Don’t worry . . . this doctor is not a real representative, he just plays one at tea parties. Meet Dr. Michael Burgess, OB/Gyn, author* and US Representative (R-TX) from the Loon Star State. Dr Burgess has served in the House since 2002, chairing the Congressional Health Care caucus, of which he is the only official member, and serving in the House TEA Party Caucus.
Recently, Dr Burgess has grabbed our attention during the House Republicans’ most recent sortie in its War on Women, with his rather prurient, if unscientific, theory that male fetuses spend a good bit of time “spanking the monkey” while in the womb.
[*Burgess, Michael (2011). Doctor in the House: A Physician-Turned-Congressman Offers His Prescription for Scrapping Obamacare – and Saving America’s Medical System. Midpoint Trade Books. ISBN 978-1-936488-25-4. Retrieved 2011-11-16.]
Dr Burgess presented his theory during a House Rules committee debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy:
“This is a subject that I do know something about,” Burgess said, citing his experience as an OB/GYN. “There is no question in my mind that a baby at 20-weeks after conception can feel pain. The fact of the matter is, I argue with the chairman because I thought the date was far too late. We should be setting this at 15-weeks, 16-weeks.”
“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he continued. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?”
Apparently, some of the “values” of the Party of Family Values need a little re-tooling. How else to interpret the fact that, in one week, two separate spawn of the GOP—Tanner Flake (aka N1ggerKiller), son of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Joey Heck, son of Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV)—are outed as social-media-opaths? Two All-American white, Christian paragons (ok, ok one’s Mormon), sons of All-American white, Christian paragon fathers, spend their leisure time just frothing, fuming and twittering hate at anyone who isn’t an All-American white, Christian paragon i.e., faggots, niggas, women, Jews, Obama, Messicans, Obama, Indians, Obama, Muslims, etc. [in their words]. These kids, if nothing else, are equal opportunity bigots, they pretty much hate every one who isn’t a white male.
Ever since Battlin’ Jan Brewer refused to sign any more legislation until Arizona passed the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion, Arizona Teapublicans feel like they’ve been punched in the gut! More like jabbed in the ribs by a governor who knows how to read financial reports, which, like reality, tend to have an anti-Tea bias. Welcome to the RINOdome, Governor! It’s beginning to look like at at least some Red State executive branches aren’t entirely drowning in tea.
“In this audio obtained by XXX media outlet at this private event” is a phrase heard often enough that you’d think politicians would have wised up by now, but “wised up” is not a phrase often associated with the breed. And so it was that Bill Clinton appeared at famed diplomatic scholar John McCain’s Institute For International Shit-Stirring and opined that Obama risked “looking like a wuss” on Syria, which country is a hot mess to the naked eye, but these men of celebrated discretion can descry that Syria is begging for a little intervention! To blazes with Barack’s cautious approach, which must be poll-driven! Onward, ever onward, arm those rebels and ignore those polls, the two old mavericks agreed. Because there’s nothing worse than being shown up by history as a fool.
Former Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton had no comment on the matter, just a long sigh. Update: Uh-oh.
As usual, whether it’s warmongering or attention whoring, McCain’s always the first out of the box! Obama may as well stay home: President McCain has already told the American People. Make with the weaponry, and full speed ahead!
Self-criticism: any Blingee about hot air and hysteria needs moar Tom “Not Just Bloviating” Friedman:
Imagine how many real restrictions to our beautiful open society we would tolerate if there were another attack on the scale of 9/11.
To be fair, Friedman was without an Iranian cab-driver to help him find his way through his own tightened sphincter at the time.
And from the “Should Know Better” wing of the Department Of Garbage Analysis Department: This country makes the Stasi look like a bunch of Boy Scouts! That comes at 55.23 of this Democracy Now clip, in which Hedges, author of the compelling and possibly all-too-self-descriptive “War Is A Force Which Gives Us Meaning,” also avers that “this is far beyond a reasonable debate,” which Mr. Hedges’ co-guest, reasonable debater, Administration opacity critic and former Obama boss-o-him Professor Geoffrey Stone, might have guessed already, if his comment section at Huffpo is any indication.
TRAITORHEROGOATWORSHIP! The contents of Amy Goodman’s vacuum bag to anyone who can’t guess the civil libertastic subject of this encomium at the charnel house formerly known as the comments section of Talking Points Memo:
It IS what it is; but clearly, most of the posters on this site are more invested in defending their team than being moved by Truth. So they shoot the messenger… it’s like crucifying The Christ, all over again.
(I admit to loving how obnoxious this woman is: to another woman who suggested not letting this scandal keep us home in November: “You’d be more amusing as a cheerleader if you wore pom poms on your breasts and bounced around.” Superciliousness, implacable belief in her own infallibility, allegiance to No Mere Human, reminds me of something..P….PU….what could it be? It’s so familiar…sounds like PURE? PURE something? PURE-MA!)
Wingnut douche-barge (much bigger than a canoe) Glenn Beck has been struck dumb:
He provided a weepy flashcard “monologue” on his Goldline Central network about the condition (it comes and goes, he says) and reflected on the need to be more uplifting and positive.
It’s as if the Flying Spaghetti Monster rammed the Rotini of Righteousness right in the bastard’s throat, just as He once stopped Limbaugh’s ears with the Vermicelli of Virtue. Ramen.
This should be an interesting week, on the GOP Brand Repair front, given that the Senate will be taking up the illustrious Gang of 8’s compendious immigration reform bill—S 744 [this bad boy is an epic pork roll weighing in at 209,000 words, which will never be read before the voting commences].
But wait, according to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) there are still a few more things to add, like his own “my way or the highway” RESULTS Amendment . . . which Harry Reid has already rejected.
I will not accept any poison pills. I mean, we have a senator from Texas, Senator Cornyn, who wants to change border security, a trigger, saying that it has to be a 100 percent border security, or they’ll be no bill. That’s a poison pill. If people have suggestions like they did in the Judiciary Committee to change the bill a little bit, I’ll be happy to take a look at that. But we’re not going to have big changes in this legislation.
“Poison pill” is an understatement. RESULTS: The Amendment, forbids undocumented immigrants from obtaining permanent residency until four criteria are met:
- 100 percent surveillance of the southern border
- a minimum 90 percent apprehension rate for illegal border crossings
- an operational biometric ID system at air and sea ports
- and implementation of E-Verify nationally.
Sweet. Republicans earn political capital for immigration reform that will take 99 years to implement while simultaneously funneling billions in contracts to their defense contractor buddies who are rapidly retooling for “border defense” in the wake of the sequester backfire and a nationwide shortage of wars.
The choice for Senate Democrats when I offer my amendment is very simple: if they are sincere about securing the border, here is their chance. If they oppose my plan, their claims of securing the border are nothing but lip service designed to manipulate the American people into supporting this flawed bill.
Trouble is, Cornyn has more to worry about than Harry Reid. His conservative Texan constituents are not exactly down with the bill with, or without, Cornyn’s amendment.
Meanwhile, Sen Marco Rubio, capo of the Republican “Gang” members is busying himself proving that he has the cajones to be President when he grows up. Which is getting harder to do, on this project, with senior senators like Cornyn horning in to beef up the bill with last minute amendments.
But, Rubio now has the IRS “scandal” to conjure up to push his bill, as well as a Republican hidden agenda to wrest some of the control of the plan from the Department of Homeland Security and give it to Congress:
The lack of trust in the federal government — by the way, not made any better by the events of the last few days, things we’ve learned the federal government has done in other realms, whether it’s the IRS or other things. “The lack of trust in the federal government, and in particular, in this administration, makes it even harder to convince people that coming up with a plan like this on its own is good enough. So maybe the solution is to have Congress actually write that plan for them.
Seriously, Senator Rubio??? Seriously? you think that the American public doesn’t trust the government to do this — but somehow you think that they trust Congress more?? Congress with it’s minimal expertise on just about every issue under the sun, and it’s new all-time low approval rating in the single digits?
Sheeeeesh. It’s true what they say . . . the stupid really DOES burn.
Did you hear the one about the technical assistant for the CIA who leaked government documents to his favorite libertarian before holing up in a luxury hotel in Hong Kong, and stuffs pillows under his door because he thinks that will foil eavesdropping?
Meet Ed Snowden, a 29-year-old making 200 grand a year to work for Booz-Allen, who had a pretty cushy life in Hawaii before blowing the whistle on practices he thought needed airing, and flying to a city he deemed up to his standards for freedom, within that two-systems-one-country-that-country-being-China sort of thing.
I was at work on a post about the extreme ugliness being displayed all over the internet the past few days, which may yet appear with its attendant Blingee, but of course Mr. Snowden and Glennzilla had to step on my Blingee with their big scoop. Thanks, fellas! Really, reopening and examining the Patriot Act seems like an excellent idea to me, even if the messenger(s) come with shipping containers full of baggage, but Glenn, as an expat and a lawyer, don’t you think you should have informed your idealistic young source that Hong Kong and the U.S. have an extradition treaty? Whoops. What, weren’t the hotels in Taiwan good enough?
**Update: Of course he’s a Ron Paul supporter! What else would he be? (Title edited to reflect author’s slow realization that maybe she WANTS search engines to find this post. Doh!)
While the rest of us worry that our secret thoughts and fever dreams are being mined by the NSA, a few bold narcissists rise above all that and trot out the whole steamy enchilada for a national audience. So it is that subterranean screwball, Glenn Beck hosted Harvard’s least favorite son, Sen. Ted Cruz, on Thursday, to engage in an intellectual dissection of Mr Obama’s recent atrocities, including the appointments of Susan [Paybacks are a Bitch] Rice and Samantha Power.
While speaking to Glenn Beck earlier today, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) maintained that UN Ambassador nominee Samantha Power, best known for her human rights advocacy, “grovels” before dictators. Beck called Power, whom he referred to as “Powers,” as an “extraordinarily dangerous person” and accused her husband Cass Sunstein, who formerly led the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, of directing the IRS to target conservatives.
Cruz called Power “extreme” and “far outside of the mainstream,” and said that she and other “left-wing academics” appointed by Obama consistently “grovel before tyrants like Castro in Cuba and North Korea.”
In case you’re not up on your pop psychology, this “vision” is a classic misogynistic daydream of “dominating the dominatrix,” usually indicating some unresolved “Mommy issues.”
Happily, this sort of psychosexual BS is mostly consigned to the talking heads and icky forums of the far right. I mean, really, here we have a sociopathic nerd who believes that Congress and his alma mater are crawling with Communists, and an addled feral child talking past each other about nothing but their personal dysfunctions.
Beck is happy to have one more opportunity to dis Cass Sunstein and Cruz is trying to sound pompous and presidential before he slithers into Iowa.
Well fellas, UP YOURS! Those two women are twice the men that you’ll ever be. Oh, and, Sen Cruz? Des Moines is probably the closest you’ll ever get to the Oval Office . . .
As a special treat, take a few dramamine and watch this, if you dare:
Two meaningful things happened this week in the US House—I know. Meaningful things don’t happen there all that often these days, except for the occasional attempt at Obamacare repeal. But bear with me, because these are two things that really let you know where the GOP Congresscritters are coming from, these days:
Item the First:
A couple of bills were put up to defund ACORN. Now, you might be thinking that there isn’t any ACORN, and you’d be right, or you might be thinking that ACORN was kind of destroyed based on a hoax, and you’d be right about that, too.
I don’t know why you’d be so tasteless as to associate facts with things Republican congressfolks do, though.
So you may have heard that the politisphere is a little angsty today. My television isn’t even on and I can hear Chris Matthews yelling, all because of GIUARDIAN GLENN GREENWALD’S BIG GIANT SCOOP, which is is not materially different from LESLIE CAULEY’S BIG GIANT SCOOP OF AUGHT SIX, except that now it’s Obama doing it! With secret FISA courts, which I have a vague memory of Obama voting for way back when, which is why I have GIANT SCOOP letdown right now. It wasn’t my favorite of Obama’s moves then, but I decided I’d take the good with the iffy and move on. And then the blogoverse trumpets GLENZILLA’S VERY HUGE NEWS and it turns out to be sort-of-not-warrantless-not-wiretapping. You know how you may have always intended to catch a hot show after catching one good episode, and when you finally tune in, it’s a rerun of that same damn episode?
(Big ole hat tip to TPM commenter Doremus Jessup20 ; perhaps GG should think about tipping his lid—currently up on the Guardian page, collecting coins, to help keep Glenn HONEST—to Ms. Cauley.)
**Update** Well! isn’t it nice to know we’re never alone? Oh Hell’s Bells. The discouraging thing is that I’m not surprised at all. I’m just surprised that the NSA didn’t buy my behavior from Google the way Hungry Girl did. Nothing I do is a secret to her!
Well, as we say here in Pennsylvania “there’s no hot mess like a politically motivated, conspiracy-tinged, witch-hunt-y hot mess.” And since Congress has nothing but time on their hands these days, the majority members have decided that House investigations and hearings are as good a time-killer as any, whilst they quest on after the holy grail of Obama impeachment and Rapture2014.
Today’s Republicans are already pretty entertaining, on a normal day, but when they get their dander up they’re downright hilarious. One of the things that has their dander up, recently, is the IRS’s systematic persecution of teabaggers. The reason that the IRS landed this opportunity to torture the grassroots is because the TEA Party is all about liberty and constitutional rights, especially the sacred right of every American altruist to a tax exempt status.
[It’s sort of an American Mystery to me that, with all of the thousands of outfits claiming tax exempt status for the noble work that they do to advance our social welfare, our society is still such a mess. But that’s a topic for another day . . . ]
Actually, of all the scandals they had to choose from, this one was probably the best choice for a number of reasons: a) when your approval rating hits a new low of 6%, it’s probably not a great time to be total a—holes b) everyone already hates the IRS, on principle, and anyone who goes after them looks heroic, even if no-one can prove that the WH directs their every move and c) everyone knows that the IRS is a hotbed of Democrat partisanship BECAUSE . . . federal workers union.
Own your heckling, Powerhecklers of America! What, are you too noble to enunciate your vowels? Is it more authentic to make people look at you with amazement as they wonder, “What is that nutcase talking about?”
While Medea Benjamin insisted that she’s no mere heckler, she’s a protester, newest delicate media flower,GetEqual’s Ellen Sturtz, was “taken aback” when she shouted at Michelle Obama, only to have the First Lady get off the podium and right into her face. “One of the things I don’t do well is this, understand?” said Mrs. Obama, and offered to leave while Sturtz took the mike: crowd’s choice. Astonishingly to Sturtz, the crowd chose Mrs. Obama, instead of joining Sturtz in demanding that Michelle use the Power Of Pillowtalk to persuade her husband to sign an Executive Order offering protections to gays working for military contractors, rather than achieving that goal through legislation.
She cut me off immediately and leaned over podium, sort of her put her big hand towards me and said something to the effect of ‘You don’t do that to me’ or ‘I don’t do that.
Most media outlets are omitting the fact that the crowd which had forked over a minimum of half a grand to hear Obama, was gathered at the home of “Power Couple” Dr. Nan Schaffer and Karen Dixon. (ActEqual had ponied up for Sturtz’s entry, too). So it may be presumed that Sturtz was not the only one there who’d known the pain of living a closeted life; she was just the only one shouting at Michelle Obama about it. And the only one to be surprised when the First Lady had the temerity to answer her back.
Rape. It’s Mother Nature’s way! Even with background checks and all, the military has a hard time screening out sex offenders, because golly! It has to train its soldiers to fight their very own Mother Nature-installed hormones, what keep knocking up all those female soldiers, especially on aircraft carriers, where it is well known that women should be kept away from the manimals who serve our country. Thank heavens Big Daddy was never one of them, as the late, great Senator from New Jersey once pointed out.
Watching Chambliss (R [U Really Asking Which Party?]—PreCambria) apparently doing some equivalent of thinking aloud is instructive, if agita-inducing for Republican consultants:
Didn’t we tell’em wimmen soldiers was a bad idea? Who knows how many of them high-spirited young boys got a little too frisky? I have an idea—let’s investigate the baby-mamas! Honey, who did this to you? You can tell me—I’m your C.O.
On the one hand, at least Chambliss isn’t taking the Akin line. On the other, he’s just managed to further torpedo the rotting Republican vessel, in a week where College Republicans had already deemed it unseaworthy and Representative Marsha Blackburn ran it aground.
One thing Chambliss has managed to accomplish, though: he’s helped to show why no rising tide’s going to lift the GOP boat: no matter how many rats desert, it’s still full of Republicans.
Remember last December? when Republicans were trying desperately to absorb the bad news that their despised nemesis, Barack Hussein Obama, trounced their Romney-bot and coasted to an unimaginable second term? or that their dream of retaking the Senate had gone up in a puff of smoke? and then, remember when they turned their guns on each other? [arguably the best part, at least the most entertaining].
One of the GOP fever dreams that surfaced, during those depressing days, was to mutiny against Republican House leadership and force Speaker Boehner to walk the plank. Boehner’s reign as Speaker has been plagued throughout by the backwash of the 2010 TEA Party wave that he surfed in on. You see, Republican leadership, in the House, come mostly from blue states making it expedient for them to be somewhat moderate and establishment-oriented. The congressional newcomers, conversely, were elected for their extreme political positions and their outside-the-beltway bona fides.
Boehner came down hard on some of the most unruly members, stripping them of their committee assignments, thereby robbing them of re-election appeal. These same members, predictably, care not a whit for congressional etiquette, tradition, seniority or parliamentary procedure. Historically, both parties are able to handle such schisms internally, and with civility, while the country continues on, blissfully unaware. Under normal circumstances the majority party’s vote for Speaker is a pro forma affair.
But this was different, and, at one point it seemed that a cabal of disgruntled freshmen might actually unseat the Speaker. Approaching the date of the vote, about 17 defectors were needed to deny Boehner an outright majority. If those 17 or so could block the speaker on the first ballot, they could convene a conference and persuade someone else — maybe Cantor, Paul Ryan or Jeb Hensarling to challenge Boehner. Even if none of the party lieutenants agreed to go up against Boehner, winning on a second ballot would be humiliating enough.
So what do conservatives do when beset with such a thorny dilemma? Well, a lot of them fall on their knees and ask God what to do; and so it was that God saved Speaker Boehner’s hash.
Rep. Steve Southerland II (R-FL), is a 47-year-old funeral home operator, elected in 2010, who hosted regular meetings for mutinous legislators at his DC townhouse. Southerland recently explained for a Washington Post piece just exactly how God intervened in the matter. The night before the vote, Southerland read the story of Saul and David, and about how the king of Israel tried to kill the future king. David wins and, with a chance to kill the king, decides to spare Saul.
Southerland reports that he woke up convinced that Boehner should be spared. Others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they, too, prayed before siding with Boehner.
“He’s not a God of chaos, he’s a God of order,” Southerland said.
Shortly after that, Republicans convened a “retreat” where they arrived at an internal peace treaty called “the Williamsburg Accord,” which:
. . . restored enough unity to permit the House to dodge a government shutdown, badger the Senate into passing its first budget in four years and open investigations of the Obama White House.
And nothing more.
Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), who was purged from the Financial Services Committee in November, had this to say, recently:
the thing you have to analyze is: Have we had a pretty good quarter because we stuck to the formula of Williamsburg? Or is it because we avoided the tough issues?
Good question.
Maybe, next, someone should ask God how to make Republicans a little more productive?
"[W]e wholeheartedly endorse the excellent Rumproast blog" -- Jim Newell, Wonkette
"Mind you, don’t let yourself be trapped dialoging with these guys: truth is their enemy; pyschological warfare and misinformation dissemination is their profession." -- TeaParty.org
