Grabbing his attention

To celebrate the first anniversary of the shithole president's inauguration, millions of mostly women, together with many good men, took to the streets around the country and the world to protest virtually every wrong, misguided policy and decision the liar-in-chief has made since day one.

Which if you're keeping count would be all of them.

The beauty of these protests is we can be assured that he's watching, because chowing down Big Macs in front of the TV for hours on end seems to be what he does most days.

What I love about the march, besides the fact it's happening and so many millions are participating, are the signs. They're creative, heartfelt and on point. Or points. Whimsical to serious, humorous to straightforward, every one of them is a unifying message we all should be behind.

The energy of it all gives me, dare I say it, hope.

I took to the Google to show a few of the signs from today's marches. Some of them didn't have a date, so a few might be from last year's event. No matter. The message is the same.

I think the important thing is now that women have grabbed his attention, it's important not to let go. We all have to keep our energy and enthusiasm up because backing down is simply not an option. Not when it's our country, democracy and standing in the world—not to mention compassion and decency—at stake.

And besides, November will be here before you know it.

Al Franken called it

It was true then and it's true now.

I've always been a fan of Al Franken. Beginning when he was half of a comedy team called Franken & Davis, through the years he was head writer for Saturday Night Live (to me, it'll always be the Al Franken decade) and today as Senator from Minnesota.

Sorry about the ad in front of the clip. Curse you Hulu!

Hysterically funny, wildly entertaining and, the part I like best, vicious in the way it exposes not just the glaring hypocrisy and inaccuracies of almost everything Limbaugh says, the book also calls out the entire conservative party for the lies they shamelessly continue to peddle.

An easy example of the hypocrisy: Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh both taking a righteous stand about family values as they're on their third and fourth wives respectively.

The amazing thing is the book's title - which Franken gave it because he knew it would be controversial and get noticed - has proven even more true in the last week than it was when it came out.

I think it's only fitting that we take a moment and enjoy some of Limbaugh's more entertaining and insightful quotes:

''Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

''She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life."

You're forgiven if you thought that one was from Rick Santorum.

And of course, it wouldn't be complete without this past week's words of wisdom:

''A Georgetown coed told Nancy Pelosi's hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they're going broke, so you and I should have to pay for their birth control. So what would you call that? I called it what it is. So, I'm offering a compromise today: I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want. ... So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

I hope Al Franken is working on a Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot 2.

God knows there's enough material to work with.

Educating Rick

The Republican party has a lot to be proud of in Rick Santorum.

Finally, finally, someone has the courage, the foresight, the vision, and let's just say it - the balls to take a stand against higher education.

As if it wasn't enough to misquote President Obama while he was speaking to a tea party group in Michigan, Santorum decided to throw in some good, old-fashioned name calling. Apparently in Santorum's universe, Obama is a "snob" because he wants everyone to have the opportunity of a higher education should they choose it.

It's easy to see why Santorum would be against this. After all, with his B.A., M.B.A. and J.D. degrees (one more than Obama has), he's obviously an educated man. He understands first-hand the pointlessness and futility of a higher education.

While he was a hard-working student at Penn State, University of Pittsburgh and Dickinson School of Law, he must've come face-to-face with plenty of those educated elitist snobs day after day. What with their "intellectual" discussions and "critical thinking" and "larger world view" it must've taken everything he had to graduate with his three degrees.

Obviously being around those leftist professors and their America-hating agendas is how Santorum is able to recognize Obama for the snob he is.

As the above paragraph from his 2006 campaign website so clearly illustrates, Santorum is so flustered at the thought of today's children having accessibility to affordable, higher education, he forgot that six years ago he was for it.

Thank you Rick Santorum for coming out against education. Together with your woman-hating policies to turn back all the progress they've made in the last 100 years, I believe you may have a real shot at this thing.

And if it doesn't work out, you can always tear up those over-rated degrees and get yourself a job requiring less skills.

After all, even liberals have to buy their fries from someone.

Rick Santorum probably didn't date much

I'm not sure, but I think I may have stumbled onto the reason Rick Santorum hates women so much.

He probably wasn't very popular with them. Exhibit A: the picture you see here.

In case you're not familiar with primitive points of view about women's rights or roles in society, all you have to do is take a look at any of Santorum's white papers on them.

He thinks pre-natal care shouldn't be covered by insurance, because really, "more often than not" all those amnios do is cause abortions - a fact supported absolutely nowhere. (While it's true there is a slight risk of miscarriage after amnio, it's between 0.5 and 1% of all second trimester amnios - which is the normal risk during that trimester even without amnios, so there's no accurate way to distinguish between the causes).

That's going to come as quite a shock to the majority of women who've had them and now have happy, healthy babies. And who had less stressful pregnancies because of the conditions, including Down's Syndrome, that an amnio positively rules out.

Santorum talks often about "the dignity of human life." Apparently that doesn't apply to rape victims. Santorum believes even if a woman is raped, she should be forced to carry the baby to term and then give it up for adoption. His wife shares this point of view as well, which is ironic since she used to live with an abortion provider 40 years older than her. In fact, he was the OB who delivered her.

As far as working women go, according to Santorum they shouldn't be allowed to go far at all given the havoc he alleges they wreak on their families. Here's his point of view on it from an article in the Washington Post:

His 2005 book, “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good,” suggests parents in two-income families aren’t doing what’s best for the kids. Too often, he writes, both parents work when the family could get by on one salary: “For some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home.” He described it as a sad situation created by “radical feminists” who undermined the traditional family by “convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”

As someone married to a working, professional woman, and the best mother my children could ever hope for, I find this point of view particularly offensive. But I imagine not nearly as much as every working woman does, with the possible exception of the women working to get this neanderthal elected.

It all sounds like something from a Saturday Night Live sketch. And points of view as outdated and irrational as these would be funny if this clown wasn't, for the moment, the Republican frontrunner.

If you go to Santorum's website, there's a tab at the top labeled "Why Rick".

My sentiments exactly.