Remember Andre Bauer? He’s the lieutenant governor of South Carolina – the guy Mark Sanford didn’t want to risk taking charge of the state while he hiked the Appalachian Trail. The guy who has to keep denying that he’s gay, over and over. And now, he’s one of the guys running for S.C. governor from the GOP. In my ongoing project of keeping readers up to date on just how weird, and even gothic, South Carolina politics gets, here’s something that happened on Friday.
Long story short, Bauer held a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn, S.C , where he gave a speech in which touched on a favorite S.C political tactic, threatening to punish the poor. Bauer said he thinks reduced-price lunches should be taken away from poor kids if their parents don’t pass a drug test or attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings. This kind of crap is standard fare in ye olde Palmetto State, where no matter what major issues are swirling around in an election year, there’s always time to pause to beat hell out of the poor.
But that’s not the half of it. During the speech, Bauer compared people who receive government assistance to stray animals who keep breeding because they don’t know any better. Read the details here. As I’ve said before, N.C.’s political scandals are pretty feeble compared to the vicious knuckle-draggers and throwbacks that run my home state. I’m sure this is just the beginning of a banner year for them.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2010.
Only two things to say:
1. Frank, I thought you’d already shown your worst, but your kneejerk anti-poor reaction says a lot more about you than you think. As in, selfish prick immoral asswipe.
2. At long last, haven’t you figured out yet, Frank, that nobody else really gives a fuck WHAT you think?
CL, do your website readers, and The Oaf (new nickname for Frank) a favor, and put Griffin out of his misery – dump the douchebag.
I have no problem demanding drug tests for anyone who gets welfare money, including the asshole corporations that drain many billions of tax dollars a year through T.A.R.P. (created by a Republican) and other corporate welfare programs.
As for the “poor:” don’t go using such a broad brush, Frank. There are plenty of people who’ve hit hard times the last couple of years who need help from the government right now, including plenty of true blue Republican friends I know.
One of my best friends spent 25 years in the trucking/transportation business, working hard, raising a family, paying his mortgage, paying for his kids’ education, before the company went belly up last year. He looked for work but the bills weren’t going away so he got unemployment insurance. Others I know have had to apply for welfare and food stamps.
Trust me, these people don’t like having to live like that and they would stop it in a heartbeat if they could find work.
So you’re wrong when you say, “People will do more of something if they are rewarded for a certain action.” Plenty of folks are getting “rewarded” with food stamps or unemployment insurance or welfare. I can guaranteee you: They will most definitely NOT “do more” of it once they find work again.
It’s easy to make pat judgements about “the poor” if you’ve never hit on hard times and needed a temporary boost from government programs. But you’re sure as hell glad they’re there when the bad times to come, I can promise you that.
educate yourself franks of the world. http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfareblack.htm
So what you do is punish the kids if their parents don’t take a drug test? That’ll show those kids! Why not just take them out back and shoot them, guarantee that our hard-earned tax dollars won’t ever be wasted on their hungry little bellies.
Frank, as always, you continue to show that there’s no limit to how far a human being can shove his head up his ass. Congrats!
I agree with Jay Patrick. Block Frank Griffin’s posts. He’s just grown more bitter and loony with each passing week. He offers nothing constructive to any debate and exists for the sole purpose of peddling his worn out I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-blah blah blah horse crap. He just parrots the standard right-wing line and gets all his “facts” from Republican echo chambers like American Thinker.
In short, just cut him off. Put him out of his misery. And ours. Nobody likes him anyway. Hell even the conservatives think he’s obnoxious.
Frank is just another whiny “libertarian” (quote marks because they’re really Republicans in drag). They have no chance of ever achieving real power because their ideas are so out of touch with the mainstream, so they just sit on the sidelines and take potshots.
Frank loves to criticize the Democrats’ ability to govern. But they’ve been in power for most of the past 100 years, and the U.S. has fared pretty well over that time.
Frank is a gnat. Just swat him away from time to time.
So everyone feels comfortable thinking that the other guy is wrong and off his rocker. You are distracting yourselves from the main point…poor people = cattle and wild animals. If the beast would deny CHILDREN/wild animals food, why would he be concerned in the slightest about educating them? These hateful divisive sentiments might not seem so harsh guys, as long as you see the children as someone else’s kids….but you are also among “the poor”! He’s talking about you and your children too! It is a thinly cloaked comment about race and nationality but the fundamental comment has to do with cold hard cash…that you don’t have! This is precisely the kind of monsterous mouth piece candidate that a large corporation can’t wait to fund. Given the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that allows un fettered dollars directly from corporations to mouth pieces, watch out. The days of “civil democracy” are now formally over.
No way JFK would be a Republican today, not with the Southern/fundamentalist/Tea Party wing dominating the party. I doubt Rockefellor or Goldwater would even be Republicans, probably Goldwater would be an Independent.
JFK would be a moderate/conservative Democrat, like Bill Clinton or Jim Webb. The right-wingers will find some way to spin it, but Clinton presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history, along with a balanced budget and federal surplus.
In any event, no reasonable person could defend this idiot Bauer’s statements. Even he is backing off of them.
BTW, I don’t make pat statements or generalizations about the rich. Hell I’m trying to get rich! If and when I do get rich, I won’t complain about having to pay higher taxes or lecture the poor about why they’re poor. I’ll just kick back on my yacht and enjoy the good times.
You think Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs complain about social programs for the poor? I doubt it!
WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?
WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?
WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?
WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?
SUPER BOWL, BABY!!!!!
I can show you poor who do no drugs or alcohol and are working poor. People like him create the working poor. What about people that are poor because of a disability from car accidents,on the job permanent injuries & once middle class people that losted more then 2,3 or 4 jobs because of shutdowns due to economy. Where are the programs to help people now that states are closing up programs due to economy. This guy is a jerk & doesn’t belong in any goverment positions. He is a bad seed planted by the repubs. He belongs on the Rush Limbaugh train. I hope this guy gets booted out. He didn’t have a mother.
These are the kinds of idiots we have in our political make-up of this going down America. Wait til he sees more poor counted because we are headed toward an era of the have and have nots before a middle class was created in post ww2. There might not be a republican in the future because they are fomenting Anarchy.
Frank writes, “I just defended Baur (sic) and did so successfully. You guys failed to make your case.”
Actually, you didn’t do jackshit but sell yourself on the idea that you’re right. The rest of us tuned you out a long time ago because you are so, so very wrong.
Bauer is a moron for saying what he did. Even he knows it. That’s why he’s spent the last couple days apologizing and backpedaling and clarifying. You don’t go comparing people to “stray animals.” It was a dumbfuck thing to say and he knows it and Republicans know it and Dems know it and anyone with half-a-brain knows it.
You’d have to be a dumbfuck not to know it. Frank, you are that dumbfuck.
And you’d have to be a lunatic to spend so much time convincing yourself you’re right when Man, God and Reason all know you’re wrong.
Frank, you are that lunatic.
This is Frank’s usual pattern.
First he makes an ass out of himself with some ridiculous post that he likely ripped off from some other right-wing gasbag in the first place.
Then he gets clobbered by rational, thinking people.
Then he goes to great lengths to explain why he was misunderstood and everyone else is wrong.
Then he gets clobbered some more by rational, thinking people.
Then he starts jibber-jabbering about “ideas” and “facts” and acting like a mental patient who is suddenly surrounded by orderlies trying to calm him down.
Then rational, thinking people finally realize how pathetic he is and just walk away.
Then, when all of his friends have finally grown tired of him, he proclaims victory like a 7-year-old kid. “I win, you lose! Yayyyyy me!”
It’s the same sad schtick over and over again.
I steal my ideas from the Right-Wing Handbook of Cliches and that makes me a bad boy.
I haven’t had an original thought in my life and that makes me a bad boy.
I try to set the rules of every debate by saying something outrageous then demanding that others accept my logic and that makes me a bad boy.
I am a caricature of the 21st Century angry white male who blames all the world’s problems on minorities and immigrants and young people and that makes me a bad boy.
I pretend to be an expert on things I know nothing about (race, poverty, economics, public policy, truth) and that makes me a bad boy.
I get mad when nobody agrees with me and I throw tantrums and say “I win! I win!” then I throw more tantrums and that makes me a bad boy.
I call myself a libertarian but I’m really a republican lapdog and that makes me a bad boy.
I am paranoid and delusional and narcissistic and that makes me a sad, pathetic case.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I steal my ideas from the Right-Wing Handbook of Cliches and that makes me a bad boy.
I haven’t had an original thought in my life and that makes me a bad boy.
I try to set the rules of every debate by saying something outrageous then demanding that others accept my logic and that makes me a bad boy.
I am a caricature of the 21st Century angry white male who blames all the world’s problems on minorities and immigrants and young people and that makes me a bad boy.
I pretend to be an expert on things I know nothing about (race, poverty, economics, public policy, truth) and that makes me a bad boy.
I get mad when nobody agrees with me and I throw tantrums and say “I win! I win!” then I throw more tantrums and that makes me a bad boy.
I call myself a libertarian but I’m really a republican lapdog and that makes me a bad boy.
I am paranoid and delusional and narcissistic and that makes me a sad, pathetic case.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I steal my ideas from the Right-Wing Handbook of Cliches and that makes me a bad boy.
I haven’t had an original thought in my life and that makes me a bad boy.
I try to set the rules of every debate by saying something outrageous then demanding that others accept my logic and that makes me a bad boy.
I am a caricature of the 21st Century angry white male who blames all the world’s problems on minorities and immigrants and young people and that makes me a bad boy.
I pretend to be an expert on things I know nothing about (race, poverty, economics, public policy, truth) and that makes me a bad boy.
I get mad when nobody agrees with me and I throw tantrums and say “I win! I win!” then I throw more tantrums and that makes me a bad boy.
I call myself a libertarian but I’m really a republican lapdog and that makes me a bad boy.
I am paranoid and delusional and narcissistic and that makes me a sad, pathetic case.
I have been a bad boy.
I have been a bad boy.
I steal my ideas from the Right-Wing Handbook of Cliches and that makes me a bad boy.
I haven’t had an original thought in my life and that makes me a bad boy.
I try to set the rules of every debate by saying something outrageous then demanding that others accept my logic and that makes me a bad boy.
I am a caricature of the 21st Century angry white male who blames all the world’s problems on minorities and immigrants and young people and that makes me a bad boy.
I pretend to be an expert on things I know nothing about (race, poverty, economics, public policy, truth) and that makes me a bad boy.
I get mad when nobody agrees with me and I throw tantrums and say “I win! I win!” then I throw more tantrums and that makes me a bad boy.
I call myself a libertarian but I’m really a republican lapdog and that makes me a bad boy.
I am paranoid and delusional and narcissistic and that makes me a sad, pathetic case.
I have been a bad boy.
As mentioned previously in other threads, Frank exhibits several characteristics of the classic narcissist. I’ll list a few of them below:
1. Has a grandiose sense of self importance
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of personal brilliance
3. Believes he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by or associate with others who share the same qualities
4. Believes that those who disagree with him are inferior in intellect and moral character.
5. Requires excessive admiration
6. Lacks empathy
7. Refuses to acknowledge the validity of counter opinions.
8. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
One need only look at Frank’s “body of work,” as it were, to see a consistent pattern of these behaviors. There has been speculation that Frank is a deeply conflicted and insecure person. I tend to agree. As to reasons: I would not venture to guess. Everyone deals with their personal demons in different ways.
In any event, he is not to be taken seriously by those wishing to engage in civil or enlightened discourse. Frank’s main goal is to validate his own opinions. Whenever an alternate view is presented, he reacts with a passive aggressive disdain. Again, this is a common trait among narcissists.
My advice to those who are offended by Frank is to ignore him. That, more than anything, is what he fears the most.
Well put, Mr. Randall. Frank has proven time and again that he is unqualified to participate in adult conversation. Even if he weren’t so emotionally stunted, he offers nothing of value.
There was a time when the conservative movement included rational thinkers like Milton Friedman or William F. Buckley.
Now the right is dominated by hysterical, anti-intellectual, pseudo-populist hucksters like Palin, Beck, Hannity, Savage, Limbaugh, et.al.
Frank is one of their stepchildren. I am fairly certain he gets all of his ideas from this babbling, incoherent sect of the far right. Which actually pleases me.
The fundamentalist, anti-intellectual wing continues to alienate moderates and Independents, no matter how the political pendulum inevitably swings. Voters still hate them, just like they did in ’08, just like they will this year if they raise their ugly heads again.
So please, Frank. Rant on. Bring back the birther movement. Compare universal health care to Auschwitz. Threaten to bomb abortion clinics. You and yours are the Dems’ best friends.
Randall, Arch: ditto. LOL
But enough. Enough space has already been wasted on poor, troubled Frankiepoo. Let’s move along, shall we?
This photograph confirms what we all know: Andre Bauer has a wide stance.