Playing the role of Mr. Thank You For Making My Point today is Republican Gregg Harper of Mississippi. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill) took to the floor Wednesday morning to protest the death of Trayvon Martin and to demonstrate how racial profiling occurs when black men are seen wearing a hoodie. Mr. Harper apparently relished his role of playing the angry, white male that many black men see when they’re confronted by a police officer. Or perhaps he was channeling George Zimmerman. As soon as that hoodie covered up Mr. Rush’s head, Mr. Harper let his inner Mississippian out and began banging his gavel. Mr. Rush was quoting this Bible verse, if you could hear it:

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8.

Mr. Harper decided that he would act justly by interpreting the House Rule that you may not be covered up on the floor to include hoodies. In fairness, he couldn’t hear the Bible verse because of all the gavel banging. And technically, he’s right. Apparently, this infraction is so great, you must immediately stop, and leave the floor. This is a rule that has been in place since 1837. I’m sure Mr. Harper is a founding father’s kind of guy, so I went back and tried to find what they thought about wearing hats on the floor of the House. Here’s what John M. Patton of Virginia (who was not a founding father but was great grandfather to Gen. Patton so that has to count for something, right?) had to say:

[he] defended “the really harmless but apparently indecorous practice of wearing our hats” as a manifestation of the House’s resolute rejection of presidential meddlesomeness. “Regarding then this usage as merely ‘the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual’ freedom of this body from all executive control or interference, let us preserve it,” Patton declared on the floor. “And whenever, if ever, our executive magistrates shall attempt to employ any improper influence on this body, let us be found with our hats on.”

Yes, let us be found with our hats on whenever anyone attempts to influence this body improperly. Had Mr. Harper just let Mr. Rush make his point, it would’ve gone without notice. Instead, he kept the firestorm right on going. Some might say he made an ass of himself as well. Nothing combats cries of racial injustice and intolerance more than the sight of an angry white man banging his gavel so a black man cannot make a point about racial inequality. Well done, sir. Well done.

Sarah Palin says on Sean Hannity’s show:

Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that that gravity, that mistake, took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.

It literally makes me throw up my head hurt to listen to the tortured analysis of Sarah Palin as she struggles to put a voice to the random thoughts misfiring in her head. So Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President, wants to go back to pre-Civil War America when blacks were owned as slaves. Only presumably she means to imply something more insidious (although, this is probably giving her WAY too much credit) that he would prefer that the whites were enslaved and blacks were given more money based on the color of their skin.

Why am I wasting good blog space even talking about this…

Is Mitt Romney Pro-Life? You Decide. 785-566-6824.

Of course, when you call the number, you get a recording of Mitt Romney saying the following:

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a US Senate candidate.”

Romney apparently said this during a debate while he was running against Ted Kennedy for the United States Senate in Massachusetts in 1994.

First, I’m pro-choice, a registered democrat, and my cell phone is not listed anywhere that I know of with any Republican group or Santorum (shudder) group. Second, my 62-year-old mother also received the same text on her cell phone. We are neither of us pro-life. In fact, we are about as pro-choice as you can get. So why, and how, did our numbers, cell phone numbers at that!, end up in the hands of the Santorum campaign? Who knows.

I do know, however, why abortion is the topic of choice for Santorum. We live in Kansas. On Saturday the Republican party will caucus here to pick a winner. Obviously, it will be Santorum. Why? The leaders of the current Republican party are so far to the right that they would use abortion as a litmus test to tell voters who to choose. And the voters that will get to determine who the winner is will be fringe, right wing, zealots. Why? It’s always the same here in Kansas. The moderates stay home and watch the Big 12 tournament. The zealots go vote in the primaries. They care enough to one, figure out how to take part in the caucuses, two, register to vote Republican for the express purpose of voting in the caucuses, and three, actually take the time to go to the caucuses. They’re “fired up” about abortion. So, Santorum will win. And once again, the moderates will lose the state to a bunch of crazies.

“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing,” Mrs. Romney said. “It can be here today and gone tomorrow.”

She added: “How I measure riches is by the friends I have and the loved ones I have and the people that I care about in my life, and that’s where my values are and that’s where my riches are.”

It is an interesting thing. To not consider yourself wealthy. When you are. And not concerned about the very poor. But I get it. Our riches are not here on earth, but in heaven. But it sounds so condescending. It’s hard to swallow coming from someone who can afford to be high minded. One of the first things wealth does is free you to stop worrying about the concerns that the majority of Americans have: how am I going to pay for groceries and gas this week, how do I pay for my mortgage and my car this month, how do I save for my children when I can’t even pay all my bills on time… Instead you can start talking yourself into believing that you don’t really care about your money and that you wouldn’t be freaking out if you lost all of it tomorrow. Right.

Please stop pointing out that your wealth doesn’t matter, please stop talking about Cadillacs and how many you own, please stop talking about how you pay your fair share because you pay what the tax code requires of you. And please, please, just stop talking.

GOP PURITY PLEDGE

South Carolina GOP requires candidates to take purity pledge before they run for office as a Republican. They must promise that they did not have premarital sex, will be faithful to their spouses, and will not watch porn while working to protect gun rights. Wtf?

DEBRA BARONE CHALLENGES LIMBAUGH TO INSULT CONTEST

Not everybody loves Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown grad who testified about birth control only to be called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh. While she’s received an outpouring of support, including a call from the President, others have decided the outcast bandwagon needed more riders to join Limbaugh. Patricia Heaton tweeted about Fluke:

“G-Gal: you’ve given yer folks great gift for Mother’s/Father’s Day! Got up in front of whole world & said I’m having tons of sex- pay 4 it!” and “Hey G-Town: stop buying toothpaste, soap, and shampoo! You’ll save money, and no one will want to sleep with you!”

Wtf?

MRS. SANTORUM THINKS HER HUSBAND IS BRILLIANT

Gah! Wtf?