My relationship with the Boy Scouts of America was not the most pleasant. I was an oddity, to be sure. I think I was at one time the only—only—second class scout to be a patrol leader. Second class. For those who may not have been through the quasi-military organization, the…
The scene is the Springfield Missouri City Council, where the Council debated whether to pass a new rule adding LGBT people to those people protected from discrimination. the following video features an impassioned speech against homosexuals with a twist toward the end:
The Atlantic has one of the better freak show stories in recent times: The KKK is working to distance itself from Westboro Baptist Church.
William K. Black is spot on in his analysis of Mitt Romney, the candidate of America's Social Darwinist Party (aka the Republican Party):
Romney's initial non-apology for his dismissal of the 47 percent claimed that he was not "elegant" in his statements, but that is a deliberate effort to divert our attention from the real point. His consignment of nearly half of all Americans to the trash heap was deliberately crude because his fellow plutocrats love the crudeness of his dismissal of those they see as immoral moochers. His speech demonstrated perfect pitch for his audience because his plutocratic peers are the only Americans who Romney knows and understands.
At "The League of Ordinary Gentlemen," Tod Kelly reports on what he heard at the Values Voter Summit. This is pretty amazing stuff. It would be difficult to make up things this bizarre. Here's an example:
The greatest challenge to our security and our Constitution we face in the 21st century is gay soldiers being able to marry. (Steven King, US Rep-Iowa)Kelly's bonus observation was quite interesting to me:
Friday morning before Paul Ryan came out, they showed a video presentation honoring the Heritage Foundation. The video ended with stills of famous conservatives that had worked with the foundation, and each got a different level of applause by the audience, based on how popular the pictured conservative was. Not surprisingly, the picture of Paul Ryan got the loudest. The next biggest cheers went to a picture of Limbaugh, followed by one of Hannity, and right behind him was George W. Bush. One of the pictures that got the least, shockingly, was the picture of Reagan, who got what might be called a polite, golf-clap smattering. This may have been the most surprising moment of the conference for me.I do think we have gotten to the point where Ronald Reagan is far to liberal for the leaders of today's Republican Party.