That’s how Republican Presidential contender Rick Santorum parsed the news about today’s gay rights victory in California on Twitter.
Predictably, the reaction was withering to say the least. A selection can be seen on Wonkette.
But getting spanked on Twitter is one thing. In the real world, tonight, Santorum’s Christionist bigotry will be rewarded by overwhelming victories in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota by GOP voters!
About the nicest thing I can think of to say about Rick Santorum—besides “Hey, schnazzy sweater vest ya got there, honky!”—is ... absolutely nothing.
Below, Rick Santorum gets a not-so-warm reception in New Hampshire… and these are Republican college students booing him!
[The title is not a joke, but you’ll have to bear with me…]
You’d think that as the parent of a child with a rare genetic disorder, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum would have deep empathy for a fellow parent of a child with a rare genetic disorder—or if he was a true Christian as he claims to be, even support universal healthcare for everyone’s children—but… NOPE!
Tuesday, speaking to a crowd of more than 400 people in Woodland Park, Colorado, Santorum told this woman that free market capitalism should set prices for drugs, whether she could afford it for her kid or not. Via Crooks and Liars:
“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” the candidate explained. “But paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”
The mother replied that she could not afford her son’s medication, Abilify, which can cost as much as $1 million a year without health insurance.
“Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs,” Santorum insisted. “But the bottom line is, we have to give companies the incentive to make those drugs. And if they don’t have the incentive to make those drugs, your son won’t be alive and lots of other people in this country won’t be alive.”
“He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” the candidate continued. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t.”
How’s about when it comes to healthcare, we don’t believe that free markets are the way to go? It’s as if the thought that there might be ANY other way of doing it never even entered this asshole’s mind or like he was prevented from grokking it by some sort of alien brain structure Republicans have that rejects common sense.
It’s painful to watch, but at the heart of this exchange is something that I think more and more American women—including, yes, even some Christian, conservative women—are going to realize as this election cycle goes on: Republican policies are bad for America’s children.
They don’t want universal healthcare. They’ve got health insurance for their families, so fuck yours.
They don’t want to pay for public schools. Their kids go to private schools, so fuck yours.
How much more obvious can they get before even the most brain-damaged Fox News viewer finally picks up on the fact that this country is going to Hell in a handbasket if the GOP is allowed to gut spending on healthcare, education, infrastructure and social services any more than the cowardly Democrats have already allowed them to. It’s getting obvious that America is becoming a meaner, shittier place to live and raise a family. The Republicans don’t care about the environment, woman’s health matters, the unemployed… What won’t they attack?
Despite what this pious hypocrite seem to believe, where does it say in the Bible that Rick Santorum’s kids should have the best medical care money can buy, but your kids..? Uh, sorry Charlie, that’s just the way the fucking free market works.
There are winners and losers in life and in Capitalism, so buck up, America! It’s God’s will that your kid died, even if you don’t believe in God!
If you ask me, one of the greatest untapped political forces that this country could ever see would be a movement comprised of mothers who know in their hearts that this country is engaging in a race straight to the bottom when men like Rick Santorum have the loudest voices in our society. An informed mother’s movement that knows exactly who (they do have names, addresses and Social Security numbers, of course) were responsible for flushing the future of America’s children down the toilet, would be a deadly Leviathan to the Republican Party and scare the shit out of the goddamned Democrats, too.
I’m a man, so forgive me for saying so, but I do feel strongly that right now is an appropriate historical moment and opportunity to redefine and expand upon the definition of what “Feminism” means for a new century’s evolutionary needs. I’m not saying that motherhood per se would be the necessary requirement, but I am suggesting that it might be the right time for a “new” kind of woman’s movement, not exactly Lysistrata but something along those lines.
Imagine, if you will, how a female politician would have answered that woman’s question in Colorado on Tuesday. This country would be a lot better off if more smart, progressive women would start running for state, local and national elections, because idiots like Rick Santorum are never going to change anything for the better, as he ably demonstrated in the way he answered this question. He should be ashamed to admit to such thoughts in public and yet this bozo thinks he should be elected President saying them aloud with a microphone in front of his face! It’s astonishing how misguided this chump is.
Last week in Idaho Rick Santorum made the following statement regarding welfare:
“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
According to the latest statistics, 39% of welfare recipients are white, 37% are black, 17% are Hispanic. It seems Santorum is oblivious to just how all-pervasive the problem of poverty is in the USA. Promoting the notion that welfare is a black problem plays into old and dangerous racial stereotypes. And as a white guy, I want a President who recognizes that we’re all in this together. Right now, poverty is the new Rainbow Coalition.
But even worse than Santorum’s idiotic comment, was his pathetic attempt to worm out of it. When asked about it by the news media, Santorum defended himself by saying he didn’t say “black,” he said “bluh.” Yeah, “bluh.” This racist twit doesn’t even have the courage of his convictions.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s cut to the chase. In this video, Santorum is confronted by a young black man concerned about Santorum’s racially charged statement. In Santorum’s response there exists something so bizarre that I’ve sought out the help of Dangerous Minds’ readers and their discerning ears. Does Santorum make the astounding claim that he has the “endorsement of the Black Panthers of Philadelphia” in this video?
I present the original video as posted on Youtube followed by my audio-enhanced and slowed down version.
What do you think?
Will Rick be accessorizing that groovy sweater vest with a black beret and a “free Mumia” button? How about a Rick Santorum/Angela Davis ticket?
In an interview with FirstThings.com, far-right Republican presidential hopeful Rick “frothy mixture” Santorm, that dogged dim-wit from Pennsylvania, reveals that he “feels sorry” for those who hate him… because hey, they’re goin’ to Hell:
RS: One of the things that I really work hard and try to do when it comes to the attacks that we get is understand that number one, these people don’t know me. They know the positions that I hold or they know at least the representation by some of the media as to the positions I hold and what I say. But they certainly don’t know who I am. And so the viciousness and the nastiness which unfortunately is so much a part of politics in America today, it has come over time not to bother me in the least. In fact, the more vitriol I see, and unfortunately I see probably more than my fair share, I tend to feel sorry for people who do that, who are so filled with hate and just seem to be preoccupied with this venomous need to lash out at those with whom they disagree. I make it a point every day to pray for all those people who say the things that they say and try to make sure that I understand it. There is a great line — actually, more than a line — from St. Thomas More who was asked by his daughter when he was in the Tower of London shortly before he was executed how he could have such equanimity towards his detractors and toward those who wanted to kill him.
GT: Yes.
RS: He drew a rather beautiful explanation, as you said, of having one foot in this world and another in the next, looking at ultimately what was going to happen to the people who were his prosecutors. He said, “Well, either they are right, and I am wrong. And if that’s the case, then why should I hate them because they were right and I was wrong. Or if I was right and they were wrong, then one of two things. That they will repent and they will be my brothers in heaven and so why should I think ill of them now just because right now they are doing things that are wrong. Or they will not repent and they will be damned to eternal damnation and what kind of man am I that would hate someone who is to be pitied as such?” And so, that’s sort of the way I look at it.
Rick, you’re just a fucking idiot. That hard-to-deny fact has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not anyone goes to Hell. People who hate you, Rick, hate you for the right reasons, such as you are a vile, outspoken homophobe, a science-denying ignoramus, a cretinous buffoon and a complete jackass. That’s why you lost your Senate seat by an 18 point margin. You have just about ZERO chance of being president of anything, Rick, because no one likes you, asshole.
You gotta hand it to him, Rick Santorum, that wacky wingnut Republican no-hoper presidential candidate, a man with even less of a chance of gaining the GOP nomination than, say, Newt Gingrich (or any of the rest of them for that matter), just won’t give up. Despite the fact that NO ONE, I mean NO ONE thinks he’s got a snowball’s chance in hot hot Hades of gaining traction with, you know, actual voters, Rick’s out there, fighting the good fight… or something. It’s hard to say what he’s really doing or what he thinks he’s accomplishing.
Could there be a less-inspiring, less-intelligent, less-attractive candidate than Rick Santorum? Of course there could be, never count out the GOP when it comes to scraping the bottom of the loony bin, but the odds are against a lesser contender turning up in this election cycle. Even Ron or Rand Paul have better chances of moving into the White House than Santorum—effectively none, of course—and yet like a buffoonish Energerizer Bunny, he just keeps on going. BUT WHY? WHO is urging him to run? What kind of people shows up at his campaign events? What’s his motivation to run for President in spite of overwhelming indifference?
Who the fuck knows? Michele Bachmann probably even thinks Santorum is a pinhead. What alternate conclusion could anyone, even a Republican, come to when faced with a statement like this one:
“The social security system in my opinion is a flawed design, period. But, having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends. … The reason social security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.”
Santorum’s problem got its start back in 2003, when the then-senator from Pennsylvania compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia, saying the “definition of marriage” has never included “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.” The ensuing controversy prompted syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, who’s gay, to start a contest, soliciting reader suggestions for slang terms to “memorialize the scandal.” The winner came up with the “frothy mixture” idea, Savage launched a website, and a meme was born. Even though mainstream news outlets would never link to it, Savage’s site rose in the Google rankings, thanks in part to bloggers who posted Santorum-related news on the site or linked to it from their blogs. Eventually it eclipsed Santorum’s own campaign site in search results; some observers even suggested it may have contributed to Santorum’s crushing 18-point defeat in his 2006 campaign against Bob Casey
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Bad luck for Santorum, who seems to be making plans to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 (dream on buddy), here’s another link to SpeadingSantorum.com. Please help spread around a lil’ more Santorum yourself, won’t you, by posting this to your Facebook page and Twitter?
