Seven Venal Anti-American Moments From Conservatives

Seven Venal Anti-American Moments From Conservatives

1. Christian radio hosts says Colorado floods caused by homosexual activity.

However much he excels at it, Pat Robertson is far from the only televangelist who blames natural and unnatural disasters on gay people; plenty of young, up-and-coming, ultra-right, impervious-to-science bible-thumpers agree. So it was that this week, Christian pastor and radio host Kevin Swanson said abortion, marijuana legalization and “decadent homosexual activity” were the causes of the catastrophic flooding in Colorado.

Especially that last one. It just so happens that the Denver Postfeatured Colorado state House Speaker Mark Ferrandino kissing his gay partner not too long ago, and Swanson sees a connection.

 “Is it a coincidence that this was the worst year politically in the history of Colorado, at least if you use God’s law as a means of determining human ethics?” he asked the listeners of his "Generations With Vision" show. “So here we have the very worst year in Colorado’s year in terms of let’s kill as many babies as possible, let’s make sure we encourage as much decadent homosexual activity as possible, let’s break God’s law with impudence at every single level. Let’s make sure that we offend whoever wrote the Bible, so we have the worst year possible politically in the state of Colorado and it happens to be the worst year ever in terms of flood and fire damage in Colorado’s history.”

Co-host Dave Buehner chimed in, paraphrasing a Bible verse, saying, "this last year we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties.”

“Marijuana,” Swanson added, though the Bible fails to mention it.

Before there were floods, there was fire. Earlier this year, Swanson said Ferrandino’s gay kiss and women wearing pants were the causes of forest fires in Colorado.

2. Louie Gohmert: Guns...spoons...same thing.
The depressingly familiar spectacle of gun nuts spewing illogical nonsense was in evidence again this week after the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard Monday. The part of the script that never changes is that gun violence can only be solved by more guns. But Tea Partying Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert got a little creative with his metaphors when he said that blaming guns for gun violence was on a par with blaming obesity on “too many spoons.” The difference, of course, is that the spoon industry does not call for more spoons every time someone breaks the Guinness Book of World Records weight record.

Interestingly, though, Gohmert was willing to throw the video game industry under the bus, noting that shooters like Aaron Alexis often play them, probably because the video game lobby is not as well organized, or well-funded as the gun lobby. And speaking of the NRA, you might think that the Washington shootings would knock the teeth out of the argument that the shooting of innocents would happen less often with armed guards around, since Navy Yards have those, but no, the NRA is standing its ground, so to speak, because, as spokesman Wayne La Pierre headscratchingly said, “The Navy Yard shooting happened because of gun control.”

Huh?

3. Koch brothers: Cervical cancer is a small price to pay to defeat Obamacare.

In their abject desperation to forestall the implementation of Obamacare, right-wing zealots released some ads this week that are bound to go down in history as some of the most absurd pieces of political video ever created.

The ad campaign created by Generation Opportunity [3], which is funded by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, specifically targets young people with the rather irresponsible message that they really don’t need health insurance. Better to “opt out,” pay the fine, it’s cheaper. Also, for young women, it avoids those uncomfortable gynecological exams, the ones that might save you from cervical cancer. The somewhat deranged looking advertisement features the legs of a woman in stirrups, presumably ready for her potentially life-saving pap smear, when all of sudden a wooden marionette Uncle Sam pops up between her legs. Uncle Sam apparently wants her. In the final scene, Uncle Sam is shown holding a speculum.

Young men can also get in on the invasive healthcare action with Obamacare. Another ad features a young man about to receive a prostate exam. He is told to take off his pants, and Uncle Sam appears behind him.

We knew right-wing Republicans had an unhealthy obsession with our orifices, from advocating mandatory vaginal probes for abortion seekers to seeking reinstatement of anti-sodomy laws, but these ads are truly hitting a new low. The good news is that the young people seeing them are not so easily fooled.

Caution: If you see the ads you might make the mistake of thinking you are watching "Saturday Night Live" parodies, even if it is the middle of the day on Tuesday.

4. Fox News’ Todd Starnes has a racist reaction to the new Miss America.

Usually a ridiculous, outdated exercise in mere sexism, this year’s Miss America pageant managed to spark a conversation about ethnicity and nationality when it bestowed the coveted tiara on Nina Davuluri, a native of Syracuse, New York who is of Indian descent. This apparent triumph for diversity quickly degenerated into a carnival of hate speech in the twitterverse, where idiots naturally assumed Davuluri was an Arab or a Muslim, and therefore a terrorist.

Not to be outdone in ill-informed racism, Fox News radio host [4] Todd Starnes said the American-born Davuluri doesn’t “represent American values.” The American values purveyor in the contest was Theresa Vail, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kansan, who spent five year in the Kansas National Guard. Starnes' theory: Vail lost because, “the liberal Miss America judges were not interested in a gun-toting, deer-hunting, military veteran.”

5. He’s back. Steve “cantaloupe calves” King opines some more on undocumented immigrants.

Saying irresponsible, racist things about immigrants is Iowa Tea Party Rep. Steve King’s brand, and he continues to hone and promote it. At a recent anti-immigration rally in Omaha, he out and out called “illegal immigrants” a murderous mob. King recounted to the already-converted-to-hate audience a conversation he had recently with INS agent Mike Cutler at a congressional hearing. “How many Americans have died at the hands of illegal immigrants? What’s the price Americans are paying for an open door policy?” King asked Cutler.

To which, King claims Cutler helpfully replied: “‘I don’t know the answer to that, but I can tell you it will be in multiples of the victims of September 11th."

Good at math King, randomly multiplied 9/11’s death toll of about 3,000 by four and told the hate rally that 12,000 murders were likely committed by these out-of-control immigrants, who would be crashing planes into our buildings if they could, but sometimes just have to settle for raping and murdering us.

6. Ken Cuccinelli supporter at a rally: Did you hear the one about the rabbi?

Normally, Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial hopeful can handle making his own offensive comments — like the time he compared immigrants to vermin in need of extermination. But at a recent rally for Cuccinelli, it was Virginia Republican leader John Whitbeck who trotted out the off-color joke.

Whitbeck is the Republican leader in Virginia's 10th congressional District, and he is also a Catholic, he wanted the crowd to know. His hilarious joke concerned an incident in which the “head of the Jewish faith” (FYI, there is no head of the Jewish faith) hands a "ceremonial piece of paper" to the pope. And the pope says, “that was a bill for the Last Supper.”

Okay, we don’t exactly get it either.

Alienating Jewish voters is poor campaign strategy. Cuccinelli has already alienated women with his anti-choice rhetoric, and alienated modern people by advocating reinstatement of anti-sodomy laws. So the Cuccinelli team quickly tried to distance their candidate from the anti-Semitic joke. One campaign strategist even told the Washington Post he did not even know who Whitbeck was.

When in doubt, deny, deny, deny.

7. Idaho Republican proposes license to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Not content to simply deny food stamps to poor people this week, busy House Republicans also continued their fight to deny equal rights to married same-sex couples. A group led by Rep. Raúl Labrador of Idaho proposed a new bill that would provide a nationwide “license to discriminate” against them, although of course Labrador claims the bill is about protecting “religious liberty.” The logic with these attempts is always this: It discriminates against Christians (or other religious people, but really Christians) not to be able to discriminate against gays. The draft of the bill says there would be no consequences for any organization, business or individual who refuses to recognize same-sex marriage. Exact words:

    “The Federal Government shall not take an adverse action against a person, on the basis that such person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

Such prudish legislation could have far-reaching consequences: Businesses could refuse benefits to same-sex partners, hospitals could refuse visitation rights, anyone at all could refuse services to LGBT people—pretty much all of the civil rights that legalizing same-sex marriage were meant to protect would vaporize.

Unsurprisingly, in the up-is-down world of rabid conservative thinking, the Heritage Foundation and National Organization of Marriage heartily endorsed the proposed legislation for “encouraging tolerance.”

Conservatism is a form of fascism - though fascism is not something that started around the mid 20th century - fascism and it's ugly twin conservatism is descended from the days of kings, peasants and slaves. Even then the kings, the princes - the landowners told the regular folks that what they were doing was for the glory of the kingdom and God. Pretty much what conservatives do today - claim that the anti-American agenda they shove down our throats is good for the country and what their freaky interpretation of God's will. Conservatism ( the Republican partay in the U.S.) really stands for what conservatism sounds like - to be very conservative, to keep things the way they were back in the day - all the power, money, pledges and rights for the elite, and everyone else better get down on their knees and be grateful for our modern day King Louies and John Galts.

Wisconsin Conservative Scott Walker (R) is Turning Wisconsin Into Iran, And the Police Are Helping

Wisconsin Conservative Scott Walker (R) is Turning Wisconsin Into Iran, And the Police Are Helping

I went to the Wisconsin capitol again today to report on the Solidarity Singers, as I’ve done many times before. I was not intending to get arrested. Nor did I want to get arrested. But that’s what happened.Taken by the author before he himself was arrested by Wisconsin police. (Credit: The Progressive)

I arrived about fifteen minutes late for the one-hour noon sing along, which has been going on steadily for two and a half years now.

When I arrived, I was told that Madison city council member Mark Clear had already been arrested, while he was singing “This Land Is Your Land.” This seemed to be an escalation, since he was the first currently serving elected official to be rounded up in the more than 200 arrests that Scott Walker’s capitol police have made in the last few weeks. (Former longtime member of the Madison school board, Carol Carstensen, was arrested a couple of weeks ago. She’d never even gotten a speeding ticket before, she told me.)

I got out my reporter’s pad, and I did my usual head count, tallying 100 people in the rotunda and 60 people as sympathetic observers in the balcony.

I interviewed Sharon Puttmann, who was holding a sign that said, “United in Purpose, United in Song,” which I took a picture of. I asked her why she was there. “I’m a teacher, and I’m a mom,” she said. “And I’m standing up for my rights.” She’s never been arrested, she told me. But she’s willing to now.

I interviewed Victoria La Chappelle, who was holding a sign saying, “You can tie my hands, but you can never silence my voice.” She’s been arrested twice. “Every time I come, I feel like I need to come back in solidarity,” she said.

I saw that the Raging Grannies were in attendance again, this group of activist elderly women who sing protest songs at various events in the state.

Then I saw some state police officers move in to arrest a couple of the Raging Grannies, including my friend Bonnie Block.

So, as I’ve done every time I’m covering the capitol, I started to take pictures of the officers making the arrest. And then I followed the officers as they took Block, handcuffed and still defiantly singing, toward the elevator.

I was hoping to get a picture of Block as she entered the elevator, the kind of picture that has been taken many times in the last couple of weeks.

But the police officers said to stand back. I said I was a journalist, the editor of The Progressive magazine.

“You can’t be here,” they said.

“I’m with the press,” I said. “I have a right to be here.”

Whereupon, without a warning that I’d be arrested, Officer S. B. Mael grabbed my hands and put them behind my back, cuffed them, and said, “Obstruction.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Block said, as she was put in the elevator.

“This is getting absurd, guys,” I said to the officers, who refused to engage with me.

They took me to the basement of the capitol, frisked me, and put me in a chair.

Block, who was then sitting nearby, said, “It’s a pleasure to be arrested with you.”

“Likewise,” I said.

And she and the handful of other protesters kept singing, “Bring Back My Wisconsin to Me.”

When Block was released, another woman in a red “Wisconsin Mom” shirt came down, handcuffed, and was seated nearby.

Her name was Ellen Holly, the chairman of the Walworth County Democrats, she told me, and she comes up to Madison whenever she can. She was on her way to Minnesota, she said, and wanted to support the sing along. (She also said that the Democrats were up to 45 percent of the vote in traditionally conservative Walworth County.)

The police kept me in the basement of the capitol until all the protesters had left. They took down my name and Social Security number and address and phone number and employer (I reminded them I worked at The Progressive).

And then they hauled me off in a squad car to the Dane County jail just three blocks away, where I was frisked again, booked, fingerprinted, had my mug shot taken, and kept in a holding cell with three other inmates for an hour and twenty minutes before being released.

The paper they gave me on the way out said, under “Charge,” 946.41(1) Resisting or Obstructing.”

The bond was set at $300.

The court date is September 23 at 10:00 a.m., where I will plead not guilty on the basis of the First Amendment.

The reason that citizens exercising their Constitutional rights in Wisconsin are being treated this way is because Scott Walker and the conservative movement cannot abide anyone protesting or witnessing the growth of the conservative cancer eating up the state. In order to treat public workers like wage slaves on the Conservative plantation, Walker and fellow conservative Republicans made a deal with police unions to leave them alone. The irony will be when the police and firefighters in Wisconsin have their rights taken away; who will speak up for the police who sided with the anti-democracy thugs. What goes around comes around.

Republicans Continue War On Women With Obstruction of Violence Against Women Act

Republicans Continue War On Women With Obstruction of Violence Against Women Act

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are having a hard time agreeing on anything these days. But there are some things that should never fall victim to partisan bickering. One of these is protecting women against domestic violence and sexual assault.

But for Republicans in Congress, apparently, it isn’t that simple. Thanks to the extremism of House Republicans, the Violence Against Women Act expired this month after 18 years of saving women’s lives.

Here’s how it happened. Back in April, the Senate passed a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which since 1994 has provided funding and training for state and local law enforcement to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. The law has worked incredibly well: between 1993 and 2010, the rate of intimate partner violence fell by 64 percent and the reporting of domestic violence has increased dramatically. Because of this, it has been reauthorized twice with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans.

But at the start of this year, the act expired because House Republicans refused to reauthorize it. They refused even to hold a vote on it, instead proposing a watered-down bill that the president promised to veto. What they objected to were the new bill’s increased protections for immigrants, LGBT people, and Native American women.

Yes, they objected to greater protections for at-risk communities. Immigrant women are especially vulnerable to domestic violence because many rely on a spouse for their ability to live and work in this country. The new law would expand the number of victims of spousal abuse who could apply for their own visas and start their own lives.

Similarly, LGBT people too often fall through the cracks of our safety net for domestic violence victims: they are turned away from shelters or denied support, simply because of the gender of the abuser and the abused. This law would fix that. Finally, many Native American victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are left without recourse against non-Native abusers when their cases get lost in the gap between federal and tribal courts.
This is no minor problem: an astounding one in three Native women will survive a rape in her lifetime, and the vast majority of crimes against Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives. The Violence Against Women Act would bridge that legal gap and allow all Native American survivors of abuse to seek justice in court.

Republican efforts to prevent expanded protections for these at-risk groups made all women lose important protections. This issue is especially important to me as a survivor, an advocate, and a member of the ministerial staff at an African-American congregation.

Violence against women is an issue that affects everyone in America, but it disproportionately impacts women of color. The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that more than a third of Hispanic women and nearly 44 percent of black women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.

As a faith leader — and as someone who worked with others to help enact this legislation in the first place — I feel that it is important to speak out in support of those who are most vulnerable to violence and abuse. The lawmakers who blocked VAWA aren’t just insulting victims of domestic abuse, they’re actively putting women’s lives in danger. Congress should act quickly in this new year to reauthorize this life-saving program.

This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Minister Leslie Watson Malachi is the director for African-American Religious Affairs at People For the American Way.

Maybe the NRA will start handing out free assault weapons to women and Native Americans since they think running the U.S. like a last one alive video game is what the Founders intended.

Why is it that all NRA supporters suffer from hearing impairment and language comprehension. Democrats are proposing some sensible gun safety laws. Republicans are going around saying they want to ban guns. We can't have a debate about issues if one side has the IQ of a cookie. How Obsequious Conservative Media Coverage Perpetuates NRA Mythology

Even the Evil and Incompetent Rep. Peter King (R-NY) Admits CIA Approved U.N. Ambassador Rice Talking Points On Libya

Even the Evil and Incompetent Rep. Peter King (R-NY) Admits CIA Approved U.N. Ambassador Rice Talking Points On Libya

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has admitted that the CIA and intelligence community approved U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s talking points before she made her much-derided Sept. 16 appearance on several Sunday news shows to discuss the attacks in Benghazi. King, one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration’s response to the attack, came to his conclusion following testimony from former CIA Director David Petraeus.

After leaving the closed-door hearing, King spoke with reporters for several minutes about Petraeus’ statements. Rice’s television appearances were among the topics discussed, leading King to indicate that while Petraeus did not personally write Rice’s talking points, the CIA did approve them:

    Q: Did he say why it was taken out of the talking points that [the attack] was Al Qaeda affiliated?

    KING: He didn’t know.

    Q: He didn’t know? What do you mean he didn’t know?

    KING: They were not involved — it was done, the process was completed and they said, “Ok go with those talking points.” Again it’s interagency — I got the impression that 7, 8, 9 different agencies.

    Q: Did he give you the impression that he was upset it was taken out?

    KING: No.

    Q: You said the CIA said “OK” to the revised report –

    KING: No, well, they said in that, after it goes through the process, they OK’d it to go. Yeah, they said “Okay for it to go.”

Watch King’s statements here:

Rice has been hit by Republicans for weeks for indicating that the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi stemmed from a spontaneous protest related to an anti-Islamic video. However, as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) has pointed out, the talking points used by Rice were the same unclassified points given to both the administration and Congress by the intelligence community.

Contrary to the current GOP narrative, Petraeus’ testimony made clear that various intelligence sources at of the time of his initial briefing to Congress indicated that a protest arising in response to a similar one in Cairo was the impetus for the attack in Libya. While those initial assessments were later disproved, the Wall Street Journal has previously reported that this change in thinking began too late to alter Rice’s talking points.

Today’s comments by King towards the intelligence community’s assessments also mark a sharp departure from his previous accusations that Rice should have known sooner that the intelligence that was presented to her was incorrect. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have both also recently said that Rice should “have known better” than to make the statements she did during her interviews.

 Republicans, another word for people who have all the honor of rat turds, just can't seem to get traction on inventing scandals or exploiting deaths for political advantage. They lost the election, their conspiracy theories are falling apart, the general public are waking up to the anti-American agenda of the conservative movement. So expect them to continue to act like whiny lying rats with their tails caught in a trap.

Who's to Blame for the Hostess Bankruptcy: Wall Street, Unions, or Carbs? Its sad to lose the jobs - until Hostess is bought by a new company anyway, but why all the crocodile tears over the loss of tasteless bleached flour stuffed with sugar - oh the injustice, no one will ever be able to do that again.

When Right-Wing Republican Taliban Christians Stopped Thinking of Women as People