Assclowns of the Week #75 ½: Praise the Lord and Pass the Watermelons and Teabags Edition

(I was working on this a week/week and a half ago until things started going south around here. Originally Assclowns of the Week #76, it was supposed to take up the usual ten spots but I just haven’t had the heart to finish it. But it’s still too good not to share with my dozens of regular readers.)

Some people march to the tune of a drum. Republicans march to a calliope. And this past week, we’ve seen an alarming uptick in the threats of violence, rebellion and racism from the seedier side of the tracks barely more than a month into the new Obama administration. This week, we’ve seen a CPAC conference in which children spout Republican talking points; a city mayor sending out racist depictions of the White House; We’ve seen a latter-day Boston Tea Party put together to protest the stimulus package; We’ve seen Glenn Beck and Rick Santorelli exhorting others to engage in treason and sedition.

And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Bobby Jindal’s heroic posture during the Katrina crisis was all a lie. Oh, boo hoo, what a world!

So let’s harvest them watermelons, leek those tea bags and gear ourselves up for a second Civil War with a laugh track as we review this bumper crop of assclowns and much, much more!

5) Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose


You have to admit, it’s pretty fucking stupid to send out a picture of a White House with a watermelon patch to anybody. It’s even twice as stupid to send it to an African American. It’s three times as stupid to then try to claim that one is unaware of the centuries-old stereotype of African Americans liking watermelon (which would render redundant sending out the email and to a black person in the first place).

Keyanus Price, a businesswoman and volunteer, was stunned when she got the picture at the head of this post from Dean Grose, the mayor of Los Alamitos, CA. The furor over the email was so unexpectedly fierce that Grose decided last Friday to resign his post.

When you think about it, this was almost as hilarious as fired GOP official Carol Carter who, late last month forwarded to her colleagues the following email:

From: Carol Carter
Friday, January 30, 9:30 AM
Subject: FW: Amazing!
I’m confused
How can 2,000,000 blacks get into Washington, DC in 1 day in sub zero temps when 200,000 couldn’t get out of New Orleans in 85 degree temps with four days notice?
Carol Carter

African American blogger Steve Barnes has some advice for the GOP: “My Conservative Republican friends: you have GOT to speak up about this, or lose your party. Right now, if is looking like your Big Tent is made out of a white sheet.”

4) Republican Revolutionaries


Just what we need: Another definition for teabagging. I appreciate the offer for testicular tenderness, guys, but I think I’ll pass.

Last Friday, the Not So Mighty Republican Wurlitzer held a little party in Washington, DC. It attracted all of about 100 people but, as we all know, everything great begins humbly. It was supposed to be the Boston Tea Party II that’s supposed to herald the Civil War II that’s supposed to, er, herald the Revolutionary War II.

But what they lacked in quantity they more than made for in quality. The Freepers were there! Michelle Malkin was there! And, best of all, fresh from a whirlwind bookselling gig that sold a whopping five copies, they even had Joe the Plumber! Huzzah and fuck taxation with and without representation.

Forget the fact that the original Boston Tea Party started because of tax cuts (the British cutting taxes on tea imports, thereby undercutting American tea merchants). And who do we have to blame for this tiny knot of resistance? Rick Santorelli, who in a hysterical tirade of the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, called on CNBC for a second Tea Party in spite of having no other reason but a blind panic to resist the stimulus package that will only benefit their states and communities.

3) Glenn Beck

“I regret I (gasp) that I had but one… well, actually, I never gave anything for my country!

Glenn Beck ought to be glad that we repealed the Sedition Act of 1918.

Last Monday, Beck gave us three worst-case scenarios. This is the first one:

Let's look at our first scenario. It's the financial meltdown. The year is 2014.

All the U.S. banks have been nationalized. Unemployment is about between 12 percent and 20 percent. Dow is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed. Government and unions control most of the business, and America's credit rating has been downgraded.

That's the first scenario.

Of course, the implication is that all this will be Obama’s fault, not that of the anti-regulation idiot who once suggested less than a month after 9/11 that tax rebates would be our best way to bounce back from the terrorist attacks.

The other two scenarios aren’t much brighter.

So Beck’s answer is armed insurrection. Yeppers. Where tax cuts fail, the second amendment and insurrection will save the Red Dawn. And these people wonder why their presence on Capitol Hill is shrinking with every election. Doesn’t sound to me as if Republicans are listening to the voice of the majority.

2) CPAC


Every year, CPAC looks less like a national conservative convention and more like a DSM IV come to life. It’s a loving, conservatively compassionate final look at all those who have either already faded into irrelevance, are about to or who most certainly deserve to. One must cringe for the mental health of Poor Max Blumenthal of The Nation during his annual pilgrimage behind enemy lines in the Omni Hotel.

This year CPAC hit a new nadir when they invited and got Joe “General Patton” the Plumber, whose most substantial suggestion for national recovery was to slap then shoot certain members of Congress. The high point came when they brought up a thirteen year-old boy to explain Republican values to them. That’s right, a kid who won’t even be able to vote against Obama in 2012 is now giving them their marching orders.

Midterms next year? What, me worry?

1) LA Gov. Bobby Jindal


My God, what is the world coming to when one cannot even believe and trust Republicans?

Last Tuesday night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal provided the Republican response (for want of a better word) to President Obama’s speech to Congress. In it, he told a heartwarming story of self-heroism in which he stood shoulder to shoulder with the late Sheriff Harry Lee and fought for the citizens of New Orleans. On the face of it, it didn’t sound very heroic because Jindal claimed he was inside Lee’s office and didn’t seem to get more involved than to say, “That’s ridiculous.” Still, even for a Republican, especially one that never enlisted, that’s about as close as one can get to heroism.

Turns out that Jindal’s fleeting brush with heroism was a pile o’ shit. After skeptical examination by liberal bloggers, a Jindal spokesperson gave Ben Smith at Politico a “clarification.” Turns out no one remembers then-Congressman Jindal being anywhere near the area and his recollection of the conversation in which Sheriff Lee battled bureaucracy was third-hand, at best.

But hey, being in proximity of heroes rubs off, doncha know?