It’s the wee hours of Saturday morning — shortly after 3 a.m., actually — and Sam is asleep. A few hours ago I promised you a jam-packed political Howdygram post, so glorioski and pass the popcorn ... THIS IS IT! I’ll use convenient subheads to help move the action along, okay?
In his farewell speech to Congress on Thursday disgraced GOP Representative Aaron Schock (R-IL) attempted to compare his brief career to President Abraham Lincoln’s, who only served in Congress for one term. Apparently Schock believes nothing makes you look better than drawing a parallel to one of America’s greatest historical figures while you’re resigning from elected office and spiraling into ignominy — and probably prison — due to a corruption scandal.
A few of Schock’s offenses include:
- Soliciting illegal campaign donations.
- Hiring a full-time personal photographer and charging his salary to the taxpayers.
- Collecting $90,000 in fraudulent mileage reimbursement from taxpayers and campaign funds for his personal vehicle.
- $24,000 for first-class flights on private and commercial jets that showed up on his financial reports as “software.”
- Outrageous royalty-class travel expenses for globe-trotting vacations to Hawaii, India, Australia, Argentina, Miami, Vail and London.
- Clothes-shopping junkets with “companions.”
- $25,000 for VIP tickets to various festivals and events, including $1,500 for a single Katy Perry concert.
- Spending $5,200 for a speaker’s podium identical to President Obama’s.
- A $40,000 fee charged to taxpayers for the interior decorator who remodeled his government office in Washington to look like the dining room from “Downton Abbey.”
Here are some photos from the fiscal conservative’s Instagram account. Please don’t hesitate to throw up at any time.
Senator Turd Cruz (R-TX) is the irritating Tea Party loudmouth who engineered the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 by holding up a spending bill until the House of Representatives demolished Obamacare. It didn’t work, and Cruz’s name became a household word for ASSHOLE.
Ironically, after spending the last two years trashing Obamacare with an endless string of lies and conspiracy theories — and incessantly threatening to repeal every word of the Affordable Care Act — when Cruz’s wife took a leave of absence from her job this week he and his family suddenly found themselves without health insurance and shopping for a plan through the ACA. “It is written in the law that members [of Congress] will be on the exchanges without subsidies just like millions of Americans,” Cruz told the Register, adding: “I think the same rules should apply to all of us. Members of Congress should not be exempt.”
Ted Cruz is a fucking liar. If the main plank of your candidacy is to repeal the ACA and your base consists of right-wing assholes who’d rather drown in their own phlegm than sign away their freedom to a Communist insurance plan, you’ve got yourself a serious identity problem.
There’s nothing written in the Affordable Care Act that says you can’t buy whatever insurance you want. You don’t have to shop on the exchange; the law simply says you have to buy coverage. This could have been a perfect opportunity for Cruz to stand up for his own repulsive principles, but as a typical Republican he can’t win an argument unless he lies and he can’t win an election unless he cheats.
Insurance is cheaper and better through Obamacare AND HE KNOWS IT.
On Thursday, wingnut Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed his state’s Fuck The Gays bill into law, which basically says that as long as your religion tells you Jesus’s only question on Judgment Day will be “how much did you hate the gays?” you are now free to use those beliefs to deny LGBT citizens service and accommodations in the miserable, godforsaken state of Indiana. Governor Pence apparently felt encouraged to support this bill because the threat of losing tourism and business is much less important than making sure nobody forces Aunt Tootsie to bake cookies for queers. This is known as Religious Freedom, and it is somehow what this great nation was founded upon, according to idiots.
The immediate backlash has been FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Corporations and organizations are canceling their conventions; entertainers are canceling shows. Salesforce, a $4 billion software company, is making good on its threat to leave the state, explaining that you can’t attract the best and brightest employees if they have to worry about legalized discrimination at the hands of Bible-beating bigots as a part of their daily life. A few of the thousands of Twitter responses to Governor Pence appear below.
- Refusing people a service based on religious belief isn’t a right, it’s DISCRIMINATION. You should know the difference.
- This is bullshit. Any business using this law will feel the full wrath of the Internet.
- Damn dude, you suck. Shielding bigotry in an artificial cloak of religion ... you’re the Mississippi of the Midwest.
- This is state-sanctioned discrimination in the guise of religious liberty. Shame on you.
- You should be ashamed of yourself, sir.
- Enjoy your last term as Governor, you ass-backward dipshit.
- As a Hoosier I’m deeply saddened and embarrassed. A government exists to protect its citizens; instead, you’re legalizing their oppression.
- Will bathrooms and water fountains be labeled STRAIGHTS ONLY? How will we know?
In a speech immediately after signing the bill, Pence defended his actions by saying: “If I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it.”
What the fuck?!
It’s after 6 a.m. and I think I’ll finally go to bed now. Thank you for your visit.
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