Everything that comes out of this man’s mouth is pure bile:
This morning, the Catholic League, headed by the virulently homophobic Bill Donohue (right), said via Twitter, “Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.”
Get that one-two-three punch? Gotta give Donohue credit: He belittled lesbians, Democrats, and adoption all in less than 140 characters.
He’s like Rush Limbaugh without the wit and charm and good looks. Why is he still accepted in polite company? Just a few weeks ago, he was coordinating attacks on the victims of molestation. Now this?
(via)
kindness
You’d think that a guy who spends his life defending child molesters would be less hateful of gays.
Go figure.
Litlebritdifrnt
I want to know when those on the right are going to call out Limbaugh for calling FLOTUS “Moochelle”, which he does almost every day (including today). I won’t hold my breath.
pseudonymous in nc
Dear press: get good ol’ Cardinal Dolan on record about whether he agrees with this.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
these people make me feel good about some of the shit i say.
dedc79
Just need to keep reminding myself that Donohue and his supporters are losing this fight, and that what we’re witnessing is the dying gasps of their hate-filled movement.
Svensker
Yeah, gobsmacking. What a sincere Christian.
Brachiator
Three words. Piece of shit.
He also belittled adopted kids, who apparently don’t count as highly as those popped out of the womb and kept by their birth mother.
And so now these goons are Fluking (as in Sandra Fluke) Rosen. She can’t be derided as a slut, so lesbian faux mother will have to do.
Donohue is a despicable piece of shit.
jlow
I checked out his twitter feed, and another gem was “99.8% of Priests are innocent”.
Catsy
@kindness:
You should probably rethink the collateral damage in that comparison.
JPL
@kindness: The pedophiles weren’t gay so there is that.
General Stuck
Bill Donahue is the evil twin of Dick Vitale
Lolis
All this manufactured outrage reminds me of the time when Obama said lipstick on a pig in 2008. The outrage machine is desperate and panicked, like then, and it means we are winning.
Roger Moore
I’m sure he’s mostly upset that a lesbian was allowed to adopt. If Catholic charities were allowed to discriminate against homosexuals the way they want to, he’d think adoption was great.
HelpThe99ers
A man who is as steadfastly opposed to abortion as he is, belittling adoption?
The gob, it is smacked.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
Why do you hate Catholics? The anti-Catholicism here is unbelievable. I go to Church every Sunday and blah blah blah.
Brian R.
I assume the Twitter limit prevented him from finishing that last bit, which should have read “Ann raised 5 of her own, with the slight help of an army of nannies, maids, chauffeurs and cooks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Here’s the official RNC response:
So. the Republican National Committee is now on record as supporting adoption by gay parents. This is gonna come as a pleasant (to me) shock to some of their elected officials, especially in state legislatures.
Roger Moore
Also, too, lesbians are perfectly capable of having biological children. Some members of my extended family prove the point. Maybe the reason Rosen adopted is because she wanted to provide a home for a needy child, not because she couldn’t have her own.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Pure distilled evil.
That book he reads from doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.
Alex
Bill Donohue is just another grifter:
http://myrmecos.net/2010/12/16/the-ant-jesus-uproar-is-a-scam/
Ripley
Joseph wept.
dmsilev
@Litlebritdifrnt: See, now Rush Limbaugh is an “entertainer”, so everything he says doesn’t count. Because we said so.
hieropants
Huh? Is he suggesting she adopted her kids fully grown, and therefore did no work to raise them?
What a weird objection.
Mary
@Ripley:
You win.
JPL
The Catholic League is going to become irrelevant because of their hatred. What would Jesus think?
Forum Transmitted Disease
That’s hard to do. Kudos, Satan’s Little Helper.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@pseudonymous in nc:
The over/under on this would be never and someday. I’m placing bets on “never”. The Stenographer Corps doesn’t have the temerity to actually do their job.
redshirt
Republican Jesus will crush the meek!
Steve
I was adopted. While I certainly don’t discount the amount of hard work it takes to give birth, I’m pretty sure my parents would testify that the part that comes after that is pretty arduous too. It’s not like when you adopt the kid shows up 18 years of age, with college scholarship in hand, ready to make you proud.
Rob L
Old Scraggly-tooth is at it again. Not surprising at all as he is at the ready when the GOP need a verbal hitman. Part of the growing group of Bile-R-Us. He is the male equivalent of Ann Coulter in terms of bile and vile.
South Park did a pretty good hit job on them but I was disappointed that they did not include his scraggly teeth as part of his visage.
pragmatism
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: catholic guilt manifests itself in some strange ways.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
In short, lesbians are people, just like other people, and make decisions about their lives and families like anybody else.
Except to little shits like Donohue, for whom lesbians are apparently defective, and whose motives are always suspect.
This is but a variation in the war on women.
Bastards.
Mark S.
@kindness:
Actually, one of Donohue’s main defenses is that since most of the victims in the priest scandals have already started puberty, the Church doesn’t have a pedophile problem but a homosexual problem. In other words, if the Church just got rid of all the gay priests, there wouldn’t be any problem.
He is really a vile piece of shit.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@JPL:
Which Jesus? Republican Jesus? Supply Side Jesus? DFH Jesus? Or that guy Jesus who mows Mittens’s many lawns?
So many Jesuses, I can’t keep em straight.
wasabi gasp
Romney and friends are going to overplay her hand calluses.
General Stuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Th wingnuts thought they’d found the Rosen cure to undo all the damage from their jihad to create democracy by invading the national uterus/ And now Donahue opens his piehole, and hands back the hot potato in the war on women. Reminds me of my first panty raid as a college freshmen, standing stunned at the foot of the womens dorm, looking skyward amidst a downpour of panties raining down on my head, and thinking to myself, this could be heaven, or this could be hell
twiffer
both my brothers and myself are adopted, my sister is a b-child. does this mean my parents actually only raised one kid? i’m sure they’d beg to differ.
aretino
@Ripley: Sweet Jesus, that’s FTW
Culture of Truth
You know who else raised a child who was not biologically his?
David Koch
IOKIYAR
Catsy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Methinks this is a perfect opportunity for Team Obama to twist the knife by publicly thanking the RNC for supporting the equal rights of gay and lesbian parents who want to adopt.
Watch the fuckers twist in the wind as they try to decide who to throw under the bus: the socon nutjobs and their anti-gay agenda, or the vast majority of America which is sick of same.
Richard
Interesting bedfellows that the GOP’s war on women has spawned.
Large segments of the religious right do not consider Catholics to be Christians.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Yep. And it is simply not possible to molest girls if you follow the logic.
Mnemosyne
It’s weird, but I have started to see more spoutings off by conservative Catholics that there’s something inherently bad about adopted children. It came up in a little chat that the archbishop of Minneapolis/St. Paul tried to have with some Catholic high school seniors — before the archbishop was booed off the stage for bashing gay parents and adoptees, that is.
So, apparently the thinking now is that it’s bad to get an abortion, it’s bad to put your child up for adoption, and it’s bad to be a single mother. That’s quite the catch-22 they’ve set up there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
Also, too, the “Catholic League” is a “he”, not a “they”.
@efgoldman:
apparently Francis and Timothy have decided to floor it like Geena Davis (or Susan Sarandon. I’ve never actually seen the movie.) I remain sensibly cautious about November, but I really think the Beanie Boyz could be the Two Pats of this cycle.
cmorenc
Donohue’s a horse’s ass, but even so Hilary Rosen’s remark was not tactically smart at all. In general, harsh shots at candidate’s wives only get a sympathetic reception among people who were already passionately against the candidate anyway, but tend at best to be viewed as needlessly rude, and at worst as repulsive by everyone else. For example, Michelle Obama’s been the target of some notoriously nasty crap from some of the more racist tea party crowd, but remarks like that haven’t driven any voters away from Obama who weren’t already firmly determined to vote against him. Romney may actually wind up getting some undeserved sympathy via his wife from Rosen’s remarks.
Back to Donahue, his effect may be quite the opposite of what he intended, insofar as influencing voters.
BGinCHI
He needs to leave Rosen alone.
It’s not like she comes to where he works and knocks little boys’ dicks out of his mouth.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: It’s old school philosophy. What the RC wants from us is: Have many children, work them all in the fields for the Church’s benefit, bend knee to the Church, and die. Thanks!
HRA
My mother had a saying for this idiocy from Donohue.
“Giving birth to a child is easy. Raising a child is difficult.”
I almost cannot believe the stupidity of those who are attacking Hilary Rosen for telling the truth. –Oh! Wait! They do not know what it means to tell the truth.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Which means Donohoe has officially moved into Fred Phelps territory.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
By all accounts, it’s less of a “league” and more like “one whiny guy with a fax machine.”
I’m not sure how he ended up the spokesperson for All Real True Catholics and I’m not sure I want to know, frankly.
burnspbesq
@dedc79:
Not sure who that might be, but it certainly isn’t any Catholics I know.
Svensker
@Mark S.:
Starting with the Pope? Wonder what Ol’ Bill thinks of that?
Jennifer
@Mnemosyne: You could shorter that with “God hates vaginas.”
coffeetime
@Ripley: As an adoptive Dad of two amazing and very “”real daughters I say, “Amen” to that.
SenyorDave
@dedc79: Actually, I keep reminding myself that if we’re really lucky Donohoe will DIAF.
beltane
@cmorenc: I agree. Hilary Rosen has always struck me as being a minor douchebag and her latest comment confirmed my longstanding feelings towards her. However, she is no match at all for Bill Donohue when it comes to being an asshole. He is like the Babe Ruth of douchebaggery, hitting it out of the park every time he’s at bat.
Rosen might have stepped in it a little, but Donohue wallows in it on a daily basis.
Steve
@Mnemosyne: Isn’t Catholic Charities a major adoption agency?
ET
Fucker.
Seriously he has no idea why those children were adopted. Like my mother, Ms. Rosen may not have been able to have them.
Fucker.
David Koch
slightly off topic.
I had no idea Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life.
I figured she had to had have some sort of career, if only philanthropy or church stuff. But no. And this stuff about being stay at home mom is bullshit because she obviously had maids and nannyies to run their mansions.
There are a lot of um,…. let just call them “hard working white people” who “resent” the idle wealthy. Romney was already struggling trying to connect with white working class, and shinning a spot light on his wife’s regal lifestyle (“only the little people work”) is a net setback.
Brachiator
@cmorenc:
Romney may get some sympathy, but not votes over this.
The remarks were mild, not much of an attack, but the GOP typically wants to get maximum value from stirred up outrage.
They are also looking for, and may be getting, the much desired “Obama Administration distances itself from Rosen,” which may upset Obama supporters more than the original remarks upset anybody on Team Romney.
Poliitics is like a dance with very precise steps. And knives for backstabbing.
burnspbesq
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I’m sure you thought this was funny. It’s stupid.
Every thinking Catholic I know thinks Donahue’s an ass.
And there is real anti-Catholic bias here. We both know it. You incite it on a regular basis.
Your only redeeming quality as a human being is that you like the Clash.
jl
@cmorenc: This is one of those kerfluffles that goes way over my head.
Who is Hillary Rosen, and why is Romney making some big fuss about some clumsy thing she said?
Is she an ‘unofficial official’ Obama or Democratic pundit?
Or is she a random supposedly liberal pundit, and Romney has no better target to fuss about at the moment?
I did a search and can’t find anything about a connection between Rosen and Dems or Obama.
Whoever she is, i think Rosen blew it with her comment, and I thought her ‘apology’ or clarification was unhelpful. She had a valid point, but blew the wording initially, and then gave a apologification that did not clarify the valid point she made.
geg6
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Heh. Indeedy.
I heart you, Doug.
wasabi gasp
Mitt’s gonna do a press conference in fencing knickers.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@jl:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/republicans-desperation-exposed-in-ann-romney-controversy/2012/04/12/gIQAnV86CT_blog.html?hpid=z2
beltane
@jl: Hilary Rosen is indeed a “random supposedly liberal pundit” and long-time corporatist shill. I seem to recall her making similarly mildly offensive comments during the 2008 primary (she was a Clinton supporter) but I’d have to do a little digging to remember what they were.
Jay in Oregon
I live for the day when the Catholic League is out of business and Donohue has to get through life on his charm and good looks.
rikyrah
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
He belittled lesbians, Democrats, and adoption all in less than 140 characters.
wonderful description of him.
Brian R.
As a Catholic, can I ask that you stop paying attention to this asshole? His group has a small number of members, and he sure as hell doesn’t speak for the rest of us.
This is nutpicking, and it’s no different than when conservative sites seize on something dumb from the New Black Panther Party and say, oh, look at how angry all blacks are!
Chris
@Richard:
I’ve made this observation before: I used to be active in religious groups on my college campus, and one of the things I noticed was that the most rabid, hardcore anti-Catholic Protestants and the most rabid, hardcore anti-Protestant Catholics were also invariably the most Republican in both groups.
Suffern ACE
@burnspbesq: Yes. It is sometimes easy to forget, but the Catholic League isn’t a League in the sense that there are several members. It is what the National League would be if teams consisted of only the Phillies and the only members of the Phillies were the owner and the second baseman.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: as someone pointed out on MSNBC, there’s more of an official connection between Romney and Foster Friess (MItt and Rick are gonna quit shooting at each other, so I hope the President’s teleprompters are bulletproof. Har dee har) than between Obama and Rosen
jl
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: @
beltane:
Thanks. Another random corporate Dem pundit strikes again.
If she has no real connection with Congressional Dems or Obama, then I guess Mitt had decided it is time to start the summer silly season.
les
@burnspbesq:
Until the “Catholics you know” stand up in public and contradict Donohue and the Red Beanies, in equivalent forum, you own it.
The Other Chuck
@Mnemosyne:
Not really, since the doctrine of Original Sin pretty much boils down to “You are Bad”.
Satanicpanic
@Brian R.: Uh, John wrote Real Catholics. Or “Real” Catholics, if you prefer.
beergoggles
Apparently real catholics also go around examining other men’s pubic regions for signs of waxing.
The link is work safe despite it saying back-sack-crack.
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq:
Maybe yes, maybe no. But he, and Dolan, and Ratzinger are the public face of the Church.
The first Google hit for “Catholic” is http://www.catholic.org/, and the top headline there today is “Homosexual Activists File Federal Lawsuit…” To the right of that is “Employers Who Provide Contraceptives Cooperating With Sin”
*That*, apparently, is what is important to organized Catholicism. What you put in the collection plate pays for that, and you know it.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
thanks also.
the name Foster Friess wants me to go find a good soft serve cone.
Veritas
I see “progressives” just can’t help but double-down on their vicious attacks against Ann Romney.
In the previous thread, Ann Romney was called a “housefrau” who “pooped out” babies, for example, combined with dastardly attacks on Romney’s religion. Keep it up, liberals.
This was a HUGE break for Romney in overcoming the gender gap. Who are women in America going to identify with more–a stay at home conservative mom who loves her family, or a “progressive” inside-the-beltway lesbian?
We’re winning the first news cycle of the general election, motherfuckers. That must really burn you up.
David Koch
@beltane:
I had no idea who she is. I had to google her. Turns out she’s a commentator on CNN and HuffPo, two boring outlets I never tune into.
It’s like when I watch Bill Maher, he always has on obscure and unknown commenators I have to look up.
Cacti
Ann Romney said that women’s choices should be respected.
Except of course when it comes to reproductive choices. Then they should defer to the wisdom of a religious penishood holder.
les
@burnspbesq:
Maybe if they stopped just thinking it and said it, in ways equivalent to Donohue and the Red Beanies, that might actually be meaningful. Til then, you are his support system.
PeakVT
@jlow: Even if that were true, a much larger percentage of the church hierarchy participated in covering up the molesters and enabling some to continue to molest. Kinda hard to wave that away, I think, though of course Donahue is going to try to do so.
Cacti
@Veritas:
VICTORY!
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Are you going to spend TWO HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS of UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH on ads for the Magic Space God Moroni? Please say yes.
Chris
@Veritas:
Their voting patterns over recent decades would seem to indicate the answer to that isn’t exactly what your pathetic delusions think it is.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
As with so many things in life, it’s not the crime that does you in, it’s the cover-up.
LanceThruster
The “League” of Extraordinary Special Gentlemen also has their knickers in a twist over the new Three Stooges film. Seems his beneficence doesn’t like the nun swim suit or Larry David’s Mother Mengele character.
http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/The-Three-Stooges_02.jpg
http://www.catholicleague.org/the-three-stooges-updated/
He liked it better when Hollywood kissed more religious ass with child abuser Bing Crosby in “Going My Way.”
Mnemosyne
@Veritas:
So what was untrue in what Rosen said? I keep asking, but you keep dodging the question.
les
@Brian R.:
Who does speak for you? In public, in the forums that Bill and the Beanies speak in? Where’s the representative on the national stage for all you right thinking, contraceptive accepting, legal abortion supporting, non-asshole Catholics? Your protest might be more believable if it weren’t quite so private. Until you real Catholics deny it in public, out loud, he speaks for you.
Satanicpanic
@Cacti: I will take that as an admission that he does have a problem with women.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@burnspbesq: How DARE anyone hate an institution that’s devoted to keeping women oppressed and providing child-rapists with fresh victims. Don’t forget their efforts to take over as many hospitals as possible so they can halt the scourge that is saving the lives of mothers with septic pregnancies. It’s just good moral sense that a woman with a rotting corpse in her womb should just wait for nature to take its course so she can experience the joy of giving birth to a dead thing. And let’s not forget the Church’s efforts to halt the scourge of condoms in AIDS-stricken countries!
Really, there’s no good reason to hate the people who do that. UNLESS YOU’RE A BIGOT HEYOOO
Veritas
@Chyron HR:
Somewhere, Karl Rove is already smiling.
Just as he’s about to unleash his $200 MILLION offensive, another gem falls right into his lap.
Just as you think you’re about to fly, Karl Rove will smile and clip your wings yet again.
Mark S.
UNLIMITED LESBIAN CASH!
kindness
@burnspbesq:
I think you misinterpret mocking of decidedly unJesus like speech and actions of those who present themselves as good religious Catholics. Actual followers of Jesus’ word are not mocked here, and I suspect a good number of regular commentators here are good Catholics.
The assholes in the church who are trying to make the rest of us live by ‘their’ views deserve mocking and condemnation. That isn’t bigotry. That is self defense.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Veritas:
When did Hillary Rosen turn into FLOTUS?
scav
I’ll stop being rather anti-Catholic hierarchy and prancing public faces when they stop giving me reasons to adopt it as a valid heuristic for their expected behavior. Rome prosecutors link Vatican cleric to 29-year mystery of missing girl. Believe in whatever God you personally want, but don’t think you can shut down others finding your dedicated admins and mascots entirely dodgy, corrupt and unpalatable.
Things looking rather interesting here though, Almost nine in 10 Catholics in Ireland want priests to be allowed to marry
Might explain why the US bishops are making more overt waves, parts of the US may be a safer homeland for the hard-line breed.
Cacti
@Veritas:
Which dastardly attack was that…
That the Mor(m)on church teaches that women “are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children” or that the mormon priesthood is restricted to those with a penis?
Which one is untrue?
(20+ year former Mormon here)
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Are you going to start using THE MATH! as your new hilarious catchphrase?
P.S. Would you say that your “views are progressive”? Mitt Romney did.
Satanicpanic
@Veritas:
I have no doubt that it will be offensive
Catsy
@burnspbesq:
Eye of the beholder, etc.
By your logic, perhaps Donahue would cease to be relevant if there were more “thinking” Catholics.
As usual you completely fail to make the basic distinction between being anti-Catholic and being anti-Catholicism or anti-Catholic Church.
There is absolutely a tremendous bias at this blog against the Catholic Church. It’s well-deserved for a great many reasons, not the least of which is the proven complicity of the Church hierarchy in covering up child rape, protecting the child rapists that are epidemic in its ranks, and obstructing justice for raped children. You know this full well, and you’re usually first in line to tell us all how the Church doesn’t represent you when they do that stuff or attack the rights of women and gays.
There is to a lesser degree a bias against Catholicism–that is, its doctrines, practices and traditions. This, too, is well-deserved, if debatable in good faith: the only major religion more regressive and hostile to women’s and gay rights than Catholicism is fundamentalist Islam. In its theology it’s no sillier than any other magic-sky-father religion, but in scale and scope its hysterically absurd insistence on the infallability and divinity of a man-made institution has no equal.
Where there is bias against Catholics as either individuals or an aggregate group, it is generally confined to disingenuous turd-polishers like you who identify as Catholics when it comes to all the parts you like, but doggedly insist that the leaders you’re doctrinally obliged to obey don’t actually represent you and that the organization in which you claim membership doesn’t actually reflect on you.
Phoenix_rising
…wait, WHAT?
This is not the first “adoptive families aren’t real families”
I’ve heard out of the Catholic talking heads, but it’s by far the most offensive.
Bill, I could have had “my own” kid, but I thought that that making a home for a kid who needed a family was the right thing to do. So did my wife. Bite me.
Also, have I mentioned lately that my mom somehow raised 3 girls while drawing her own paycheck, just like all 3 of us do today? Ann Romney has never examined a pay stub and wondered whether those deductions from her take-home were correct, while calculating the possible mistake and comparing it to the late pickup fee at daycare, should she stop by HR on her way home–I can promise you that. That’s what it means to be a “working mother” to most Americans.
Veritas
@Chyron HR:
Here’s the only math you need to know: $200 million ad offensive by CrossRoads America and CrossRoads GPS. And that’s just the beginning. Wait until the Koch Brothers get in on the game….
Brian R.
@Gin & Tonic:
Dolan and the Pope are rightfully the public face of the church. When they say stupid shit, by all means, have at them.
Donohue is only in the mix because the media keeps inviting him on. There are other Catholic organizations that are larger, that are more representative of the mass of lay Catholics, and that have more official ties to the Church than the Catholic League.
But the media makes Donohue their go-to guy for Catholic issues. Why? Because he’s an asshole and he makes for good culture-wars copy.
Just because the media props him up, doesn’t mean we should too.
mtraven
Yesterday I attended the memorial service for a friend who had been in a committed same-sex relationship for 38 years, and raised an adopted daughter. The service was at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco — I think this was the first time I had attended a Catholic Mass. The priest gave a very nice homily about this woman’s life.
All of which is to say that it reminded me that there is more to Catholicism than the depraved vituperation of its official or semi-official spokesgoons. I’m still not a fan of overly organized religion but neither is it the caricature that you would take it for if your only exposure was to Bill Donohughe.
Cacti
Rosen has totally cost the Dems the vote of 1-percenter kept women.
We’re doomed!
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: He was hired as the president of the organization in 1993; it was founded by a Jesuit in 1972. The press buys his faxes. It ain’t like he won an election or anything. In 1999 they claimed a membership of some 233,333 paid members.
Veritas
And we’re not just going to unleash television ads with those stacks and stacks of fat, corporate donations. We’re talking pop-up web ads, direct mail, full-length newspaper ads, YouTube channels, DVD documentaries, maybe even a full-length feature film, and when it comes to baseball this summer and the NFL in the fall every single game is going to have tons and tons of Super PAC anti-Obama ads. You won’t be able to escape it.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: I was just going to mention this same incident. Two occurrences are hardly a trend, but I’m watching this closely to see if “An adoptive family isn’t a real family” is an emerging motif in the RCC’s current Fucked If You Do, Fucked If You Don’t charm offensive.
Satanicpanic
@Catsy:
Don’t leave out the Mormons! Just sayin.
To add my $.2 cents on Catholicism- I grew up Catholic. I like the rituals and some of the traditions. I like that you are actually expected to follow some rules as opposed to mainstream protestantism (I love Jesus… profit!). The Church itself is terrible and needs to be reformed in the most fundamental ways. Catholics tend to be less evil than other christers, and tend to care about the material needs of the poor more, but there are some creeps in their ranks too. You’re right, at this point in time, the decent members need to stand up to the church or leave.
Brian R.
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, if Google ranks it so highly, then whatever that for-profit site from Bakersfield says must be binding church doctrine.
ABL 2.0
@Steve: i’m adopted, too. i was an asshole when i was a teenager, so i second your emotion.
MikeJ
@Veritas: there’s nothing voters like more than pop up ads and junk mail. You go girl!
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
And are any of these ads going to actually make some sort of case in favor of a Romney presidency, or is the feature-length film just going to be you in your mom’s basement screaming, “WE PAID A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS YOU SCARED YET LIBS,” for two hours?
(Granted, that would probably do better box office than “An American Carol” or “Atlas Shrugged Part I: The Shrugging Menace”, so you should totally go for it.)
Catsy
@Veritas:
Translation: $200 million of wingnut money that could’ve been spent on defeating downticket Dems or investing in a currently-nonexistent ground game is going to be spent attacking an increasingly popular President Obama and increasing the visibility of an uncharismatic and unlikeable candidate–namely Romney–who actually loses ground the more people are exposed to him. $200 million that will be spent on attack ads that people across the country are already sick of seeing. $200 million propping up a doomed candidate with an underwater approval rating and the worst favorability numbers of any presidential candidate for decades.
Promise? Because I’d love to see even more wingnut money pissed away helping Obama get reelected.
Bring it on, you iggerant fuck. You can’t whistle past that graveyard loud enough to drown out the death rattle of Reversible Mittens’ campaign.
scav
Veritas is once again celebrating his Utopian vision of the utterly brain-dead and whorish on-sale-to-the-highest-bidder ‘Merca of his flag-waving fantasies. Pop-up ad make his knees wobble.
Jay C
@Jay in Oregon:
Well, as an insightful (if moderately blogwhoring) commenter said at myrmecos:
You’re right about the Catholic League’s membership: while they like to put on the airs of being this vast national organization, and The Voice Of Outraged Catholicism, their REAL membership numbers (and the sources of their funding) are kept as secret as the Third Revelation of Fatima: for obvious reasons. It must be one of those official Church Mysteries why the media even give this huffy clown any of the attention they do: but it’s likely the actual RCC suffers them because 1) they can’t do much about it, or Bill Donohue and 2) they occasional voice complaints and opinions the “official” Church would find embarrassing.
Chris
@Catsy:
I realize this isn’t too meaningful an argument to be having, but I personally would rate American fundiegelicalism ahead of Catholicism in terms of regressiveness.
It’s as bad as Catholicism on gay rights and women’s rights, it’s as bad as Catholicism when it comes to forming alliances with the rich and powerful, but it’s actually worse when it comes to science. Even the Vatican at least recognizes the reality of evolution and global warming – evangelical churches refuse to do either and have been the driving force behind denialism to both for years.
jl
@Veritas: Pop up books are fun. Any plans for those?
redshirt
And the troll takes another thread…
Gin & Tonic
@Brian R.: The Catholic Church has very good and very well-paid attorneys. If they thought that site reflected badly on the Church or misrepresented its positions they’d force the site down sooner than you could swallow your communion wafer.
For someone who is not well-versed in Catholic hierarchy, and wants to look something up, they won’t go past the first page of Ghits.
PurpleGirl
As a single (never married) middle-aged woman who has had to support herself since college, there is no way I identify with Ann Romney. No way does her experience in any way, shape or form, come close to mine. She married into big money; even with her health problems, has no idea of what life is like when you worry about supporting yourself or a family.
Veritas
@Chyron HR:
Ah, but see that’s part of the strategy. The $200 million Spring offensive that’s about to be launched will frame this election as a referendum, not a choice, so all we need is negative ads and to tear down Obambi. After he’s on the ground bloodied up (metaphorically speaking, dumbasses) Romney wins by default.
@Catsy:
By dragging Obama down to defeat we automatically hold onto the House and keep the Senate.
Two. Hundred. Million. Dollars. Just to start…I bet the Koch Brothers alone can easily match or exceed that for the Summer campaign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ThinkProgress on RNC Spicer’s tweet
So it would be a perfectly legitimate question if some reporter asked Mitt Romney if he considered Hillary Rosen to be an unfit mother because of the orientation. And Spicer is trying to worm his way out of what he said.
muddy
I wish I was a believer just so I could gloat over the old bastard dying and going to hell soon.
I knew a “devout” Catholic of his sort, always on about “my best friend Jesus” whilst being quite evil. Near the end, she kept saying, “Make sure they put me on a respirator!” I guess she knew she wasn’t going to heaven, or she’d have been more eager to go.
Forum Transmitted Disease
When the Catholic Church starts owning up to aiding and abetting boyrape, and decides to quit annexing the world’s uteri, then maybe you’ll see that attitude change.
Or, as I’m fond of saying to my network users – the problem’s not on my end.
beltane
@PurpleGirl: She seems to be a stranger to child care as well as the Romney family maintained a large household staff including several nannies to the yucky, backbreaking parts of homemaking, and freeing up her time for more important things like dressage riding.
Chris
Is Veritas actually Matoko?
Same MO… pop up in a thread and troll by taking one of a small number of talking points and repeating it again and again and again, regardless of what the topic of the actual thread is.
dmsilev
Veritas is a very unusual fellow. Not many people use photographs of the Koch brothers as masturbation aids.
Paul Gottlieb
It’s specifically because Bill Donohue is willing to attack and belittle the victims of clerical abuse that he is accepted and esteemed by the Catholic establishment. While the Bishops are busy destroying records, feigning concern for the victims, and waiting for the statue of limitations to run out, they also need someone willing to insult, belittle, and hopefully intimidate the victims. He’s very much a player on the Bishop’s team
shortstop
@Catsy: Wonderfully stated, and Burns will read it, even though its content won’t make it through his 60-something-year-old calcified filter and he’ll employ the usual pretend-I-left-so-I-don’t- have-to-acknowledge trick.
LAC
@Veritas:
Well, now we know the idiot who advised Donohoe to tweet. Nice going, veritidumbass
pragmatism
@shortstop: burnsy sure is abusing the no true scotsman today. that’ll happen.
pseudonymous in nc
@Brian R.:
I used to think that, along the lines of Kathy Griffin’s “he’s just one guy with a computer” line. He’s clearly cablenews catnip.
But Donohue clearly has a larger role: he’s the means by which the red beanie brigade get to launder opinions that they hold in private but don’t want attributable to them in public. Plausible deniability.
Which is why, whenever the fat plastic paddy says something fucked up, it’s up to the press to get some red beanies on record either backing him or backing the fuck away from him.
@PurpleGirl:
Or to put it another way, the Holy Mother Church is not fucking short on organisational hierarchy, so who died and made him Pope?
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
That strategy being to waste billions of DELICOUS KOCH DOLLARS instead of just nominating a halfway decent candidate in the first place?
Well, good luck with your flip-flopping millionaire liberal elitist from Massachusetts. “Anyone but [Sitting President’s name here]” sure worked for President Kerry, amirite?
Anne Laurie
@Chris:
I can never rember if it was Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes who said “Not all Conservatives are stupid, but it is generally understood that the most stupid among us are Conservatives.”
Catsy
@Veritas:
Okay, so not just a deluge of TV ads that everyone is already sick of seeing. Got it. What else?
Okay, so you’re angling for that critical, underserved voting demographic who doesn’t hate pop-up ads or immediately feel resentment towards whoever just interrupted what they were doing. Got it. Anything else?
Because that’s already worked so well. What else, sparky?
Win! That’ll sure convince women that the GOP totally isn’t hostile to their rights or health.
Thus also courting the historically-conservative coalition of rickrollers, cat video afficionados and video game machinima artists.
Because if there’s one thing Mitt Romney will benefit from, it’s more video to helpfully document the different positions he’s taken.
The Obama campaign thanks you for your in-kind donation.
“The fuck is this?”
“Oh, it’s that stiff Mormon guy who’s running for president.”
“What a douche. I think he sold me my last car.”
“Nah, but he does remind me of the guy they brought in to lay everyone off at my last job.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Dunno, sounds like ‘argle-bargle-Obummer failed-socialism-hootenanny yum-yum clown car’. Says the economy sucks and it’s Obama’s fault because he hates women and wants to make Catholics do abortions, or something like that.”
“….”
“Yeah, kinda my reac–oh hey, the game’s back on.”
“Oh thank god. I couldn’t take another second of that.”
Veritas
@Chyron HR:
George W. Bush had a low unemployment rate and a booming economy in 2004.
Obambi’s is going to be between 8 and 10% on election day, barring a meltdown in Europe, with the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Apples to Oranges.
And Kerry didn’t have the vast, vast fundraising advantage of the Super PACs plus the Citizens United decision on his side.
Add in the new election integrity laws and things don’t look good for Obambi…
PurpleGirl
The Republicans can spend as much money as they want on pop-up ads… I use a pop-up blocker.
pseudonymous in nc
‘sfunny, my significant other was telling me that the extremely conservative people she works with really dislike Romney and think he’s a complete fucking phoney.
All of the fat corporate donations in the world, along with Reality Chuck’s $0.73/hr paid trolling, isn’t going to change that.
jl
Mitt Makes Meg Mega Mass Media Move!
A proven recipe for success.
Cripes, old Jerry Brown beat that tactic just shuffling around the state mumbling wise cracks. And so saturation bombing the populace with irritating BS will work against Obama and Biden?
And Mitt gaffes at a much higher rate than Meg.
twiffer
@scav: pop-up ads? why spend any money on a form of advertising so universaly hated that everyone blocks it?
Catsy
@Chris: I suppose you could make an argument either way, but my money is on Catholicism simply because the damage it does is worldwide in scope. It’s particularly virulent in the US because of the way it synergizes with American fundamentalism Christianism, but the direct damage from the latter is more localized.
Catsy
@PurpleGirl:
You’re doing it wrong. Click through and you cost them more money.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Though I am looking forward to the Koch-funded demon sheep ads.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Wake me when you actually get around to airing one of those UNLIMITED CORPORATE KOCH ADS instead of just posting your Presidential election fanfiction about them.
Catsy
@Chyron HR:
Lolwin.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Sorry, kid, I’m at work. You know, the place that alledgedly pays you almost six figures a year even though you spend every single day here?
Cacti
What does Veritas do when he hits the end of his daily script? Start again from the top?
ReflectedSky
I am coming late to this party and can’t read the comments right now.
Just wanted to say as an adoptee: Fuck you, Bill Donahue.
I thought the anti-choice mob LOVED adoption, because that’s what any decent sinner would do with the result of her slutty slut-sex — give the baby up to somebody DECENT to raise, rather than assassinating an innocent “child.”
So now if you get pregnant outside of marriage you’re a slut, and if you raise someone else’s biological offspring, that doesn’t count as parenthood. Or would he approve of my mom, who was a married heterosexual when she and my dad adopted me?
It’s so hard to keep up with what is acceptable female behavior. Oh, wait, no it’s not: You must be white, chaste until marriage, subservient in marriage, breed as much as possible, clean, cook, provide sexual access to your husband (but not ENJOY it) and die – preferably as soon as the children are raised so you won’t use Social Security or Medicare, unless of course you’re Anne Romney, WHO DESERVES IT.
tybee
and you just wait til veritas’ dad gets home.
FlipYrWhig
Wow, what a trainwreck. Hilary Rosen’s never going to be elected president now.
Quaker in a Basement
What? Motherhood doesn’t count if there wasn’t a penis involved?
If Bill is even half the Catholic he claims to be, he should reconsider that position.
shortstop
@pragmatism: Burns’s problem is that his two greatest desires–to feel like the smartest person in the room and to be a Catholic–are at odds. He’s embarrassed by the more reptilian antics of the RCC and think it reflects badly on his intelligence and judgment to be associated with that, so he’s forced to pretend the church is really run by random sensible laypeople. And because he’s such a control freak, he gets really, really angry when people casually point out that in fact the bishops DO speak for him as a member of the church, and he IS doctrinally bound to follow their rules.
A simple solution is at hand, however. Were Burns to realize that his giant excess of pomposity does not cover up for a decidedly lackluster intellect and is fooling no one in that regard, he could embrace both his mental mediocrity and his faith without all this internal conflict spilling out of him wherever he goes. He’d sleep at night and we’d be free of his psychological dramas. What’s not to like?
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig: Hilary is not 45.
gex
Actually, there is nothing inconsistent in this. Catholics have been fighting adoption by gay parents for forever. And they have always been for making women have those babies and give them up for adoption. And in the gap in between, we stockpile innocent, defenseless children and leave them in the care of Father Diddlyhands (h/t Jamie Kilstein)
Because gays and women are the real problem.
pragmatism
@shortstop: a simple, yet elegant solution. you have a gift, sir.
Barry
@efgoldman: “Fifty years from now, the then-current pope is going to ask some underling “how come we have so few congregants in the US?” ”
No. He’ll look at the congregations, and give thanks for Ratzinger I, the Purger of the Church.
gaz
@Gin & Tonic:
That, and MUCH MUCH worse. But we already knew that, amirite?
Barry
@Steve: “Isn’t Catholic Charities a major adoption agency?”
Not for long, at this sake. They already don’t want to place children with gay parents; I wonder how long before they start demanding their ‘religious freedom’ to discriminate freely.
gaz
@Veritas: And yet he’s still going to lose. Big.
Proving yet again, that money can’t buy everything.
See you in november, chump.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Erickkk, Son of Erickkk, has a post up at RS about this and the title is killing me.
“Does the Catholic League Use Colons?”
Why yes Erickkk, they do. Some of the priests they support even use the colons of minors! As you note in your post, Donohue has his head up his colon so even he uses his.
So yes, they do use colons. They also hang out in Irish pubs admiring each others hairy packages.
Barry
@Brian R.: IIRC, Cardinal Dolan has endorsed Donahue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: I really doubt it. m_c has interests and a personality. Veritas does not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: John Stuart Mill. “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
TenguPhule
I thought that was Ann Coulter.
jake the snake
@Mnemosyne:
You are not supposed to fuck, that way you don’t have children.
TenguPhule
Vote Obama, or Death by Mormon!
Hilarity Ensues.
Emma
Well, I don’t know about y’all but I feel much better. I can’t remember an instance where Veritas has been right. Man, if the guy said the sky was blue it would turn green to spite him.
jake the snake
@Anne Laurie:
John Stuart Mill
The Fat Kate Middleton
As my fundie sister-in-law told me after my mom’s death: Wonderful woman. Too bad she’s in Hell. She explained to me that it was because she was Catholic.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Oh, and one other: Jews.
scav
@twiffer: Look, I don’t get why Veritas gets all wobbly at pop-up ads either, maybe he’s looking for pointers on getting things to pup-up. (Although, maybe it’s just that his pop-ups are universally blocked as well that is the attraction.)
low-tech cyclist
Man, I had no idea my wife and I weren’t raising any kids! The little guy sure seems real enough…
Jebediah
@Veritas:
Gonna make life a lot sadder for you when your boy gets beaten like a rented mule.
Chet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: At family gatherings, when my crazy born-again fundagelical aunt would start raving about those bead-jiggling, mackerel-snapping, statue-worshipping papists, I used to chastise her. Now, I’m more or less “meh.”
dave
I know it’s a troll and a silly one at that but beyond a million other reasons doesn’t President Obama also have an ocean of cash? Plus a ground game? And charisma? And hasn’t most of this Super-PAC adbomination money been wasted by being used at cross purposes and allowing any moron with money to grab the bullhorn? Just saying.