Originally posted on OtherWords.org

When you hear the name Joe Walsh, you may think of the Eagles guitarist. But Joe Walsh is also the name of a tea-partying Republican lawmaker from Illinois. That Joe Walsh has released several of his own hits — really, really offensive hits.

Most recently, the congressman attacked law school grad and women's reproductive rights advocate Sandra Fluke (although by the time you read this, he may have produced another hit). But what makes Walsh great is his range. He doesn't limit himself to attacking any one group, but rather slams African Americans, veterans, the disabled, Muslims, and even his own constituents. The incumbent House member's fluid bigotry crosses genres, genders, races, and ages. Here are some of Rep. Joe Walsh's not-so-rocking greatest hits:

 At a campaign event for his re-election, Walsh released his latest hit, Get a Job, Sandra Fluke. It begins with, "Think about this, a 31-32 year old law student who has been a student for life, who gets up there in front of a national audience and tells the American people, 'I want America to pay for my contraceptives'...You're kidding me. Go get a job. Go get a job Sandra Fluke." Walsh's vitriol comes as no surprise, since he defended Todd "legitimate rape" Akin: "I'm bothered by this rush to pile on...And I'm bothered by the silence of members of our own party to stand up for him."

In April, at a town hall in Wheeling, Illinois, Walsh came out with Idiotic Obama Wouldn't Be President if He Weren't Black: "He's our first African-American president. The country voted for him because of that… it helped that John McCain was about 142 years old...But he never would have gotten there without his historic nature." Walsh also told Slate's David Weigel, "Why was he elected? He was black." Joe also told the "idiotic" president to "quit lying."

It's not easy to disrespect the disabled and the military in the same breath. And yet, Joe managed to rise to the challenge in his recent classic, Shut Up, You Disabled Veteran. In an interview with Politico, Walsh dismissed the fact that congressional contender Tammy Duckworth lost two legs in Iraq. Here's that news outlet's account of what he said: "'I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country,' said Walsh, simultaneously lowering his voice as he leaned forward before pausing for dramatic effect. 'Ehhh. Now let's move on. What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran…Ehhh.'"

More recently he suggested Duckworth wasn't a true hero: "Now I'm running against a woman who, I mean, my God — that's all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, that's the last thing in the world they talk about."

It also takes a special kind of artist to insult both Jews and Palestinians. But Joe Walsh accomplishes that with his release of Wake up Jews, Stop Complaining Palestinians. "Too many American Jews aren't as pro-Israel as they should be and too many share this belief that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli occupation," the Catholic Congressman said. "Nothing could be further from the truth." Not only are the Palestinians not victims, they have it great, according to Walsh: "The Arabs living in that land right now under Israeli control have a better quality of life. They're freer, more prosperous than in any other Arab country."

In his hit, I'm a Deadbeat Dad, but I'm Gonna Tell You how to Raise Your Kids, Walsh claimed that studies show it is better for children to be raised by a mother and father than by a same-sex couple. This advice comes from a man who tried to fight paying his wife the more than $100,000 he owed her in child support.

Stay tuned for more releases from the bigoted songwriter as Election Day nears. As for the Eagles guitarist by the same name, he's backing Rep. Walsh's opponent, Tammy Duckworth.

 

Photo by Matt Weinstein

Recently, as the prestigious Daily Caller reports, Americans for a Limited Government (ALG) (in a report, which mentions yours truly) exposed two dangerous facts about Obama's Labor nominee, Erica Groshen: "In addition to having sent her kids to a camp with Communist roots, Groshen publicly favors more regulations on small businesses." I honestly don't know which one is worse. But since I am a third generation Kinderland alum and the director of the soon-to-be released documentary about Camp Kinderland, and not a small business or small business owner, I thought I'd write about the first charge.

This country cannot afford to have a woman whose kids went to Kinderland lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Who knows how her children brainwashed their mother with the values of the camp. For starters let's look at the people the bunks at Kinderland are named after: Harriet Tubman, Anne Frank, Emma Lazarus, Roberto Clemente. With heroes like these, who knows where these campers could end up! Anywhere from attics, to forests, to the Statue of Liberty, to a baseball diamond, bashing the ball of the American republic with each swing of the unpatriotic bat.

And don't get me started on the way Kinderlanders share care packages from parents. Candies and stickers are snatched from innocent hands, thrown into a collective trunk, only to be redistributed equally among all bunk mates. There's a fine line and a slippery slope between Collectivization of Starbursts and forced labor camps.

And then, Kinderland shuns the American pie of camp programming, the traditional color wars practiced by other summer camps, conducting instead the World Peace Olympics, whose very name threatens the stability of the nation-state. My first summer at camp, the theme of the Olympics was non-violent resistance and the teams were named after famous subversive Communists like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I was on the Martin Luther King team and I'll never forget the epic soccer game of '92, when MLK totally cleaned the floor with Gandhi. It wasn't even close. It was a total massacre. But we had to shake hands with the losers because Kinderland is an egalitarian dictatorship.

And, finally, there is the scary but totally plausible-- even likely-- possibility that the actual children infiltrate the bureau of Labor, deleting all statistics and replacing them with the emoticons of the hammer and sickle.

I demand we set up a committee investigating all the potentially unamerican activity of all the children of all nominees, appointees and elected officials. And we should then purge anyone whose child has attended any progressive institution, from Kinderland to Montessori.

I was just watching Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC (check out the video here) and had the pleasure of seeing the always lovely Haley Barbour. Barbour went through a list of attacks the Obama campaign is  allegedly making against Mitt Romney. When he said the Obama campaign was attacking Romney for being Mormon, Mitchell had to but in and remind Barbour that they had made no anti-Mormon statements whatsoever. So, Barbour, always quick on his feet, brought up Elie Wiesel as an Obama surrogate who is anti-Mormon and wants Mormons to “stop certain practices.” Mitchell basically told Barbour that if he wants to play the surrogate game, it goes both ways. But, the bigger point is that Barbour is basically saying that opposing the posthumous baptisms of Jews, including Anne Frank, is somehow anti-Mormon. Because that is the practice that the Holocaust survivor and writer was against. Well, Haley, by that logic, and if Wiesel, and Obama, by extension, is anti-Mormon, then you, and Romney, by extension, support baptizing Anne Frank. So, please, keep speaking for Mitt!

House Oversight Committee Chairman, master car thief and general criminal Darrell Issa held a hearing today on the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Claiming that the the hearing was "not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience," Issa barred a progressive woman from testifying, as that would have ruined the all male conservative religious anti-Obama motif he was going for. This led three democrats to walk out of the house (which must have been extra hard, because their panties were all up in a bunch). But I watched the hearing. And here are some thoughts. 1. I guess I should give the GOP props for voting against the Violence Against Women Act, since it would be hypocritical to condemn violence against women, while at the same time advocating ultrasound rape. 2. This is a really beautiful image of small government and big family values. 3. I'm really glad women aren't allowed to testify at this hearing, which is about their bodies. It's a dangerously slippery slope and I think we all know what comes next: box turtles are allowed to testify. It's also really hard to be objective and have a vagina at the same time. 4. Rep James Lankford should recuse himself from abortion discussions, as he, himself, is a fetus. 5. Given what men of the cloth are known to do in this position, I'm kind of relieved when a clergy member testifies that he gets on his knees every morning and prays for the president. 6. Joe Walsh shouldn't be speaking or even here. He has way overdue child support to pay. 7. An objective Darrell Issa throws the panel a real hard ball and asks them, "do you think this hearing was a sham?" 8. That hearing was good, but having Fred Phelps there would have made it even better. 9. That hearing was good, but having it in Salem in the 17th century woud have made it even better. 10. I'm holding a hearing in which an all female panel will testify for weekly colonoscopies performed on the male clergy and GOP members who participated in today's hearing. We will also discuss Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell's amendment requiring men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.