The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

It's absolutely awful what happened to Charlie Kirk, but enough with the whitewashing. Two things can be true at once: 1) Kirk's assassination was a grave tragedy and 2) Kirk was an awful person. That doesn't mean he deserved to die. He didn't. But it also doesn't mean he deserves to be treated like a saint. He wasn't.  Here are just a few of his quotes: - “We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty... We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment." - “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage.” - “They (Black people) were actually better in the 1940s. It was bad. It was evil. But what happened? Som...

In the past week, I engaged in the following back-and-forth via Twitter: Me: "Rumor has it there will be a sequel to The #Wedding #Crashers. It will star John #Boehner, Mitch #McConnell, & be called #America Crashers." Someone's response: "I hear they're making a sequel to JFK...." Yes, this individual seemed to think it was funny to joke about the assassination of President Barack Obama - our first black president no less. As tempted as I was to reply, I didn't do so. I felt, with a response like that, he was obviously trying to get under my skin (not literally, thank goodness), and prompt an angry reply, so I decided to not give him what he wanted. In any case, though, I find it pretty sad and pathetic to joke around about the assassination of a president - especially one with such historical significance. As much as I couldn't stand the guy, I'd never have joked about former President George W. Bush being assassinated. As much as h...

Public Policy Polling just released poll results regarding conspiracy theories. For the most part, it appears as if a very small minority of people believe most such theories. However, there were some rather surprising results. First off, 33% of Republicans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, while 41% don't believe this, and 28% aren't sure. For the record, while Hussein was never going to win Best Man of the Year honors at any point in his life, he wasn't involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A fifth (20%) of Republicans also believe that President Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ and another 17% aren't sure. Democrats, meanwhile, strongly believe that then President George W. Bush misled this country on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as 72% of Democrats think this, while only 14% do not, and another 15% aren't sure. The numbers are the direct opposite for Republicans - only 13% of whom believe Bush misled th...

Just a day before the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, former Vice President and permanent Darth Vader impersonator, Dick Cheney, had a spokesperson write the following: "If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden." I have a hunch that something is eating away at Cheney - something resembling guilt perhaps, but being the Dark Lord and all, he has attempted to find a way to project that "guilt" onto another. A report, which was just released by The New York Times , showed ample evidence that the Bush Administration (or Cheney Administration as some liked to call it - I personally prefer the Dick and Bush Administration myself) ignored numerous C.I.A. warnings about a possible terrorist attack on American soil in the run-up to 9/11. In light of this report, perhaps Cheney is doing his dam...