How's that minority outreach program doing?

I took the last month and a half off to move, spend holidays with my family, and enjoy the benefits of non-stop anxiety attacks. While I still don't have a home or a job, my decline and fall has temporarily paused. That means I have to get back to writing. I'm making some progress on the book. Now, I think it's time to get stupid again.

Let's review the rules of The Stupid Files. Inaugurees into the Files must be public figures who say something gob-smackingly stupid. Their stupidity can be factual ("If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.") or politically (such as racial insensitivity so blatant the entire political spectrum cringes). Political figures who bring shame on their parties get preferential treatment.

Today's winner, as is so often the case, is a racist boob, Republican County Executive L. Brooks Patterson of Oakland County, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Patterson had this to say in a profile published in New Yorker magazine this week:

Anytime I talk about Detroit, it will not be positive. Therefore, I'm called a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough shit.
[...]
Before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here [Oakland County]. You don't, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That’s just a call for a carjacking.
[...]
I made a prediction a long time ago, and it's come to pass. I said, "What we're gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and the corn."

Is it fair of me to call Patterson a racist? Of course it is. We can argue about whether his fear mongering over carjacking is a race-baiting dog-whistle aimed a provoking white suburban stereotypes of black urban crime (it is). The concentration camp for Native Americans is not open to question. What the hell do Indians have to do with Detroit? It's not uncommon to hear fearful outsiders and their demagogues snarl about the local metropolis that we should put a wall around it and let "those people" kill each other. And they assure us that they mean "those people" in a totally non-racist way. But, bringing in a third, unrelated group and saying their entire race should be ghettoized (in the historical sense of the word (no, not "slag heap")), there is no other way to read that. In case you're still not sure whether Patterson is a racist, check out the blankets and corn stereotype.

Patterson's spokesman, Bill Mullan, deserves some recognition for obliviousness here. Faced with a social media shitstorm, Mullan pulled a boiler-plate, Republican response out of the file and gave it no more thought. Ignore the actual issue, blame the liberal press for quoting him accurately, and tout his record on something unrelated.

It is clear Paige Williams had an agenda when she interviewed county executive Patterson. She cast him in a false light in order to fit her preconceived and outdated notions about the region. Mr. Patterson’s record on advancing regional issues in a transparent and responsible manner is unparalleled.

Sorry, Bill. This one is going to need a little more than an off-the-shelf press release. "I'm sorry you didn't understand my brilliant humor" isn't going to make it either. You're going to actually have to get off your butt and do some damage control on this one.

"I'm called a Detroit basher," Patterson says. Now, he can also be called an Indian hating, genocidal boob.

I guess it's okay since I only stabbed him

At a townhall, Rep. Tom McClintock (CA) was confronted by a constituent who asked an intelligent, if long winded, question about Wall Street criminality that boiled down to when re we going put some people in jail and breakup their organizations. McClintock responded by denying the whole idea of financial crimes.

Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It's pretty simple.

This is a perfect example of the principal of rhetorical stupid. Whatever good points or bad points he might have had to make about regulation the financial markets were completely overshadowed by the complete inanity of his attempt at cleverness. Half the people who were there to to hear what he had to say just ran into a wall and missed everything else he had to say. "Huh? No gun means no crime?" His voice just became background noise while all those minds began composing outrageous responses. "What about shoplifting?" "What if I run over my idiot brother in law?" "Not even arson?" And more seriously, in his attempt to be clever while pushing back against regulation of anything, he has come within arguing distance of denying the existence of white collar crime--especially fraud. Though the questioner left some pretty big openings for a reasoned response and even a dialog, McClintock went for a lazy put-down and made himself look stupid in the process.

Watch the video here.

Paul Stam weaves his way into the Stupid File

According to the original criteria, blatant sexism is a surefire way to get into the Stupid File. North Carolina House Majority Leader Paul Stam managed to get a big fat check mark next to that one when he said of Superintendent of Public Instruction, June Atkinson:

She should stick to her own knitting.

Making a public statement telling a woman to shut up by using a sexist turn of phrase is just stupid. But Stam managed a double-stupid on this one. What was he telling the state's top educator to shut up about? You guessed it, education. By any measure, education is far more her knitting than it is his.

Read all about it here.

Nobody understands "no class" like Rick Santorum

Today's inductee into the Stupid Files: Rick Santorum!

This is not Rick's first entry into the files. He was one of the original inspirations for the Stupid Files. Today he's being recognized for demonstrating his keen understanding of political science and sociology.

Since when in America do we have classes? ... That's Marxism talk. ... There's no class in America.

Watch the video here.

Dana Rohrabacher takes home the stupid

I promised I'd tell you why Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was yesterday's inductee into the Stupid Files. Here's his award winning quote:

Just so you know, global warming is a total fraud and it is being designed by—because what you've got is you've got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions. Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives.

A nice pithy quote featuring climate denial or any other gob smacking scientific ignorance is an easy way to get into the Stupid Files. Rohrabacher takes it one step further by adding a thick layer of conspiracy-mongering paranoia. He even manages to throw in a nice dollop of xenophobia with a hint of racism  at  the end by warning that the bureaucrat running your life "probably comes from Nigeria because he’s a UN government official, not a US government official." It's hard to resist a combination like that.

Check out the video here.

The Stupid Files, part 2

I'm a big fan of Tea Party Cat on Facebook and Twitter. For a few months now, she (cats are all girls, right?) has been giving us "Asshole of the Day" inductees. When there are multiple candidates for AotD, I always take time to carefully consider each candidate's contribution and vote. In a few short months I've Tea Party Cat go from a tweet, to a tweet and an FB page, to two tweets and FB pages to a blog, to a http://winkprogress.com/  I've supported TPC every step of the way. This morning, while inducting Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) into "The Stupid Files," it occurred to me that I have a blog, I have a twitter account, I have an FB page, and I have a recurring political meme with humorous and outrage du jour potential. Maybe, I thought, maybe I could write up a small blog post for each inductee and, like, let you all know what I'm doing. Then I'd post it on Twitter and FB and become as popular as TPC*.

So here's the deal: as I see it, the only thing that my "Asshole of the Day" has over "The Stupid Files" is a catchy logo stolen from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I need a logo**. Send me your suggestions, either as an actual image or as something within my artistic abilities to create. Ideally, the image should be simple enough to make into a Twitter icon. I'll post your suggestions here and we'll have a contest to pick the winner.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'll tell you why Rep. Rohrabacher made it into the Stupid Files.

* Yes, I realize this part is sad, sad self-delusion. Humor me.
** My catch phrase will be "The stupid is out there."

The stupid files

"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side." Ex-sen. Rick Santorum 9/15/12 

"We've got to stop being the stupid party." Gov. Bobby Jindal, LA 1/25/13

At this point in the political cycle, whenever a Republican or high-profile conservative says something stupid or offensive, we often find ourselves thinking, "I hope someone is saving this for the election." At least I think that. I've decided to take up part of that burden. I welcome your contributions.

This is how I'm defining my file: I'm collecting quotes of Republicans sayings thing that are stupid in the sense that Bobby Jindal meant. Let's parse that.

By "quote," I mean it must be an exact quote that anyone can understand, not a paraphrase or a summary. Soundbites are the best. This is problem with some people. Louie Gohmert is a treasure chest of stupidity, but his best works are hidden in long rambling statements of twisted logic that end with bestiality. Every quote needs to be documented by a link to a news source, not a Facebook meme.

By "Republicans," I mean actual office holding Republicans (federal, state, or local offices all count), GOP party officials (again, at any level), and high-profile former office holders. I do not want conservative pundits, talk radio hosts, televangelists, or Fox News personalities. Right Wing Watch does a good enough job of documenting those. Naturally, those who are up for reelection next year are highly desirable, but, if I keep doing this, the real value of the project will come in three and five years when governors and senators who thought they had left this stuff far in the past come up for reelection.

This brings us to "stupid." What I do not mean by stupid are positions that are just plain wrong, or that will get Democrats and liberals fired up. I want actually stupid: scientifically, logically, or politically stupid. Ignorant statements about history or geography are good. Paranoid conspiracy mongering is also good. Anti-intellectualism is nice. I want things that independents, some kinds of libertarians, or even non-teaparty Republicans will be turned off by. Denying global warming is wrong; saying wind farms will use up all the wind and make the world hotter is stupid. Being against legal abortion is wrong; saying the body has a way to shut that down is stupid. Thinking Africa is a country or not knowing Libya is in Africa are both stupid. Overt racism and sexism are stupid; policies that have racist or sexist implications are not. Opposing a citizenship path for undocumented immigrants is wrong; saying such a path will force people who do not want to be citizens to become citizens against their will is stupid. Extra points will be awarded for scientific stupidity by members of the two congressional science committees.

Send me your nominations. I'll put up a list of inductees every month. You can put your nominations in the comments here, send them to archymarquis at aol dot com, or message them to me on  Twitter (@archymck).

Meanwhile: Some folks need to take up some of the other categories of outrageousness in the GOP and the right in general. Rudeness by Republicans (Obama is Hitler), paranoia from Republicans (he's coming to our guns and Bibles), violent rhetoric from the right in general (calls for a violent revolution, hints of assassination, threats of street-thuggery), these all need trackers and, since these aren't just oppo research, these need to be researched further back.