I'm with stupid: the dumbest comments of the week.

Ok look honestly I'd call this dumbest excuse of the week part II, except these arnt really excuses. These are simply misfiring neurons in half formed brains that somehow formed into spoken words. By which I mean these are all just DUMB comments. So with that in mind we move on to the nominees for dumbest thing said this week.

Our first statement is actually kinda a late entrant, it was said in 2008, but I didnt know about it till today, when the person who said it was formally disciplined.  (if i wasnt 4 years late I'd rate it higher)

“I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case,”

No thats not Todd Akin. It's Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson, explaining in court why he allowed a convicted rapist off with the minimum sentence, more or less based on the idea the woman didnt look beat up enough to have been raped and not want sex. Note by the way he is NOT claiming you cant get pregnant from rape, like Akin, this moron is worse.....he's claiming you physically are incapable of sexual activity (including oral, as happened during part of the rape) unless you want it......

Here's my question, how can you be that stupid and graduate law school and pass the bar, let alone become a judge? Just saying no wonder people think our legal system doesnt work.....

For the record as of this morning the California Commission on Judicial Performance has admonished Judge Johnson, but HE'S STILL ON THE BENCH


And now, the man who, had I heard about this yesterday would have joined Lindsey Graham in the dumbest excuse of week 1865 edition  Republican Rep. John Fleming who wrote an op-ed yesterday saying:

"In the past 100 years, since the authority of Congress to tax income was enumerated in the 16th Amendment, marginal income tax rates have never been raised when Republicans have held the majority in the House of Representatives. For nearly a century, Republican-controlled Houses held the line on tax rates, a Republican coup de pointe to Democratic tax-increase parries. Here’s the question for my fellow Republicans: Do we want to be the first-ever GOP House majority to raise federal marginal income tax rates?"

He ended with this line "Abraham Lincoln reminded us to “adhere to your purpose, and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any
resolution, and will regret it all your life.”

Now credit where credit is due, Rep Flemming is actually correct. In the 100 years since the passage of the 16th amendment a GOP congress (house) has never voted to raise taxes. Of course in the last 100 years we have only had a republican controlled congress for 30 of them. And 14 of those have been since Bill Clinton.
So I mean its not like the point is all that impressive in perspective. But it is true

But what lands him here is the invocation of President Lincoln. See while its true the 16th amendment did modify the constitutions to allow the income tax, it didnt create the income tax.

In fact the first Income Tax in this country was implemented in 1861 by president Lincoln and a republican Congress.
(and would stay in place basically until 1895 and the Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co supreme court case, which the 16th amendment was created to overturn)

So while Rep Flemming may be right, he got here simply for the irony factor of invoking the creator of the income tax in a piece railing against higher income taxes

And dumbo statement of the week #3

Speaker John Boehner on if the House would ever consider passing the McConnell plan to give control of the debt ceiling to the President "Congress is never going to give up our ability to control the purse. And the fact is that the debt limit ought to be used to bring fiscal sanity to Washington D.C."


Now correct me if I'm wrong, but part of controlling the purse is paying the bills right? But somehow Speaker Boehner doesnt seem to want to do that. Instead he would rather NOT pay the bills and try to default the economy AGAIN, and getting our credit rating downgraded AGAIN (for not paying our bills)...

Insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results

Moving on to our 4th pick for Stupidest man of the week:

Senator Mitch McConnell's spokesman in reference to the new PPP poll suggesting that McConnell's popularity heading into his reelection kinda sucks. (as it his approval rating is 37% and his disproval rating is    
55%):

"It speaks volumes that even a liberal Democrat pollster with an agenda to make Mitch McConnell look bad still can’t find an opponent who can lead him in Kentucky. This Democrat poll has a long-held reputation for skewed approval numbers and that’s obviously the case here since there is no poll, public or private, that has shown Senator McConnell’s approval ratings anywhere near where PPP suggests"

Skewed Polls? really? really? REALLY? Why dont you ask Mitt Romney how skewed the polls were against him......cause that was his claim too.

And look to be fair, yes PPP is affiliated with Democrats, but they were also the 3rd most accurate pollster in the last election, and the only two that were better arnt polling your race [yet].

And now the runner up, Moron #5

Republican Rep. Steve King was asked about the Benghazi attack and said this

“I believe that it’s a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is,” Mr. King said. “I don’t think the public has any idea, and I tell you, I don’t either, of the chronology of the events — what took place, and who was where doing what and why. And all the way down through — we still haven’t seen an autopsy report on the ambassador yet. Simple questions that you would ask in the first 24 hours have not been asked yet.”

Right.....................I dont think Rep King has any idea what happened in Benghazi. Either that or he has no idea what happened in Watergate and Iran-Contra.

Look say what you will about Benghazi, but the honest truth is it kinda fits into the category of Shit Happens. Our embassies are attacked much more then we admit, to the point almost that its become a risk of the job as sad as that is. Which means comparing that to what was basically an unprecedented attempt by the sitting president of the united states to subvert democracy might be pushing it just a little bit.

And then of course we get to Iran-Contra. For those who dont know, because it got way to little attention at the time it happened, Iran-Contra was an an operation carried out by the Reagan Administration  Basically the way it worked was this: We the Government of the United States sold illegal banned weapons to Iran. (this by the way being the same Iranian government we are freaking out about now...and they wernt any saner back then). Now in theory the reason we did this was to secure the release of hostages held by the Iranian government. I say in theory because they didnt release the hostages for the arms.

But thats only the "Iran" half. See the took the money we made selling the weapons to the Iranians and gave it to the rebel group in Nicaragua called the Contras.  Oh by the way, direct assistance of any kind to the Contras had been blocked by Congress.

So yea, illegally selling weapons to one group and financing another.

And Rep king somehow thinks Benghazi was worse then that and Watergate combined X10

And here's something else I find kinda stupid, if your gonna just pick sandals at random to compare a non scandal too, why would you pick scandals committed by your own party? I mean I'm just saying Whitewater under Clinton and Operation Eagle Claw/Iran Hostage Crisis under Carter would have worked just as well (and been equally as incompatible) but no, Rep King would rather remind people of his own parties corruption......


And finally our winner:  Lobbyist Gover Norquist, the man who, until this year, had the majority of all republicans signing his pledge not to raise taxes, but who has recently had over 50 republicans refuse to resign and really isnt taking it well, going so far as to insult one republican congressman's wife. But thats not the comment that landed him here, its his new comment, against president Obama, which I think signals Norquist's final break with reality:

"We got lots of things Obama claims to be for, and we will make — we, the Republicans in the House and Senate — will make him actually make those spending restraints, in order to get the continuing resolution out [for] a week, two weeks, a month. Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years. He’s not gonna have any fun at all. He may decide to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won’t be any fun to be here, because he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to."

three things: first "we"? WTF? dude your not an elected republican, nor were you ever.

Second: So basically your plan is to high-jack the economy and force government shutdowns every chance you get? how'd that work out for you over the last two years? Just asking.......

Third: "He may decide to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce"  The fuck? I'm pretty sure that was Bush.......just ask him to say Nuclear. and then ask him about why we went into Iraq.......

Or maybe Gover Norquist really cant see differences in black people and thinks this is Barack Obama (and not an intentional mispronunciation in the second):