Tag Archives: Dumbassery

Donald Trump is a Terrible Person

Donald TrumpAs being reported everywhere (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, USA Today,  TheDaily News, The New York Times, CNN, The Boston Globe and about a million others) Donald Trump is now officially running for president, rounding out the Republican field at an even dozen. This was pretty damn sad.

Almost as quickly, many sources let us know just how full of shit he was. This was even sadder:

If asked our opinion, we’d say that Trump isn’t really serious in his bid and that it’s simply a ploy to collect as much of the Republican’s crazy fringe as he can to eventually sell them off to the highest bidder with an endorsement. Serious or not, this move does make Trump, officially, a politician which allows us to cast judgement.

The Verdict

Trump is a politician that drenches us in Dumbassery, Douchebaggery and Dickory in torrential amounts. He has no positive traits whatsoever. He is convicted of the “Triple D”: Dumbassery, Douchebaggery and Dickory all in the Worst Degree. He is a terrible human being and is so sentenced to please, in the name of all goodness and light in the world, just go away.

Todd Russ (and the Majority of the Oklahoma State House) is Sadly Deranged

Todd Russ, OklahomaAs reported on “LGBTQNation.com”, “Okla. House OKs bill shifting issuance of marriage licenses from state to clergy“, the Oklahoma House passed House Bill 1125. The innocuously named bill – which let’s remember has passed the House – would mandate that all marriage licenses be issued by clergy, effectively eliminating secular marriage completely in the state.

The bill, as we all know from “Schoolhouse Rocks”, still requires passage by the State Senate before becoming a law. With a solid Republican majority behind the effort, however, that seems likely. Looks like the cartoon will need to be updated to reflect the inevitable Supreme Court challenge.

The law would require a ceremony to be performed and certificate to be issued by a “preacher, minister, priest, rabbi, or ecclesiastical dignitary”. Russ claims this “protects” county clerks from having to “recognize” same-sex marriage.

Todd clearly doesn’t realize that non-religious people, according to recent polls, make up as much as a third of Americans. Marriage, secular or otherwise, provides numerous secular benefits ranging from tax breaks to estate disposition to hospital visitation.

Verdict

Russ and, apparently, a majority of the Oklahoma House of Representatives fail to understand that marriage as a legal arrangement has as long a, if not longer, history than marriage as a religious rite. They also clearly enjoy wasting taxpayer time and money with ridiculous assertions that have absolutely no chance of passing constitutional muster.

For all of this we charge the Oklahoma House of Representatives with Dickory in the First Degree and Accessory Dumbassery. They are sentenced to remain, for the rest of their natural-born lives, in an Oklahoma that will soon leave them behind culturally, socially and politically.

Jim Inhofe is Depressingly Stupid

As reported on “The Hill”, “Inhofe Hurls Snowball on Senate Floor“, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe doesn’t understand the difference between “weather” and “climate”.

Inhofe seems to be suggesting that because it’s cold outside where he is, it can’t possibly be warm elsewhere. 2014 was, indeed, the hottest year ever recorded. Inhofe’s inane theatrics and inability to understand basic science can’t change that.

Verdict

It’s normally difficult to sentence somebody for being stupid, however it’s quite easy to do so for somebody this proud of being stupid. Inhofe is convicted with Dumbassery in the First Degree. For his sentence he will spend a week in drought-ridden California (currently experiencing the hottest winter on record) where he will presumably stand drooling and gibbering, amazed at the lack of snow in Winter.

Kevin Bryant Makes a Little Girl Cry (We Assume)

South Carolina Senator Kevin BryantAs reported in USA Today, “Politics, religion almost derail girl’s state fossil bill“, the South Carolina legislature is taking pedantry to new levels.

It all started when 8-year-old Olivia McConnell suggested to her state representative, Robert Ridgeway, that the Mammoth become South Carolina’s state fossil. She raised the points that one of the first major fossil discoveries in North America was in South Carolina and that it was one of only seven states without one.

He thought it was good idea and, with his counterpart Sen. Kevin Johnson, introduced a nice, simple bill into their respective houses. It first hit a minor roadblock in the form of Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler who was objecting simply because, “Quite frankly, I thought we had passed a bill in the Senate putting a moratorium on official state whatevers.”

After a quick amendment from Peeler which, basically, said: “OK, but this is the last time for this crap, dammit!” the bill’s future seemed brighter. That is until it hit Sen. Kevin Bryant who is apparently so fragile in his belief that he insists that it infect everything (Bryant is pictured at left wasting somebody else’s time).

First, he derailed the bill by insisting that it include three verses from Genesis. This nearly doubled the size of this otherwise simple bill. After receiving criticism for that blatant attempt to politicize something that didn’t need to be politicized he relented by… doing more of the same.

The final version of the bill, which looks like it may be passed, includes this amended, redundant language by Bryant:

Section 1-1-712A. The Columbian Mammoth, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field, is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina and must be officially referred to as the ‘Columbian Mammoth’, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field.

There is no word from Olivia on how it feels to have genuine scientific curiosity squashed by a mean man in a dumb suit.

Verdict

For insisting that nothing good can happen unless his religion is allowed to mark it like a dog in heat, Mr. Byant is charged with Triple Dumbassery in the First Degree. We truly hope that someday he feels confident enough in his faith that he doesn’t have to shove it down the throats of little girls.

Arizona Legislator is Way too Interested in Your Bikini Area

JohnKavanaghAs reported in the Washington Post, “Arizona bill would tie public restroom use to birth gender in fight over transgender rights“, the Arizona legislature is wasting time.

Proposed by state rep. John Kavanagh the law would force people to use gender-identified public facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, etc) consistently with the gender listed on their birth-certificates or face up to six-months in prison.

So, for example, a transgender woman, born male, wearing women’s clothing and in all ways outwardly presenting as a woman must, under this law, use the men’s room.  It also appears that the (badly written) bill would potentially penalize any father that escorts his toddler daughter into a ladies room or a woman that leverages an otherwise unused men’s room.

(As an aside, we’re also consistently intrigued by the fact that somehow these ridiculous, bigoted proposals never seem to get any attention on the representatives personal home pages.)

Verdict

We had considered a plea-bargain for Rep. Kavanagh but, as reported in the Phoenix New Times, he is clearly a repeat offender.  Therefore we charge him with Double-Maximum Dumbassery. 

Classic Sadness: Peter Palumbo calls Jessica Alquist “Evil”

PeterPalumboJessica Ahlquist was 16 in 2011 when she questioned and then, with the help of the ACLU, brought legal action against her high school for prominently displaying an official Christian School Prayer.  After nearly a year she (obviously) won her case.

Jessica earned few friends locally with her brave actions.  She was repeatedly bullied by both other students and teachers, anonymously threatened with physical violence, rape and death and even earned the public ire of several famous conservatives.  As vile as these were however our concern is with Peter Palumbo, her local state representative.

Peter decided to sum up his feelings about Jessica on a local talk radio station where he labeled her an “evil little thing“. This is detailed more fully in these Examiner.com and Cranston.patch.com pieces. This elected official singled out a child brave enough to suffer threat and insult to defend our constitution as “evil”. Soledad O’Brien interviews Jessica about this in this CNN clip from 2012:

On a positive note while Jessica lost many local friends she gained thousands of admirers around the world.  So much so that Hemant Mehta, of FriendlyAtheist.com, was able to raise over $40,000 from the atheist/freethinker community to fund her future education.

Verdict

Palumbo, like many politicians, fails to understand the Constitution.  By his statements he places personal beliefs above his civic duty.  He is most sad however – desperately, terribly sad – for attacking a little girl that clearly could do his job better than he can.

A good man, if he disagreed with her, might have engaged Jessica on the issue.  He might have admired her bravery and the sheer gumption she displayed at so young an age.  He could have marveled that a child still too young to vote would have such a passion for the foundational ideals of our country.

Palumbo took another path: he called her names.  Rep. Palumbo earns twin charges of platinum-level Dickory and Dumbassery – and our eternal disdain.

Mike Huckabee is a Sad, Sad Man

Wikipedia, Mike HuckabeeAs reported by The Huffington Post Mike Huckabee took a time of national tragedy to both lie and advance his agenda.  Speaking on the tragic shooting of 27 people in Newtown, Conn. he began with:

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools.  Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”

Not having made a big enough ass of himself he continued:

“We don’t have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem.  And since we’ve ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised … when all hell breaks loose.”

As a member of government and former presidential hopeful we have to assume that Huckabee has, at least once, read the Constitution.   We feel confident in saying that he’s willfully misunderstanding the difference between preventing schools from forcing God down their students throats and “ordering him out”.

We’d also love to visit wherever it is that God has been ordered out of public conversations as we’ve never been there or seen it on the news.

Finally we must ask (not being religious ourselves): how insulting to the faithful is the intimation that God is such an vainglorious asshole that he allowed children to die because we’ve eliminated forced school prayer?

Verdict

For continuing to perpetuate the myth that “God is not allowed in schools” and for using God as some kind of ridiculous boogeyman he earns a charge of Felony Dumbassery.  For using this tragedy to further his own agenda (especially with repeatedly debunked lies and misinformation) he earns multiple counts of Felony Dickory.

On a personal note the court would also like the following comment entered into the record: Fuck you, Mike Huckabee.  Fuck you.

Sad Judge Doesn’t Understand the Constitution

As reported by the New York Times in “Constitution Experts Denounce Oklahoma Judge’s Sentencing of Youth to Church“, Judge Mike Norman (Oklahoma) recently sentenced a teen DUI offender to 10 years of regular church attendance.  Forgoing the obvious jokes about this sentence being worse that prison it should be clear to anybody with a Junior High School level understanding of the constitution that this is patently illegal.  Amazing this judge reached his position without this basic understanding.  When asked about the ruling he said:

“I feel like church is important.  I sentenced him to go to church for 10 years because I thought I could do that.”  He followed later with, “I think it would hold up, but I don’t know one way or another.” and “I think Jesus can help anybody. I know I need help from him every day.”

Constitution Daily delves into the issue much more clearly than we ever could in their excellent article, “Constitution Check: Can a judge send a criminal to church instead of prison?”  Spoiler: the answer is “no”.  One of the foundational aspects of the Constitution is that it prevents government from either compelling or prohibiting religious practice in any way.

Verdict

Judge Norman is, if we may be so bold, clearly an unschooled idiot.  For this reason we can find no true malice in his actions.  He did use his position to unlawful force his religious views on others however and we find that we must sadly find him guilty of Dumbassery in the First Degree.  We sentence him to actually read the Constitution (or at least the Cliff Notes version).

Sad, Paid Tweets for Romney

In “Report says 15 percent of Mitt Romney Twitter followers are paid fakes” Ars Technica summarizes a new report that estimates that more than 15% of Mitt Romney’s Twitter followers have been generated by paid services.  The report from Barracuda Labs points specifically to July 21st when Romney’s fan base jumped by 116,922 new followers.

These new followers represented a single-day 17% spike in followers for Romney.  Fully 25% of the accounts were less than four days old and over 23% had never issued a tweet.  Interestingly over 10% of the accounts were later suspended without comment by Twitter.

The study explored the shady grey market of purchasing followers by opening test accounts and purchasing followers for them for an average of $18 per 1000 follows.  They then collected metrics about the fake accounts and applied them to Twitter accounts at large.  The practice of selling accounts is against Twitter’s terms of service but the firm seems to do little about it.

Verdict

We must be clear that the Romney campaign has yet to comment and the report’s evidence can only reasonably considered circumstantial.  However the evidence is also very convincing.  Having taken into account the minimal potential impact we still feel that this kind of store-bought deception earns the Romney campaign a charge of Douchebaggery in the Third Degree.  In addition we also give the campaign an additional charge of Misdemeanor Dumbassery just for the plain egotistic silliness spending any money at all on fake Twitter followers.

We are willing to suspend these charges should it come to light that the campaign did not, indeed, purchase the followers in question.

Romney Makes you Miss the Point

The always appreciated Washington Post Fact Checker hands out one of his rare “Four Pinocchio” ratings a stunningly tactless distortion by the Romney Campaign.  By lifting an unprepared statement made to a group of democrats out of context Romney intimates that Obama defended his current fiscal record as “working” when the fill comments clearly indicate he was actually speaking about the Clinton era economic plan.

Verdict

This is exactly the kind of depressing politics this site was created catalog.  while the horribly deceptive, out-of-context claim clearly earns Romney an accusation of Felony Douchebaggery the sheer audacity of it also nets him a secondary charge of Second Degree Dumbassery.