On Glenn Beck, Santorum has come out opposed to increased college education on the grounds that universities are “indoctrination mills.”

Stupid booklearnin’.

You just can’t make this stuff up. He’s like a complete parody of a reactionary, racist, homophobic, anti-education, anti-enlightenment candidate, and he’s the goddamn frontrunner.

At All Dead Mormons Are Now Gay, you can pick a dead Mormon or choose at random. Hit the button, and convert away!

Via MeFi.

Rick Santorum is opposed to early childhood education programs. It is, he says, the parents’ job to do this:

Of course, the government wants their hands on your children as fast as they can. That is why I opposed all these early starts and pre-early starts, and early-early starts. They want your children from the womb so they can indoctrinate your children as to what they want them to be. I am against that.

Please, please, please GOP: nominate this boob.

They’re now pronouncing Lawrence O’Donnell’s statement that “critics of the GI Bill called it welfare” as “mostly false” despite in their own summary quoting several sources who referred to it as “relief,” “the dole”, and the equivalent of handouts.

Seriously? Maddow has more; go watch her takedown.

I mean, most intelligent folks wrote Politifact off months ago, when they declared Democrats’ claims that the GOP wanted to end Medicare a “pants on fire” lie of the year for 2011 — this despite the fact that this is precisely what the GOP set out to do. Politifact’s defense was that the GOP plan would still include something called Medicare, but given that their alternative had essentially nothing else in common with the Medicare of 2011 it’s hard to find this a strong argument for anything other than “Politifact has become a hack organization.”

Or, worse, someone is pressuring them to find “lies” from Democrats to balance the tons of bullshit generated by the GOP.

That’s inflammatory, but it’s also true. Going out and cultivating your own lone-wolf terrorist, given him the (apparent) means and opportunity to do something nefarious, and then arresting him is probably way safer than tracking down actually dangerous people, but you get the same amount of headlines and good press, so it keeps happening. It’s also partly our own fault for being taken in by such headlines, and for demanding such simple scorekeeping. “Hey,” we collectively say, “they’re catching terrorists left and right! That’s awesome!” Except most people never bother to ask themselves “gee, were those folks really terrorists, or were they confused dupes badgered into an ill-conceived plot by Feds who wanted a bust?”

It’s not just in terrorism where cops play this game. Manufacturing crimes to arrest people for is part and parcel of the drug war, too. For example, an undercover sting in Florida recently bagged a teenager for dealing weed only after the girl he was trying to date — a 25-year-old undercover cop — begged and pleaded for him to get her some pot. Nice. I’m sure we’re all much safer now that such a menacing character will have is life ruined.

Turns out, they only hate birth control mandates when Obama does them. When Romney does them, it’s fine.

In the US, we’re so accustomed to our “one man, one vote” election system that we’ve by and large forgotten that alternatives exist that can produce materially fairer outcomes.

C. G. P. Grey discusses the main problems with First Past The Post in this excellent video, which explains briefly why such systems — even if they start with multiple parties — inevitably devolve into a two-party duopoly that poorly represents most citizens. Go watch. It’s worth 6 minutes of your time, I assure you.

If you enjoyed it, continue for more over at his blog, where concepts like Alternative Vote (also known as “Instant Runoff Voting“) and Gerrymandering are explored in similar style.

Via MeFi.

Rick Santorum Want To Fight The Dangers Of Contraception:

Last October, Rick Santorum gave an interview with an Evangelical blog called Caffeinated Thoughts, in which he said contraception is “not okay,” and that this would be a public policy issue he would tackle as President.

This is your GOP frontrunner, people. God DAMN I’m sorry I ran off all the right-wingers from my Facebook feed.

As always, summed up with exemplary flair by Jon Stewart. It’s a good one. Don’t miss it.

(h/t Rob.)

…Rick Santorum is just plain dumb as a rock.

Herein he discusses the wide gap between the Catholic laity and their purported leadership, the bishops, and why it makes more sense to listen to the liaty as the voice of Catholicism on issues like birth control.

Here then are the two issues on which the consensus of the laity and the assertions of the bishops are in conflict: contraception and child rape.

The bishops teach that contraception is a grave moral sin. The laity know that it is not. The devout laity know this. They are sure of it. They employ contraception with a clean conscience and an untroubled spirit. Some may be troubled that their doing so is a form of disobedience to the teaching of the bishops, but the only guilt they experience is due to that disobedience, not because they believe the practice to be intrinsically wrong.

The laity have listened to the bishops’ rationale for their opposition to contraception and have not found it compelling. It’s too confusing, contradictory and inconstant to be understood. It changes and collapses back on itself. […] Unpersuaded by the bishops’ case, the laity thus choose to heed their own conscience and ignore the prohibition.

That decision is informed by and reinforced by the second, more vehement, disagreement — the matter of child rape.

For the Catholic laity, overwhelmingly, the rape of a child is considered a moral horror and one of the worst sins imaginable. For the bishops, it’s a regrettable act, but it’s not as bad as the public disclosure of it. For the laity, there can be no greater priority than ensuring that children in one’s care are not abused. For the bishops, there has been no greater priority than ensuring that abusers are not exposed. The paramount concern for the laity is the protection of children. The paramount concern for the bishops has been the protection of their own reputation.

Honestly, it’s amazing people are willing to listen to the power structure of the Roman church at all, ever, about anything until they address this. Because Fred is not wrong here, not even a little.

You may have heard that the White House sidestepped the whining of the wingnut portion of the GOP and some Catholic organizations this week by allowing the health plans offered by religious organizations to omit coverage for birth control — while still requiring the insurers to provide contraception free of charge. The insurers are on board (birth control is way cheaper than pregnancy), and if the GOP was really concerned about “requiring employers to pay for something they find immoral,” this should’ve shut down the debate.

That would’ve been nice. But that wasn’t all the position does: It also means that, if the GOP continues to bitch and moan and whine and say “but this isn’t enough!”, then they’re basically making it clear that what they REALLY want to to reduce access to contraception. Make no mistake: the pivot by the White House was a clever and pragmatic compromise, but also a very clever trap.

And, well, the Bishops and Mitch McConnell have led the GOP directly into it:

Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

What’s hilarious here is the angle he takes:

“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”

McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”

House GOP leaders also said Friday they will move forward with legislation to repeal the birth control rule in its entirety. Republicans from both chambers are aligning themselves with the Catholic Bishops who say the new policy remains unacceptable.

Religious freedom isn’t about imposing your will on others. It’s allowing others to worship, or not, on their own. If your employees are getting birth control for free from the insurer, you ought not care. If you still do, you’re trying to control them, and that’s not “religious liberty” anymore. Check out what Fred Clark has to say about this version of religious liberty.

What’s even funnier is that a majority of both Americans and Catholics are in favor of the White House compromise, so the GOP’s rant here is going to become a giant poison pill. It’s a whole bunch of old white men insisting that birth control access be curtailed. Nobody is going to miss that message, I assure you.

Fred has another great rundown of some additional analysis on this that’s also worth your time.