Wayne, I’ll take your Pat Robertson wondering if macaroni and cheese is a “black thing” and raise you Captain Oxycontin calling the First Lady of the United States of America “uppity.” If you don’t want to listen to his gaping maw for eleven minutes, skip ahead and start at 7:00 or so. It’s a pretty epic whine, though.

Oh, but his moron white supremacist fans will continue to swear up and down that he’s not a racist!

[h/t Joe/photo credit: UPI]

Presented without comment:

The Politico and the mainstream media has launched an unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack on an independent, self-reliant conservative black because for him that behavior is not allowed. Now, if we had…

I want to look at a couple things today from a different perspective. What would the left be doing right now if, let’s say, there were an assault on Obama of this nature. Let’s say that some conservative publication ran a story exactly like this: Unnamed sources, 15 years ago, with every detail of Obama sexual harassment. What would the Democrat national committee and what would the media be doing? They would be going after the women. They would be targeting these women, and they would name names, and they would destroy them. That is what the Democrats and the media would do. They would set out to find out who these women are that talked to the conservative publication and they would destroy them.

They would call these women racists for trying to destroy a black politician. They would claim that they’re working for the Republican National Committee. They would claim that these two women (or these women, whoever), had been hired by the Republican National Committee to engage in this smear and lie campaign against Obama. They would go after these women. They would destroy them. They would make the women the bad guys. They would dig into every minor thing in these women’s lives that they have ever done. They would trash them, they would make them prove the unprovable — because this is war, and that’s how they fight it. Anything goes, as far as they’re concerned, and they cannot allow a black or an Hispanic to rise to the top of a political establishment that is not Democrat.

[via the dumbest person on the internet]

Rush Limbaugh responded to accusations that hateful right-wing rhetoric was responsible for the carnage in Arizona. His inflammatory quote on the topic is indicative of why we should restore the Fairness Doctrine that would require genuine balance for broadcasters. Thugs like Limbaugh are grossly irresponsible and undeserving of a microphone. The cumulative affect of Limbaugh’s ugly rants is a divided America that pits neighbors against each other. Here is Limbaugh’s divisive, politicized response to accusations that his show leads to potential violence:

“What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He’s sitting there in jail; he knows what’s going on. He knows that a Democrat [sic] Party — the Democrat [sic] Party — is attempting to find anybody but him to blame.

“He knows if he plays his cards right that he’s just a ‘victim.’ He’s the latest in a never ending parade of victims brought about by the ‘unfairness of America.’ The ‘bigotry, racism, homophobia’ of America. The ‘mean-spiritedness of America.’ [...]

“That smiling mugshot — this guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention, and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything they can to make sure he’s not convicted of murder.”

Likewise, Sarah Palin circles the wagons and offered a blistering video critique of critics:

“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” she says in the seven-minute web video. “They begin and end with the criminals who commit them. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, she says, “journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

As usual, Sarah is just flat out wrong and has little understanding of history. Incidents like the one in Arizona may end with the criminal who commits the crime, but they usually begin with propagandists who use irresponsible rhetoric to incite those who are unstable. Nearly every mass slaughter, eliminationist campaign, or genocide was a deadly consequence of rhetoric that demonized an outside group.

The way that these political and media personalities talk about liberals, gay people, Muslims, immigrants, college professors etc., invites harassment, intimidation and violence. It creates unnecessary anger and causes our great political system to become unstable.

No informed person of good conscience — Republican or Democrat — can honestly say that Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and others of their ilk have been good for America. They have made this once secure nation a place that is bitterly divided and the result is a weaker country that is sliding from greatness.

The question is — what is the end game for Palin and Limbaugh? Unless they want to lead an armed insurrection to overthrow of the U.S. government, they should immediately end their chest-thumping gun talk, and trashing of federal workers. Because they are creating a hostile and deadly climate. At worst they are responsible for actual deaths, at best they are to be blamed for diminishing America’s strength that is rooted in unity.

Unfortunately, both Limbaugh and Palin appear to be badly damaged individuals incapable of introspection, personal responsibility or examining how their rhetoric impacts society. As a result of their arrogance and denial, there will be additional bloodshed in the future with innocent men, women and children losing their lives.

Poltico has a good background story on how Elton John ended up crooning at Limbaugh’s 100th wedding.

John’s other project — crooning with rapper Eminem may have paid off, after all. In a New York Times interview, he expresses his support for marriage equality.

You’ve been accused of writing gay-bashing lyrics in the past. Would you like to see gay marriage approved in Michigan, where you live?
I think if two people love each other, then what the hell? I think that everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable, if they want.

So, maybe John will have the same magical effect on Rush? If he does, we should have him take over the LGBT movement and just have him tour anti-gay events, winning over one homophobe at a time. Before you know it, they will all be singing (or rapping) our tune.

Wow. Joe Jervis:

Yesterday it was learned that the wedding of Rush Limbaugh was officiated by rabid homophobe Pastor Ken Hutcherson. Among Hutcherson’s many anti-gay activities: Leading a walkout of public schools in opposition to the Day Of Silence, attempting a Microsoft shareholder revolt to overturn the company’s protections of gay employees, fighting the Matthew Shepard Act, supporting the “ex-gay movement, and campaigning against Washington state’s Referendum 71.

Hutcherson is one of the most clearly insane figures on the right, and he’s tied in snugly with Scott Lively, through the SPLC-certified hate group Watchmen on the Walls. When it was reported that Elton John sang and played at the wedding for a million dollar paycheck, I remarked that Elton John has obviously decided that principles are highly overrated, but I wasn’t all that surprised by the news that Rush had hired him. My read on Rush Limbaugh (and figures like him) tends to be that they really only believe about 30% of what they say, but that they’ve found an extremely profitable business model in fanning the flames of rage among the dumbest, most fearful people in American society. I still do largely believe that. But to associate with someone like Ken Hutcherson, who’s essentially persona non grata in all but the most fringe quarters of the Christian church, sinks Rush Limbaugh to a new low.

Principles are overrated, aren’t they, Sir Elton?

Of course, that report says that Elton John is being paid over a million dollars to perform, and since he doesn’t need the money, I could think of a bunch of great LGBT charities and organizations which could put that money to good use.

David Badash compiled a helpful list a while back of the most homophobic things Rush Limbaugh has ever said to the early bird buffet gluttons who listen to him every day, in case you’ve been living on Mars and need to be reminded what a bigot he is.

Man, and I was sure it was our fault again!

According to Rush Limbaugh, though, God is making the Iceland volcano go boom in response to something else entirely:

You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law Obama ran around all over the country saying, “Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. There’ no Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.” I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes ‚Äî airspace has more affected ‚Äî than even after 9/11 because of this plume, because of this ash cloud over Northern and Western Europe. At the Paris airport they’re telling people to head to the train station to catch trains out of France, and when people get to the train station they’re telling people, “There aren’t any seats until at least April 22nd,” basically a week from now. It’ got everybody in a shutdown. Earth has opened up. I don’t know whether it’ a rebirth or Armageddon. Hopefully it’ a rebirth, God speaking.

What this tells us is that whatever god Rush Limbaugh worships is stone cold dumb, which is appropriate, considering.

Limbaugh’s followers are so easily led that they experience no cognitive dissonance when he says, as Blue Texan put it, that “God is punishing Europe because the US passed Mitt Romney’s health care plan.”

Amazing.

(h/t Think Progress)

In a rant about President Obama, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh sarcastically said he wanted to thank the president for “appointing a pervert to serve as the safe schools czar.”

Limbaugh was referring to former GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings. Oddly, this was part of a fiery monologue on how the right wing was not extreme. Thanks for proving the point of your critics, Mr. Limbaugh.

Oh, how I love him:

Today I listened to Michael Medved and some moron from a “Religious Liberty” think-tank flipping out about the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Their thesis was that forcing God-fearing, 1000% straight men like themselves to share locker rooms and barracks with gay men will mean the end of civilization, presumably because all that uncorrupted religious straight-dude flesh will be too much of a temptation for gay soldiers ‚Äî who naturally will have enlisted for deadly dangerous combat in stinking Middle Eastern hell-holes just to get a glimpse of toothless Christian boys from Arkansas naked. These megachurch-bred anti-gay advocates with their visceral terror about the end of the closet, sure that liberated gay men by the hundreds will be lying in wait to rape them the instant the shower-nozzles turn on … I mean, the amount of projection going on is so obvious, it’ almost laughable.

(Quote comes as an aside in a longer rant about Rush Limbaugh’s comments that, if New York Governor David Paterson appoints the replacement for Big Gay Groper Eric Massa, it will be the first time Paterson himself is a “massa.” But don’t call Rush racist, you guys! And by all means, if you have Republican family members/coworkers who think that’s funny, don’t call them on it, because they’ll just start telling you how much they didn’t mind it when a black family lived near them.)

I posted earlier on Pat Robertson’s imbecilic suggestion that the Haitian earthquake, as well as their other day-to-day trials and tribulations, were the result of “God” placing a “curse” on the Haitian people for “making a deal with the devil.” Moments ago, the Haitian ambassador to the United States appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show and gave Pat Robertson a piece of his mind, as well as a history lesson.

If the video won’t play (as is so often the case with MSNBC videos), click here to watch it.

I wonder if, on whatever planet he lives, Pat Robertson finds himself regretting what he said, or if he’s so far gone that he doesn’t understand what all the kerfuffle is about.

UPDATE: Keith Olbermann did some piling on of his own tonight, directed at Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, who (quelle surprise) said something equally as godawful about the situation in Haiti. Let Keith explain: