We understand that the hard-working hard workers of the Transportation Security Administration are just trying to keep us safe from Muslims and stuff, and that is why they make us take off our shoes and strip down until we are practically nekkid and get X-rayed and put our laptops in their own special little boxes and buy those little itty bitty tubes of toothpaste and why they decided not to permit pocket knives on planes after all, but we did not realize that we also needed to be protected from teen-aged girls in, like, clothes.
Here’s what happened, as my daughter described it in text messages to us: she was at the station where the TSA checks IDs. She said the officer was “glaring” at her and mumbling. She said, “Excuse me?” and he said, “You’re only 15, COVER YOURSELF!” in a hostile tone. She said she was shaken up by his abusive manner.
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Golly, it’s been, what, a whole bunch of hours since someone on the right said something incredibly stupid about abortion, so we guess this is right on schedule: Texas Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Like We Had To Say “R”) has a whole new reason to ban abortion at 20 weeks, and maybe earlier: masturbating fetuses. Specifically, the former OB/GYN said,
Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful … They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?
Great question, idiot! Burgess’s comments immediately vaulted him to the top of the “Saying Dumb Things With Your Mouth Hole Open” division in Wonkette’s coveted Legislative Shitmuffin of the Year Awards, and launched the twitter hashtag #MasturbatingFetuses, which was played out about as quickly as you’d expect. READ MORE »
So you see, Texas has this thing called a Public Integrity Unit, which is supposed to ride herd on public officials’ ethics and spending and stuff. Except now it doesn’t do anything, because Gov. Rick Perry used his line-item veto to eliminate funding for the Unit after the “some lady” in our headline, Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg, who runs the Public Integrity Unit, went and got a DWI citation. Lehmberg is a Democrat, but of course her party affiliation has nothing to do with this, what a vile notion! So Perry isn’t exactly saying “Someone, somewhere is a drunk driver, therefore impeach.” But it’s almost that bad, because in announcing his veto of the Public Integrity Unit’s $7.5 million appropriation (less than .01% of Texas’s FY2012-13 budget), Perry had this to say (emphasis ours):
“Despite the otherwise good work the Public Integrity Unit’s employees, I cannot in good conscience support continued State funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence. This unit is in no other way held accountable to state taxpayers, except through the State budgetary process. I therefore object to and disapprove of this appropriation.”
“Good work, all other employees of the Public Integrity Unit, please enjoy being fired!” READ MORE »
Attention Wonklahomans! The 2013 Wonk Your Brains Out Midwest-Southwest Orgy and World Tour is on its exciting “Homeward Bound: The Quickening” leg (also known as the “Hey, does this Prius smell funny to you?” leg), and is swinging back through the Sooner State tonight! As part of an exclusive two-day side tour of cities whose names sound like boys who get picked on in 8th grade, Wonk Your Brains Out follows its trip to Lawrence, Kansas with a stop in Norman, Oklahoma. TONIGHT! Tues., June 18, 6 p.m. at The Mont, 1300 Classen Blvd Norman, OK 73071, (405) 329-3330. We’ll be in the Tiki Hut! (It’s Doktor Zoom’s birthday, but he won’t be there, so maybe you could email him some beer!) READ MORE »
You know, we really can’t figure out anymore if right-wingers are playing some four-dimensional meta chess sorta thing these days or have really become untethered from reality or why even choose. Exhibit eleventy: the weird tendency of wingnuts to cry foul when people have the temerity to quote them. Witness Bradlee Dean, who wanted to sue yr Wonkette SO BAD because we pointed out that by saying he wanted to use the rod of correction on kids he actually wanted to use the rod of correction on kids. Late to the game but no less weird is superstar E.W. Jackson, running for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, who would like to explain that it is NOT FAIR NOT FAIR to quote his previous political statements because Jesus and the Constitution:
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Unless you have been living under a rock over the last few years, you know that the GOP has a not-so-new idea to try to win elections: prevent those who would vote against them from being able to vote, in the name of stopping voter fraud, which doesn’t really exist in any meaningful way, but is good for scaring wingnuts. Because why bother changing your core beliefs when you can just keep folks you don’t like (read: minorities) from voting? Yay democracy!
Well, the Supreme Court (we say SCOTUS for our nerd cred, of course) has now weighed in, and decided to put the brakes on some states’ efforts to make it harder to vote. Since this is kinda a BFD, let’s Wonksplain, shall we? READ MORE »
Hero/Traitor/Leakey Man Edward Snowden had a heart-to-heart talk with the internet on Monday, via Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian. We considered liveblooging it, but decided that liveblogging someone else’s liveblog would be just a little more meta than would be healthy. Still, for a bit over 90 minutes, Snowden answered some 18 out of several bejillion questions submitted through the Guardian website and Twitter. New details! Clarifications! Hints of what may come next! Douchey self-promotion! (Did he answer our tweeted question, “Have you even read Catch-22?” He did not! Glenn, man, you gotta set up another of these things!) READ MORE »
Dumbfuck screech machine Dana Loesch and her merry band of ideological brethren have a giant confused today, which is a not uncommon condition for stupid people punching above their intellectual weight. What, aside from the usual stuff like the operating principle behind doorknobs, has the wingnutteratti more befuddled than Lindsay Graham in a West Hollywood bathhouse? READ MORE »
Today occasions the publication of James O’Keefe’s first foray into longform prose, with his semi-autobiographical fantasy novel Breakthrough: I Did Not Title This After Chapter 6 In Andrew Breitbart’s Memoir! Shut Up! Jesus! Shut the Hell Up!
Even though Mary McCue — James’ publicist at Threshold Editions (an embarrassing division of Simon & Shuster) — mysteriously never sent us the advanced copy she promised, we still managed to secure one for ourselves after a quick undercover sting. Having now read the damn thing, we are here to spare you the $16-to-$26 you might have spent ironically purchasing this book. (But yes, that is a purchase link. Can’t say we didn’t warn you.)
After the jump, prepare to enact O’Keefe’s “Veritas Rule” #24: Walk a mile in your enemy’s head. (Siqq, bro! These rules are INTENSE! We’re In Yo Heeeeeaaaaaaaaaaad!!!!!) READ MORE »
The New Republic ran a profile of Rand Paul Monday with the headline “President Rand Paul.” But why? Does anyone at the usually pretty sober and realistic (except for when they were really excited for the Iraq War) New Republic actually believe Rand Paul is a real contender?
Maaaaaybe not, is Yr Wonkette’s reasoned opinion, especially considering the alternative title in TNR’s promotional email: “The Real Rand Paul (Can’t Be Trusted).” Are these provocative headlines just click bait, or is this one of those too-clever-by-far “11-dimensional chess” things we’ve been hearing about? Maybe TNR’s editors are hoping to superficially legitimize the rather weird and squeaky Rand Paul as a 2016 contender, so they can sit back and watch the fireworks as the GOP tears itself apart again in a long, bloody primary? They can’t seriously think “President Rand Paul” is anything other than a punchline, right? READ MORE »
Oh, ladies in the military. Why are you so bad at not getting sexually assaulted? We know it can’t possibly be because the military has a terrible culture about sexual assault. Of course not. The far more likely explanation is that you ladies are eccentric gold-digging whores.
Yes, the illustrious John Derbyshire, who got fired from the National Review for being too racist, which we thought was actually unpossible, has now dropped by Taki’s Magazine — the home base for that thing that got him fired — to explain how of course sexual assault happens and is the lady’s fault when it does but of course sexual assault does not happen because ladies are liars. Let’s hit the highlights and low points, shall we? Hahaha, do not be ridiculose, there are only low points. READ MORE »
Did you spend the past couple days so suspicious of the NSA that you had forgotten to set aside just a little bit of your suspicion for the banks? Don’t worry, we can fix that pretty quickly! Turns out Bank of America may have been foreclosing on homeowners who qualified for in-house loan modifications and the government-sponsored Home Affordable Modification Program because — get this! – it was more profitable to put the homeowners out on the street:
Six former Bank of America Corp employees have alleged that the bank deliberately denied eligible home owners loan modifications and lied to them about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.
The bank allegedly used these tactics to shepherd homeowners into foreclosure, as well as in-house loan modifications. Both yielded the bank more profits than the government-sponsored Home Affordable Modification Program, according to documents recently filed as part of a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court.
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Hey, Wonkansanites! The 2013 Wonk Your Brains Out Midwest-Southwest Orgy and World Tour is thundering into your fine state like… like… like two road-ragey ladies in a Prius, we think! And tonight is the night that they will “drop the bomb” on Lawrence, Kansas, a joke that we are 100% certain you guys have not been thoroughly tired of since 1983 at all! Be there, or risk the fallout: Mon., June 17, 6 p.m.: Lawrence, Kansas. Frank’s North Star Tavern, 508 Locust St., Lawrence, KS, (785) 856-5080. READ MORE »
Ever since Republicans got their asses kicked in the 2012 election, they’ve been curled up in the fetal position, soothing themselves with fantastic stories of how it’s not that the majority of Americans think their policies suck ass like an industrial strength Hoover; it’s just that they didn’t package their ass-sucking policies the right way. Deep down, Americans really do hate Messicans and homosexicans and chicks and poors, and they really do want Republicans to protect the sanctity of Newt Gingrich’s three marriages, Mitt Romney’s tax cuts, and menfolks’ right to rule our ladyparts. They just need to have it ‘splained to them the right way, for the MyFace generation and the Twitters.
So this is totes going to work:
“How do you make abortion funny?” That was a key question mulled at a major conservative gathering Friday on how to make social conservatism appealing to young people, after an election where Republicans got trounced in the battle for millennial voters (who are are moving even further and further away from the Christian-right on marriage on other issues).
Abortion has to be made funny, the thinking goes, because funny sells on social media, and that’s where one goes to court young people. “You can engage with sarcasm, it’s hard with the abortion issue, but you have to,” said Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins at a breakout panel at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington today on how to win millennial voters.
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Hey, kids, remember that poll from way back in May that showed just how are-you-freakin’-kidding-us stupid Republicans are? Oh, sorry, there are so many polls like that. We will have to be more specific. We mean this poll about Dumbshit-Americans who are super duper OUTRAGED!!!! about Benghazi, but, um, well:
One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.
Well, guess who is one such Dumbshit-American? We will give you three hints. One, he hails from Texas, which probably doesn’t narrow it down much for you, since Texas has given us more than its fair share of dumbshits. Cut that out, Texas! B, his mere presence once caused Michele Bachmann to crap her pants and immediately drop her run for the White House. And third … um … I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops. Give up? It’s this guy: READ MORE »
