BizarroIndustries

It has been harder to come up with blog posts since I started working a lot more. I think it’s equal parts lack of time to absorb media and just a lack of ire arousing incidents. There just hasn’t been much that makes me see red recently. But I wanted to complain about something this week and Obama’s same sex marriage revolution is a decent target. Two things about this, Obama was openly pro-same sex marriage prior to his run for one of Illinois’ senate seats. He wrote “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages,” in 1996. After he decided to run for a statewide office he dropped the support for gay marriage. Merriam-Websters defines evolution as ‘the process of change in a certain direction.’ It’s not evolution if you go forward, then backward, then forward again, its only evolution if you are moving in one direction.

Right after it came out that Obama was going to announce he was pro-same sex marriage the Washington Post released this article detailing Romeny’s rebilious pranks nearly half a century ago. Probably not a bad idea for the left. It is long as hell though, so it must have been in the works for awhile. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they were holding it back for a day when Obama stepped in something like gay marriage. Anything to take the heat off their messiah. Thankfully the teeth were largely knocked out of this slam piece by Breitbart’s minions.

The most shocking thing in the article was a story about Romney and his gang of stuck-up rich kids holding down a fellow student named John Lauber, who they thought was a homosexual, and cutting off his hair. It does sound horrifying and awful, I will wholeheartedly agree on that. And it’s hard to believe Romney doesn’t remember that particular incident, because I can’t imagine taking part in something like that and not remembering it forever. So it kind of bugs me that Romney won’t admit to what he did and apologize. But anyways, it was 50 years ago, and the Washington Post article made Lauber sound like a wreck of a human being after that, as if he struggled professionally and peaked as a sous-chef for military contractors before his death a few years ago. Apparently the image of a sad broken man the Washington Post painted was slightly less than accurate.

Tonight, Christine Lauber, John Lauber’s sister, said that she didn’t know anything about the bullying incident. More importantly, she said that the story had factual inaccuracies. Betsy Lauber, another of John’s sisters, told ABC News, “The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family.” Said Christine, “If he were alive today, he would be furious [about the story].” Jason Horowitz, the reporter on the Post story, did speak to both sisters and quoted them in the story – but apparently still botched the facts.

Here’s another article about another quote that turned out to be incredibly misleading. When I read Stu White’s comments in the Washington Post article I thought this was a guy who had been haunted his whole life by what he and Romney had done. But apparently his comment was taken entirely out of context, and not only was he not present at the incident, but he didn’t know about it until the Washington Post reporter contacted him for a comment.

I know it’s inconvenient when there aren’t any witnesses around who will spin you the exact story you want to tell, but that doesn’t give you the right to twist the truth and to misconstrue what actually took place. You might think Romney is a monster, but the ends do not justify the means. Anyways, after an ABC interview, and a few bloggers picked up the inconsistencies, the Washington Post went and changed their online copy of the article, but didn’t print any kind of online retraction.

Here’s another particularly telling quotes from the article  Big Journalism ran to debunk the Washington Post piece. They blow some pretty massive fucking holes in the Washington Post article, and I just want to personally extend my gratitude to that whole network of journalists for being a voice for integrity in the press.

But Lauber, at least according to his obituary in the South Bend Tribune, led an incredibly full life. He graduated from Vanderbilt, became a member of the British Horse Society, had his seaman papers, was a licensed mortician in three states and head chef at the Russian River Resort in California, and even served as a civilian contractor to the troops in Iraq. This does not sound like someone crippled by a supposedly crucial incident back in high school.

There are only two things I want to say in this post. One, there’s a double standard applied to misogynistic comments in the press. Two,  Sandra Fluke’s testimony to congress was a gross exaggeration of reality and deserving of ridicule. I wont even go into freedom of the media aspect of this sideshow.

Lets just get Ms. Fluke’s testimony out of the way first. Cathy Ruse, a graduate of Georgetown’s Law School, and the former chief counsel of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution,  summed up the facts in her op-ed today.

It’s a fantastic opinion piece but here’s the quote I think everyone should read…

In her testimony, Ms. Fluke claimed that, “Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.” That’s $1,000 per year. But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month’s worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. “That’s the price without insurance,” the employee said. (It’s also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)

This has been completely lost in all the talk about Rush Limbaugh calling some girl, who supposedly needs $1,000 a year for contraceptives, a slut. I’m not big on censorship. I say offensive things on a daily basis. And so do liberals.

In fact liberal columnist Kirsten Powers wrote an opinion piece on exactly that. I was actually astonished by some of the examples she had. I didn’t even realize how mysoginstic guys like Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Bill Maher actually were. It is hilarious that they get a free pass because they just happen to be on the left side of these partisan issues. Astonishing. Again if you don’t want to actually read the opinion piece here’s the accompanying interview.

Oh and just to be clear I try to avoid using stuff from Fox News and MSNBC but in this case no one else is even pointing this hypocrisy out so I’ve got no choice.

And you know what, one more thing. Rush Limbaugh hates my kind of conservatism. He’s one of those guys who thinks Republicans are only Republicans if they buy into the whole package, social and all. I of course say “Take your government control over any personal choices we make as individuals over to China where they belong.” Despite all that I’ll defend his freedom to speak his inflammatory rhetoric all day long, and be happy he is able to do so.

To understand the absurdity of this you have to understand the meaningless nature of the three contests Santorum won. Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri meant nothing. Its part of the reason why only a handful of people voted. In Missouri the state Republican party practically told people not to vote because they weren’t awarding delegates. Gah! No one voted cause these weren’t even binding.

It’s All Politics, a podcast from NPR contributors Ken Rudin and Ron Elving, really helped bring the utter strangeness of it all into perspective more than anyone else has. I highly suggest listening to the podcast if you’re just curious as to how this occurrence is even within the realm of possibility.

Romney’s lead in Arizona has shrunk considerably. The Rasmussen poll at the beginning of February had him up over Newt by 24 points. Now he’s just nine points over Santorum; and take into consideration Santorum pretty much just left Arizona for dead as an unattainable winner take all state. But he’s still catching up!

And of course Newt is nowhere to be seen, literally and figuratively, especially from a polling perspective.

Seriously, has anyone even seen the guy recently? I saw him on Fox News Sunday but that was a first time since CPAC. I don’t know if its the media ignoring him out of spite or his lack of stumping and town hall campaigning but the dude is a ghost. Or at the most just a pundit commenting on the real race between Santorum and Romney. I don’t know which is worse.

Strange times, I don’t get it.  I know no one hears this but I’m just going to keep saying it. The social policies and beliefs that Santorum holds are radical to the middle of the country. They’re radical to me.

We can be the party of liberty or we can be the party of religious hangups encroaching on other peoples freedoms to live how they choose. I know the establishment and the older segment of the party, the majority of the party, is still holding on to the later. But we need to start moving towards the former.

Liberty and freedom appeals to people. It appeals to us Republican voters too, and regardless of what the left tries to tell you, we are in fact ‘people.’

That’s why Ron Paul is on that stage every debate. Yes some of his ideas seem dangerously insane, especially the foreign policy ones, but we like to see him up there because when he talks about freedom of the states and personal freedoms and rails against the csars and regulatory agencies it swells our hearts with joy and righteousness. But then someone suggests you let two gay guys make an eternal vow to one another in the eyes of the state and 75% of the party begins to spontaneously lose control of their bowels.

It’s your party, old people. You were in it way before I was, so I guess you can do with it what you will. But the youth vote is with liberty, and we’re fiscal conservatives at heart. We’re not going to find a home with the Democrats either. So we must bide our time until you all molder off and we have our day.

But until then I’m going to continue waving that flag. The party’s future is in expanding the base and being inclusive. Its partly a necessity of demographics too. I think a lot of the old party line people realize this, and make halfhearted attempts to connect with potentially sympathetic Hispanic voters. But it is just that, halfhearted. Cause in the same breath they’ll say that all of them should be deported and amnesty, even without citizenship, is not any kind of option.

The country is laughing at us. These left leaning guys on NPR (although some of the best NPR has to offer, still obviously bending, albeit maybe inadvertently, to the left) are laughing at us.

I guarntee you moderates in the middle will not be happy with Santorum. We cling to our contraceptives like NRA members to their guns.

Plus, Obama is the most effective demagog the Democrats have.

Santorum only made the observation that there is a correlation between prenatal screenings and abortions. Can’t you just see Obama doing a spit-take on stage in the middle of a debate and riding roughshod over Santorum about a womans rights, about parental rights. Then he’ll throw in some bits about Santorum’s stance against contraceptives, regardless of reality or the validity of that claim. And Obama will convince people of it. Because Santorum is an angry, ‘frothy’ dude, and you know these claims, especially the twisted misrepresentations, will throw Santorum into a slavering rage which will just convince the independents even more that he is in fact guilty of holding those beliefs. He’s going to come across like the hound of God out to deprive you of your ability to enjoy life. And prenatal screenings!

Yeah he didn’t say it should be abolished but he said it leads to abortion which is practically just as good as saying it should be abolished. It’ll be so easy for Obama to spin that. Just look at the size of that target!