It’s Thursday Threatcon, your intelligence briefing on right wing activity. Below are the best reports, investigations, exposées, and debunkery of the wingnutosphere this week. Due to Mike Huckabee’s pervy comments about wanting to shower with the girls, our Threatcon Color Code is DOUCHE BLUE
- Seriously, does anyone else remember that Huckabee used to be the classy, sane social conservative?
- Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar tried to rehabilitate their image on Fox News by minimizing Josh’s molestation — and then trotted out his victim-sisters to confirm everything we already thought about the way they raise their creepy, gross family. Jim Bob still hasn’t explained why he withheld Josh from talking to police while he was running for office in 2006, letting the statute of limitations run out. Here’s a protip for culture warriors: Americans don’t care whether you forgive Josh. We care about your massive hypocrisy of smearing LGBTQs as child molesters while simultaneously apologizing for the actual, real, not-imaginary child abusers among you, so every time you weaponize your religion, you create new atheists. If you are still confused, see Matthew 7:3
- Two weeks ago, I voiced my suspicions that Waco area law enforcement officials are covering up an asset forfeiture ‘fundraiser’ and possible police massacre with a thrilling fairy tale of outlaw bikers holding a shootout while an army of cops conveniently stood nearby to swoop in and save the day once the shooting started. Now, defense attorneys allege ex parte collusion between prosecutors and judges to set ridiculously high bail, some police have been placed on involuntary leave under a separate investigation, and more than 140 men remain in jail for no more than the alleged ‘crime’ of being present at the scene of the shootout. I expect the official story to completely fall apart in time
- Dick Morris, former Clinton adviser turned right wing blowhard, has given up on his anti-Hillary super PAC without ever raising funds for it. Morris had been poised to battle the Federal Elections Commission over their rule against candidate names in the titles of opposition PACs. Not giving up on the exact same fight: our old friend at BU, billionaire ‘free speech’ booster Dan Backer
- North Alabama’s largest political slush fund is being used to support a forced-birth activist group and private schools. Republican state senator Paul Sanford implausibly claims that he didn’t realize the group ‘Choose Life North Alabama’ was a religious organization when he gifted them $10,000 for an ultrasound machine
- Last night, I caught the new Rand Paul commercial in which he claims that President Obama is somehow responsible for bulk data collection, an NSA activity that was actually authorized by Congress in 2001. Alternately, Scott Walker has tried to pin the legislative mess that Rand Paul created on Obama. Republicans increasingly ‘joke’ about Obama and the NSA in the same breath, conveniently forgetting their own party’s past responsibility for the USA PATRIOT Act, and rationalizing the entire issue as if it belonged to Obama. As I have said consistently for two years now, Eddie Snowden’s purloined PowerPoint slides will not advance a liberal agenda and they will not increase our freedom. All the political benefits will accrue to reactionaries and Jade Helm conspiracy theorists — with dangerous consequences for American government
- By the way, has anyone looked at Rand Paul’s website lately? Because his privacy policy is wide open to abuse
- Oh look, here’s a shadow government agency that’s waaaay scarier than the NSA. Surely Glenn Greenwald and Rand Paul and WikiLeaks are already on the case and will protect us? Hello? Guys?
- The Reuters exposé of Pentagon financial systems is long, but a must-read: contrary to federal law, the Department of Defense has never adequately accounted for $8.5 trillion in taxpayer funds allocated by Congress since 1996
- GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum is quick to promote his Catholicism on the campaign stump, but he recently objected to Pope Francis’s comments on climate change by saying the pontiff should “leave science to the scientists.” Which is funny, since Pope Francis has an advanced chemistry degree. Also, Santorum decried anti-government rhetoric last week, which is hilarious if you’ve listened to his own speeches
- Timothy McVeigh’s ideas were fringe when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in 1995. Now they’re strong currents in the Republican mainstream. Contrary to Beltway wisdom, ‘both sides’ have not spun away from the center equally
- North Carolina Republicans are about to pass a bill which would extend the ‘waiting period’ for an abortion to 72 hours — and require doctors to submit detailed private information, including ultrasound images, to the state for some pervy reason
- Wonder what a world without legal, safe, easily-accessed abortion looks like? When this 14 year-old Texas girl was raped, her family decided to beat her for hours to induce a home abortion. Congratulations, Texas GOP, you guys ‘saved’ her fetus long enough for it to become the family shame that was disposed of in a charcoal grill
- Don’t let Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) fool you, he actually loves socialist redistribution…for Texas
- The mysterious hanging death of black Mississippi resident Otis James Byrd was not a lynching
- Nevada welfare rancher Cliven Bundy just can’t stop talking about black people and slavery
- Olympia, Washington has provided an epic example of how not to confront white supremacists
- The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Tayler says that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is as dangerous to American democracy as Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Tayler is wrong: Roy Moore is way more dangerous than either Supreme Court justice because he’s equally comfortable leading from the pulpit, or before the camera, as he is on the bench. When Moore warns that gay marriage will ‘destroy America,’ what he’s really saying is that he will personally destroy America if he doesn’t get his way on the issue
- Acting at the instigation of Roy Moore, Alabama lawmakers have seriously considered taking the state out of the marriage license business in order to prevent having to issue them to gay or lesbian couples, but the bill has unexpectedly failed in a House committee and will not become law
- HB527, which would have established abortion clinic ‘buffer zones’ around schools, passed the Alabama House this week, but died today in the Senate during the waning hours of the session
- Politicians and educators in Louisiana are going to get themselves sued by pushing creationist pseudoscience on kids. Personally, I consider this a serious form of child abuse, but there are some who disagree with me
- Now that she’s finally emerging from the nativist closet, Anne Coulter seems to be saying that we should stop letting overweight people immigrate
- Senatobia, Mississippi Municipal School District Superintendent Jay Foster has filed “disturbing the peace” charges against black parents who shouted their kids’ names during graduation ceremonies. Most commenters at the right wing Free Republic site seem rather enthusiastic about it
- Award-winning teacher David Olio has been fired for reading an Alan Ginsburg poem to his class
- Being uninsured is associated with higher levels of psychological stress
- Media Matters contacted the largest school districts in states with transgender protections and found they had experienced no disciplinary problems as a result of the change
- According to Gallup, the ‘pro-choice’ demographic has achieved its first statistically significant lead over the ‘pro-life’ response in seven years. This is particularly interesting because Gallup has been criticized for the absolutist approach of only offering two possible options without allowing for any personal nuance
- No wonder Chief Justice John Roberts is so enthusiastic about his opportunity to gut the Fair Housing Act this term: he’s been trying to do it for thirty years
- Tell Mitt Romney we found the real “47%:” it’s the percentage of Americans who would have to sell something or borrow money to afford an unexpected expense of $400. One in four American households spends more than half their income on housing costs. And the poorer you are, the harder you must strive to get ahead
- Racism is not hard-wired, but quite flexible according to how much we have in common with each other