I’m in favor of this becoming a trend among far right conservative politicians; we just might see a big attitude improvement: Tom Tancredo to Smoke Pot.

Tancredo, who supported the marijuana reform proposal but said he did not partake in drugs himself, made a bet in a promotional film advocating its passage that he would nonetheless smoke pot if it ended up becoming law. Since it passed, he told Fox News he will uphold his end of the bargain:

“Look, I made a bet with the producer of the film that if Amendment 64 passed ( I did not think it would) that I would smoke pot,” he said through his research and education institute, the Rocky Mountain Foundation. “I will therefore smoke pot under circumstances we both agree are legal under Colorado law. Hey, it’s better than having to do a stupid dance as (Denver) Mayor (Michael) Hancock must perform as a result of losing a bet on the Broncos beating the Ravens.”

A great piece at The Daily Beast by Michael Tomasky (with thanks for the shout-out to LGF): GOP Attracting Minorities?

Let’s start with African-Americans. Republicans, whatever they might say publicly, won’t actually try to win more black votes. Why? Because the positions the party would have to embrace to win black votes are abhorrent to the GOP base. Which, you may have noticed, is kind of racist. Now, people like me—pundits of the respectable class—aren’t supposed to talk that way. We’re supposed to cooperate in the fiction that the Republican Party is the party of Lincoln and underneath it all yearns to reawaken the great Jack Kemp tradition.

All that is a bunch of rot, I’m afraid, and the rank and file’s racism is just a plain fact. Ever read some of those Fox News website comment threads on race stories, like this rather fascinating thread when Whitney Houston died, or certain Obama articles? It’s like reading Bull Connor’s diary. No, this doesn’t mean every conservative is a racist. But it does mean that if you find yourself at a table with five conservatives and try to break the ice with a watermelon joke, you’re very likely to get somewhere between two and three laughs.

A party with that kind of base is not going to be changing positions on affirmative action anytime in the next, oh, millennium. No—I really can’t predict a meeting of the minds here in any remotely foreseeable future. Remember, the conservative, Republican-appointed Supreme Court is (presumably) about to undo affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. It’ll be another decade fighting to win those back at least.

One of the features of LGF is our randomly selected news feed, near the bottom of the left sidebar. When this Fox Nation post appeared in the feed, I knew right away what I’d see if I clicked through: VIDEO: Brawl Erupts at Food Stamp Office | Welfare | Fox Nation.

That’s right — it’s categorized “Welfare.”

Here’s the original story: Brawl at Social Services Office Caught on Video.

EAST ST. LOUIS, IL. (KTVI) — An alarming video of a Tuesday afternoon brawl at a social services office in East St. Louis had workers and clients concerned for their safety and brought calls for action.

Notice that the original article used the term “social services office,” but Fox Nation not only called it a “food stamp office” in their headline, they actually edited the text of the quote they pulled for their article. The Fox Nation version:

EAST ST. LOUIS, IL. (KTVI) — An alarming video of a Tuesday afternoon brawl at a food stamp office in East St. Louis had workers and clients concerned for their safety and brought calls for action.

If you’re not aware of what Fox Nation does, you might wonder why they would make such changes — you might wonder why, in fact, they have such an item on their site at all.

It’s because one of the main functions of Fox Nation is to incite racial hatred among the audience of Fox News. And time after time, that audience responds by spewing torrents of the most astonishingly horrific racist commentary you’ll find anywhere on the web, up to and including neo-Nazi hate sites. It’s been going on for years, and there can be no doubt that it’s a deliberate, calculated editorial policy to not only tolerate, but actively encourage this.

A few of the comments for their “food stamp office brawl” story (notice that some of the knuckle-draggers use creative misspellings to get around Fox Nation’s word filters):

It’s gonna be a sight to be hold when those EBT cards start flashing ERROR. It’ll be a new reality show. N!66rs gone wild.

[…]

Blacks are the fattest,unhealthy,demographic in the US!

[…]

Knee groes, again? who’dathunkit?

[…]

3 cheers for the food stamp prezzzz

[…]

Just your average blacks and wannbe blacks who voted for an AA crackheaded bathhouse fairy doing what they know.

Average obama voter: IQ under 95 (american j of psychology may 2009)

It is a black culture thing.

[…]

Imagine that!!! Someone at the food stamp office with a Iphone???

[…]

Ha,ha,ha,ha….Nothing funnier than watching a bunch of monkeys fighting over a stalk of bananas…

I wonder what it means when one of them screams, “UhuhhletgoIgostogitmahkids”?

Interesting species, aren’t they?….

[…]

The best example of the human “ANIMAL” that I’ve ever seen !!

[…]

Let’s go get some of them goodies !

[…]

Man, the ‘word filter’ on here is insane. Can you say, “Censorship.”

[…]

Filmed in Kenya.

[…]

Librats fighting for free cheese,is the only time you will ever see a liabrat fight.

[…]

the only good addict is a dead addict

[…]

Then they will sell the food stamps

[…]

Yup. For crack.

St. Thomas More Hospital, operated by Catholic Health Initiatives, argues its way out of a wrongful death lawsuit by claiming that fetuses are not people. The case is heading to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to ‘nurture the healing ministry of the Church’ and to be guided by ‘fidelity to the Gospel.’ Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. ‘Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,” the directives state. ‘The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.’

The directives can complicate business deals for Catholic Health, as they can for other Catholic health care providers, partly by spurring political resistance. In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post, similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect ‘unborn persons,’ and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

And lest we think that this is merely some legal trick conjured by the lawyers, the client had to approve this defense from the outset.

There are other potential methods of defending a malpractice suit in this case, but the hospital chain, and the Church official at the hospital chain who were involved in the decision, agreed that they would go against the stated church doctrine on abortion and treating a fetus as a person.

In this case, it was the monetary interests of defending the hospital against a malpractice suit to bring out the hypocrisy of the church on this matter. It also presents a test case to show the limits of church doctrine as it relates to health policy, abortion, and the treatment of pregnant women.

Last week we saw a flurry of news articles about Republicans being taught how to talk about rape, because the victim-blaming thing just wasn’t working out as they’d hoped.

Well, they’ve still got a lot of work to do if they plan to hide their sickness; case in point, New Mexico Republican Rep. Cathrynn Brown (yes, a woman), who is introducing a bill that would send women to jail if they get an abortion after being raped.

And the rationale for this insane bill is even worse. The same Republicans who preach about the “sanctity of life” are calling terminating a rape-caused pregnancy “tampering with evidence.”

These people are really not right in the head.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.”

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime,” the bill says.

Third-degree felonies in New Mexico carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.

Rep. Brown explained further that her only intention — really, honest — is to “protect” women.

Brown said in a statement Thursday that she introduced the bill with the goal of punishing the person who commits incest or rape and then procures or facilitates an abortion to destroy the evidence of the crime.

“New Mexico needs to strengthen its laws to deter sex offenders,” said Brown. “By adding this law in New Mexico, we can help to protect women across our state.”