Its The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

The Pilot Newspaper: Columns

First, a correction from last week’s column.

In that column, I reported that Donald Trump was polling second in the crowded field of Republican candidates. Between the time of the writing of the column and its publication date on Sunday, Trump became the front-runner.

This columnist regrets the error, but probably not as much as the GOP regrets having Trump in the lead for the nomination, since the same poll shows Hillary Clinton beating him by 17 points. Anyway, on with the show.

Well, I expected a complete freakout on the right after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down bans on same-sex marriage. But I have to say, the drama queenery, raging paranoia and hysteria exceeded even my wildest expectations.

Some of it took the form of dire predictions of what happens next, as if the legal sanction of lifelong monogamy between consenting adults is the key that will inevitably unlock the floodgates to practitioners of every imaginable perversion.

This wingnut trope was most bizarrely expressed by former Texas Rep. and “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Tom DeLay. DeLay told Newsmax TV that he’s found a “secret Justice Department memo” that reveals “they’re now going to go after 12 new perversions, things like bestiality, polygamy, having sex with little boys and making that legal. … LGBT is only the beginning.”

It should be noted that DeLay only specifically mentioned three out of the 12 “new perversions” the DOJ is preparing to “legalize.” Wonder what the other nine are? On second thought, probably best to just let that go. Imaginations like that are best left unexplored.

Not content to torment themselves with fevered dreams of what nasty things others might soon be doing legally, a certain segment of Christians is pretty much convinced that the gays and the liberals are going to treat them pretty much the way they’ve advocated treating LGBT people. Some are even convinced the Christians who don’t back gay marriage are going to be jailed for their beliefs.

In fact, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, owners of a for-profit wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, have filed a lawsuit claiming they could face up to 180 years in jail under the town’s anti-discrimination ordinance for refusing to perform a same-sex wedding.

Only problem is, no one’s threatened the Knapps with any such penalty, the ordinance in question specifically exempts “religious corporations” like the Knapps’ “Hitching Post Wedding Chapel” from its coverage, and the very Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage specifically states that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

That, however, doesn’t stop people like Republican presidential candidate and Ted Nugent sideman Mike Huckabee from repeating the falsehood that the Knapps are being threatened with almost two centuries of jail time, apparently by the voices in their heads.

Finally, there are the people predicting that, because of the action of the Supreme Court in lifting bans on same sex marriage, God himself will either smite our country or allow evildoers to do so, leading to thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of deaths.

“God’s hand of protection will be withdrawn,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, “as future actions from external and internal forces will soon make clear.” (Texas again. What IS it with these people?) Fox News pundit Todd Starnes even blamed recent heavy rains and flooding in the D.C. area on the Lord’s pique over the Supreme Court decision.

“Anyone got an ark?” he quipped.

This particular style of “prophecy” has always bugged me, by the way, as it implies that God will indulge his wrath by indiscriminate slaughter of both the just and the unjust, including, one supposes, opponents of gay marriage. I’m glad I don’t follow that God, because I’ve got to tell you, that one’s kind of a psycho.

Look, folks, the day Obergefell vs. Hodges, the landmark case legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states, was decided, I woke up, kissed my wife, and took her to her doctor’s appointment. Later that day, we took the dog to the vet together. (Everyone’s fine, thanks for asking). The week after, I helped my son move. Nothing that happened at the Supreme Court affected my marriage or my obligations to my family in the slightest. And it doesn’t affect you.

If you don’t like same-sex marriage, then don’t do it. If you’re a member of the clergy and you don’t want to perform a same-sex wedding, then don’t. It’s that simple. There’s no need to panic, file lawsuits to prevent things that aren’t going to happen, or flee the country to avoid God’s fiery and indiscriminate wrath.

It’s going to be OK, y’all. Really.

They Love Our Troops, Except When They're Terrified of Them

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

It’s been said that everything’s bigger and better in Texas. They claim their beer is colder, their women are prettier, and even the nighttime stars are brighter.

Well, I don’t know about all that, but I can tell you this: their wingnuts are wingnuttier. And apparently, they’re running the state.

Seems the U.S. military is planning a large-scale training exercise called Jade Helm 15. JH15, as we’ll call it, is a “challenging eight-week joint military and interagency (IA) Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise conducted throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado,” which is scheduled for this summer.

Sounds OK, right? Similar to the sort of exercises run around here all the time from Fort Bragg.

OK, that is, except to the paranoid, conspiracy-mongering right, to whom no move by the government, even by the military, is anything less than a harbinger of The Death of Freedom.

Someone got hold of a map that identifies Texas, Utah and a small patch of Southern California as “hostile” territory for purposes of the exercise. To wingnuts, this could only mean one thing: The United States was preparing to invade … itself.

“I’ve hardly ever heard of something joint like this unless they’re planning an invasion,” asserted Alex Jones of the online nut-farm Infowars. Except for, you know, the dozens of other joint exercises the military has conducted on American soil.

Aging martial arts star and conservative icon Chuck Norris joined in, writing for World Net Daily: “What’s under question are those who are pulling the strings at the top of Jade Helm 15 back in Washington.” Poor Chuck. All those shots to the head he took from Bruce Lee are finally taking their toll.

It just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Walmart had to publicly deny that recently shuttered stores are going to be repurposed as prisons for people on a so-called “red list” of dissenters (all red-blooded conservatives, naturally) who’ve been pre-targeted for arrest when the Evil Obama Administration brings the hammer down. Or food distribution centers for Chinese occupation troops. Or something.

This sort of lunacy would have been no reflection at all on the current state of the Republican Party had not the governor of Texas his own self, the Hon. Greg Abbott, decided to buy into it, or at least pretend to. He’s asking the Texas State Guard to go down to the area of the exercise to keep an eye on things and make sure our military doesn’t get out of line, freedom-wise.

“It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed,” Abbott wrote in his letter to the commander of the TSG.

Huh. I thought the Republicans believed that’s what our troops were for.

It should be noted that the “Texas State Guard” is a different organization from the National Guard, and appears to be mostly concerned with things like disaster relief.

Sorry, but if the government really was executing a military takeover and the TSG was deployed to stop them, they’d barely register as a speed bump as the Army rolled into Austin.

With Abbott standing tall, other Republican pols just naturally had to weigh in against the imaginary plan for the Kenyan Islamocommiefascist Usurper to put Texas under martial law.

Loony Louie Gohmert, the Texas congressman and teahadist mullah who’s taken over the coveted Michele Bachmann Chair in Bat-Spit Craziness, said he was “appalled” by the map, especially “that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority.” He demanded that the “tone of the exercise” be changed “so the federal government is not intentionally practicing war against its own states.”

Even presidential candidate Ted Cruz allowed as how he had “no reason to doubt” the assurances of the military, but he understood “the reason for concern and uncertainty” because that Obama is just so very, very awful.

Poor wingnuts. Their ideology so often requires that they hold two diametrically opposed ideas in their heads at once. They have to revere the “troops” and the police while at the same time being terrified that those organizations are going to impose martial and/or Sharia law any minute.

They have to love their country while maintaining a big ol’ cache of weapons at all times in case they have to make war against it if they lose an election (which would also include firing on those same soldiers and cops).

It’s no wonder some of them go insane. But it’s a pity that some leaders of the GOP feel like they have to don the tinfoil hats of the conspiracy theorists to pander to the party’s lunatic fringe.

Don't Leave Me This Way, Michele!

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I’m in mourning.

Seriously, I’m digging around in my sock drawer for the black armband I wore when Sarah Palin quit the governorship of Alaska after only half a term, because, you know, she found out that governing is really haaaaard, and people are meeeeean to you sometimes.

This time, the female Republican who’s broken my heart is Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Crazytown), who announced this past week that she’s not going to run again for the seat that God himself told her to use as a springboard to the Presidency (Fickle fellow, this God of hers. If my deity was this changeable, we might wake up some day to find that water ran uphill and that Nickelback isn’t a terrible band).

For a guy like me whose sometime profession is mocking the easily mockable, the loss of the Congresswoman with the Charlie Manson eyes is a crushing blow. So I feel like I have to address her directly.

Michele, ma belle, how could you do this to me? Don’t all the good times mean anything to you? Like the time you noted the “interesting coincidence” that swine flu broke out under two Democratic Presidents—Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama? And the way you got that totally wrong, since the first swine flu epidemic broke out under Republican Gerald Ford?

Remember the time you delivered the so-called “Tea Party Response” after the Republican response to the State of the Union address—and did the whole thing staring blankly off camera, as if you couldn’t look us in the eyes? Of course, it turned out, you were looking at a special live feed camera only the Teabaggers could see—which was also the camera with the teleprompter? Only you could create that level of hilarious irony, Michele.

I remember the time when you were the Republican Party’s latest ABR (Anyone But Romney). That was before you crashed and burned your own Presidential campaign by claiming that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine created “dangerous consequences,” including mental retardation, because some unnamed woman outside a campaign rally told you it had.  I remember the times when you called upon your followers to be “armed and dangerous” to stop a cap-and trade bill and to “slit their wrists” to stop health care reform.

 I’d looked forward to a long and happy future making fun of you. And now you’ve gone and thrown all that away. It’s gone, all gone.

Why Michele, why? Why you got to do me like that?

Is it because of the investigations into illegal use ofcampaign funds (fueled by disgruntled staffers who you apparently didn’t pay)? Is it because your Democratic opponent has been making steady early gains in the polls against you, in a district you won by less than 5000 votes last time? Did the Republican leadership get to you? Did they whisper in your ear that “oh, the evil liberals will be pouring money in to defeat Your Right Wing Awesomeness, do this for the Good Of the Party” and tempt you with what every wingnut likes better than almost anything—playing the martyr?

Or maybe you think there’s a big payout in being a professional right winger on Fox News like Mike Huckabee, or as the head of some right wing “think tank” like Jim DeMint. Because as much as the wingnuts love to play the martyr, they like paying the martyr almost as much. I get that. I mean, you can’t live just off the farm subsidies and Medicaid provider payments you rail against even as your family benefits from them.

Well, whatever your motivation, we still have some time together, before you leave the Congressional stage. So, Michele, I’m begging you, baby, do this one thing for me. Make this your last hurrah. You’ve got nothing to lose. Whatever inhibitions you might have had, cast them aside and go full bat-spit right wing crazy.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones recently claimed that the government had “weather machines” that President Obama used to cause the Oklahoma tornadoes. Honey, you can do better than that standing on your head. Claim that climate change is caused by Obama’s giant sun-reflecting orbital mirrors (funded by ACORN, of course, and administered by the IRS). Insist, on camera, that a woman outside a 7/11 in Duluth personally assured you that the new Playstation 4 and Xbox One have secret embedded mind-control software that compels users to blindly march into FEMA-controlled concentration camps and sign over all their property to gay illegal immigrants.  

Of course, these are just suggestions. I know you can bring the insanity like no one else, and give me column material on into 2014.

Do it, darlin’. Do it for me.  

Get It Now, Get It First, Get It Wrong, Redux

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One of the most aggravating features of our multi-network, Twitter-driven, twenty-four-hour news cycle is something that invariably happens in the wake of a horrible event like last week’s bombing at the Boston Marathon: driven to get something, anything, out there, the cable news channels, the airwaves, and the Twitterverse became veritable fountains of misinformation. Apparently, the old journalistic principle that you didn’t go live with something unless you’d verified it with at least two sources is as dead as Walter Cronkite. Now what they report on is what’s been “reported,” whether or not said “report” is actually true or even from a credible source. Hey, they’re not lying. All they’re saying is that someone else said it. Such is the sorry state of “journalism” today. 

So in the aftermath of the carnage, unsubstantiated rumors and gossip became “reports”, which were breathlessly passed on but which quickly became discarded as new and more lurid rumors took center stage. The device was a pipe bomb. There were two other devices found that hadn’t exploded. No, three. Twelve people were dead, among them an eight year old girl who’d come to see her Daddy run the marathon. A Saudi national had been arrested running from the scene. And, of course, before the echoes of the blasts had died down and the wounded were still bleeding in the streets of Boston, conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones of the online nuthouse Infowars were proclaiming that the whole thing was a government conspiracy. (When an Infowars “reporter” asked if the bombing was a “false flag operation to take away our civil liberties,” Governor Deval Patrick’s three-word response was a lesson in how to handle stupid questions: “No. Next question.”)

The wave of BS reached a crescendo on Wednesday when CNN said there were “reports” that a suspect had been identified. Then there were “reports” that there was a suspect in custody. Then there were “reports” that there wasn’t. Finally, the Boston FBI office released a statement refuting the story: “Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack.” Once can almost hear the exasperation as the release goes on to say: “Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.” 

Yeah, good luck with that. 

The part about “unintended consequences” brings to mind one of the most pernicious effects of misinformation: if you say one thing today, and say something different tomorrow, there are thousands of the above-mentioned conspiracy theorists out there who’ll insist that the correction was not an attempt to set the record straight, but is part of a cover-up. For example, after the Newtown massacre, one incorrect MSNBC report that killer Adam Lanza (originally misidentified as his brother Ryan) had left his Bushmaster semi-automatic mass murder weapon in his car is still being seized on to this day by callous gun nuts to “prove” that the government is lying about assault weapons to promote the “gun control agenda.” Of course, these are the same people who won’t believe anything else ever reported on MSNBC, but you can’t expect consistency from crazy people. 

Sure enough, as soon as it was revealed that the “Saudi national” who was supposedly taken into custody was being questioned as a witness, not a suspect, commenters at the right wing website “the Blaze” were proclaiming that the President was “protecting his Muslim brothers.” 

I know we can’t forbid news organizations from spreading misinformation (darn that pesky First Amendment!). But there ought to be some kind of required warning label on all the crap the news media spreads in the immediate aftermath of a horrible crisis. Something like a disclaimer in the ubiquitous “crawl” running across the bottom of the screen: “Warning: thanks to the near-total erosion of journalistic standards, the so-called ‘information’ you are receiving in this broadcast may be based on rumor, half-truth, prejudice, completely unfounded speculation, or the person on-screen just pulling allegations out of their rear end because they have nothing solid to report but don’t want to just stand there looking like a goober.” If we’re going to be so consistently misinformed by our media, we should at least be informed of that fact.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage.

April Fool's Day Can't Keep Up

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This past Monday, as you know, was April Fool's  Day. And, as always, jokers and pranksters everywhere tried to pull the wool over the eyes of their fellow citizens with straight-faced claims of outrageous events and plans.

In the age of the Internet, April Fools' jokes seem to have gotten bigger and more elaborate, certainly more widespread.

The message service Twitter, for example, announced that from now on, users would be subjected to a two-tiered system: You could pay $5 a month for the currently full level of functionality, or you could keep using Twitter for free - but you wouldn't have access to vowels, so yr twts wld lk lk ths.

Google claimed to be introducing "Google Nose," which would allow users to search for smells online. Lindsay Lohan announced that she was pregnant. Alas, this last joke fell rather flat, because (a) it's too plausible; and (b) no one really cares about Lindsay Lohan anymore.

As I've said before, however, one of the hardest things about spoofs, satire and cons in this modern world is keeping ahead of a reality that's becoming increasingly more bizarre. Some stories that you could swear were pranks turned out to be true.

So, just for fun, see which of the following stories from last week were true, and which ones were April Fools' jokes:

- NASA announced plans for a mission that would send a robotic spacecraft into deep space to capture an asteroid and tow it to the moon, where it could be more easily studied and, possibly, mined for raw material. The asteroid would be trapped inside a giant bag deployed from the spacecraft and towed back to lunar orbit.

- Airline Samoa Air announced that it was going to start pricing tickets by the weight of the passenger and their luggage. "The rates range from $1 a kilogram (or about $2.20 per pound) for the weight of the traveler and their baggage - on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram (or about $9.17 per pound) for travel from Samoa to the neighboring nation of American Samoa," according to a story in Time magazine.

- A Turkish Muslim group claimed victory after iconic Danish toymaker Lego announced that it was withdrawing one of its playsets depicting Jabba the Hutt's palace from the "Star Wars" movies, after complaints from the group.

The Turkish Cultural Association claimed that the palace itself closely resembled the Hagia Sofia Mosque in Istanbul. Further, they said, the figure of the galactic underworld kingpin Jabba was shown as a "terrorist who likes to smoke hookah and have his victims killed," and the playset was thus insulting to Muslims.

Lego originally insisted that it was only "following the film," but announced this week that it would discontinue the product as of 2014.

- A professor at the University of Rochester in New York who described himself as a "hard-core libertarian" caused a stir when he published an online essay proposing that it shouldn't be illegal to have sex with people who are unconscious, "in a way that causes no direct physical harm - no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission."

The professor went on to ask, "As long as I'm safely unconscious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn't the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits?"

- Two North Carolina lawmakers introduced a resolution in the General Assembly last week calling for North Carolina to declare itself exempt from the "no establishment of religion" clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
If passed, the resolution would state that "the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion." Further, the resolution states, North Carolina would "not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the state of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the state from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Give up? All of the above stories are real.

Truth: It's not only stranger than fiction, it's also more foolish.

I'm Really Liking Obama's Chances...

If this is the best the right wing noise machine can do.

To summarize: A guy named Bill Ayers used to be a member of the Weather Underground. He claims to have participated in a bombing of the Pentagon in the 70's.

And this is a "problem for Barack Obama" how?

Because, according to wacko blogger John Ruberry, a member of the "Pajamas Media" loony bin, Ayers and Obama once lived in the same neighborhood and served on the board of the same Chicago charitable foundation. And, oh, horror! Ayers gave Obama a $200 campaign contribution in 2001, before he was even running for President.

That's it. That's all he's got.

News flash, Johnny-boy: that ain't squat and any sane person could see that. Which, I suppose, is why you can't.

Boy, right-wing smears aren't what they used to be, are they? They can't even do THAT right anymore.

More Adventures In Wingnuttery

Teachers Unions' More Dangerous Than Nuclear Armed Al-Quaeda, Says Talk Radio Host Neal Boortz:

“Look, Al Qaeda, they could bring in a nuke into this country and kill 100,000 people with a well-placed nuke somewhere. Ok. We would recover from that. It would be a terrible tragedy, but the teachers unions in this country can destroy a generation.”

I've gotta tell you, this is a great era we live in. Time was, a fruitcake like this would be relegated to standing on a corner on a piss- and vomit- stained bedsheet, screaming his rants at passing traffic until the men with the butterfly nets showed up to take him to a room with nice soft walls and a snazzy jacket with no sleeves. These days, he's a TV and radio star.

Come to think of it, though, he may have something there. I was WAY more afraid of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Connally, than I've ever been of Al-Quaeda.