Dumbfuckery du Jour

A dumbfuckery double-header today, my darlings!

I'm sure a non-inconsiderable number of Virginians are reconsidering their choice in governor just about now:

Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Cuccinelli — who has previously argued “homosexual acts are…intrinsically wrong” — wrote a letter to all of the state’s public colleges and universities:

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

But remember, kids, Bob McDonnell's repressive right-wing religious fanatic thesis was written twenty years ago and shouldn't be used to judge how he'll govern.  His fast-tracked anti-gay agenda is surely just a big ol' coinkydink.

Speaking of anti-gay fuckwits, we have a tremendous two-faced twit living the hypocritical life in sunny California:

"We need to preserve traditional values for the future of our children. Children must be raised with morals and principles. As a society, we must provide them with a secured and loving environment that allows them to flourish."

Those are the words of California state Senator Roy Ashburn, a father of four, quoted in a 2005 press release announcing a rally to support "traditional marriage."

Ashburn, of course, is the senator with the anti-gay record who was reportedly a regular at Sacramento gay clubs. He was picked up for a DUI early Wednesday morning, reportedly with an unidentified man in he car.

 [snip]

Here's a look at the votes of Ashburn, a Republican of Bakersfield:

• In 2006, he voted no on a measure to add material on the contributions of gay Americans who had contributed to the development of California or the United States
• In 2008 he voted against expanding anti-discrimination laws to include sexual discrimination.
• In 2009 he voted against a resolution to oppose Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage ballot question.
• Last September, he voted against recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages.
• That same month Ashburn opposed creating Harvey Milk Day, to honor the slain gay rights icon from San Francisco.

West Sacramento's openly-gay mayor, Christopher Cabaldon, had a few choice words on Facebook a few months ago:

 "It wouldn't bother me so bad to see Roy Ashburn at Badlands with a boy if he didn't have such a bad voting record on gay rights," he wrote.

So, my darlings, we have yet another anti-gay gay Con.  These people are incredibly pathetic.

Bonus dumbfuckery: Senate hopeful Sue Lowden may want to acquaint herself with what Medicare is.  John McCain was for Medicare cuts via reconciliation before he was against them.  Mitt Romney can't figure out if his own health plan is constitutional or not. 

And yet another right wing fucktard commits a terrorist act, and the nation's fucktarded Cons don't suddenly call for military tribunals, warrantless wiretapping, and pants-pissing fear in response.   Interesting, eh?

Given the larger political climate, Matt Yglesias raises an important observation.

[I]t's striking how differently the country behaves when you see a non-Muslim individual attempt or succeed at killing some people based on quasi-political motivations versus when it's a Muslim who does it. And the important thing, I think, is not merely to make a pure hypocrisy argument but to point out that the country's response to non-Muslim killers ranging from Bedell to the IRS plane crasher to the Holocaust Museum shooter is much, much, much better and smarter.

In the wake of an incident involving a non-Muslim we of course look back and try to see if there's any reasonable preventive steps we could have taken to prevent the murders. But wild overreactions and wholesale reconfigurations of the constitution, of US foreign policy, or of daily life are considered off the table by definition. And rightly so!

Quite right. In response to several of these recent incidents, most notably the man who flew an airplane into an Austin office building, the country generally remained quite calm. There was no panic or collective freak-out. The same with yesterday's shooting. No one is running around trying to blame the White House for the violent acts of random lunatics; no one is demanding officials take radical steps to prevent these kinds of unpredictable acts; and no one is proposing sweeping new legislation to show how "serious" they are about isolated incidents like these.

We're all perfectly mature about the whole thing, and accept as a given that tragedies like this will happen from time to time. Politically, the only oddity comes when some right-wing politicians suggest some empathy for the madmen.

So, remember, kiddies: if you plan to shoot up a military installation or fly a plane into a federal building, but want to earn the love of the Cons at the same time, change your name to Billy Bob Jones and remember to post an anti-tax, anti-guvmint screed on a few websites first.  Then you, too, can be hailed as a proud, brave American by America's right wing, rather than causing America's right wing to demand anyone with a funny name like yours get pulled off the street and thrown into Gitmo on the principle of guilt-by-association.