now coming to take their guns and impose a one world government in which dissenters will be imprisoned in FEMA concentration camps. What a sad, sad view of America they hold.

There is no joy, no peace, no rest in their America. Just an ever present and controlling thought every minute of every waking hour: “where is my scary gun in case they come.”

Yes, the gun nuts….are nuts.

I don’t care what the Founding Fathers said about Guns!

by Alec Kohut

The United States Constitution, Article 4, Section 2 Clause 3 reads:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

The Founding Fathers believed that escaped slaves should be returned to their owners. And the Founding Fathers were wrong. When it came to one of the most basic moral ideas in history of good vs. evil. The Founders got it dead wrong.

I don’t care what the Founding Fathers believed about slavery, or women’s rights. And I don’t care about what they said about guns.

One can argue that the Founders lived in a different time, and should not be judged by today’s standards on the issues such as slavery. To that point I agree 100%, the Founders lived in a different time. A time when slavery was accepted, women were second class citizens.

It is irrelevant to us now what the Founders believed about slavery and women. We don’t care that many of the Founders warned against standing armies as the greatest threat to liberty. Yet for some reason, we are supposed to care, and act as if the Founders were somehow infallible in there beliefs of the right to keep and bear arms.

At that time a gun was fired by tearing open with your teeth a powder and ball cartridge, then “priming the pan” by pouring some powder in the pan near the flint, then pouring the ball and remaining powder down the barrel, then removing the ramrod, then packing down the ball and powder, then replacing the ramrod, then lifting the rifle, aiming and firing. A well-trained solider could get off three rounds per minute.

Unlike opposition to slavery, and the desire of women to vote, the Founders could have never imagined the death and destruction caused by the easy availability of guns. Nor could they have imagined the advances in gun technology that have enabled a single person to kill dozens in a span of seconds.

So don’t quote the Founding Fathers to me and tell me what they believed. The Founders created a remarkable government that has served us pretty well for more than 200 years. Not because we hold on to the outdated beliefs and realities of the late 1700’s, but because of the concept of self-government and the ability to address today’s problems, with today’s knowledge, and solutions for today’s world.

Praise the Founders not for the ridiculous belief that they had all the answers for today’s society, but for the establishing a Republic that can change with the times and address problems in the year 2013 with ideas from 2013, not 1787