THE TOOLBOX: VOGUE FLOPS, A HATER DROPS

“The Toolbox” is our weekly drill down of celebrities, politicians and other news makers who are trending for all the wrong reasons. From questionable thinking and general stupidity to ham-handed decision making and a death long in coming, these five individuals are among the biggest losers of the past seven days.

Sure, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour can make or break a designer with a snap of her bony fingers but, even she can become a fashion victim. Witness the outcry from all quarters regarding the April issue of Conde Naste’s flagship glossy. What’s all the bitching about? The cover “models” are Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, two mind-numbing idiots who somehow captured Wintour’s clearly questionable imagination. Critics were even more peeved by her editor’s letter, a hooty bit of prose made even more laugh-out-loud hilarious because every word was meant to be taken seriously. When Buffy wants to put a stake in the heart of your publication, you know you’ve gone epic fail. On the up side, Seth Rogan and James Franco had a Photoshop field day at Vogue’s expense.

Speaking of failures, the movers and shakers at GOP High Command apparently figured out that the likes of Victoria Jackson, Mary Lou Retton and Tony Danza aren’t exactly catnip for young voters. What’s a party dominated by white geezers and bunker dwellers to do when attracting elusive millennials is key to long term viability? Enter Scott Greenberg, a douchey 30-something with slicked back hair and hipster glasses. He’s the star of a new ad campaign that’s designed to let the young’uns know it’s OK to vote Republican…at least that’s what it was supposed to do. The social media reaction was brutally vicious and online media outlets had a field day. Greenberg has already become a punching bag for comedians and we’ve barely known him a week. Without even trying, the Right has a “pajama boy” of its very own. Way to win one for The Gipper!

Let’s keep it in the Republican family and give Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal his moment in the spotlight. Despite the fact that Jindal says something asinine almost every time he opens his mouth, it’s his questionable actions of late that earned him a spot on our list. You see, the liberal organization MoveOn.org decided to roll out a media campaign critical of Jindal’s refusal to embrace the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. The ads are a parody of the state’s tourism motto and logo. Apparently, the truth hurt the thin-skinned governor enough that the state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against MoveOn.org on the grounds that they are unlawfully using a protected service mark. Never mind that the legal action is a huge waste of money for a cash-strapped state. It’s also given Jindal’s critics a ton of free publicity and made the ad campaign even more effective. Smooth move, Gov.

Richard Quest is very British, very brash and very annoying. He’s a talking head on CNN with a gaping grin that would give The Joker nightmares. You might remember him from his arrest for meth possession back in 2008. Though Quest is primarily a business reporter, the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 has apparently awoken his inner aviation expert. Yes folks, only at CNN could helming a monthly show on business travel suddenly make you a go-to guy for commentary on one of the most baffling mysteries in the history of air travel. It doesn’t help matters that Quest punctuates every word of the bullshit he spews with invisible exclamation points. HE’S! THAT! CONVINCED! EVERY! WORD! HE! SPEAKS! IS! A! PEARL! OF! WISDOM! In reality he’s just another cable network gas bag who earns a living passing off rampant speculation as real news.

Fred Phelps is the founder of a cult of inbred wackos known as the Westboro Baptist Church. You might know these folks better as the “God hates fags” contingent. Last week, for the first time in his life, Phelps finally did something good. He died.

Look for another edition of “The Toolbox” next week. CLICK HERE to see all the tools we’ve profiled.

OPINION: KOOKOO FOR PUTIN PUFFS

IN TWEET: TED NUGENT IS SO LAST MONTH. THE NUTS ON THE RIGHT HAVE A NEW HERO (AND SARAH PALIN CAN SEE HIM FROM HER HOUSE).

Let’s take a stroll back in time to the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Close your eyes really tight and imagine, for just a moment, what would have happened if any elected Democrat had coupled public praise for Saddam Hussein with condemnation of President Bush’s foreign policy strategy.

Picture Al Gore on the Sunday talk show circuit claiming that Hussein “makes a decision and executes it quickly, then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader” or Hillary Clinton going off half-cocked about Bush wearing “mom jeans” while his Iraqi counterpart was all bullets and bear wrestling. The flip out from all quarters (including a then complicit mainstream media) would make what happened to the Dixie Chicks looks like a walk in the park.

Why then, in the face of a very real crisis in Ukraine, is it now perfectly acceptable for a gaggle of GOP mouthpieces to sling their usual mud at President Obama while also getting a political hard on for Russian President Vladimir Putin? It’s one thing to disagree with Obama. It’s another thing entirely to loudly and proudly undermine his diplomatic efforts with fervent praise for the bad guy at the center of this storm. It’s reprehensible and, dare I say, borders on traitorous.

Though Al Gore never gave an “attaboy”  shout out to Saddam Hussein, the words attributed to him above are real. It’s just that someone else said them. They are quoted, verbatim, from an interview with Rudy Giuliani on Fox News. The kick-ass leader in question? Vladimir Putin.

Hillary Clinton never accused Bush of wearing mom jeans but perennial loser Sarah Palin seems to think they Obama’s denim of choice. That immature dig was part of a rambling pile of nonsense Palin spouted on Sean Hannity’s show Monday night.

While it’s easy to dismiss the deranged ramblings of bitter has-beens like Giuliani and Palin, they were only two members of a very chatty Greek chorus made up almost entirely of Republicans who currently hold national office.

There was the spectacle of John McCain jumping around like a baboon on meth while he excoriated Obama for his “feckless” foreign policy. Marco Rubio slithered back out from under his rock to offer advice no one asked for. Best of all was Lindsey Graham who, bless his heart, trotted out the Benghazi dead horse and tossed the carcass right into the middle of the Ukraine debate. When Eric Cantor is the voice of reason on the Right, you know things have gone topsy-turvy.

To make the freak show even more bizarre, Ted Nugent has been shoved to the back of the GOP clown car and replaced by a new nut job du jour: Vladimir Putin. Republicans are bitching about President Obama’s supposed foreign policy foibles by waxing poetic about Putin. Call me crazy but, I can’t think of a worse strategy than undermining your own President by getting giddy for the guy who just sent troops into Ukraine to illegally occupy a southern port. Talk about enabling someone who is already drunk with delusions of grandeur.

Of course, all this Putin love from the Right is really just part of the long-term GOP strategy of disrespecting and demeaning the scary black man in the White House. When Palin babbles about the Russian President wrestling bears, what she really means is that Barack Obama is a flaccid wimp. He’s not “all man” like Burly Vladistud (or Todd, her half-wit husband). In a party obsessed with guns, drilling for oil and John Wayne diplomacy, getting moist for Vladimir Putin must make some kind of sense. To those outside the Fox News bubble, it’s just fucked up.

Want to get even more WTF? A little over a month ago, most members of Club Vladimir were talking about Obama like he was a comic book super villain hell-bent on total domination. The official GOP talking point was all about “Commandant Obama” the “Dictator-In-Chief.” Everyone from Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell to Michele Bachmann and (of course) Sarah Palin picked up that ball and ran with it.

So which is it, Republicans? Is Obama an emperor or a serf? Of course, it doesn’t really matter. Most of the players in this theater of the absurd don’t believe half of what comes out of their mealy mouths (except, perhaps, for the blithely ignorant like Palin and Bachmann). Facts and consistency don’t matter when you are playing to a base that long ago divorced itself from reality. As long as the whipping boy is Barack Obama, the sheep are happy. It’s the only way to explain how the same people who praise Putin for being decisive can then turn around and make our President into a boogeyman who wants nothing more than to sit on a gilded throne.

When it comes to the far Right and Vladimir Putin, nuts of a feather do seem to flock together. Still, no matter how outlandish the antics from the GOP, at the end of the day the stakes are very real in Ukraine and people’s lives hang in the balance. That is what should be shaping the debate.

OPINION: VISIT MOUNT DOUCHEMORE!

IN TWEET: LET’S DEDICATE A NEW NATIONAL MONUMENT TO GRIDLOCK AND GOVERNMENT BY EXTORTION, COURTESY OF THE GOP.

What better way to “celebrate” the temper tantrum that is the current GOP-orchestrated shutdown of the government than immortalizing four of the key players that got us here? After all, future generations should have a striking visual reference to point to when their children ask: “Mommy and daddy, what was the Republican Party and who was responsible for killing it?”

I would suggest erecting Mount Douchemore in a gerrymandered district of the United States. Select an abandoned swath of land after the strip mining operation leaves town and fund the venture with a special tax levied on the estate of the Koch Brothers (once they kick off, of course).

The first image carved must be of Ted Cruz. After all, his ego is already massive and he’s a monumental asshole…just ask his law school compadres. People say Cruz is smart but that’s like saying a chicken with its head cut off is a fast runner. Sure it is…until it finally drops dead. Ted Cruz cares about one thing: Ted Cruz. He’s not on some damn fool idealistic crusade here. He really thinks he has a shot at being President. As scary as that prospect might be for those of us who don’t live in the Fox News Bubble, I sincerely hope the GOP hands him the nomination in 2016.

Next up: Speaker of the House John Boehner. He’s derisively referred to as John “Boner” but that incorrectly give this flaccid guy credit for having political wood. He doesn’t…even on a good day. A wet noodle has more stamina and staying power. Boehner never met a fight he didn’t run screaming from like a whiny bitch and every time one of the wackadoos from the Tea Bagger sect says “Jump, Johnny.” Boehner says “How high?” Then he cries.

The third slot on Mount Douchemore is reserved for Eric Cantor. When he isn’t looming over Boehner’s shoulder like one of those terrorists you see holding a gun to the head of a hostage in a ransom video, Eric Cantor is talking. In fact, give this colossal ass hat a microphone and he will verbally masturbate himself until everyone within earshot is sticky from the massive discharge of jerk juice. I can think of no other member of the GOP who can look as dickish as Cantor does simply by putting on his glasses and showing up.

Finally, Mount Douchemore wouldn’t be complete without the visage of the guy who runs the party: Rush “Oxycodone” Limbaugh. No offense to that little gerbil Reince Priebus, but Captain Fat Ass is the real Grand Poobah of the GOP. Every weekday, Rush anchors himself to a berth in his radio studio and spews three hours of pure comic gold. Oh, his devotees believe anything and everything he says as if it was gospel truth. Of course, the rest of us know it’s almost as big a steaming pile of bullshit as Rush is himself.

Though she didn’t make the cut for a slot on the monument, when Michelle Bachmann isn’t needed on the mothership, she  will be  the Head Docent and one of several rotating GOP heads that pop up from the holes in the live “Whack A Righty Mole” attraction. Gimme my mallet! Bam! Bam! Bam!

When all is said and done, a party that has no respect for the People certainly deserves none in return. The GOP has shown nothing but contempt for the President and the Democratic Process as a whole. Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land and the exchanges are open for business. See what all the GOP foot stomping is about by visiting HEALTHCARE.GOV. Remember: every time you click, you hit the GOP with the Obamacare stick. Thwap!

TOP3: WACKADOO TEXAS REPUBLICANS

IN TWEET: I DON’T WANT TO MESS WITH TEXAS BUT I DO QUESTION THE SANITY OF THESE THREE REPUBLICANS FROM THE LONE STAR STATE.

No, Rick Perry did not make the list. Top 5, maybe, but not Top 3. He’s just too easy a target and much less of a current threat than these three nut jobs. Forget about their party affiliation. I’m convinced they’re on an entirely different planet than the rest of us. Of course, they each hold an elected office so a majority of the people who turned out to vote supported their oddball platforms. That means they’re not the only inmates running the Lone Star Asylum.

TED CRUZ (U.S. SENATE)

Forget about the fact that he looks like a mash-up of Sean Hannity and one of those sad sacks you find trolling Christian Mingle looking for a Jesus lady. Ted Cruz is a Tea Party crack-pot masquerading as a guy with all of his faculties intact. He is certainly proof that just because you have an Ivy League education doesn’t mean you will legislate intelligently, rationally or coherently. Like most on the extreme Right these days, the Tedster loves to hear himself talk. His favorite three words are: “Obamacare,” “Obamacare,” and “Obamacare” (with a brief break for “Benghazi,” “Benghazi,” “Benghazi” back when that was the faux scandal of the moment for the GOP). He’s an immigrant (from Canada) who shows little real interest in fixing our broken immigration system. He’s half Cuban but you’d never know it…until he can use it to raise a buck or advance his political career. The Newtown massacre did nothing to lessen his hard-on for a semi-automatic and he is equally turned on by DOMA. What has Cruz accomplished since he hit the Senate this year? Other than blowing tons of hot air, not much. That he took the seat vacated by highly regarded vet Kay Bailey Hutchison just adds further insult to injury. Ted Cruz isn’t stupid but you’d never know it.

LOUIE GOHMERT (U.S. HOUSE)

Oh, Louie! You madcap, angry douchebag, you. Unlike Cruz, there is nothing that will convince me this guy isn’t about as sharp as a broken Ginsu. Worse yet, he’s a box of rocks who is completely convinced that he’s the smartest guy in the room. Not only does Gohmert get moist hearing himself yap, he’s also a cheerleader in the “if I just keep yelling, it must be true” wing of the GOP. Much like those Tea Party dicks who showed up at town hall meetings a few years back just to scream over everyone, Louie is all sound and fury that signifies nada. He loves his guns almost as much as he does the moment sperm meets egg and he has an uncanny ability to tie just about anything to that Righty chestnut: the erosion of Judeo-Christian values. Gohmert is a loud and proud birther and he’s virulently anti-gay. Even worse, the guy sounds like a complete doofus. A hate-spewing redneck with the speaking style of a backwoods bumpkin and the political talent of the loser in a mock-election at your local elementary school.

JODIE LAUBENBERG (TEXAS HOUSE)

Here’s a bucktooth, down home gal who makes Louie Gohmert look like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking…combined. She doesn’t just sound like a complete dumb-ass every time she opens her mouth, she IS a stunningly stupid person. Jodie Laubenberg is so devoid of gray matter that when she contradicts her own political stands you’re pretty sure she’s too addle-brained to even realize it. She never met a zygote she didn’t profess her devotion to and she’s a one-woman show for the dangers of AquaNet being left in the hands of the clueless. Where might you have heard the name “Jodie Laubenberg” recently? She’s the bat-crap-crazy idiot who thought rape kits were some kind of magical womb broom. Yep pardners, "In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out.” Her words, not mine. Enough said.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PREVIOUS TOP3: TOTALLY WORTHLESS DEMOCRATS

OPINION: SUPER STORM RIGHTY

IN TWEET: A SERMON FROM THE SERVICE ATTENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA YESTERDAY FLIPS OUT RIGHT WINGERS AND REVEALS WHAT SCARES THEM MOST: THE TRUTH.

If you’re a hard-core Evangelical and/or adherent to the Tea Party version of conservatism, it’s a pretty scary world out there. Once you pop your head out from under the rock of Fox News or crawl beyond the shadow of Rush Limbaugh’s massive gut, it’s hard out there for a Right Wing pimp, yo! Here’s the wicked scary “evidence” giving Righties the heebie jeebies:

• There’s a scary black man in the White House. YOWZA!
• The scary black man in the White House also happens to be a card-carrying Muslim Socialist who was born in A-freak-a! OHMIGOSH!
• You’ve got those “wetbacks” massing on the border and climbing ladders to get into this country just so they can take our jobs. YIKES!
• The “filthy homosexuals” aren’t happy molesting children and boning sheep anymore, now they want to get married. GASP!
• The Second Commandment…I mean…Amendment is under attack and the black helicopters are a-comin’ to take away our beloved guns. EEEK!
• Women just won’t admit that they really do have magic anti-rape spermicide in them and, even if this mystical she juice fails to flow, the little rape baby is a gift from God they should want to carry to term. ZOINKS!
• Those Obamacare death panels are coming (really, they are, you betcha) and soon microchips will be implanted in each of us so we can be tracked like lab rats. AAAAAH!

I wish this alt-reality was some massive April Fools joke or one of those bizarro nightmares you have after eating a stuffed burrito well past midnight. Alas, that isn’t the case. As each of the hyperlinks embedded in the bullet points above illustrates (and I do encourage you to read the linked articles), Righties in this country are a minority of the electorate who remain in thrall to a bizarre fictional narrative that has made reality something they avoid while also convincing them that all this “progress” is just a phase.

In the “up is down” world of the Righties, all they have to do is close their eyes and click their heels three or four hundred times. If they just stick to their guns long enough (no pun intended), we’ll soon return to the “good old days” when women were submissive to their husbands, gay men were confirmed bachelors, lesbians were WACS, black folks loved to sing Negro spirituals at the back of the bus and the closest we’d ever have to get to anyone of Hispanic or Latino origin was that Ricardo guy on I LOVE LUCY.

As Mark Twain once said, “denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” True that! In fact, if you’re a Righty, denial has fast become the ocean surrounding the island that is your limited world view. They’ve pretty much adopted a siege mentality for the better part of the last five years and spent the bulk of their energy preaching to the choir. While Righties kept treading water, the rest of us kept moving forward. The Right Wing M.O. was akin that fingers in the ear, la la la la thing kids do when their parents say something they don’t like.

That was, until yesterday. That’s when Rev. Luis Leon dared call out Right Wing zealotry in his Easter sermon. An Easter sermon that also happened to be attended by President Obama and his family. Were the President not in the house, no one outside of Rev. Leon’s church would be talking about this sermon. The mere presence of Obama is all it took to trigger Super Storm Righty, a freak out of Biblical proportions.

In less than 24 hours, the sermon went from the hallowed halls of St. John’s to the bile spewing lips of just about every Right Wing talking head and pundit. Bubba Rush went ballistic. Fox News started another firestorm (with an assist from dingbat anchor Megyn Kelly, rubbing her only two sticks together). Conservative pundits were shocked, SHOCKED! They chewed the sermon up and spit it out as hate speech. Filth, I tell you. FILTH! Here’s the passage that caused the kerfuffle:

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back…for blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be back on their side of the border.”

Quelle suprise! Those words were all it took for the Right to lose its collective shit. Even more telling, in less than 24 hours, the words of Rev. Louis Leon morphed into the “Obama Easter Sermon” across Right Wingdom. It was as if Obama gave the sermon himself or had a had in writing it. He didn't do either of those things but, truth be damned!

Suddenly Rev. Louis Leon wasn’t even himself anymore. Instead, the Righties re-christened him “Obama’s Easter Pastor” and went to town. Somehow, on the f-ed up FANTASY ISLAND these nuts call home, an Episcopal reverend calling out racism, sexism and homophobia was itself racist. Not, of course,  because there's a shred of truth to the allegation. The sermon was racist solely because Obama was there to hear it. WTF?!?!

Back in the real world, during the past few weeks alone, high ranking Republicans and Evangelicals have been on a particularly disgusting verbal tirade. They think nothing of their own casual use of hate speech while in the same breath they have the nerve to bitch when someone calls them out on it. Time to Google hypocrisy (or click that link if you’re lazy).

We’ve seen Mexicans called “wetbacks" by Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who stubbornly refused to apologize until he was shamed into doing so. The LGBT community, a favorite whipping boy of Righties, has been lumped into the same company as the boy lovers of NAMBLA and those who like to lay with our four legged friends by Dr. Ben Carson. Not only did this jackass try to claim that he meant no offense (he did) and his comments were taken out of context (they weren’t), good old Megyn Kelly leapt to his defense. Yes, the same Megyn Kelly who spent the past 24 hours shoveling shit all over Rev. Leon.

Wait, there’s more! A Republican troll in Georgia claimed marriage equality would lead to tax fraud. Several states made it clear that when it comes to women’s reproductive rights, the Constitution matters little to them. In addition to the current Obama-centric shit storm, the “Obama is dumb and lazy” meme continued unabated as this article from Mother Jones astutely details.

Other than a few key Republicans correctly condemning the “wetback” fiasco (in part because focus groups told them it was a bad word), the bulk of these hateful lies met almost no resistance from Right Wing media pundits. The sound of silence was deafening and disgusting but not at all surprising. Personally, I think Rev. Leon was too kind. If I was giving that sermon, Megyn Kelly would have something genuinely juicy to chew on with her limited intellect.

Of course, this never was about truth or fairness or facts. Righties can dish out a ton of mean spirited hate but when someone rings their clue phone, they cannot take it. The truth hurts those who deny it most and Rev. Leon opened up a big, ugly Right Wing wound.

So, let’s bring out the salt and pour it in. No matter how much the Righties want to piss and moan about this sermon, they’re wrong. They remain firmly entrenched on the wrong side of history and their obsessive hatred of President Obama is fueled by one simple truth: he is the physical embodiment of everything they despise. 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Righties, but YOU are now the minority. Here are the facts:

• Women are not going back to being second class citizens nor will they allow misguided men to decide what’s best for them and their families.
• Blacks are never going to return to the back of the bus or be denied their voting rights.
• Immigrants, specifically the brown-skinned ones you fear the most, are not going to self-deport nor are they going to tolerate being marginalized.
• LGBT Americans are not going back in the closets you constructed for them and they will no longer be satisfied with anything less than full marriage equality.
• There’s a black guy in the White House and Obamacare is the law of the land. Deal with it.

If any of these facts scare you, tough cookies. We’ve been putting up with Right Wing crap for far too long. The shoe is now on the other foot and there it is destined to remain. Progress is an unstoppable train. Jump on board or get the hell out of the way.

To end on an up note, here’s Jon Stewart’s take on the state of affairs in the GOP. If you are on a mobile device or browser that does not support the video players embedded below, watch on your desktop or laptop computer or CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE to bookmark the host sites for viewing later.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm E/P. Full episodes are available for next day streaming on Hulu Plus.