It’s Valentine’s Day, but there’s not a lot of love on the right, even for some of their own. There’s no love even for millions of schoolchildren, who will get valentines from their classmates today.
At the beginning of the week, our sons came home with lists of all the children in their classes, and an assignment: address a valentine to everyone on those lists. They worked on them all week, until every child in their classes had a valentine with his or her name on it.
The completed valentines now sit on the kitchen counter, waiting to be delivered (on the next school day that isn’t also a snow day). But according to Fox News guest Elizabeth Esther, we didn’t do it right — because we made valentines for every kid in the class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9moTNoQTDK0
First of all, it’s not “one New Jersey teacher.” It’s every teacher in our school district, and then some. In fact, I’m pretty sure we gave valentines to everyone in the class when I was in school. It falls under the “If You Didn’t Bring Enough For Everyone” rule.
The two Elizabeths (Esther and Hasselbeck) needn’t worry. Kids will still experience all the heartlessness and cruelty the world has to offer. They won’t have to wait until adulthood. It’s called middle school.
By the time kids finish high school, whatever they learned about kindness and empathy since kindergarten will have been beaten out of them. With their innocence in tatters, and their spirits sufficiently broken, they will be more than prepared for the “real world.”
That’s not all, of course. Here’s the rest of the worst in wingnuttia this week:
- In response to the furor over football player Michael Sam coming out, Rush Limbaugh declared that heterosexuals are “under assault by the 2 to 5 percent that are homosexual.” Rush also fretted that, “We’re fast approaching a world where it ain’t cool to be straight.” For a guy who’s had as many wives as Rush Limbaugh, that’s gotta be scary.
- Reps. Tim Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Ted Yoho (R-FL), among others, took part in an hour-long session on the House Floor to celebrate “Marriage Week” — which is actually all about opposing equal marriage for LGBT Americans. During his floor speech, Rep. Huelskamp admonished the viewing audience that, “There’s a third person in your marriage,” that “person” being God.
- Republicans in the Kansas state House have passed a bill that would legalize discrimination against LGBT people. While intended to target same-sex couples, the law could hurt straight couples as well. Conservatives in Idaho have introduced a similar bill.
- Fox News contributor Erick Erickson wrote, in a 4:30 a.m. RedState.Com post, that members of the mainstream media have raging “erections for everything Barack Obama does.”
- The Republican civil war is starting to get real. A tea party PAC just unleashed a new attack ad accusing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of “bullying” and “intimidating” conservatives.
- Several House Republicans received anonymous emails from a person threatening to ruin them politically if they voted to raise the debt limit. The emails were sent to members’ internal congressional emails, which are hard to get if you’re not a member of Congress. One Republican who has seen the emails said, "It’s got to be another member. Probably one of the crazy ones.”
- A GOP state senator in Colorado said that maybe it was a “good thing” that Aurora killer James Holmes had a 100-round magazine, when he opened fired in a movie theater, in July 2012.
- During an NRA News interview, actor and NRA board member R. Lee Ermey said that bullied children commit suicide because, “we've neutered all the young boys in this country."
- There’s no love out there for the 99 percent. During an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Nicole Miller CEO Bud Konheim said the 99 percent should stop whining, because we’d all be rich in India.
- There’s not much love out there for democracy either. During a Q&A session with Fortune magazine’s Adam Lashinsky, billionaire Tom Perkins suggested changing American voting laws: “You don’t get to vote unless you pay $1 in taxes… If you pay $1 million in taxes, you get a million votes.” Perkins, who previously equated anger at the 1 percent with the Holocaust, later said he was merely, “trying to be outrageous.”