I Didn't Say It ...

Cheyenne Jackson, [left] on his American Horror Story: Hotel co-star, Matt Bomer [right]:

“No matter if you’re a man, woman, cat, hamster, you will get lost in Matt Bomer’s eyes. Channing is right. Matt looks like he’s carved out of cream cheese. He’s just so perfect and smooth and gorgeous. We were in hair and makeup one time, sitting side by side, and I was like, “Are you kidding me with that face?”

Yer preachin' to the choir, Cheyenne, and you ain't so bad yourself!

[photo source]

Bryan Fischer, American Family Association anti-LGBT bigot, claiming to have been born that way:

“I think, actually, that’s a good argument. The way I am, I was born this way. And you know, you think about it…who would choose, at this time in our nation’s history, to be a Christian? You’re ridiculed. You’re mocked. You’re made fun of. You get fired … I mean, who would choose a lifestyle where you are the unending subject of ridicule, mockery, and contempt by liberals in society, by elites, by professors, on the media, by politicians? Who’s going to choose that? So our defense is, hey, I was born that way.”

Funny, what he's describing--being fired--is not legal for Christians, but in many states is perfectly legal to do to gay folks.

[photo source]

Donald [t]Rump, on the ALLEGED War on Christmas:

“I’m a big believer in the Bible. And you know when I see really beyond liberty there’s an assault on anything having to do with Christianity. They don’t want to use the word ‘Christmas’ anymore – department stores. There’s always lawsuits and unfortunately a lot of those lawsuits are won by the other side. I will assault that. I will go so strongly against so many of the things when they take away the word Christmas…Absolutely there’s an assault on Christianity and we’re gonna reverse that big league.”

Um, first off, Don, recite your very favorite Bible passage and tell us what it means to you

:::crickets::::

Um, then perhaps you could tell us your "plan" for reversing the War on Christmas ... or is it Christianity.

:::crickets:::

[photo source]

Ronnie Floyd, head of the Southern Baptist Convention, throwing shade at Josh Duggar's wife in a sly reference to Josh's adultery: 

“Adultery, being sexually or emotionally unfaithful to your spouse, that’s wrong. Some of you are on the other end of someone else destruction. And that enemy is going to take your spouse away from you. Both men and woman have their sexual needs met by someone, somewhere, somehow.”

So, cheating is okay if your spouse isn't putting out? Hell, ain't that Christian!

[photo source]

Ben Shapiro, on Josh Duggar's epic fall:

“The war on hypocrites isn’t a war on sin: it’s a war on standards. Josh Duggar may be an evil human being, but his evil springs not from the standards he attempted to preach, but from his failure to meet those standards. … Josh Duggar deserves to pay for his sins, and pay richly. He’s vile. But those who fight against basic standards of morality don’t have any moral authority to act as the agents of that judgment. For such jackals to play at such judgment smacks of the same hypocrisy they condemn.” 

Actually, his evil springs from both he and his family holding themselves up to be the moral compass of society while hiding their dirty little secrets and denigrating anyone who isn’t a Christen, or, god forbid, is gay.

[photo source]

My Two Cents: Pedophiles and Christians, Politicians and Hypocrites

Okay, by now we’ve all heard tale of Josh Duggar, one of the ‘19’ in that TLC reality show about good Christians raising their nineteen … and counting … children, admitting that, while a teenager, he molested several girls, including, four of his own sisters, but let’s get the facts first before we dive in, shall we?

March, 2002: an unnamed minor claims Josh Duggar, then 14, 'had been touching her breasts and genitals while she slept.'

July, 2002: Josh admits to sexually molesting the girl; the family has a meeting to discuss it; nothing is done.

March, 2003: 'several' other minors—apparently even his sisters—come forward claiming Josh touched them while they slept; Duggar family patriarch, Jim Bob, calls another family meeting and then speaks to his church elders about the molestation.

July 2003: Jim Bob Duggar finally reports the molestation to Joseph Hutchens, an Arkansas State Police officer, who gave Josh “a very stern talk” about his actions; nothing more was done. Sidenote: Joseph Hutchens is currently serving a 56-year prison term for child pornography offenses.

July, 2003: the Duggars and their church enter Josh into a treatment program where he spends four months in Little Rock doing construction work; the treatment program is run by the Institute in Basic Life Principles, founded by televangelist Bill Gothard — whose teachings have been promoted by the Duggar family; the Institute in Basic Life Principles houses “court-referred youthful offenders in the organization’s Bible-based rehabilitation program.” Sidenote: in 2014, Bill Gothard resigned from the Institute of Basic Life Principles following allegations of sexual harassment, molestation and failing to report child abuse.

December 7, 2006: an anonymous tip is called into the Arkansas Child Abuse Hot­line; the Springdale Police reach out to the Duggars to schedule interviews but are told the family is in Chicago to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

December 7, 2006: an anonymous source sends an e-mail to Harpo Studios warning Oprah show producers against airing the Duggar interview because of the allegations; producers passed along the e-mail to law enforcement and Winfrey cancelled the interview and sent the family home.

Dec. 12, 2006: Springdale police interview Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, along with Josh and his victims; it is determined that the statute of limitations has expired and no charges are filed.

2007:  rumors of Josh’s pedophilia begin to appear online, though they are, at this point, unsubstantiated; the same year, a reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Times discovers a court document for a case — Josh Duggar vs. the Arkansas Department of Human Services ­ —and contacts Jim Bob and Josh Duggar for a comment, but both men refuse.

May 2015: the tabloid In Touch Weekly publishes an article about the allegations that Josh Duggar molested multiple girls as a teenager; a follow-up piece is published, this time with a police report detailing the allegations — the police report was obtained through a Freedom of Information [FOI] request; an Arkansas newspaper, the Democrat-Gazette, obtained the same report through an FOI request, but when the Washington Post asks for the police report, via an FOI, it is answered with a court order, dated May 21, stating that the police report in question was destroyed.

May 22: TLC announces that the network is pulling all episodes of “19 Kids and Counting” from its schedule. That same day, Springdale Police Department spokesman Scott Lewis confirms that the department has destroyed the police report in question, saying:

“The judge ordered us yesterday to expunge that record … as far as the Springdale Police Department is concerned this report doesn’t exist.”

Okay, that’s a lot, but let’s dive in with my two cents:

I guess, for the Duggars, doing a little construction work is a cure for pedophilia; and to even discuss the kinds of men they chose to rehabilitate their son is exception; one, a man of the cloth with his own history of sexual abuse and harassment, and the other a friend, and police officer, who scolds Josh about molesting girls in between loading child pornography onto his own computer. It seems quite clear that the Duggars were more concerned about their image — Jim Bob Duggar has run for political office on multiple occasions — than getting their son, not to mention his victims, the help they need.

And what about the girls? The Duggars’ own daughters? At the very expense of their children, and others, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who have held themselves up on television to be paragons of virtue and devout Christians, hid Josh’s sexual molestation from the authorities and, except for a few months, let him stay at home. Think about those Duggar daughters for a moment, knowing their parents protected their son, a pedophile, a sexual molester, and sent him off to build an addition on someone’s house, before bringing him back home to live in the same house as his victims.

It’s disgusting. And what about therapy for Josh’s victims? All that time spent making sure Josh got ‘help,’ but what about the girls? Was it a couple of months chatting with someone, because that worries me since victims of child molestation often suffer from the abuse far into adulthood. Where was the good Christian love for the victims? And how did those girls, Josh’s sisters, feel, about continuing to live in the same house with someone who crept into their rooms at night and fondled them as they slept?

Well, they’re girls, so I’m guessing they weren’t as important as a son, who faced no serious consequences for his actions. The Duggars simply move on, going on television, running for political office, hiding the fact that a pedophile lives down the hall from his victims.

It isn’t until 2015 that the repercussions of what Josh, and Jim Bob and Michelle, have done are felt. When the story finally breaks, finally the family has to tell the truth: their son is a pedophile.

TLC, which airs their reality show, opts to pull 19 Kids and Counting from its schedule, though the network does not comment at all on the story. However, by week’s end many advertisers are running from the show; General Mill has apparently “blacklisted” the show and may, in fact, blacklist the network altogether. But that’s all? 

Yes, because here in America we have a statute of limitations of child sexual abuse — even though many victims block out the abuse, and the pedophiles, for years, and by that time, well, too late. That’s the hypocrisy of our judicial system; victims being denied closure because the time has run out and the pedophile gets to go along his merry way.

But what about the hypocrisy of these so-called Christians? The Duggars have spent years touting their anti-LGBT beliefs, even going so far as to demonize gay men and women; in fact, Michelle Duggar worked voraciously against a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance in Fayetteville, Arkansas by warning that it would endanger children:

“I doubt that Fayetteville parents would stand for a law that would endanger their daughters or allow them to be traumatized by a man joining them in their private space.”

Michelle Duggar attacked trans people, and gays and lesbians, arguing that the threat to little girls in Fayetteville were transwomen who might molest their children in bathrooms, when she knew her own son had done this to multiple girls for at least a couple of years; and then they hid it, and sent him away with a hammer and some nails. But hey, it’s TV and God, so why should the truth matter, right?

And what about Josh, the child molester? Well, he decided to work for the anti-LGBT Family Research Council [FRC] as head of its lobbying arm, and has spoken out continually against LGBT Americans, calling us unfit to be parents, saying we should never be allowed equality, and calling us pedophiles.

Pot.Kettle …which leads us to Politicians and Religious Leaders; and let’s start with the worst of the worst, Mike Huckabee.

As soon as the story broke, Huckabee, running for president, mind you, took to his Facebook page to instantly throw his support behind the Duggars:

“Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family. Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn’t mean 'unforgivable.' He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”

Oh Mike, there is a purpose; it exposes the hypocrisy of the religious right, and the conservative wacknut politicians, because, just let this sink in, what if Josh Duggar was a gay man, a gay Christian, who’d molested his own sisters? Do you think for a moment Mike Huckabee would “forgive” him? Not a chance because Mike Huckabee has spent years calling The Gays horrific names and spreading lies and falsehoods about us.

But, maybe because he cannot help himself, Huckabee digs himself in deeper:

“Josh Duggar was a teenager, the girls were almost teenagers. In Biblical times they could have married. The only reason the liberals are attacking Josh is because he has been a faithful warrior against the perversion of homosexuality.”

Wait. What? So, because they were all teenagers this is somehow okay? A teenage boy can sneak into his sister’s room at night and sexually abuse her and it’s okay because it’s … what … boys being boys? And, I don’t believe that Huckabee is saying that, had Josh Duggar been molesting his sisters in Biblical times, he was also allowed to marry them?

This is simply the case of a religious, and political, wagon master trying to circle the wagons and protect their own, because, if you remember, when Michael Sam came out as gay, Huckabee declared it as a sign that the culture was in “utter collapse,” and yet when we learn that one of his political supporters, from an entire family of political supporters, is a child molester,. Huckabee comes down in favor of protecting the pedophile from “sensationalism.”

Now, there is an interesting note: that judge who ordered police to destroy the records of Josh Duggar’s sexual molestation history is Juvenile Judge Stacy Zimmerman, an Arkansas judge appointed to her position by Mike Huckabee when he was Governor of the state. Huckabee even referenced the judge’s order in his Facebook post:

“Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed—not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims.”

So, a Huckabee flunky destroyed the files — which, again, was her right as the statute of limitations was up — just as Huckabee runs to aid his friend and ally. But, again, the hypocrisy is so apparent, for Mike Huckabee had a very different opinion of what to do about Roman Polanski, also accused to sexual molestation of a minor:

“If something is right, it’s right. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong … It doesn’t matter who does them. When Hollywood hero Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country instead of facing the consequences of his own guilty plea, there should be no defense of him from anyone.”

And yet Mike Huckabee has rushed to defend Josh Duggar who molested not one, but several young girls; but, I’m guessing, being a Christian and supporting Mike Huckabee for President, makes pedophilia okay? And this is the same Mike Huckabee who once said, of child molesters, that they face the consequences for their crimes “no matter who does them.”

Apparently not. And if this doesn’t put an end to Huckabee’s quest for the White House something is seriously wrong here. How can a man rush to aid and defend a pedophile be elected to the highest office in the land?

And, speaking of hypocrites running for office, the wildly anti-gay Ted Cruz — who last week announced that he would “always always always’ fight marriage equality, has decided to fight for the rights of Josh Duggar, saying:

“While there may have been an age difference, Josh Duggar’s transgressions are far less an affront to God than what gays do with each other.”

That man wants to be president; that man who calls me an abomination, who seeks to deny my the right to equal protection under the law, who would like businesses to deny me service because I’m gay, deny me jobs or housing because I’m gay, finds me more reprehensible than Josh Duggar, a pedophile. 

This is the same man who has said that gay men are pedophiles, so I guess he’s also saying that a gay pedophile is disgusting, but a Christian pedophile is just making a mistake.

We also heard from Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association; rather than suggest Josh Duggar seek reparative therapy for his sexual deviancy — as he asks of gay men and women — Fischer actually compared Josh to the biblical kings Solomon and David, and said he believes that “every indication is that his repentance for those deeds was sincere, and there has been no hint of sexual impropriety on his part in the intervening 13 years.”

At least none that we know about; I mean, since we know that many victims of child sexual abuse block out those memories, who can say that there aren’t more little girls out there?

These three men disgust me; for years, Huckabee, Cruz, and Fischer have degraded and maligned LGBT, oftentimes with lies; and they have worked side-by-side with some of the most homophobic and bigoted evangelical TV celebrities, like the Duck Dynasty gang and the Duggars. Each of these men has, at some point, compared LGBT people to child molesters and degenerates and perverts, and unworthy of any kind of equality, but when they face an actual child molester from their own hypocritical Christian, Republican ranks, suddenly we must all be forgiving.

Well, I can’t forgive, and I cannot forget. No matter how many Facebook post Huckabee makes, or how many times Cruz vows to keep me down, or how many times Fischer says The Gays f**k dogs. These men don’t care about right and wrong, unless the wrongdoer is a non-Christian, then it’s all bets off.

So, what do we take away from this?

Josh Duggar admits to repeatedly molesting, assaulting and sexually abusing his younger sisters, and another young girl. The parents, Josh’s wife, and others — Huckabee, Cruz, Fischer … Tony Perkins — all say it was just a “mistake” even while they are out in public calling homosexuality an abomination.

How does this possibly make sense? It doesn’t; not to rational thinking people. I am all about forgiveness, but it doesn’t seem to me that even Josh Duggar deserves forgiveness; he’s never suffered for his crimes; his parents and their friends in high places hid his crimes. He’s never apologized for his crimes, that we know of, until last week when the story came out, and even then he never actually said the words “sexual molestation.”

There was no real concern from the family, from their church, from their friends — save that anonymous person who found the evidence … a note in a book in the Duggar house — who contacted the authorities back in 2007.

And how do ever trust — not that I ever did — politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, who act as though sexually molesting a young girl, while she slept, is something that teenagers do, or, at the very least, isn’t as bad as being gay.

Let’s be queer: being gay is no longer a crime, but being a pedophile, and fondling minor girls most certainly is against the law.

Jim Bob and Michelle now say that God “worked this situation for good” though I wonder how Josh’s victims feel about that; I wonder how many years they will suffer as they remember what their brother did to them, and how their parents saved him from any kind of real punishment for his crimes.

I am sickened and disgusted by what Josh Duggar did to those girls, but what makes me even more disgusted is how his parents handled the situation, how they took the law into their own hands, how they never really punished Josh for his criminal behavior. I am disgusted that a law enforcement officer thinks that a “good talking to” will stop a pedophile: I am disgusted that they believe building a house is punishment.

I am horrified that any politician, much less a politician running for office in 20167 would stand up for a pedophile and call child sexual molestation a mistake and ask that we just move on.

I’m disgusted by the lies, the hypocrisy, all in the name of religion and politics.

Deep South Daily

Washington Post

Daily Mail UK
Patheos
Towleroad
Addicting Info
RightwingWatch

Minute Rant: Two Liars, Sittin' Around, Talkin'

So Mike Huckabee, soon-to-be failed presidential candidate again, and Brian Fischer, spokesman for the American Family Association Hate Group, were sittin’ around, talkin’ about The Gays because they just love spending time together talking about us.

Huckabee, who last week announced that he will announce he’s running for president next month … let that tidbit of stupidity sink in … believes that the Obama administration has “an open hostility toward the Christian faith,” and urged prospective military recruits to wait until the end of President Obama’s term to enlist:

"When you have a president whose administration orders its chaplains to put its Bibles away, not to pray in Jesus name, not to counsel people on the issues of sexual morality; when you have this attitude that is more about promoting gay marriage and gay rights in the military than it is about being able to protect religious liberty for those people of faith, it’s going to be hard to find people that are truly devoted people of faith and Christian believers and Orthodox Jews and others.”

Then Fischer, not to be outdone in the Ridiculousness, threw in his two cents … though I think that’s a high price to pay for his crazy:

"The reason the morale is low in the military is because it's become a giant, social engineering laboratory and values that are absolutely contrary to the military ethos, to the military culture, are being forced on members of the military - crammed down their throats whether they like it or not." 

Bryan does love to talk about The Gays and cramming things down people’s throats; he really should just come out already.

And Mike Huckabee, who has a direct line to Jesus, apparently, should just go away.

The time for LGBT hate as a campaign platform are ending.

via Towleroad

Minute Rant: The Gays Are Nazis ... Slaveowners ... Want Christians Dead

Since this whole kerfuffle over the ironically named Religious Freedom Restoration Act ... because, let's face it, does religious freedom need to be restored if it has always been here? ... I've been listening to the religious wingnuts ... Robertson, Fischer, Perkins ... say that telling a business owner they cannot discriminate against The Gays because they have a warped belief that's what God wants ... She doesn't ... is akin to enslaving a business owner.

Yes, saying, 'Here's some money, bake me a cake,' is exactly like saying 'Pick cotton or I'll beat you to within an inch of your life or kill you.'

Asking someone to serve you pizza when they wrongly believe God doesn't want them to ... except She does ... is like turning them into Anne Frank because asking for a 'Large pepperoni' from a religious nut is akin to making them hide in an attic until they are discovered and put to death.

And then there's that old chestnut ... Gays are Nazis. See, if you don't sell me roses, I'm gonna round you up and put you in a camp with other bigots.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Random Musings

Y’all know this story … on December 27, 2014, Leelah Alcorn, a 17 year old transgender youth wrote posted a suicide note on Tumblr and then walked in front of a semi-truck on a busy highway.

Leelah explained how her parents had forced her to attend conversion therapy, pulled her out of school and isolated her in an attempt to change her gender identity and so a petition has been created to enact Leelah’s Law to Ban All LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy.

If the petition receives 100,000 signatures within the first 30 days, the White House will respond. Right now, the petition has 93,891 signatures, and needs 6,109 more to qualify by February 2. While it won't guarantee a bill or a law, greater awareness means greater possibility for action.

Take a moment, click HERE, and sign.

Thanks.

Now on to a more fabulous note … Diana Ross will be taking up residency in Las Vegas.

No, Diva ain’t living there, but she will be performing at the Venetian for nine days in April, and could make it a permanent thing.

I need to get my ass to Vegas …. Maybe she’ll ask me to dance with her again.

Down there to Alabama, where marriage equality is becoming legal, the state’s first and only openly gay state legislator, Democratic Representative Patricia Todd has taken to Facebook to fire back at politicians alleging that same-sex marriage would erode "family values" if it becomes legal in Alabama.

Todd called out the hypocrisy of many lawmakers using the rallying cry of "family values" to prop up their anti-gay views when they are having extramarital affairs, and basically says she’ll out these hypocrites.

Here’s my deal: why sink to their level. Patricia? I mean if Joe Blow Congressman is schtupping someone other than the missus, who cares? Outing them only makes The Gays seem vindictive and petty; why not just show statistics from places where same-sex marriage is legal that disprove their idiotic arguments.

Fight negativity with positivity, m’kay.

That said, if Joe Blow Congressman is anti-gay and has a little boytoy on the side, then out him as the ultimate hypocrite.

I hate these closeted gay men and women who seek to deny equal rights to The Gays. They should have their closet doors blown open.

Photo of the Week:

This could be in gossip, except the photo qualifies it for its own segment. While Lohan was hospitalized after her Bora Bora mosquito bite — and no word on how sick the mosquito became after sipping Lohan blood — she was bored. So she began posting selfies in her underwear to the net, but she doesn’t have the Photoshop skills of Queen Bey so …

Notice Lindsay’s remarkably thin waistline? Look at the bottles on the shelf behind her, and how they inexplicably lean toward her.

Bad Photoshop! Bad.

If sometime this evening you hear a blood curdling scream from sea to shining sea, well, it’s Carlos … because I’ve just told him that the next season of Downton Abbey will be the last one. 

Writer Julian Fellowes is ending the show — which was supposed to run for one, maybe two seasons — after its sixth year to work on a new project about 19th century New York.

Brooklyn Abbey?

Just wondering … now, let me get a cold compress for Carlos.

Sometime last year I DVR’d Ten Years because it starred Channing Tatum and he has a habit of baring his most gorgeous ass in all his films. Sadly, in this film, he did not, which only made it even worse than I thought.

The lone bright spot was the character of Reeve, played by Oscar Isaac; his was the only character that wasn’t a stereotype of some high school student at his reunion. Plus, he’s hot.

And this week, I heard that Isaac was to be on The View so I watched … and he’s hotter than that, sweeter than that, smarter than that.

He’s my new Hugh Jackman. I’ve told Carlos that when … when not if … Oscar Isaac comes to Smallville to sweep me off my feet, well, I’ll be going.

Hot. Oh, and he has a new movie out called A Most Violent Year with the faboosh Jessica Chastain. I'm making Carlos see it with me this weekend.

So that rug at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office that read ‘In Dog We Trust’ instead of ‘In Cat … I kid … God We Trust’ has been replaced and the Oops Version was sold at auction for $9,600.00.

The money will be donated to Canine Estates, a Palm Harbor nonprofit for injured and abandoned animals.

Thank Dog.

I loves me some Nashville …I love that they are taking a risk by having a gay character on the show — I mean, country music and openly gay people don’t generally mix — especially when the gay in question is played by hunky Chris Carmack [down there], who has macked on quite a few dudes since joining the cast.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll be macking on Kyle Dean Massey [up there] who has joined the show in the recurring role of Kevin Bicks, a successful singer-songwriters in Nashville who also happens to be openly gay.

I expect sparks, Nashville.

I kinda like Sam Smith, that Brit singer who many call … wrongly, I think, the male Adele … though I got tired of him not talking about being gay and yet now that’s all he talks about.

But that’s not the Musing today. When I first heard his single, ‘Stay With Me’ I liked it … because I’d heard it before. I remember tooling down the road and singing along with it, only the words I sang didn’t match up because I was actually singing Tom Petty’s ’I Won’t Back Down.’

And yet I never heard any mention of the similarities until now, when I heard that Smith has agreed to fork over songwriting royalties to Tom Petty after Petty's lawyers called him out on the very apparent similarities.

But I keep wondering why it took so long; I mean, I knew this months ago. Maybe I should be Petty’s lawyer?

I’d never heard of Joni Ernst, the newly elected Republican senator from Iowa, until she was tapped to give the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address last week, in which she spoke about her family’s humble beginnings and wearing bread bag on her feet:

“They had very little to call their own except the sweat on their brow and the dirt on their hands. But they worked, they sacrificed, and they dreamed big dreams for their children and grandchildren.”

It all sounds very Joad Family — Google it youngsters — except … Ernst failed to mention that her family did not succeed alone, but had a boatload of federal cash to help them out.

Her father, Richard Culver, received $14,705 in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity subsidies by the US government, while his brother, Dallas Culver, received $367,141 in federal aid, with some $250,000 geared toward corn subsidies. And the brothers’ late grandfather Harold Culver received $57,479 from the government between 1995 and 2001.

But the farm subsidies weren't the only payments her family received: a construction company owned by Joni’s daddy received more than $200,000 in county contracts while Joni served as auditor of Montgomery County, Iowa, despite a strict conflict of interest code governing contracts to family members of county officials.

Uh huh. I guess with all that government money coming in, Little Joni Ernst never bought a computer to see what a quick Google search would bring up when you start spouting off about being poor and working hard and getting nearly half a million dollars in federal aid.

But she’s a Republican so they don’t like to talk about that stuff. Now, I’m sure her family worked hard — farming is hard — but they did not do it alone, and for her to play it off like they did is the typical GOP bull sh*t.

Shame on you Joni.

Rumor has it — and I heard it from Rachel Maddow — that Bryan Fischer, the virulently anti-gay Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, has been fired.

Maddow says the firing was due to Israeli press reporting that Reince Preibus and the RNC are taking a trip to Israel which is being funded by the AFA, while Fischer has said, more than once in his program, that "Jews have no right to practice the faith of Judaism in the United States" and that The Gays are behind the Holocaust and Naziism.

Fischer, for his part, says he has not been fired. Stay tuned.

I’d never heard of Hozier before, but one night, driving home from work, I heard this little ditty, ‘Take Me To Church’ and it has been stuck in my head ever since.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s an anti-organized religion tune, which plays up the hypocrisy of organized faith, and that there's a couple of gay guys in it.

I Didn't Say It ...

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator, clutching his pearls and fear-mongering about ISIS:

"The first thing I want to tell American people, from my point of view, it is our fight, it is not just their fight. I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource or security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria, to destroy ISIL, without a substantial American component. To destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take the territory they hold back, cut off the financing, and destroy the capability to regenerate. This is a war we’re fighting, not a counter-terrorism operation. This is not Somalia, this is not Yemen. This is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home."

Someone needs to tell her to calm the eff down. 

Oh, and to remind her that she was saying the exact opposite thing just a couple of months ago. 

Lindsey in flip-flopping in sequined footwear.

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, responding to Graham’s pronouncement:

“The poor man lives his entire life trapped in ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ For God’s sakes, I’ve seen Chihuahuas in handbags who are less fretful and shaking.”

Snap.

Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, offering proof that we are a Christian nation:

"You want one single item of proof that America is a Christian nation and not a Jewish nation and not an Islamic nation? One single bit of proof is all you need: we freely allow restaurants and grocery stores to sell and to serve bacon. That can only happen in a Christian country. So the sheer fact that we freely allow the sale and consumption of bacon is absolute proof that we are, in fact, a Christian nation."

Hmmm, or it could mean we’re an atheist or agnostic nation, but Fischer won’t ever say that.

But seriously folks, this man has said some of the most ridiculous, inane, moronic, stupid, asshatted things on his little Hate Show, but this one … mother%king bacon … is the most loony tunes thing ever!

Jon Hamm, on social media: 

“This constant recording of your life and updating of your ‘status’ . . . I don’t do that. No event ‘happened’ unless you took a picture of it. Going to a concert or a ballgame, are actual things. But you’re not watching because you’re busy trying to record it so you can tell your friends about it and put it on YouTube. It’s totally meaningless.”

How much fun can you be having when you’re taking a selfie just to show you were “there?”

Howsabout being present? Howsabout acknowledging those around you? Howsabout a few less pictures of what you ate? Where you sat? Or your giant forehead in a selfie?

Dan Savage, on that Tennessee billboard:

"When we bring up God's holy ban on eating shellfish or His loving command to kill your daughter if she isn't a virgin on her wedding night—passages in the Bible that Christians ignore—we're told that those passages are in the Old Testament, silly, so they neither apply nor matter to Christians because Jesus. Leviticus 18:22 goes on to say that men who lie with men as with women should be put to death. (Can't you just feel the love for people, people?) But if someone else were to put up a billboard in Portland proclaiming that all women who aren't virgins on their wedding nights should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)—or that adulterers like Mark Sanford and David Vitter must be put to death (Leviticus 10:10) or that women should be forced to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Basically: It's fair game for them to use the Old Testament to beat up queers, but it's not fair for queers to use that same Old Testament to highlight their hypocrisy.”

As usual, I have nothing to add. Dan’s said it all and really quite nicely.

Sean Hannity, Fox New host, making an incredible leap by saying that arresting NFL star Adrian Peterson for brutally whipping his four year-old son is a slippery slope to banning parents from telling children they shouldn't be gay:

"You guys want to tell parents what they can and cannot do. For example, is it gonna become illegal if a parent teaches kids the politically incorrect view that being gay is not normal? Or that the parent says — whatever the parent wants to teach the kid that you would disagree with? I think we’ve gotten to the point where, if we don’t politically correct our kids, we might as well hand our kids over to the government the day that they’re born and let them raise them."

Let me make this queer for you, Hannity.

For some people, myself included, being gay is perfectly normal, hence being gay is normal, for gay people. Being straight, for me, is not normal; now that doesn’t make being straight abnormal, it just makes it not normal for me, or any number of other gay folks out there.

And when parents talk to their children about what it means to be gay it could be as simple, as normal as this: Some men love women, some men love men. It’s all love, so it’s all normal.

The more difficult explanation would be talking to your kids about why Fox News calls itself a news organization

Now, take a seat.