Thursday THREATCON - 16 July 2015

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 historic nuclear deal with Iran, our Threatcon Color Code is PEACE BANNER BLUE

Republicans condemned the Iran deal before they even read it because they’re desperate to go back to the Bush-Cheney doctrine of endless war and reassert the myths of American hegemony, er, ‘exceptionalism.’ Of course, they have some ~~useful idiots~~ allies in the Democratic Party, too, which just goes to show you how powerful the Israel lobby is
Contrary to all the right wing hype, the owners of an Oregon bakery were not hit with a huge court judgment just because they refused service to a lesbian couple, but because they doxxed their victims online and whipped up media attention to persecute them
House Republican leaders are under increasing pressure by culture warriors to pass an anti-gay ‘religious freedom’ bill like the one that blew up Indiana’s governor this Spring
Barack Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit a federal prison today
Donald Trump claimed that 20,000 people turned out to hear him in Arizona, but the venue only has a capacity of 4,100. Also, Donald Trump’s popularity with the conservative base spotlights the rhetorical corners into which Republicans have painted themselves
Jeb Bush thinks that President Obama is making the world unsafe with big words
Token brain surgeon Ben Carson is planning to speak at a conference organized by extremist Kevin Swanson, who wants gay people put to death
Now that the New York Times has (for once!) refused to list his book, with its artificially-enhanced bulk sales, as a “bestseller,” Ted Cruz is counting on Breitbart.com to be his enthusiastic, friendly media outlet. Which is not surprising, given that Robert Mercer, one of his biggest donors, is also a major funder of the site
The day after Scott Walker repealed an 80-year old law which protected construction workers from exploitation, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka described the Wisconsin governor and GOP presidential hopeful in six perfect words
Marco Rubio attended the National Right to Live Convention last week to propagate the most ridiculous myths of the forced-birth movement and promise to apply his forced-birth principles to the White House
Your US RDA of outrage porn: Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-North Carolina) tells a gathering of culture warriors that his “primary mission” in Congress is to be “an emissary for Christ” rather than represent his constituents

I’m normally quite supportive of President Obama, but his education policy has inflicted great harm on American schools, and Arne Duncan has been a complete disaster as Secretary of Education
Anti-gay pastor Ray Comfort, who became famous for making a bizarrely homoerotic banana-based argument against evolution with the inane Kirk Cameron, exhorted Twitter followers to give his awful new anti-gay feature film ten-star ratings at iMDB because the viewer responses were so withering. Atheist podcasters Hemant Meta and Jessica Bluemke watched this stinker so that you don’t have to and even interviewed one of the actors
CANCEL THIS DEBACLE: the F-35 is the most expensive plane and the worst procurement fiasco in the history of military aviation. The Lightning II has unreliable engines, it won’t be kitted for close air support, and it can’t win any fight at any range. Every reinforcement of this miserable failure represents a criminally-fraudulent waste of public resources
A new British documentary claims that the Ku Klux Klan is growing. But as I’ve reported here before, the number of Americans involved with the KKK has actually declined in recent years because their agenda has been sublimated into GOP legislation
Pursuant to the previous point: Texas has developed its own ‘final solution’ for immigration by illegally denying birth certificates to the children of the undocumented. If anyone can tell me how this is substantially different from Joseph Stalin making unwanted populations ‘stateless,’ I’ll be glad to hear their rationalization so I can cut it to pieces
Alex Jones sycophant Dan Bidondi tried to hit on a real news reporter by telling her about the globe-straddling Bilderberg conspiracy. Incredibly, rational skeptics Bob Cesca and Chez Pazienza of The Daily Banter are scheduled to interview the non-cognitive Bidondi on their podcast later today
Obamacare has brought the uninsured rate down dramatically, especially among minorities who have disproportionately suffered from lack of access
As I have said for years, Republican attacks on American workers are part of the southernization of the country, a process modeled on the worst antebellum traditions of slavery and postbellum systems of oppression. Why else do you think Republicans in Washington, DC are so hot to keep the confederate flag flying?
Mountaintop removal mining is declining fast in Appalachia, which is very good news for everyone but especially for the long-term economic prospects of the region
Their own Fox News: rather than simply clean up their act, Chevron decided to create a friendly ‘news’ website to propagandize Richmond, California residents with happy and misleading stories
Why do Republican senators defend the bullying of LGBTQ students? Because one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, of course

Anti-GMO activism is the anti-vaxx movement of the left. It’s so unscientific and absurd that Greenpeace might as well start promoting climate change denial. Saner voices within the environmental and human rights movements must object loudly to this Jade Helm-level conspiracy theory
Speaking of Jade Helm: the US Army exercise is underway this week and the militia nuts are keeping a close eye on them to spot any signs of a tyrannical takeover by gay Muslim liberals. Governor Greg Abbott has a crack team of Alex Jones fans attending a briefing today
For the next year, Dent County, Missouri will fly their flag at half-staff to mourn the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. Also: Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, known for stalking strippers and taking selfies with them at “pantsless parties,” has kicked off his gubernatorial campaign
A new study says that people who carry guns tend to be more impulsive and angry. What could possibly go wrong with that?
White privilege defined: Chris and Angela Oliver of Virginia took part in a confederate flag parade through a town that’s almost 80% African American, then couldn’t understand why the people didn’t welcome them with open arms. Yesterday, white people turned out in Oklahoma to express their anxiety over the decline of white privilege by waving confederate flags at the black president
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore says that he doesn’t hate the gays, he just wants them to stop existing anymore. Meanwhile, the state legislature has decided to do absolutely nothing about the state budget during their special session — even though Moore has repeatedly told them to knock it off before they destroy the state court system
Does anyone else remember Jim “white culture” Webb of Virginia serving as Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary? Good times, good times
‘Sovereign citizens’ news roundup: Tyrone Eugene Jordan was convicted of retaliating against a federal judge and prosecutor with fraudulent liens; E-Yage Bowens of Miami was sentenced to 485 years in prison for raping and abusing a teenager for years; after a three-year tenancy dispute, Ted Visner of Michigan has posted a disturbing note on YouTube which suggests he’s ready to explode into violence
Slowly but surely, empirical data showing that ‘welfare dependency’ is a myth has started to penetrate the media
Undocumented immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez is accused of killing Kathryn Steinle, but despite all the right wing nativist hype, the case has nothing to do with Sanctuary Cities
Like Tom Petty, I regret the confederate flag