Bigger and Dumber Than Ever, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #330 | @MDWorld

June 17, 2013 Mike Gold 20 Comments

Last week, daughter Adriane and I found ourselves driving up the BQE alongside New York City’s East River. It was about 1:00 AM and we had a clear, unobstructed and beautiful view of the Statue of Liberty, the new Freedom Tower (a first for me), and the Manhattan skyline. It was truly inspiring.

And so is this.

According to The Washington Post, Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks refuted a proposed amendment to his measure banning abortions after 20 weeks to make exceptions for rape and incest. His statement: “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject – because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low… But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment.”

Let’s put aside the fact that this is bullshit and that even if it wasn’t, it shouldn’t matter. Let’s focus on the response former Missouri Republican Congressman Todd Akin after he said women can psychologically prevent pregnancy from occurring after a “legitimate rape.” Let us note the word “former.” And let us appreciate just how Representative Franks confuses stupidity for courage.

In fact, according to the same Post piece, a 2011 study from San Francisco State University found young women in Columbia “who have experienced sexual violence report significantly higher levels of unintended pregnancy … compared to those who have not experienced sexual violence.”

There are two possible sources for Franks’ statement, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first is that he pulled it out of his ass. The second is that Franks is so gullible he believes anything told to him by anyone who is to the right of Sean Hannity. Either way, he’s as dumb as a bag of cold dog turds.

The GOP continues its War on Science by making stuff up and selectively bible-sourcing their absurd claims as “evidence.” (I can hardly wait until they read the parts about slavery.) Every weapon used on the battlefield, including our military personnel, is based upon science. So perhaps the first fatality in their War on Science should be our military budget. Personally I don’t subscribe to that, but I do subscribe to sundry other scientific principles commonly accepted by people who do not wear holy tin foil on their heads: evolution, biology, ecology, mathematics, gravity…

The Republicans keep on moaning about how their problem is that they can’t get their righteous message out through the “lamestream media” and if only they could, all Americans, including women, blacks, Latinos, and gays, would see the glory of their mission. This, my friends, betrays the true dumbness of the Republican Party, which has long been interchangeable with the so-called Tea Party.

The Republican Party’s message has been getting out there just fine.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check the website above for times and streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Marc Alan Fishman, Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.