Updates on Rick \

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/02/rick-santorum-iowa-caucus-2012_n_117943...

- Not a good argument for private for-profit vs. government regarding health care. E.g., if you are admitted to a health care facility and you get herpes while there, seems like you are losing ground rather than gaining as regards your personal health. Seems like this particular situation can only be improved with more government oversite.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/02/rick-santorum-daughter_n_1179470.html?r...

Santorum's daughter is sad that she can't let the grandkids google Santorum because of that mean old Dan Savage.

I disagree. I think Savage has done them a favor by discouraging them from googling the REAL Rick Santorum, whose actual personae is grosser than "Santorum".

Santorum's daughter is sad that she can't let the grandkids google Santorum because of that mean old Dan Savage.

Actually, Santorum said that his kids can't google him. He doesn't have any grandkids yet.

I must say that I agree with his daughter about one thing: "People are entitled to live the way they want, but to project those values and say those are the best values for our country are a different thing." But, of course, to me that means that her father and his ilk shouldn't project their values "and say those are the best values for our country". I guess she missed the irony.

Teabagger-level republicans don't do irony. Except regarding each other.

E.g., compare the record vs. the words of any of the republican candidates for the Presidential nomination. (Except for Huntsman. I don't know much about him. Is he an outrageous hypocrite too?)

Not a good argument for private for-profit vs. government regarding health care. E.g., if you are admitted to a health care facility and you get herpes while there, seems like you are losing ground rather than gaining as regards your personal health. Seems like this particular situation can only be improved with more government oversite.

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Well, after all, that is the answer to all social ills, isn't it? Just gather a group of omniscient angels and turn the problem over to them. They will do good. (If you would like to be an omniscient angel just seem the recruiter's office at your local bureaucracy.)

#2 lil...whats even more ironic is that no one is saying the values many of us are "projecting" are the BEST, just a hell of a lot better than the ones the religious right and hard core conservatives are.

Well now that Rick is a first tier candidate everything he has done or said publicly is going to be scrutinized.

First thing - well, Rick has publicly wondered if mormonism is a dangerous cult:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/santorum-mormonism-cult-christians-2007...

Well, I would think the first issue to explore regarding this question is "Is there a known decades-long history of hundreds of mormon priests in dozens of countries molesting thousands of mormon children, with dozens of top mormon leaders involved in a vast and decades-long cover-up, including the very top mormon leader?"

No?

Then how dangerous a cult can mormonism be, in comparison to other cults?

Then we have this:

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/01/04/397355/rick-santorums-top-10-most-outra...

I have to think that, for one thing, his anti-contraception attitude has got to hurt his chances. Aren't something like 90 per cent of Americans now pro-contraception?

Also - on the gay thing - Santorum claims there are people who have essentially been cured of being gay.

I'm not gay, don't have a lot of gay acquaintances (that I know of) and certainly don't claim any expertise on gayness - but are there really examples of gay people who have made the switch and become straight, for some reason or another, by some process or another? I would think that is pretty much not possible. I.e., I would seriously doubt one can "pray away the gay" but, say, electro-shock therapy - would that possibly work?

Are there any ex-gay people here at LT that can speak to that?

There are bisexual people who switch from one lifestyle to the other.

> 8

Well there is alleged scientific evidence that we are all bisexual.

Do you think we need to get into that?

I'm basically asking about a person who is Richard Simmons gay or Rosie O’Donnell gay but is turned around 100 per cent, somehow, and becomes only attracted to a completely different sexual "lifestyle". That is what I doubt can ever happen. That is why I think Santorum, the Bachmanns and their ilk are whacko-level wrong about the gay.

I seem to recall that polls now show that some majority of U.S. citizens are o.k. with same-sex marriages or gays in the military or something like that. So how does this anti-gay focus of Santorum really help him?

tell me how to discern objectively that Richard Simmons, or Rosie O’Donnell who ever they may be are 100% gay whatever that means.

If one of them was to flip would not people say things like well I guess that one was not 100% gay after all?

consider Dan Savage a pillar of the gay comunity he has often talked about a woman firefighter he lusts after.

As long as religious bias on sexual behavior flourishes, sexual orientation will needed to be finessed by anyone who doesn't fit the heterosexual norm. I've seen Condi Rice's floated as a potential Republican VP. Would she be treated as venomously as Janet Reno was within Republican circles?

I suppose it only works for people that are Ted Haggard gay or Larry Craig gay.

I like to remind Republican friends that Nancy Reagan is a camp icon. The conversation always takes an interesting turn from there.

Tammy Faye has chops, too.

Edited to add the 'e'.

Condi Rice would be a home run for Romney, that is for sure. She was super loyal to Bush throughout, and everyone knows that, so she will know her place as VP. (She famously referred to him as her husband once). She is black and a she, negating any positives effects of Obama's race. She is pretty damn smart, but the kind of smart R's tend to like.

Whether she would do it is a whole 'nother thing.

Rice also has a brain. She won't.