Derp Roundup: Your Weekly Compendium of Cads, Creeps, and Crazies

Welcome to another edition of Derp Roundup, that weekly big ball of wadded-up idiocy from our inbox that was too stoopid to ignore altogether, but that didn't quite merit a full-length Wonket post. Up first, a quick visit to that land of fiscal restraint, North Carolina, where Gov. Pat McCrory presided over a 2013 legislative session that raised taxes on the poor and cut them on the rich, resulting in a projected $2 billion cut in state revenues over the next five years. The revenue loss will require huge cuts for social programs and public schools -- after all, what can go wrong when you slash school budgets, anyway? -- but times are hard, and you gotta be careful not to waste the taxpayers' money. Which is why it only makes sense that Gov. McCrory is going to spend $230,000 on "remodeling bathrooms in his private living quarters at North Carolina's Executive Mansion." Sound like they'll be really nice once the work is done:

Planned upgrades include new marble, tubs and fixtures for six bathrooms on the upper floors of the Victorian-era home in Raleigh.

We aren't sure we can be too angry about this, though, since the last time the bathrooms in the Governor's Mansion were refurbished was in the 1970's. Gov. McCrory shouldn't have to deal with all those fixtures in Avocado and Harvest Gold. Besides, there's probably some extra costs involved in making sure the bathrooms aren't compliant with Sharia law. You can't be too careful about these things.

• A popular story going around rightwing websites says that the producers of Duck Dynasty told the reality show's stars to "stop praying to Jesus so it wouldn't offend Muslims." Funny thing though -- even though that quote appears in any number of headlines and stories, as a direct quotation from star Phil Robertson -- "They Told Us To Stop Praying To Jesus So It Wouldn't Offend Muslims" -- he never actually says those words in the actual interview that accompanies the story. He does say that the producers speculated about editors' motives for cutting the words "in Jesus' name" from a scene where the family was saying grace

  : "Well those editors are probably doing that. They just think that they don’t want to offend some of the Muslims or something."

  But hey, making up quotes is fine if it helps people realize the Muslim threat to freedom. We aren't sure where the fake "quote" comes from; it appears to have originated in a video description that was added to the video at some point; the "Liberty Alliance's" logo appears on the video, but strangely, when their website reblogged the story, they quoted Robinson accurately.

  In a nice ironic twist, Robinson starts the video complaining about editors having inserted "bleeps" into the show to suggest that the duck hunters' dialogue was saltier than it actually was. Wonder how he feels about rightwing blogs claiming he said something he didn't say? What's that phrase about bearing false witness again?

• In Gummint Shutdown news, Tennessee congressdope Marsha Blackburn offered to end the impasse by baking President Obama some cookies if he'd just let her defund the Affordable Care Act. It did not work, because as everyone knows, in addition to being offended by Christian duck hunters, Muslims are forbidden from eating cookies.

• Michele Bachmann explained that the End Times are near because Barack Obama supports al Qaeda. She collected a lovely stuffed angel bear plushie for being the ten millionth person to find portents of the End of Days in a routine Obama administration policy.

• The woman who was sort of in charge of the underwhelming Truckers' Blockade of DC turns out to be way beyond a birther: she appears to believe that Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden are actually the same person. No, that is not a mis-reporting of an exaggerated comparison: according to Media Matters, Zeeda Andrews wrote a YouTube comment in which she said

  "He is alive call me crazy but, Osama Bin Laden is our President Obama do your research. The CIA has been preparing for this since he was a boy. They have same height, bone structure, hands and ears both are left handed the Osama face was created by Hollywood. The fox is in the hen house."

  Of course, it could be that Zeeda Andrews is just an Alinskyite plant to false-flag the Tea Party, did you think of that?

• A termination hearing for libtard-hatin' police chief Mark Kessler in Gliberton, Pennsylvania, was suspended after a supporter's loaded handgun fell out of its holster onto the floor of the packed hearing room. The weapon did not go off, but the hearing was suspended until it could reconvene in a courthouse with better security. Wouldn't the better solution be to issue guns to everyone present, so as to prevent any funny stuff?

• Serial fact-mangler Bradlee Dean claimed to have visited a "college professor class" at an unnamed campus in North Carolina, wherenot a single one of the college professors in the college professor class had ever "taken the time to read the Bill of Rights, or if they have taken the time to read the Constitution of the United States of America," which are apparently wholly different documents in the universe Bradlee Dean comes from. And then Bradlee Dean proceeded to set all the college professors in the college professor class straight:

  I then said to them, “If you do not know your rights, you do not have any rights!” They all agreed.

  I asked these professors, “Do you love your freedoms?” They, of course, answered in the affirmative. I replied with, “Freedom was not given to do what we want to do, but what we ought to do!” Again, they all agreed.

  And when they all raised their hands when he asked if any of them had parents or grandparents who'd served in the military, Dean said to all the college professors in the college professor class:

  “Wait a minute, these family members served in the United States military, many fighting, bleeding, and in some cases dying to magnify the laws of our constitutional republic, and you do not even know what they are fighting, bleeding and dying for?!”

  They all looked ashamed.

  What's more, all of the college professors in the college professor class thought that our system of government is a democracy, not a republic, a misconception Bradlee Dean corrected by having them recite the Pledge of Allegiance very slowly. And then Bradlee Dean thanked all the college professors in the college professor class and took his leave of Strawman State University.

[ WNCN / IJ Review via PJ Media / ThinkProgress / TPM / MediaMatters via DeathAndTaxes / PennLive.com / Rightside News ]