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 the magazine-cover appearance of Kim Kardashian ‘breaking the internet,’ our Threatcon Color Code is FANNY PINK
- I’ve been warning you about an emerging wave of attempts to define a “freedom to discriminate” against LGBT workers and customers in law. One of those efforts is underway in Texas right now
- I’ve also been warming you about a new wave of voter suppression laws that would follow Republican midterm victory
- Now that Sam Brownback has the voters’ stamp of approval on his destruction of the Kansas state coffers, expect him to dig a deeper budget hole
- Do we finally understand that dark money is really, really dangerous to democracy?
- That whole story about Osama bin Laden’s shooter taking credit on Fox News? His fellow SEAL Team 6 members say he’s not the guy he claims to be
- You will hear more of this: John Paul Leonard, Jr. ran down and killed a black man with his pickup truck, then tried to blame Obama
- Remember the so-called “death spiral” of insurance rates that Republicans were sure Obamacare would bring, but that never actually happened? If the Supreme Court makes a purely partisan decision as expected, that “death spiral” is exactly what will happen to tens of millions of American families
- GOP efforts to prevent Medicaid expansion in the states show up in higher rates of dangerous premature births
- Former baseball player Kevin Bass made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for governor this year with the support of reproductive rights advocates. After the election, he suddenly decided not to support their issues anymore. When they confronted him on Facebook, Bass made some disgusting remarks about masturbation. So long, Kevin Bass’s political career!
- New excuse needed: now that China has agreed to a climate deal, here is a montage of Republicans using China as an excuse to do nothing about climate change
[youtube]http://youtu.be/NDl8SWckRaM[/youtube]
- The big new motivator for right wing evangelical voters is an enlarged, year-round version of the “war on Christmas”
- Electoral victory is only going to make tea parties more paranoid and purist
- Congressional Republicans are readying another wave of attacks on science funding and the Senate science committee will he headed by the science-denying James Inhofe
- Under the rubric of the previous point, expect GOP congresscritters to resurrect the ‘Twittergate’ insanity of 2010-2012
- The most female congress ever will be terrible for women
- Cody Christopher Strunk led Pennsylvania law enforcement on a two-hour foot chase trying to escape arrest for failure to register a vehicle
- Small victory: remember when Republicans fell all over themselves to prevent that unionization vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga? The union is quietly representing workers now
- Rush Limbaugh says he will sue the DCCC for supposedly taking his remarks out of context. But when you read what he said in its context, it looks even worse
- Tea parties are rooted in the post-Reconstruction era, not the Revolution
- Your US RDA of outrage porn: here’s how the Koch brothers turn the plain English meaning of the net neutrality issue inside-out
[youtube]http://youtu.be/KeCj4y36UKM[/youtube]
- Climate scientists need their own legal specialists now to deal with all the “lawfare” harassment
- We’ve been tracking a rising number of Klan flyers turning up nationwide. Now a Missouri KKK group is threatening lethal force against protesters in Ferguson if they “get violent” should police officer Darren Brown escape charges in the shooting death of Michael Brown
- During interrogation, ‘sovereign citizen’ John F. Gibson tried patiently explaining his illegal schemes to a police detective. Money quote: “This is like you’re in high school, and I’m a rocket scientist trying to explain to you how a rocket works and the physics behind it”
- The Mesa, AZ tea party keeps inviting hate group leaders to speak to them
- White supremacists are applauding the 6th Circuit Court for using their arguments to uphold a Michigan ban on marriage equality
- Legendary conservative organizer Richard Viguerie is predicting a civil war if President Obama uses executive action on immigration
- Instead of running away from his associations with neoconfederates and neo-Nazis, Rand Paul has written the foreword for a new book by confederate apologist and 911 “truther” Joe Napolitano
- Coming soon to Mississippi: Confederate Heritage Month
- Windows were shot out on a Mountain Home, Arkansas church after a letter to the editor of the local newspaper welcomed people of all backgrounds to worship
- The recent election will embolden white supremacists and right wing extremists as their issue stances show up in acts of Republican governance
“Now that Sam Brownback has the voters’ stamp of approval on his destruction of the Oklahoma state coffers…”
Should it read Kansas rather than Oklahoma?
Oy, flub fixed. I have another post cooking RE: Okies and must have had that on my mind.
This born-and-raised Okie feels your pain.
Has anyone else seen any of those hilarious Kim Kardashian butt memes going around the internet? Truly funny stuff. I wonder if she’s seen them? Narcissism is the new black.
On the subject of The War On Christmas™, I don’t know if you saw this story. Apparently, Kirk Cameron really, truly believes that Christians started the whole holiday-around-the-winter-solstice lark and would like everyone else to put a sock in it.
I’ll let you all make your own jokes.
–alopecia
Matt, Barrett Brown’s sentencing was just rescheduled again. He’s been in jail for two years two months. Maybe someone here could write something about it. The only places I’m seeing anything is on Twitter and on freebarrettbrown.org
I heartily agree. Its time for a long form Barrett Brown post!!!
Never forget…
Thanks.