Woe is US: Sally Kern Blames Everything Bad on Porn, Gays, and (yes!) Divorced People

If she keeps it up, Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern, a fundamentalist Republican, is likely to become a national joke. But the joke won't be funny in the Sooner state, which doesn't need more ridicule.

We're talking about Kern's latest right-wing manifesto, in which she blames all of the nation's problems on our supposed moral depravity—unending oceans of porn, unlimited abortion, child abuse and even (heavens!) divorce. (Hey, wasn't Saint Ronald of California divorced?)

To hear Kern tell it, most of us are so anxious to degrade ourselves and our families that we don't have time to read Scripture or attend church—we're too busy watching Internet porn with our pregnant (but not for long!) mistresses who beat their starving children when they won't sell their tender bodies to get more money for our booze and drugs.

Okay, we all know that our nation (and every nation) has its share of thoughtless creeps and hard-core criminals, but Rep. Kern is painting with a very broad brush. In spite of her fear-mongering, some people who are different from her are—can you believe it—actually good people.

From what we can tell, Rep. Kern hasn't bothered to look out the window in Oklahoma (or anywhere else in America) where she would see a church on many a city corner, and loving, law-abiding families doing their best to live upright and, yes, even moral lives in spite of her laundry list of "social ills" (some of which aren't).

Instead, she's gotta grandstand and play morality cop for everybody. Here's some good advice for Rep. Kern: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone."

Read more about Rep. Kern's latest screed here.

Moron on the Radio: Rush Blames Sanford's Affair on Obama's Economic Policies

Wow!

AltTulsa is stunned into silence at the peculiar logic employed by radio blabber Rush Limbaugh, who managed to blame President Obama for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina.

It's as amazing and it is moronic. Law professor Jonathan Turley has the details here.

How Convenient: Cheatin' Louisiana Sen. Vitter Forgets Threats to Marriage

GOP hypocrisy update, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

David Vitter (R-LA), the champion of social conservatism whose career became mired in the D.C. Madam prostitution scandal of 2007, has a new fundraising letter that warns of the liberal/socialist threats on a whole range of issues -- though one particular item is mysteriously missing.

The letter warns of the threat posed by Democrats on such issues as abortion, union card-check, the dreaded Fairness Doctrine to eliminate conservative talk-radio, and big liberal spending.

This sentence sums it up: "The left-wing blob of trial lawyers, union bosses, environmental zealots, abortion activists, socialists and gun grabbers along with the Washington Democrat establishment have already trained their sights on me."

But there is one issue that we're used to seeing from conservatives like Vitter, which doesn't show up at all: Protecting the sanctity of marriage.

Tulsa's Philbrook Art Museum Makes News for Garden Project

The formal gardens at Tulsa's Philbrook Art Museum this year have been turned into a vegetable garden for a local food bank. Veggies from the museum's garden will be given to the Eastern Oklahoma Food Bank.

National Public Radio has the report. Find it here.

Maureen Dowd on Gov. Sanford

The snarky New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has skewered South Carolina's Mark Sanford, a governor who fell in love with himself.

Here's her comment:

As in all great affairs, Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with a woman and himself — with the dashing new version of himself he saw in her molten eyes...

With Maria, he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark, who used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and three straws.

No, he was someone altogether more fascinating: Marco, international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.

AT's Wine of the Week: Block No. 45 Petite Sirah 2007

AT has been amiss lately in our weekly wine work. We like to sip a bit every now and again (okay, sometimes it's more like quaffing) but we haven't had a chance to report on vino in a while.

Our latest find is a sturdy California red from Block No. 45. We know nothing of the winery except that it is located in San Martin, which doesn't help much since we never heard of the town.

In any case, we saw this Petite Sirah in Santa Fe and bought a bottle to pair with some exotic olives from Whole Foods. The pairing proved to be success. The wine was, as the label advertised, full-flavored, which helped it stand up to the olives.

At the price ($8.99), it was a good deal. AltTulsa loves a good red at a good price, and Block No. 45 delivered. We don't know if this label is available in Tulsa, but we hope so. It's worth looking for.

More GOP Errors: Rep. Michelle Bachmann Lies about the Census

Yes, she's a fool and a blowhard. But even fools and blowhards can sometimes stumble across the truth.

Even so, Rep. Michelle Bachmann has established a long line of errors, misstatements, and plain ole lies.

This week, she won the notorious "Pants on Fire" award from PolitiFact after she claimed that the Constitution only requires that citizens answer how many people are in their household.

Wrong again, Rep. Bachmann. The fact-checkers have done their homework, but you haven't. Sadly for you, facts are stubborn things and you can't make them go away because you don't happen to like them.

Amen, Brother Froomkin

In his last column for the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin recalls the fundamental dishonesty at the core of the George W. Bush administration.

Froomkin nails the bastards:

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.

GOP Outrage of the Week: Maryland's Republican Women Compare Obama, Hitler

When you have no ideas and nothing to say, just be frickin' outrageous. Say anything and hope something makes a little sense.

That seems to be the philosophy (a term we use very loosely) of some Republican women in Maryland.

Read the sorry story here.

The Party of Family Values Loses Its Way

An interesting note from the (conservative!) Washington Times:

Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP.

Pro-gun Activist: "Judges Deserve to be Killed"

The right-wing crazies continue to rant and rave, finding enemies wherever they turn. The latest is a pro-gun activist who advocates the murder of federal judges he doesn't like.

A little hint to the gun nuts out there: this is not the way to deal with your real or imagined opponents. In a civil society, citizens don't urge the murder of duly appointed officials because they might rule against their own interests from time to time.

If everyone behaved this way, civil society wouldn't last very long and the result would not be good for anyone.

Here's the story of one sadly misguided doofus:

A federal complaint filed in Chicago said that Hal Turner, 47, had posted "outrage" on his Web site over the handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

According to the complaint, Turner described the court decision in a June 2 posting and said, "Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed."

The postings included photos, contact information and room numbers of the judges along with a picture and map of the building in which they work, the complaint said.

"We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period," said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Daily Beast Columnist: South Carolina Gov. Sanford Should Resign

A political observer from The Daily Beast predicts the end of Gov. Mark Sanford's political career.

"He's toast," Mark McKinnon writes. Read it here.

From National Review: Mitt Wins By Process of Elimination

The meltdown of right-wing political operators continued today with the admission by South Carolina Gov. Mark "Family Values" Sanford.

Here's the reaction of the National Review's Rich Lowery:

First [Nevada Sen. John] Ensign, then the "Crying in Argentina" press conference. If Republicans want a presidential candidate who lives clean and whose family hasn't been involved in tabloid scandals, it might soon be Mitt Romney by process of elimination.

CNN Report: Latest Horrors from Iranian Crackdown

Hannity Lies about 'Cash for Clunkers' Program

That Paragon of Conservative Values and Moral Clarity, Sean Hannity, is lying again. Hannity can't seem to open his mouth without getting the facts wrong, deliberately in many cases.

For example, Hannity is claiming (read: lying) that the so-called Cash for Clunkers program approved by Congress will allow citizens to use worthless junked cars to scam the government for $4,500.

That would be an outrage, if it were true. It's not. When the truth isn't good enough, Hannity makes up his own "facts." Pretty easy to be outraged if you make things up!

PolitiFact sets the record straight here.

Recent Reading: 'The Long Road Home,' Raddatz's Chronicle of Fighting in Iraq

Whatever the wisdom of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there's little argument over the place of the soldiers themselves.

Soldiers follow orders, of course, even if the Bush policies and the invasion itself were faulty and ill-advised.

An eye-opening tale of soldiers following orders is one of the themes of Martha Raddatz's 2007 book, The Long Road Home. Raddatz, a veteran ABC correspondent, tells the harrowing story of the 2004 Sadr City uprising, a fight that killed an wounded scores of soldiers just arrived in Baghdad from Fort Hood, Texas.

The book is powerful evidence of the bravery and loyalty of U.S. soldiers, who are ambushed by hundred—perhaps thousands—of insurgents. Of all the Iraq war books we've read (and we're read a few), this is by far the most gripping and, in many ways, devastating.

Raddatz also ties the Sadr City fighting to its effects at Fort Hood, profiling the families who must face the uncertainty of not knowing about the welfare of their husbands and fathers.

We usually look askance at jacket blurbs, but the ones on the back of this book are accurate. One of those writers is reporter Thomas Ricks:

The word "sacrifice" is used a lot. In The Long Road Home, Martha Raddatz shows what the word really means, with soldier after soldier. She takes the readers into the Humvees and the streets of Baghdad and shows how American troops sweat, bleed, and fight in the Iraq war. Read it.

We did. It's terrific work and one that stands as compelling testimony to American fighting men and their families.