Final List of Nominations for the 2010 FLOP Award
Below is our final list of candidates for 2010’s Lowest Form of Life on the Planet "award." There is no significance to the order in which they are listed.
Please feel free to vote and/or post comments about any of these charming characters either here or on my Facebook page between now and 12:00 noon Pacific Time on New Year’s Day, when the “winner” will be announced.
The names of some nominees are accompanied by a brief description of their qualifications for the award. Some descriptions are longer than others, and some names are not accompanied by a description at all. The presence or absence of a description, or its length if one exists, is not intended to suggest that the particular candidate is more, or less, qualified for the "award" than any other nominee.
The primary “attributes” of the “winner” should include some or all of the following: meanness and nastiness, greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, condescension, amorality, dishonesty, and, of course, a healthy dose of stupidity. In other words, your typical Republican legislator. (Not really.)
So sit back, relax, and enjoy the following compilation of the names of some of 2010's worst douche bags. Hopefully, you will find your choice for Lowest Form of Life on the Planet somewhere amidst this rogues' gallery of eminently qualified candidates:
1. November FLOP “winner,”Gov. Jan Brewer, who seems to have the intellectual capacity of one of those headless corpses she claims to have been discovered in the Arizona desert;
2. Mining Safety Aficionado, Don Blankenship;
3. John “The Town Crier” Boner (okay, Boehner)
Having lived in Orange County for almost 40 years, I am well acquainted with the Speaker-Elect, who has conclusively proved that Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder were prescient when they wrote,“Tears of a Clown.”
There is apparently an unlimited supply of Republican hypocrisy to go around, but the soon-to-be Weeper of the House has scarfed up substantially more than his right-ful share. He claims that his recent excessive displays of emotion have been occasioned by contemplations of his childhood in a poor, blue collar family and how he lifted himself up by his bootstraps to partake of the American Dream.
That’s all well and good, but, as the article in this link ( http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/the-tears-of-john-boehner/) reveals, the Man of Many Colors has consistently, and without deviation, voted against the best interests of the middle class and the poor and in favor of the corporations and the wealthy throughout the entirety of his Congressional tenure.
In fact, the Speaker-elect’s votes in favor of the haves and against the have nots have been so predictable that he has almost become like Clockwork Orange.
So, if The Boner decided to be a shill for his rich friends and campaign contributors, that’s his prerogative. But can’t he at least have the decency to refrain from emoting over his humble beginnings while simultaneously doing everything he can to ensure that others will be deprived of the advantages that allowed him to rise from a childhood spent as a member of a poor family of 14 to a position that provides him with the wherewithal to afford all the cigarettes, rounds of golf, tanning treatments, and Kleenex that he’ll ever need?
4. South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre “People on welfare are like stray animals” Bauer;5. W. C. Fields lookalike Haley (There was never any racism in Mississippi) Barbour;
6. Christine “Extending unemployment benefits would be as much of a tragedy as the attacks on Pearl Harbor” O'Donnell;
7. Member of the House Intelligence Committee-elect Rep. Michele Bachmann (D-MN). (My God, what has become of us?)
The most telling sign about Rep. Bachmann is that, when you “Google” her name, the first sites that pop up are those which list some of her more memorable idiotic comments and discuss the extent of her stupidity (which seems to be limitless).
Here’s a random sample:
“[Terry Schiavo] was healthy. No question there was brain damage. But, from a health point of view, she was not terminally ill.”
“If we eliminated the minimum wage, we could virtually wipe out unemployment because we would be able to offer jobs at any pay level.”
“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”
“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970’s that the swine flu broke out under another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter. I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”
[Can’t disagree with that, Michele, except that the swine flu outbreak to which you refer broke out in 1976 during the Presidency of Gerald Ford]; and
“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.’”
Say goodnight, Michele. Please;
8. Rand Paul and his campaign aide, who bravely kicked a young woman in the head while she lay prone on a sidewalk;
9. Jim "Waterloo" Demint;
10. Rich Id Iott (Ohio Republican Congressional candidate and amateur Nazi reenacter);
11. Sen. John “We should not appropriate funds for our returning soldiers’ psychiatric care and counseling, despite their recent, greatly enhanced suicide rate” McCain (R-AZ) Actually, this misstep can probably be excused. After all, what would John McCain be expected to know about this subject?
12. Tony “I would like MY life back” Hayward
13. The group of Tea Party thugs who taunted and berated a crippled, Parkinson’s-afflicted man who was outside on the ground at an Ohio anti-health care rally.
14. Joe Miller and his paid hooligans who “arrested” two reporters who dared to ask him a question.
15. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
Kidding aside, this guy is scary! Very scary. This should tell you all you need to know: He was the runner up for the 2010 Tea Party’s Person of the Year award. (He’s also an excellent candidate for ours.) Take a look at this excerpt from this week’s Time:
“Since taking office in January, [Cuccinelli] has sued the EPA over its plan to regulate greenhouse gases, opined that Virginia can regulate first-trimester-abortion facilities, advised that the state’s public colleges lack authority to bar discrimination against gays and lesbians, tweaked the state seal to cover the bare breast of the Roman goddess Virtus and subpoenaed the University of Virginia to probe for evidence that a former professor manipulated climate-science research.
“On Dec. 13, ... a Richmond federal judge ruled that the health care reform law’s individual mandate was unconstitutional, upholding a suit Cuccinelli had filed before the ink on the bill had even dried. Cuccinelli hailed the judgment as a ‘shot heard round the world’ but was already fixing his sights on a new target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a federal law or regulation to be nullified if two-thirds of states’ legislatures support its repeal.”
One guarantee: We haven’t heard the last of this guy. I watched him on “Hardball” recently, and he was so quick that, not only was Chris Matthews unable to trip him up; he didn't even have a chance to interrupt him! A brilliant, lighting fast, professional who also happens to be a right wing extremist and religious fanatic, this guy is a threat to be reckoned with. After all, it’s not that long a drive from the AG’s office in Virginia to the one in Washington D.C.
You know, the one that Eric Holder is currently not using to investigate and prosecute the war criminals in the Bush Administration.
16. Senate Minority Leader and Tortoise Look-a-Like, Mitch McConnell, who has proudly proclaimed that his paramount objective during the next two years will be to ensure that Barack Obama will be a “one-term President.”
Sounds like, a typical loyal, patriotic American to me.
As one pundit aptly summed up the Zeitgeist of the 111th Congress, “The Republicans [have even been] willing to obstruct their own ideas in order to deny the President any political victory”;
17. Liz Cheney (remember when “Dick and Liz” meant Burton and Taylor?);
18. Joe "corrective rape can cure lesbianism" Rehyansky;
19. Baseball Commissioner, Allen “Bud” Selig, who, for no good reason, denied the joint request of an umpire, who had admittedly erred when he ruled a batter safe at first, and the batter himself, to overrule the incorrect call and award a Detroit pitcher the perfect game he had pitched;
20. Sharron “We might have to invoke our Second Amendment remedies” Angle;
21. Sue Lowden (The Chicken Lady) and Dick Cheney (The Chicken Hawk)
22. Proud, self described “right wing extremist” and darling of the lunatic fringe, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) who, during his recent congressional campaign, told his followers that they needed to “make [West’s Democratic opponent] scared to come out of his house!]
What a testament to the rationality of the electorate that this banana actually won the ensuing election! I guess it’s a good thing that Timothy McVeigh isn’t around anymore or he could have become the next Tea Party favorite. In fact, Rep. West is on such a roll that he might even win another election in 2010 (Our race for FLOP of the year);
23. Failed Republican New York gubernatorial candidate and serial purveyor of terrorist threats, Carl Palladino;
24. “Birther Queen” and universally acclaimed idiot, Orly Taitz
25. Newt Gingrich, who is very possibly the most devious, treacherous, and, therefore, dangerous, of all the right wing spin-meisters, because he is smart enough to be fully cognizant that he is regurgitating out and out lies to the American people for purely selfish political purposes. One of his most recent tirades included the following “analysis” of President Obama’s motives: “[A] Kenyan, anti-colonial mind set governs the president’s actions.”
Huh?
This nonsensical blather was apparently inspired by a malevolent screed penned by right wing pundit, Dinesh D’Souza, whose thorough research and penetrating analysis have combined to also give Mr. D’Souza the “honor” of a nomination for 2010 FLOP of the year.
But, before we turn to Mr. D’Souza, consider this one final, rather ironic tidbit about Mr. Gingrich: Did you know that an essential ingredient in the infamous "witches’ brew" is called the “eye of newt”?
Make of that what you will;
26. Dinesh D’Souza, the author of the worthless rubbish about the President that inspired Mr. Gingrich’s drivel, also wrote in the same article that, “in his policies, Obama is essentially channeling the soul of his late Kenyan-born father, an African ‘tribesman of the 1950s.’”
Okay, I know it’s difficult, at least without some Kaopectate at the ready, to read this nonsense, but I promise that this will be the final excerpt from D'Souza's rambling stream of unconsciousness that will be recounted here. The following drivel supposedly pertains to the President’s father:
"This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anti-colonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. . . ."
Okay, I think I understand(?) D’Souza might have a point after all. Maybe, “the soul of [President Obama’s] late Kenyan-born father” is what inhabited that warrior doll who chased Karen Blackall around her apartment in “Trilogy of Terror”!?
27. Jennifer Petkov;
28. Rick “The Seceder” Perry, who not only denied a condemned man’s plea for a stay of execution so he could prove his innocence, but then immediately disbanded the appointed commission which had determined that the man was factually innocent after an extended investigation;
29. Joe “You Lie” Wilson;
30. Mel “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll burn your house down” Gibson. This guy can’t get out of his own way. He can’t even take a step or open his mouth without violating a smorgasbord of domestic violence, antiterrorism, and hate crime laws. Apparently, even the slightest amount of alcohol in his bloodstream becomes, what would you call it, a lethal weapon? How in the world has he managed to stay out of jail all this time? Don’t tell me that his celebrity and his millions have anything to do with it. :-)
31. Rep. Joe “We should apologize to BP” Barton;
32. Rep. Darrell “The House will spend the next two years fabricating, and then investigating, baseless claims against the President” Issa (R-CA);
33. Rep. Louie (We have to guard against the births of “Terror Babies”) Gohmert (R-TX), without a doubt THE dumbest elected official in American history;
34. The Koch Brothers (These guys won’t just go to Hell; they’ll wind up owning it);
35. Sharon Keller, the Texas appellate judge who ordered her courthouse doors locked shortly before attorneys were due to arrive with a petition for a stay of execution. The condemned man who sought the stay was executed later that evening without his legal arguments ever being heard. Apparently, this caliber of conduct is business as usual for Judge Keller;
36. The appropriately named Dick Armey who, as the public face of Americans for Prosperity, is literally the self styled leader of an army of dicks;
37. George W. Bush: No, he didn’t do much of anything this year except approve a pack of lies he he calls a "book." But virtually every aspect of the generally deplorable state of affairs in which we currently find ourselves can be traced directly back to the watershed moment when he was anointed President by the following nominees for our presidency, i.e. the “winner”of the FLOP of the year trophy:
38. The Supreme Court’s “Gang of Five.” There are actually two versions of this group of intellectually dishonest, result oriented, right wing idealogues: The five justices who comprised the majority in Bush v Gore, and, more recently, the five-justice majority in Citizens United. The first group included then-Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas. In the more recent incarnation, the late, extremely conservative Chief Justice Rehnquist was replaced by the equally conservative Chief Justice Roberts, and the moderate to conservative Justice O'Connor was replaced by right wing extremist, Samuel Alito. The other three justices in each case were the same.
Make no mistake: these guys have an agenda in mind for this country toward which they will steadily and assiduously work until they are no longer part of the court’s majority. Which, with appointments like Elena Kagan, will be a looong time.
39. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) who, among other gems, once described the quintessential hate crime, the killing of Matthew Shepherd, as a “hoax” (while his mother was in the Congressional audience). Rep. Foxx also strongly opposes any federal government involvement in education, thereby presumably explaining how she manages to get reelected. Yes, Virginia, you are an idiot. And a mean spirited one at that;
40. Rush Limbaugh What can one say about the master of combining provocative, incendiary, outright lies with a healthy dose of racism? Or, more appropriately, an unhealthy dose of racism, the only kind that exists.
The number of rabidly (and I use the term advisedly) loyal fans or “ditto heads,” who follow this snake oil salesman who instigates and agitates for fun and profit, might well be the greatest testament of all to the dreadful condition this country is in.
Nothing is beneath this guy. There is no level below which he will not sink. If Barack Obama were to discover a cure for cancer today, this fat huckster would nonetheless excoriate him on Monday’s program for some obviously fabricated, trumped up, slanderous allegation of misconduct that would not bear the slightest resemblance to the truth.
Here’s a perfect example from May of 2010 of his over the top, incendiary remarks that the “low information voters” lap up like animals perishing from thirst:
“Guess what? Faisal Shahzad [the Times Square car bomber] is a registered Democrat. I wonder if his SUV had an Obama sticker on it.”
(Of course, Shahzad was not a registered voter. But since when has The Fat Man ever allowed a hint of truth to stand in his way?);
41. Glenn Beck, the man who has redefined the term,“lunatic fringe.” Of course, it’s impossible to recount even a tiny percentage of this nitwit’s rambling, psychotic, right wing diatribes that defy description as well as comprehension. He may have been best described by Daniel Kurtzman who wrote, “Beck also suffers from Obama Derangement Syndrome, conspiratorial paranoia, messianic megalomania, and chronic douchebaggery.”
In other words, he’s not really a TV host; he’s more of an escaped mental patient;
42. Everyone who refers to the Democratic Party as “The Democrat Party”;
43. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the leader of a group of Republican Senators who refused to support the START Treaty and thereby risked the safety of the entire world for purely selfish, political purposes. Arizona must be quite a place;
44. Every Republican Senator who filibustered the bills to extend unemployment benefits and to provide health care for 9/11 first responders until the President caved in (as usual) to their demands for tax cuts for the super wealthy; in other words, every Republican Senator; and . . .
45. Last, but most definitely not the least greedy, selfish, Machiavellian, and mean spirited of our nominees ...
North Korean ally, accomplished Russian foreign policy wonk, hand-writing expert (literally), reader of all magazines, Pied Piper of the Uninformed, High Priestess of Anger, Ignorance, and Superstition, enthusiastic supporter of the country of Africa and the continent of Haiti, the former “Half Governor” of Alaska, next to whom most of our other nominees can be said to ... Palin to insignificance.
There you have it: 45 of the very worst of all the bottom feeders. Tomorrow, one of their number will be selected as the recipient of the award for 2010's lowest form of life on the planet.
Best of luck to all of our worthy candidates. May the most deserving person win.
