Quote of the Day

"Money equals speech. Therefore the more money you have, the more you can speak. That just stands to reason. If corporations are people, corporations should be able to speak. That's why I believe in Super PACs."—Totally serious GOP candidate for president Stephen Colbert. lolsob.

Primarily Gross

Here's the latest from Dissemblin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, aka the garbage nightmare known as the Republican Primary.

Enthusiasm void, ATM, and current frontrunner Mitt Romney has opened a 21 point lead in South Carolina, site of the next primary. "Well, whatever, it's a little late to find someone who doesn't make us throw up in our mouths now," said a majority of Republican primary voters, followed by a great heaving sigh of disappointment.


Well, there's always joke candidate (but not in the same way that all the other candidates are joke candidates) Stephen Colbert!

Evangelicals are, of course, all about Rick Santorum, who was voted the Official Candidate of an Arbitrary Assortment of Social Conservatives this weekend: "The decision was made today after three rounds of balloting at a meeting of more than 150 social conservative leaders and political activists held over the last two days in Brenham, Texas. Though the meeting was widely seen as an effort to settle on a candidate to stop Mitt Romney, [Family Research Council President Tony Perkins] said it was 'not a bash Romney weekend' and 'not a lot of time' was spent discussing him. Jon Huntsman's campaign was the only campaign not to participate in the meeting."

Ha ha way to go, Jon Huntsman! Speaking of Jon Huntsman and how he has no chance of winning, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh wait! There is BIG JON HUNTSMAN NEWS! He has dropped out! And he's now expected to endorse Romney, who just last week he was calling "completely unelectable." Perfect. Thank you for reminding us that you are, in fact, a politician, sir. Good luck in the future. Don't ever change. Stay sweet. LYLAS. My z key will totally miss you.

This is my favorite headline of the day about Newt Gingrich: Gingrich faces tough questions at SC campaign event with black church. Like, one imagines, "What are you doing here?" and "Who the fuck do you think you are?" and "Are you aware, sir, that you are a huuuuuuuge racist?" The one thing you can definitely say about Newt Gingrich, though, is that he is a uniter and not a divider, because white people hate him, too.

Something something Ron Paul. Something something liberty schmiberty.


Rick Perry is still definitely in the race! He has not dropped out yet! In fact, great news for all you Perry fans out there: "Perry vows to fight on, regardless of result in South Carolina primary." Of course he does. Because he's a genius.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Primarily Awful

"HA HA HA you're fired! HA HA HA you're ALLLLLLL fired!"
Frontrunner (again) Mitt Romney continues to endear himself to the 99% by saying things like: "You know, I think [the nation's growing focus on income inequality is] about envy. I think it's about class warfare." Ha ha sure it is. Definitely what people who are struggling to feed their children are thinking is, "I'm so JEALOUS of Mitt Romney that he is able to feed his children."

I wonder what the weather is like on Planet Willard. I bet every day feels like a summer's eve.

In a stroke of good fortune (pun intended), his opponents' attacks on Romney's tenure as a corporate raider at Bain Capital have backfired on them and united conservatives behind Romney. It's probably not so much that they give a fuck about Romney, although there are certainly signs his inevitability is beginning to sink in, but that they are pissed off about their own unfettered avarice being demonized. Superwealthy GOP donors aren't going to keep pouring their cash into campaigns where they're made into villains, and, if he's got nothing else going for him, Romney can be counted on to never criticize either corporate or personal greed.

In totally related news, Jeb Bush is reportedly going to endorse Romney before the Florida primary.

Before we move on to the obligatory news about the no-hope wannabes, here is my favorite Willard-related headline of the day: C-SPAN Getting Hammered with Prank Calls about Mitt Romney's Penis. Perfect.

Jon Huntsman remains a great candidate: "Jon Huntsman said Wednesday that expectations for his performance in the Jan. 21 primary [in South Carolina] are 'very low.' ... In a state where he's far behind in the polls and in a ground operation, Huntsman suggested that staying in the conversation—rather than winning—is the goal. 'It's just like the stock market, and as we get closer to Election Day, you all are going to say Huntsman has got to clear a certain hurdle to stay relevant, to stay alive,' he said." Nope! We are all saying now that Huntsman has no chance, Huntsman is wasting his time, and Huntsman should go home and go to bed. And as we get closer to Election Day, we are all going to be saying the same thing, only louder and with more snickering.

Something something Ron Paul. Something something fauxgressive misogynists.

Rick Santorum : Sweater Vests :: Major League Baseball Player : Unwashed Socks.

It's called magic. Look it up.

Newt Gingrich, having abandoned his strategy of sounding like someone who cares about the 99%, is now launching a more traditionally conservative attack on Mitt Romney: Noting that he speaks French. Good one, Gingrich. You might not win the primary, but your crass, brazen, cynical fuckery will always remain second to none.

Rick Perry is definitely still in the race! He has not dropped out yet!

And there's a late entry into the Republican field: Stephen Colbert announced on his show last night "that he is exploring a presidential run in South Carolina, and made it legal by handing control of his super PAC to Jon Stewart in the opening segment."

Sure, why not? This whole primary is a joke. It might as well contain an actual comedian.

I'm sure the Founders are so proud. "We're flipping our literal wigs!"—The Founders. Well, that's what you get for being racist, misogynist crumblebums!

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Good Morning! Here Are Melissa Harris-Perry and Stephen Colbert Being Awesome!

My profound thanks to Shaker shutupmonica for providing the transcript for us! For people who have not seen The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert is playing a Bill O'Reilly-like character, but he is actually politically liberal, and his guests are very much in on the joke.

[Click "Read More" for transcript.]

Colbert: My guest tonight has written a book on stereotypes of black women in America--I'm sorry, blaaaaaeehhh women in America. [This is a callback to earlier in the show when he called out Santorum's "black people"/"blah people" thing]. Please welcome Melissa Harris-Perry! [runs over to where Melissa is seated] Hey, nice to meet you! Thanks so much for coming on!

MHP: Absolutely.

Colbert: Okay, madame. You are professor of political science at Tulane, you have a new show on MSNBC--

MHP: Not until black history month.

Colbert: --Not til Black History Month. Do you get to go beyond Black History Month?

MHP: Yeah, maybe into March, which is Women's History Month.

Colbert: Oh, so, and you're both of those? I don't see race. Are you an African-American?

MHP: Most days.

Colbert: Most days. Okay, so, um, here's my problem with talking about race: Doesn't it divide us, by talking about our race?

MHP: You know, I do think that experiencing racism tends to be a worse experience than actually talking about racism and race.

Colbert: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

MHP: So, as a college professor, I feel like talking always brings us closer to understanding rather than dividing us. It can be tough. It can be a little nauseating. We don't always have the right vocabulary to talk across our differences, but the talking is always better than the ignoring.

Colbert: That would be a great tagline for your show: It can be tough, a little nauseating.

MHP: Indeed. [laughter]

Colbert: Okay, so you've got a brand new book. It's called Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. What do you mean by shame and stereotypes? What are the stereotypes you're talking about, of black women in America?

MHP: Well, so, there are four that I look at. The Jezebel, that's the kind of hypersexual black woman, the idea that African-American women aren't in control of their fertility, that they just have babies by lots of different men all the time. There's the Mammy stereotype, that was on display quite recently with, for example, The Help film--

Colbert: Great movie, great movie. Based on a true story! [laughter; MHP gives him a look] Go ahead.

MHP: And then--um [chuckles; audience laughter]

Colbert: I'm just tellin' ya.

MHP: You threw me off!

Colbert: I'm not making this stuff up.

MHP: [laughs] Right--and then there's the angry black woman, that kind of irrationally angry, all the time, at any moment might just snap--[Colbert impersonates the stereotype of an angry black woman using body language, facial expressions, and interjections]--yeah, that one, yes.

Colbert: Tell it!

MHP: Yes.

Colbert: What's she called?

MHP: The Sapphire.

Colbert: Sapphire?

MHP: Sapphire. Yes.

Colbert: Wow. That's sparkly. Now, of these three stereotypes--Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire--which one are you? [laughter] Because I like to pigeonhole my guests as much as possible.

MHP: Well, you know, I'm actually that fourth stereotype, which is the Strong Black Woman. And in fact, the Strong Black Woman is the one that African-American women ourselves created. We borrowed a little bit from a lot of these stereotypes, but the fact is, even though we self-created her, she can be just as painful, just as problematic, this idea that we are inherently strong, basically born with the capacity to kick adversity's butt, just because we are black and women.

Colbert: That seems like a lot of the burden--and I know nothing about black people, but if I could generalize as if I did--it seems like the woman in the black community takes the great burden for the absence of the black male.

MHP: I think we want to be careful about that because the notion of--

Colbert: I don't like to be careful. I don't wish to be careful about anything here!

MHP: [laughs] But black men are actually not absent in this way--

Colbet: They're gone. There are none. They're like the Yeti.

MHP: No--no, I have one of them--

Colbert There's like a history channel show, like Finding Bigfoot--

MHP: Yes, Finding the Black Man. Where was he?

Colbert: Yes!

MHP: Well, one is even living in the White House at the moment.

Colbert: Yes! I heard that! [laughter] So how can there be--I don't judge, maybe he's black, maybe he's not--but if we do have an African-American President, we have an African-American first lady?

MHP: We do.

Colbert: Doesn't that shatter the stereotypes?

MHP: I guess I would say that no, she doesn't shatter them, but she does challenge them. But of course, she's challenging them at the same time that, for example, we're holding up The Help. So we have a challenging figure in the person of Michelle Obama as First Lady, and then we have these reinforcing stereotypes in our culture.

Colbert: But The Help is a historical document!

MHP: It is not. [laughter]

Colbert: It is!

MHP: No, no. It was never--

Colbert [talking over her]: That's how it once was. It was a simpler time!

MHP: Jim Crow was never like big fun in the kitchen.

Colbert: In some ways, don't all women face stereotypes?

MHP: All women face stereotypes, and the point of this isn't to say that there is--there's no Oppression Olympics. There's no one group where things are so much worse.

Colbert: But who would win if there was? Who would win? [laughter]

MHP: [laughs] Let me just suggest this: That the real point of this book isn't that there are these bad things that these other folks are doing to African-American women. The real point of the book is that it matters how we feel about ourselves, that African-American women's internal life experiences are part of the American story. So when we're listening, for example, to the GOP rhetoric about the nostalgia of this America when things were simpler and better, you can never tell that story if you bother to think about African-American women's experience. Because there is no moment in American history where it is nostalgic and better to have been a little black girl. And so what we do is we put black women's stories at the center of the American story, and, all of a sudden, the American story takes on a very, very different resonance and trajectory.

Colbert: You're trying to depress me. [laughter] Because when I think about something bad happening to a little black girl, I get very, very sad. And then I feel guilty.

MHP: Oh, I'm sorry.

Colbert: Okay? I don't know if you're familiar with this term, but that is called "the white man's burden." [laughter] Are you familiar with that term?

MHP: I do know that term.

Colbert: That's your next book. Thank you so much!

[segment ending pleasantries, wild applause because Melissa is fucking brilliant, etc.]