Tagged: dumb

Posted: March 3, 2012 at 7:48 am

We’ve Got a Screamer

Anti-intelligence candidate Jon Arnold has filed for office on the Republican ticket. He says he wants voters to send him “kicking and screaming” to Helena.

I will go kicking and screaming into Helena, pushing our leaders to try to take back our powers that have been restrained from us by the federal government.

I think Arnold is confused about what “going kicking and screaming” means. But that’s no surprise, considering that he’ll tell you straight up: ”intellectuals” are the problem:

We have a despotic, unconstitutional fourth branch of government, comprised of a small army of two million bureaucrats….Many of these people are considered to be “intellectuals.” The problem with intellectuals is that they are not smart enough to know the things that they don’t know. This was the brilliance of our founders.

Well, it is “the brilliance” of Jon Arnold anyway.

It used to be that being smart and getting an education was viewed as important in America. But now, it’s the dumb that we put on a pedestal. And to what do we owe this gift of dumb? Right-wing fundamentalism, both religious and political. We have a Presidential candidate who is worried that Satan is attacking America. Rick Santorum says, in public, that college is all part of Obama’s evil plan to corrupt the nation’s youth.

Arnold further demonstrates his aversion to smart when he asks voters to:

Imagine if ten years from now there is a “sin tax” (such as those for alcohol and tobacco) for the purchase of a cheeseburger…The only protection against such injustices is to not grant the government this power to begin with.

What Arnold doesn’t know is that there is already a gaggle of Montana politicians clamoring for policies that would require a massive food police bureaucracy–at an enormous expense. However, they are all members of his own party. Here is a list of legislators (all Republicans) that signed an op-ed in favor of the idiotic boondoggle. The “evidence” for the claims made in the op-ed comes from TEA Party Republican Tom Burnett’s own blog and “research” paper.

Representatives: Tom Burnett, Janna Taylor, Salomon, Wayne Stahl, Jonathan McNiven, Pat Ingraham, Tom McGillvray, Ken Peterson, Jeff Wellborn, Cary Smith, Jerry O’Neil, Bob Wagner, James Knox, Dan Skattum, Wendy Warburton, David Howard, Jerry Bennett, Jesse O’Hara, Christy Clark, Kris Hansen, Champ Edmunds, Krayton Kerns, Ron Ehli, Mark Blasdel, Doug Kary, Austin Knudsen, Kelly Flynn, Walt McNutt, John Esp, Pat Connell, Matt Rosendale, Cleve Loney, Mike Cuffe

Senators: Debby Barrett, Ed Walker, Ryan Zinke, Bob Lake

Arnold is a Republican candidate Montana Senate District 43, which includes Anaconda and surrounding communities.

Posted: January 27, 2012 at 9:25 pm

Dumb and Dumber

If you want to know why the Montana Republican Empire has been on a sure and steady decline in the last several years, all you need to do is see a few of the GOP’s leading legislators in action, trying to hatch a plot against Schweitzer. For that, read Intelligent Discontent on the Associated Press piece about a peach of an e-mail that made the rounds this week, courtesy of GOP Senators Ed Buttrey and Jim Peterson.

Posted: January 5, 2012 at 7:25 am

Rehberg: Congress Wouldn’t Be So Unpopular If We Couldn’t See What They Were Doing

If people would just stop trying to learn what our elected Congress is up to, we wouldn’t hate them so much.

That’s the message Dennis Rehberg sent in a startlingly candid interview in the Bozeman Chronicle this week. The TEA Party Congressman told the Chronicle that Congress is “not necessarily” dysfunctional. The problem, says Rehberg is “the close scrutiny that’s occurring.” It’s the scrutiny that’s really the cause of Congress’ record low approval ratings.

To be sure, at some point in the interview Rehberg must have realized that he has said this out loud. He quickly ads that this scrutiny can be a good thing. However, he just hopes that our attention to the work of the officials we sent to represent us

“doesn’t destroy government or trust in government because of the constant observation.”

H/t Dump Denny Rehberg Facebook page.

Posted: December 17, 2011 at 9:37 am

Racism, Sexism, and Just Plain Dumb

“We’re NOT Racists”

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Intelligence Report focuses on the recent uptick in extremist activity in Kalispell and the Flathead. In the article “A Gathering of Eagles: Extremists Look to Montana” the SPLC details the activities of the various far-right movements and their leaders, including Chuck Baldwin, who is running for Lt. Governor here. The good quick summary of the Baldwin’s son Timothy Baldwin takes issue with the report on the TEA Party blog PolyMontana, calling it’s reporting a “sinister” conspiracy. Apparently, this blog is a “group” that is somehow involved.

Look here where this SPLC-like group in Montana describes my formation of the institution as, “Right Wing Re-education Camp Opening in the Flathead.” Like SPLC, that “Montana group” did not attempt to contact me about my education program. Their journalism appears as un-credible as SPLC’s, if that’s possible.

He also says he is not a racist and that:

“Some of my closest friends are of African descent. The same can be said of Chuck Baldwin.”

Blame the Messenger

Kudos are due to friend of women Pete Talbot for calling out the idiocy in the comments following the Missoulian’s article on the “3 UM football players allegedly involved in sexual assault on campus.” Comments like the one that attacked the reporter for daring to report on the matter ”on game day” demonstrate why sexual assaults often go unreported.

Interesting how the article or slander or crap or hearsay or what ever was written by a woman…..is that why it was released on game day with no facts or proof?”

Throw Away

More evidence has come to light this week that the GOP has thrown away a major statewide office. It seems they couldn’t even find a candidate for attorney general that knows the disclosure guidelines for campaign materials. Pasted below are screenshots from a recent web ad Republican state legislator Jim Shockely (R-Bitterrooter) ran in the Billings Gazette. The ads, which are missing the legally required party affiliation, can be viewed in their original context on the Gazette website here and here.

He also lacks visible party affiliation on his campaign website (screenshot), so the omission does not appear accidental. Nor does the campaign appear to be active. According to the campaign calendar he just left for Alabama for two weeks.

I’ve written before that the GOP has strangely conceded the AG’s race, as evidenced by the fact that their guy doesn’t even know which way is up. His major contribution to Montana policy in my opinion is getting caught drinking a red beer in his car.

Posted: September 17, 2011 at 8:52 am

Dumb Dumbos

There are many flavors of Republican Dumb. There is Minnesota Republican dumb, meaning Michelle Bachmann.

There is Texas Dumb, meaning George W. and Rick Perry. There is Alaska dumb, a form of Republican Dumb in which the politician actually is proud to be stupid and ignorant. There is Montana dumb, which is when a politician doesn’t appear to expend much effort at informing himself (learning what the minimum wage is, for example) because it interferes with drinking.

Of course not all GOP presidential candidates are stupid, but then again, those that are intelligent, informed and mature of intellect, like a Mitt Romney, will probably not be nominated. Ignorance is something that is flaunted proudly by right-wing politicians, and something that Tea party voters are drawn to. In short, Dumb appears to have recently become almost a prerequisite for advancement in the GOP.

And by the way, there is also Indiana Dumb, which is the original flavor of GOP dumb, given to us by Dan Quayle.

Dan Quayle is the guy who couldn’t spell potato, and who couldn’t come up with an answer, during a vice presidential debate, when asked what he’d do if America were attacked by a foreign enemy. Quayle wrote in his memoir that his failure to be able to spell potato was the fault of a campaign aide, who handed him a flash card (for Quayle to officiate a student spelling bee) that accidentally misspelled the word “p o t a t o e”.

Funny enough, this month, twenty years after that campaign gaffe by Quayle which no doubt got the aide fired, that same campaign aide was hired as the campaign manager by Michelle Bachmann.

The aide is smart: he wants to work for the winner, and so he thus chose to work for a stupid candidate. The odds are with him.

Posted: July 10, 2011 at 9:04 pm

Livingstone Campaign Troubles Continue

I guess this is what happens when you phone in your campaign from inside the beltway.

It’s not a good week for the GOP gubernatorial candidate Neil Livingstone and his campaign. It was revealed this week that his campaign webpage, pictured here with screenshots, uses the State Seal of Montana, in apparent violation of the law

The Secretary of State’s website clearly states:

State Seal Not For Political Campaigning

Candidates should not use the Montana state seal on campaign literature.

One element of the Secretary of State’s job is to serve as keeper of the Great Seal of the State of Montana. The office grants permission for organizations or individuals who want to use the seal on materials. That permission is typically not given for political campaigns because it would imply that a campaign already had the endorsement of the people of Montana.

It doesn’t end there, it appears that the campaign RV Livingstone and running mate Ryan Zinke plan to use has already been in an accident.

Posted: June 2, 2011 at 1:14 pm

GOP Director on KKK: We haven’t supported them for 9 years

Montanans across the state of all political stripes will be relieved to learn that the Montana Republican Party has a “nine-year record of not supporting anyone who is affiliated with the KKK.” That’s impressive!

Bowen Greenwood, executive director of the Montana Republican Party used some oddly specific language to discredit the latest KKK-er to file as a Republican for office, John Abarr, with this statement:

“We have a nine-year record of not supporting anyone who is affiliated with the KKK,” he told the Daily News. “He first tried this nine years ago. We didn’t support him then, and we do not support him now.”

Maybe Montana GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood means Republicans stopped supporting the KKK nine years ago. Anyway, I’m not sure how long the MT GOP has been around for, but don’t you think they deserve a little credit for the last nine years? I mean 2002 was such a long time ago.

Of course, this isn’t the first white supremacist that has run in Montana on the GOP ticket. Last time this happened was in 2006. The GOP Chair at the time claimed he didn’t know the man was running.

Why are bigots so attracted to the Republican party? I mean the R’s can’t seem to beat them away with a stick. D. Gregory Smith has an interesting analysis over at the excellent blog, From Eternity to Here.