Something to keep in mind after reading Newt Gingrich’s defense of Mandela

In case you missed it, that defense is here. While Newt’s anti-apartheid history seems pretty legit, he still doesn’t get let off on the charge of hypocrisy, as this story from New Year’s Eve 2011 demonstrates.

Associated Press: Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich blasted the Justice Department for blocking a South Carolina voter identification law and suggested the Obama administration wants to “steal elections.”

During a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the former House speaker questioned why Attorney General Eric Holder is “so determined not to identify if people are not eligible to vote”

Gingrich went on to say that, “you have to ask, why is it that they are desperate to retain the ability to steal elections and I think that’s what it comes down to.”

The Justice Department recently rejected South Carolina’s law requiring voters to show photo ID at polling places as discriminatory against minorities. Republicans argue stricter voter ID laws are needed to avert voter fraud.

Gingrich was the big beneficiary of voter fraud in 2012, not Obama. Hypocrisy abounds.

So yeah, Newt was a passionate defender of the rights of black people — so long as those black people were way the hell and gone over in South Africa. When it came to the rights and freedoms of people here at home… Well, you know, screw that.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Website problems keep WI vets from gaining special driver’s license

Appleton Post-Crescent: Wisconsin military veterans are excited about a special new driver’s license, but the state’s rollout of the honorary license program is drawing complaints of glitches and miscues.

State officials announced earlier this month that veterans could soon obtain a driver’s license marked “Veteran” to help them earn discounts and other perks in their daily lives.

To qualify, veterans only must obtain written certification of their military status from the state Department of Veterans Affairs.

But some veterans seeking certification have been confused by the state’s website, and others have been unable to get help through an overloaded toll-free telephone line.

As a result, veterans in Brown County and elsewhere in the state have sought assistance from their county veterans service officers, who say they were enlisted to clean up the state’s mess without adequate warning.

“We’re not happy campers,” said Brown County veterans service officer Jerry Polus. “It’s really driving us crazy.”

Well, everyone knows that when a law involves a problematic website, that means the entire law is bad and must be repealed. There really is no other solution. So if veterans miss out on some good deals they would’ve otherwise gotten, that’s a real shame. But what are you going to do?

I’m sure we can expect Wisconsin Republicans, led by the Governor, to begin work on repealing this “trainwreck” of a law immediately.

In which conservative hatred of bureaucracy and red tape is exposed as a sham

Raw Story: A Fox News guest on Thursday argued that hungry students would have a “teaching moment” if they were refused access in the cafeteria line to school lunches because their parents hadn’t properly filled out the right paperwork.

During a segment on Fox & Friends, therapist and school counselor Thomas Kersting told host Gretchen Carlson that he approved of a New Jersey school district’s plan to reportedly “throw the meal away” if kids didn’t have enough money to pay for lunch.

“I agree with the superintendent,” he said. “I think it’s a little harsh. You know, I don’t think they’re going to throw the food out right in front of the kid and embarrass the kid.”

Kersting explained that some parents had allegedly told their children to accept the lunches before the paperwork had been completed and filed, and so the Willingboro School District had decided not to feed students unless their parents had signed the proper forms and been enrolled in the Free and Reduced Lunch program.

So no lunch for you until your mom has filled out the proper 27B/6. If we have children actually eating without the proper forms on file, why that’s a short step away from anarchy. It’s much more efficient to simply throw the lunch away, because… Well, never you mind about the because. Because central processing says so.

Kersting continued to explain how this was the smartest thing ever in the whole wide world. “We have more food than any other nation. You know, no kid is going to starve,” he went merrily on. “You know, if one day a kid doesn’t have lunch, right, maybe that’s a teaching moment when that kid doesn’t have lunch. That may sound harsh saying that, but we’ve got to get people to start being responsible for themselves.”

The fact that “we have more food than any other nation” is meaningless if we’re throwing away food, rather than letting people eat it. You wonder if this guy understands that eating isn’t some sort of pleasure reserved for the deserving, but is rather a necessity to, you know, live and stuff. And that “teaching moment” stuff? That’s the sort of “let them eat cake” shit that would’ve cost you your head in the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette here only thinks he’s making a compelling argument.

But really, conservatives are all about mindless, faceless bureaucracies these days. They’re making people jump through bureaucratic hoops to vote, to have access to an entirely legal abortion, and now to eat. When conservatives complain about bureaucrats, their really complaining that the privileged aren’t n some sort of express lane around all the bureaucratic BS they expect everyone else to navigate through like a rat in a maze trying to get to the cheese.

If a big banker needs a little government oversight, that’s freakin’ Big Government Run Amok. If a kid misses a meal because his mom didn’t sign the proper 27B/6, well that’s a teaching moment. Please observe as we dispose of the Sloppy Joe in the proper government approved receptacle, in the government approved manner.

Now let that be a lesson to you.

Teabaggers Hate on The Constitution

This morning, I wrote a story about how FOX believes they've detected hypocrisy from the left on illegal immigration and how FOX is wrong about that. Now, thanks to Think Progress, we have some actual hypocrisy about the issue -- from the right.

Imagine, if you will, a bunch of teabaggers in Ramona, California. They're sitting around with their signs about how Obama and Democrats are ignoring the Constitution and, therefore, hate America and are Nazi/Commies. Then Rep. Duncan Hunter gets up on stage and says this:

QUESTION: Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?

HUNTER: I would have to, yes. [...] We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now. California is going under. How much in debt are we? Twenty billion dollars? [...] And we're not being mean, we're just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls.

OK, first off, Hunter's argument about the "American soul" is laughable on its face. We're talking about children born in America to illegal immigrants -- they didn't just "walk across" any border. Hunter's reputation for being not exactly bright isn't damaged by this statement.

Second, he says we ought to deport children of undocumented parents who were born in the US. He gets wild applause, whistles, and cheers from his Constitution-lovin' audience. There's just one little hitch here; turns out that isn't Constitutional. Again, Hunter's reputation for being an idiot is safe, as is the collective rep of his teabagger audience.

So, for those keeping score at home, teabaggers love the Constitution -- until they think it's a bad idea. Then they don't love it so much. More evidence that teabaggers think "Unconstitutional" is just a shorthand for "stuff I don't like."