Tagged: moron

Posted: July 10, 2012 at 8:08 am

TEA Bagger Ramps Up His Crusade to Create Massive Food Police Bureacracy

Using his signature method of anecdotes and unsupported claims, Rep. Burnett (R-Bozeman) is ramping up his crusade for a massive food police bureaucracy to restrict food to needy children.

The Montana TEA Party legislator stated in a Wisconsin newspaper this week that we shouldn’t be helping needy kids who don’t get school lunch because school is out–in spite of the increase in hungry kids seeking food in the last five years.

As the Green Bay Press Gazette reports:

But some, like Montana legislator Tom Burnett, think the numbers are inflated. He argues that the spike in summer food program growth comes from a “relaxing of restrictions” that is allowing students of any income bracket to receive a free lunch.“One of my daughters went to a park with her friend where food was served, and the friend ran up and got a free lunch no problem,” said Burnett, a Republican

Burnett’s statement to a Wisconsin paper makes it clear that he appears to be the one person in the U.S. willing speak out publicly against feeding hungry kids. Apparently no one in Wisconsin was willing to sign their name to such a ludicrous statement.

Perhaps he believes that a team of bureaucrats at summer food sites and making kids carry around their parents proof of income statements is what is called for. Maybe the kids of low-income people should be tattooed with a mark so that we can make sure no friend of a poor child gets a baggie of carrots and a turkey sandwich. Perhaps he doesn’t understand that the cost of creating such a system is astronomical compared to a few pieces of bread that were shared with a friend or dropped on accident.

Burnett has penned bizarre 53-page treatise in favor of massive federal food police bureaucracy to crack down on the poor to stop them from getting food that Burnett feels they don’t deserve. In “Hunger in America: The Myth [word doc].” Burnett writes that hunger doesn’t exist because he hasn’t seen it:

No advocates parade a line of emaciated children at any school or playground. They just can’t be found.

But that’s not the only reason Representative Burnett has come to the conclusion that no one is really going hungry. He also bases his case on…wait for it…pictures of fat people he found on the Internet (see right), which he includes in his article as “evidence.”

In addition to claiming that hunger doesn’t exist. He also sanely tells us that not being hungry “kills,”

Hunger is a normal part of a healthy person’s day. One should expect to be hungry six hours per day, the two hours preceding each meal. Satiety kills.

Those in need, says Burnett are characterized by “Indolence. Shirking responsibility. Indulgence. Enabled laziness.”

They don’t budget or plan. Lack of foresight is common in this population. They don’t restrain their impulses, one of the definitions of management problems. They don’t discipline themselves to stay in school, to turn in their homework, to get out of bed on time, to study when they’d rather watch movies.

Republicans in Congress and the Montana Legislature have made several recent attempts slash the budget for help for hungry kids.

Posted: May 21, 2012 at 12:11 pm

TEA Party Republican Embarrasses Montana in the Wall Street Journal

TEA Party Republican legislator Tom Burnett has a letter in the Wall Street Journal last week calling for slashing school food for poor and hungry children.

Burnett’s letter comes in the wake of calls to reverse Congress’s idiotic declaration that pizza counts as a vegetable. Rep. Tom Burnett, of Bozeman, argues that instead of improving school nutrition, he has “a better reform.” Burnett wants to reduce the food assistance given to poor kids to help them afford school meals.

“To be practical, reforms must re-examine the over-abundance of food offered to children, not just nutritional quality. Too much food, too often, harms.”

For some kids, meals at school are the only food they get.

The Wall Street Journal letter is a follow-up to the bizarre 53-page treatise Burnett penned recently to convince others of his belief that we should cut food for needy kids. In “Hunger in America: The Myth [PDF].” Burnett writes that hunger doesn’t exist because he hasn’t seen it:

No advocates parade a line of emaciated children at any school or playground. They just can’t be found.

In addition to claiming that hunger doesn’t exist. He also sanely tells us that not being hungry “kills,”

Hunger is a normal part of a healthy person’s day. One should expect to be hungry six hours per day, the two hours preceding each meal. Satiety kills.

In the treatise, Burnett proposed to create a massive federal food police bureaucracy to crack down on the poor to stop them from buying items that Burnett feels they don’t deserve. Those in need, says Burnett are characterized by “Indolence. Shirking responsibility. Indulgence. Enabled laziness.”

They don’t budget or plan. Lack of foresight is common in this population. They don’t restrain their impulses, one of the definitions of management problems. They don’t discipline themselves to stay in school, to turn in their homework, to get out of bed on time, to study when they’d rather watch movies.

Republicans in Congress and the Montana Legislature have made several recent attempts slash the budget for help for hungry kids.

Posted: May 17, 2012 at 7:48 am

TEA Partier Refuses to Let Facts Stop Angry Tirade

A 29-year-old hothead, a wannabe Tea Party politician named Scott Aspenlieder (pronounced Aspen-lighter), was caught in the embarrasing position of being on the wrong side of the facts this week. Scott launched an angry tirade accusing Secretary Linda McCulloch of being behind a Broadwater County precinct’s ballot glitch.

However, the Great Falls Tribune reported hat Scott is wrong:

Broadwater County election officer Rhonda Nelson said the error on the 11th precinct ballot was between her office and the private contractor who printed and mailed the ballots.

“There was no state involvement in this error,” Nelson said. “There was nothing that the state should have done or could have done differently. The error was entirely between the software company and my office.”

Scott refused to acknowledge he’d gotten it wrong, which shows he doesn’t even know how the office he’s running for works. County election officers are responsible for printing ballots.

Scott began his campaign by insulting teachers. He declared that Linda McCulloch, the current Secretary of State (SOS), is a “lifelong bureaucrat” and for that reason is not qualified to be SOS. McCulloch is a lifelong teacher, so Aspenlieder has now brought the national GOP war on teachers to Montana, by calling teachers “bureaucrats.”

Scott opposes mail ballots–perhaps because the allow more people to vote. In voicing his opposition to the practice he even insulted rural communities. He railed on a vote-by-mail proposal that McCulloch voiced support for (she supported it because it would have saved the state two million dollars annually.)

Scott stated that:

“voting is about all these rural communities have left.”

In other words, Scott thinks rural folk need the diversion thay a trip to the polls provides, since they have nothing else in their lives.

The glitch impacted 125 ballots. All the voters are being notified by phone of the error and sent new ballots.

Posted: May 15, 2012 at 8:42 pm

The Jesus Factor

Bowen Greenwood, the head of the Montana GOP, emailed party faithful that he will be running as a write-in candidate for clerk of the Supreme Court this fall.

In the email, Greenwood wrote:

I am first and foremost a follower and friend of a guy named Jesus of Nazareth. Nothing else even comes close.

Aware that his missive would be picked up and transmitted around, Greenwood clearly is keen on sending a message to the holy rollers in his party that he is One Of Them.

As this relates to the governor’s race, it’s been previously assumed that Greenwood is not a Rick Hill supporter, because of Hill’s lack of right-wing bona fides, Greenwood’s appearance in a Ken Miller video, and Greenwood’s support of Rick Santorum. I would say the email supports the notion that Greenwood likes the Miller candidacy.

And recently Miller has become more direct, himself, about highlighting his own status as “A Christian,” on his website and in debates.

Greenwood might also be worried about a religious insurrection within his party, and wants to appear to be a religious nut so that he can keep his job when the wheels come off in November. Right now the Montana GOP is run mostly by Helena insiders, but is staring at the real possibility of twelve straight years of Democratic control of the Governor’s office and 16 straight years controlling the Attorney General’s office and Land Board. If this comes true in November, there will be a Republican Revolution, but not the kind that the GOP enjoys celebrating, unless you happen to be one of the ecstatic rioting Tea Partiers holding the pitchfork that is hoisting the asses of Greenwood and Will Deschamp, the Party Chairman).

And there is another more subtle thing going on here.

Right-wingers have been led into a self-reinforcing delusion, ever since McCain lost to Obama, that if a moderate Republican candidate loses an election it’s because the candidate made the mistake of trying to appeal to independent voters. Be a true right-wing conservative and you will always win, say Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to their daily audiences of twenty million foaming, gullible ignoramuses.

This thinking allows right-wing leaders and shouters to have their cake and eat it. They can say “I told you so” if and when candidates like Mitt Romney or Rick Hill get defeated. And the purveyors of this Theory of Conservative Purity themselves become more relevant in the off-season. Their followers, meanwhile, can take solace in the fact that arch conservatism is The Way, and that Republicans can only lose elections for failing to follow The Way. This is exactly the bed that has been made for Mitt Romney, by Santorum and Gingrich, Beck and Limbaugh. When Romney loses, they’ll say its because a false conservative, not a true one, was nominated.

For a Party activist like Greenwood, this delusion has a more practical application: it sets up a good position from which to dump on a GOP candidate who loses.

It’s an easy out. For when Rick Hill loses (and he will be the nominee, and will lose to Bullock), Greenwood will signal to the base of his party, “I told you so.” This, even though Ken Miller would himself strand no real chance of winning a general election. But how could this be disproven if Miller never gets the nomination? It can’t, and that’s the beauty of it.

The entire Greenwood email is pasted below the fold.

Continue reading →

Posted: March 22, 2012 at 8:55 pm

TEA Party Legislator: Birth Control is “Death Nail in Coffin of our Republic”

Eric Olsen, Krayton Kearns (center) and Dennis Rehberg — TEA Partiers huddle at a GOP event, perhaps to discuss how glad they are that few women are present. Pictured are Eric Olsen, Krayton Kerns (center) and Dennis Rehberg

The folks at the Western Ag Reporter understand that what goes on inside the mind of TEA Party Republican Rep. Krayton Kerns is important. So important, in fact, that his words merited front page real estate in the last edition of the paper. This way, we can all get a peek at how a mind of this caliber thinks. (Hint, it barely does.)

More than anything, Krayton Kerns is angry.

He’s angry that Sandra Fluke dared to say that birth control was $1000 per year, a great expense for many.

Krayton’s idea of illustrating how angry we should be about Fluke’s statement is to wax nostalgic about his own life experiences. He tells us of a dog he knew in vet school that earned that amount each month in stud fees.

Krayton Kerns is angry because he believes that birth control is the “death nail in the coffin of our Republic.” And, he’s angry because he believes that it was Mitt Romney who made birth control the focus of the 2012 elections. Now, because of this, Krayton Kerns says the conservatives are “screwed.”

A PDF of the entire piece can be read here. WARNING: Reading his column means losing four minutes of your life you can never get back.

Posted: February 29, 2012 at 12:06 pm

Rick Hill Adopts Montana Democratic Party Mission Statement

GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Rick Hill recently announced that his campaign vision will be: “Moving Montana Forward.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because it has been the slogan of the Montana Democratic Party for many years.

Rick Hill sent an email out to supporters announcing “Moving Montana Forward” as his vision statement. He put out a video with that title and theme. A visit to Rick Hill’s website also greets visitors with the words.

You’d think a man of Hill’s stature would be less clueless. Lifting the the Democratic Party’s exact messages is not going to help him win a GOP primary nomination–especially in a primary where the attacks aimed at Hill come mostly from the right.

From 2004-2008, Moving Montana Forward was the official mission statement and slogan of the Montana Democratic Party. The Democrats included this message in everything they put out–including a bazillion pieces mail, radio spots, and television ads. ”Moving Montana Forward” was the theme of the 2011 Democratic Party Convention. The largest and most organized local county Democratic central committees use the mission statement on their websites–including the local dems in Hill’s own turf.

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 6, 2011 at 8:59 pm

The Economy’s Stumbling Block(head)

Montana TEA Party Congressman Dennis Rehberg is the stumbling block that is threatening to sink another budget and risk a government shutdown–putting the entire U.S. economy on uncertain ground.

The Hill is reporting on the latest efforts in Congress to pass the year’s funding bills and avoid a government shutdown. But Congressman Dennis Rehberg can’t even be counted on to sit at the negotiating table:

“One aide said Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), the lead GOP Labor bill negotiator, is running for a Senate seat and cannot be seen as compromising with Democrats.”

Recall that he has already failed to pass the labor bill he is responsible for as a subcommittee chairman. Instead, Congressman Rehberg only managed to piece together a controversial “draft” proposal in secret.

That Rehberg is saying he can’t even be “seen” as compromising is just the beginning. Rehberg’s “draft” has numerous other problems. As The Hill reported last week, one aide said that, “The bill has so many cultural issues packed into it” that it is bogging down the whole budget.

Rehberg isn’t just larding his draft budget proposal with this crap–he’s gone culture warrior all over the place. As the head of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana explains in a guest editorial in the Missoulian:

“After the 2010 elections, the new wave of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives pledged to focus on our country’s critical challenge: creating jobs. Instead of living up to this promise, the House has launched a War on Women, passing seven bills attacking women’s reproductive rights. In fact, the House has held the highest number of votes on choice-related issues since 2000.

…

“Rehberg also injected anti-abortion politics into an agriculture bill by supporting an amendment that could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing. This ban would apply even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care. Rehberg is calling for an abortion-only version of Skype. This restriction is impractical, ridiculous and, most importantly, would take away the ability of some women in rural or remote areas to discuss the full set of options with their doctor.”

If he hasn’t figured out by now that he’s supposed to be working on jobs, not some backwoods culture war (and its obvious he hasn’t) Rehberg is no use to Montana in Congress. He’s proven to be more of a hindrance than anything else.