A Potsherd Wrapped in Tinfoil Wrapped in Whatnow?

“They entice these ladies into their facility knowing that once they get there, it’s a very lucrative experience. Because they’re going to give her medicines and birth control shots and pills and things that will expose her to breast cancer. Then she’ll go to Susan Komen, because Susan Komen exchanges money with Planned Parenthood, the money goes back and forth between them. And if she gets pregnant, they’re going to give her an abortion and then they’re going to traffic the body parts of the baby. So they make a lot of money off of black women that are underserved, off of all women.”

―Alveda King

This is … uh ....

No, really. This is what it comes to? I mean, holy shit, what does that even mean?

Seriously: How does that even make sense? And here’s an even better question: Is that word salad coherent enough to percolate into the news cycle as a real conspiracy theory?

Alveda King is, after all, a FOX News contributor.

____________________

Arana, Gabriel. “Fox News Signs Alveda King, Niece of Martin Luther King Jr., As Contributor”. The Huffington Post. 6 March 2015.

Blue, Miranda. “Alveda King: Planned Parenthood Gives Women Breast Cancer So They Will Donate To Susan G. Komen”. Right Wing Watch. 27 August 2015.

Governor Scott “Forcible Insertion Is Cool” Walker

This is a basic difference:

Walker told Loesch that criticism he received about the ultrasound bill was merely an attack from the “gotcha” media, and that he was in fact just trying to provide women with “a cool thing.”

“The thing about that, the media tried to make that sound like that was a crazy idea,” he said. “Most people I talked to, whether they’re pro-life or not, I find people all the time that pull out their iPhone and show me a picture of their grandkids’ ultrasound and how excited they are, so that’s a lovely thing. I think about my sons are 19 and 20, we still have their first ultrasounds. It’s just a cool thing out there.”

“We just knew if we signed that law, if we provided the information that more people if they saw that unborn child would make a decision to protect and keep the life of that unborn child,” he said.

(Blue)

The question of how one advocates using force of law to insert foreign objects into a woman’s vagina for no medical purpose is beside the point.

Try that again: Using force of law to insert foreign objects into women’s vaginas. If this notion seems remotely appropriate to you?

Hello?

Governor Rapist Walker?

No, Governor, it is not cool.

This is not one of those things you should need reminding of.

____________________

Blue, Miranda. “Scott Walker: Ultrasounds Should Be Mandatory Since They’re ‘A Cool Thing'”. Right Wing Watch. 26 May 2015.

Huckabeastly

“It came as a bit of a surprise, then, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said late Friday that he would disclose his plans for the 2016 presidential race on May 5. This wasn’t an announcement, so much as it was an announcement about an announcement (at which point, the far-right Arkansan may or may not make an announcement).”

―Benen

This is actually an interesting point, but only in an obscure way. Armchair wonkery often seems nearly occult to those who prefer their theatrical performances from the sports or celebrity-gossip sectors, but there is something about drowning one’s announcement of an announcement in the Friday afternoon cascade. The intersection of the Friday news dump with Mike Huckabee is just one of those things, you know?

For Steve Benen, then, it seems that Mr. Huckabee is already acting like a candidate, which is important because the next place our attention goes is to Miranda Blue’s report for Right Wing Watch:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee claimed in an interview with Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson yesterday that the Obama administration has “an open hostility toward the Christian faith,” and urged prospective military recruits to wait until the end of President Obama’s term to enlist ....

.... “There’s nothing more honorable than serving one’s country and there’s no greater heroes to our country than our military,” he responded, “but I might suggest to parents, I’d wait a couple of years until we get a new commander-in-chief that will once again believe ‘one nation under god’ and believe that people of faith should be a vital part of the process of not only governing this country, but defending this country.”

And while it is always tempting to pounce on the superficial bait, given Republican militaristic bluster about patriotism and supporting the troops and backing the president during wartime, we should not let such low-hanging fruit obscure the forest of stupidity the former Arkansas governor would help cultivate.

The Gay Fray

Notes from the Gay Fray:

• Mark the date: 28 April 2015. (Reuters)

• Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore tells judges to defy federal law. (Huffington Post)

• Is marriage equality a sign of the End Times? (Huffington Post)

• GOP presidential dreamer Ben Carson does what he does best: Open mouth, insert foot. (msnbc)

• For an encore, Dr. Carson blames the press and says, “I’m not going to really talk about that issue anymore”. (Huffington Post)

• Dan Savage. Why? Because. (Slog)

― While we’re on the subject, there is also the fallout, which is well worth the savagery. (Slog)

• And something almost interesting, a right-wing sensationalist named Shoebat arguing something about Daa’ish as a component of the gay agenda. Yes, really. (Right Wing Watch)

A Note on “Family Values” in “Flyover Country”

Two words: Middle America.

Two more: Flyover country.

Do the phrases ring a bell, maybe hearken back to 2008 when Republicans condemned coastal liberals as treating the interior states like a foreign country?

How about two more words? Sunflower State.

And two more: Kris Kobach.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, one of the chief architects of the anti-immigrant movement’s legal and legislative strategies, told a caller to his weekly radio program last week that while he thought it was “unlikely,” it would not be a “huge jump” to predict that the Obama administration could call an end to the prosecutions of African Americans for any crime. Claiming that “it’s already happened more or less in the case of civil rights laws,” Kobach told listeners that “I’ve learned to say with this president, never say never.”

(Blue)

This is standard fare for Kobach. Remember, people in Kansas elected him, not despite the lying and racist paranoia, but because of it.

The next time you hear a conservative crying about “Middle America” and how the nasty liberals in the Democratic Party―(What? All three of them?)―”hate” the “family values” of “Middle America”, remember that these are the values in question. Mr. Kobach’s tenure in office is its own condemnation of Sunflower State values.

____________________

Blue, Miranda. “Kris Kobach: ‘Not A Huge Jump’ To Think Obama Could Ban Criminal Prosecution Of Black People”. Right Wing Watch. 4 March 2015.

The Part That Isn’t the Part That Doesn’t Need to Be Said, With No Guarantee That This Part Needs to Be Said, Either

So it turns out that televangelism confidence artist Pat Robertson is one of the last people in our society who thinks … er … um … right.

“You know, those who are homosexual will die out because they don’t reproduce,” he said. “You know, you have to have heterosexual sex to reproduce. Same thing with that church, it’s doomed, it’s going to die out because it’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

The setup only makes it worse; as Miranda Blue reported for Right Wing Watch, that was part of Robertson’s response to a woman complaining that the church she attends forbids its members from dating.

“Crystal”, the viewer in question, asserted that the only people in her church that are married knew their partners before they arrived at the congregation, complains that some congregants are frustrated because “we’re getting older and no one is getting married”, and describes circumstances in which “it is treated as a sin to show interest or to have a mutual understanding in church with the opposite sex”.

Naturally, Pat Robertson’s first thought was of homosexuals.

Look, when one’s first thought about issues between men and women is homosexuality, so be it. And as important as the question of why one would think that way might be, there are times we don’t really want the answer.

____________________

Blue, Miranda. “Pat Robertson: Gays ‘Will Die Out Because They Don’t Reproduce'”. Right Wing Watch. 17 December 2014.

How To Blame Women for Anything

Every once in a while, the question of conservatives and racism arises, and in most cases such inquiries are at least a little sickening. For instance, former RNC chairman Michael Steele is a lot more tolerable as an individual on the television screen now that he’s been booted from the gig and no longer has to pander to other black people by wearing his hat sideways and explaining that this is just how conservatives roll. Still, though, there is almost always reason to wonder. For years, conservatives kept Alan Keyes around, and there really are no polite analogues from literature or history; it is as if his role was to say things that made white supremacists feel better about themselves.

The latest right-wing champion of color is Dr. Ben Carson, who recently explained to American Family Radio, a broadcast arm of the premiere hate organization American Family Association, that racism in these United States is to be blamed squarely on women:

“Certainly in a lot of our inner cities, in particular the black inner cities, where 73 percent of the young people are born out of wedlock, the majority of them have no father figure in their life. Usually the father figure is where you learn how to respond to authority. So now you become a teenager, you’re out there, you really have no idea how to respond to authority, you eventually run into the police or you run into somebody else in the neighborhood who also doesn’t know how to respond but is badder than you are, and you get killed or you end up in the penal system,” Carson said.

“If the so-called leaders were really interested in the community, they would be trying to deal with that problem, because that’s happening every single day,” he added.

When host Lauren Kitchen Stewards broke in to tie his remarks to young people’s “sense of entitlement,” Carson traced it all back to the women’s liberation movement.

“I think a lot of it really got started in the ’60s with the ‘me generation.’ ‘What’s in it for me?’ I hate to say it, but a lot of it had to do with the women’s lib movement. You know, ‘I’ve been taking care of my family, I’ve been doing that, what about me?’ You know, it really should be about us,” he said.

(Blue)

This is a point that cannot be understated: Black people are not going to vote for a black politician simply because that politician is black.

One would think it obvious, but the steady stream of Obamanoia from the right wing is enough to make a prima facie argument that Republicans do need reminding from time to time.

Your Right Wing

Perhaps feeling threatened by rising competition for the tinfoil crown, or perhaps just feeling lonely in the lull following his infamous CNN tantrum, bombastic wingnut radio host Alex Jones upped his ante today:

On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that “of course there’s weather weapon stuff going on—we had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force” ….

…. According to Jones, this possibility hinges on whether people spotted helicopters and small aircraft “in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things.” He added, “if you saw that, you better bet your bottom dollar they did this, but who knows if they did. You know, that’s the thing, we don’t know.”

Yes, really.

Steve Benen makes the obvious point:

Now, I realize that fringe figures are going to share nutty ideas all the time, and it was probably inevitable that some nonsensical allegations about the Oklahoma tornado would pop up. I didn’t realize “weather weapons” would be part of the story, but there’s probably no reason to be surprised.

This caught my eye, however, because of recent developments—we’ve seen Republican officeholders in state legislatures, the U.S. House, and even the U.S. Senate take Alex Jones’ ideas seriously. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) intends to run for president—of the United States—and he’s been a guest on Alex Jones’ show.

In other words, the guy raising the specter of Obama using “weather weapons” to kill Oklahomans is the same guy helping influence several Republican policymakers in 2013.

And it’s a fair point, to be certain. Of course, it will be hard to top Pete Santilli’s sexual violence fantasy, but Jones is already syndicated, so he can take comfort in getting actual U.S. senators like Rand Paul, instead of whack-job nobodies like Ted Nugent and Larry Pratt.

Or something.

Seriously, the weather machine is up and running?