We Don't Even Know What All Diseases They Have

Where the white women at? Via.

“Our schools cannot handle this influx, we don’t even know what all diseases they have. Our health care systems can’t withstand this influx.”-Louie Gohmert

It's Louie Gohmert week (month/year/decade/century) here at Keep Talking, Wingnuts, so I'm just going to have to amplify, again, Gohmert's disgustingly wrong and old "diseased immigrants" meme.

Via LOLGOP, we have more evidence that today's' wingnuts are just recycling old bullshit. Maybe they're lazy. Or maybe they like to stick with what they think are tried and true strategies for fueling xenophobia. Whatever their pitiful excuse is, their current fact-less tirades are so insulting to the kids fleeing violence in countries the US has funded right wing death squads in that I really do hope they keep talking.

Consider:

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a Fox News commentator and former director of the ultra-conservative political group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, writes in the McAllen Monitor that measles is among the “diseases the United States had controlled or virtually eradicated” that are “carried across the border by this tsunami of illegals.”

Fact check: UNICEF reports that 93 percent of kids in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are vaccinated against measles. That’s better than American kids (92 percent).

Furthermore, it’s absurd to claim that the U.S. has eradicated measles while Central America has not. In fact, measles outbreaks have resurged in some American cities. By contrast, according to the World Health Organization, neither Guatemala nor Honduras has had a reported case of measles since 1990.

From the 1896 Edition of the Rams Horn. 

And from Fox News contributor Marc Siegel (author of "False Alarm: Profiting from the Epidemic of Fear"--I shit you not):

...unaccompanied minors “are a likely source” of the mosquito-borne dengue fever spreading to Texas. Siegel ignores two key public health points: First, legal immigrants and travelers are a much larger group than undocumented folks, and just as likely to carry dengue. (I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve never been screened for dengue fever at the Texas-Mexico border.)  Second, mosquitoes can fly.

America is a lot more brown than it was when Eisenhower authorized Operation Wetback, so picking on brown people (or worse) isn't going to be as effective for getting people to vote for you as it used to be. But I'd have to review of a few of my history books to find a time when the xenophobes in America openly denigrated children. This kind of behavior probably won't stop many Jeb Bush Republicans from voting for a Louie Gohmert when given the chance. The question is, how many Democrats will get off their asses in a mid term and vote against one?

I'm Sorry You Misunderstood My Comparison of Obamacare to the Holocaust

TN State Senator Campfield, via ThinkProgress

Via TPM, Tennessean is Tennebelivin:

"Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory [sic] sign ups for "train rides" for Jews in the 40s."--TN state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R, Of Course)

The fun part is the non-apology apology...

"I regret that some people miss the point of my post."

You regret that "some people" missed the point, but not that you made it?

"It was not to offend."

But it did.

"In no way was my post meant to diminish or detract from the pain, suffering and loss of human life that occurred during this dark time in human history."

But it did.

"At no point in our history have we ever faced a federal government and administration with a lower regard for human life"

Do you have any idea how many native Americans Andrew Jackson killed? Or do you not consider Native Americans "human."

Do you have any idea how many Presidents supported slavery?

"I will continue to stand up against the government takeover of the nations [sic] healthcare."

Good for you. Now apologize for your disgusting statement, because this IS NOT an apology.

Oh, and yes, you can get AIDs from heterosexual sex, Senator.

Campfield defended his outrageous comments, saying he was simply speaking “on the fly,” and that while he’s not an AIDS historian, “I’ve read and seen what other people have read and seen and those facts are out there.”

They're not facts, Senator. But please, keep talking.

It's Not Just the Wingnut Politicians Who Should Keep Talking

A recent Pew Research poll spells out what we all know about wingnuts. And as you all know, I love it when they say, out loud, exactly what they believe. In fact, if I were a rich man, I'd pay Louis Gohmert, Steve Stockman, Michelle Bachman, and even some more "mainstream" Republicans to take a swing state soapbox talking tour.

But those are just politicians. Surely, they don't speak for most Republicans. Our Republican neighbors and family members couldn't possibly be the same cruel assholes as those people.

Yeah. They wish.




Shorter Republican voters: Screw the poor and immigrants. Let poison and global warming run free through the environment. Let our infrastructure crumble. What energy problem, we've got fracking! Spend more on the Pentagon.

The poll shows even more problems for the GOP.




The poll also shows us the conclusions people have drawn after listening to the soon-to-be-rump party's spokespeople. The GOP won't compromise, isn't concerned with my needs, is more extreme, is more influenced by lobbyists, is less honest and ethical in governing.

The bit of cognitive dissonance on the last question is precious.

Please, keep talking, wingnuts. We're listening.

Why It's Getting Easier For Democrats to Retake the House

You lose a whole lot of voters when you move that far right.

Nate Cohn makes me wish we had a new Intrade; prediction markets are a great way to help people get a handle on who's bullshitting and who's not. Not that I think Nate's bullshitting. He makes very good points, and he cares about the facts. He makes such a good argument, in fact, that if we had a prediction market with real money, he'd be convincing enough to the "smart" money to keep the prices down on shares of Democrats to win control of the US House in 2014.

If there’s anything I could get people to understand about the next election, it’s this: Even a 2006 or 2010-esque tsunami might not give Democrats control of the House.

Democrats don't need a tsunami to take control of the US House.

When the Great Gerrymander of 2010 gave the GOP a wave of US House districts that John Boehner surfed into the speakers office, they had a lot of help beyond simple Gerrymandering. The natural tendency of midterms to go against the President's party, a lot of anger whipped up by the Tea Party, and a whole lot of money.

But Gerrymandering has hidden costs.

Sam Wang's analysis of recent PPP polls.

It is a common fallacy to believe that seats gained by partisan gerrymandering are safe seats. In fact, the converse is the case. Gerrymandering achieves a net gain of seats by packing the opposition party into as few districts as possible. 

[...]

Representatives who benefited from the great partisan gerrymander of 2010 were given enough of an advantage to get into office narrowly. In a district designed to give Republicans a narrow advantage, Republican loyalists are likely to be spread thinly, with the balance of the needed votes being drawn from independents. Some of these independents might be more prone to anger about the current situation. These polls suggest that Republicans in those states might be particularly ripe targets for pressure.

Apparently Cohn has complained about the accuracy of PPP generic Dem polls (which Sam Wang is using in his latest calculations) vs the eventual reality. I haven't seen those numbers, and would gladly take a look. But there are enough things happening right now to make me a buyer for Dems to win the House at about $2.00/share (meaning I'd win $8 on the bet).

• Gerrymandering's hidden weakness of needing independents to elect Republicans in narrowly won districts.
• Angry independents. Do I even have to find the polls on that? You know how to find them, it's not pretty.
• Thanks at least in part to the Great Gerrymandering, the GOP has moved way to the right.
• The tendency of these far right wingnuts to keep talking (which proves that John Roger's crazification factor is one of the greatest jokes of all time) will mean even more angry independents.
• The worse the GOP looks in the polls, the better candidates Democrats will recruit.
• The worse the GOP looks in the polls, the better Democrats do at fundraising.

For those of you who aren't following the links, this is from the last one:

Not only have the Democratic campaign committees that back House and Senate candidates outraised their GOP counterparts, but unrestricted super PACs that support Democrats have pulled in close to three times what GOP super PACs have so far.

Three times as much as the GOP in super PAC money? Maybe I'd be a buyer up to $2.50 a share, even higher if the wingnuts keep talking.

Wherein a Wingnut Starts to Figure Out How Mad People Are But Still Can't Understand Why

This is what passes for humor in wingnut world.

I'd have never had the chance to make $250 (2021 dollars) for the Climate Science Defense Fund if I hadn't read about how often Pat Michaels is wrong. What a mark! 

Dr. Roy Spencer's post about my global warming bet with Patrick Michaels stirred up the usual BS (the real fun is always in the comments) from the fake skeptics brigade of often wrong wingnuts. Here's my reply to one of the inevitable, "you're so rude" comments wherein some other wingnut decides that the subject at hand isn't as important as pointing out how much he doesn't care for my attitude.

"Scott, I’ll take that Bet, Micheal Mann admits to charging $10,000 per speaking event. Roy what is your fee?" 

So, as "proof" that the average denier makes more than the average scientist, you want to use Mann and Spencer's fees per speech? Wow. You are a Republican. Even I'm better at math and statistics than that. 

"We are shaped by our understanding of situations and ideology." 

Right. I understand that Republicans lied us into a $6 trillion dollar war that maimed, killed, and displaced millions. I understand that Republican trickle-down, supply-side, freshwater economics led to the Little Bush Depression, the largest recession since the great depression. I understand that Republicans just voted to take food out of the mouths of hungry children. They keep voting to deny health insurance to 20 million.
And I understand that Republicans really suck at science. From evolution to geology to climate, they really want to, for the most part, suggest that humans aren't God, and therefore cannot affect the climate, or can't evolve, or whatever.  

Some of you may be atheists and just bad a science. But for the most part, you're a backwards, hateful, gay bashing, discriminatory, warmongering bunch of liars who BS about anything and everything. 

"perhaps you are the one that is at fault in your ideological beliefs." 

Yeah, you're going to have to rephrase that, because you lost me. My reasoning is as I stated above. You guys are so wrong so often that the only explanation for why anyone would still listen to you is if they're brainwashed. By religion, by an abusive parent, by a crazy uncle... I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is we REALLY need to stop listening to you guys. 

"you attempt to belittle someone else’s beliefs and show a bigoted bias that really stifles true conversation." 

Now you're catching on. This argument's been going on for decades. You guys don't listen. You don't care. You're so full of it, and yourselves, that when you see someone come back and act the same way, if maybe a little more forcefully, it's shocking to you. It's like, you giggle about Rush Limbaugh, but when someone from my side of the aisle even employs just a few of his style points, you get all pissy. Well, boo-hoo. 

But here's the thing. I don't want conversation. I'm sick of listening to you guys make the same old arguments over and over again. I want you people to put up or shut up. Of course, you probably won't do either, but, hey, a guy can dream... 

"But having you belittle the position rather than address the actual reasons for my dissent from the conclusion is counter productive and to be honest persecution closer to religious fervor than thoughtful discourse." 

I am addressing the reasons for your dissent. I just did. I have before. And I'm sick of doing it. It's not like we're disagreeing about is what color we should pick for our walls. This is what the Pentagon--an institution I assume you respect--said is one of the biggest threats to the future of America out there. I'm not a calm person. But I'm certainly not religious. I get pissed when people like you vote for people like GW Bush or Mitt Romney, because I'm deeply aware of what's at stake. I've seen your track records. I've watched your neocon oilmen wreak havoc on the world. And I'm sick of it.  

Now, do you want to bet on your silly pseudo-scientific BS, or not? 

Why don't you pray to your God about it. Maybe he'll have an answer.

You can all go see if he replies. I really hope so, because while I'm sick of hearing the same old shit, my ultimate philosophy is Keep Talking, Wingnuts.

What Happens When Wingnuts Keep Talking

This 23 percenter is on the House Intelligence Committee!

Just wanted to quickly note that the more the wingnuts talk, the more people hear them, and the more people hear them, the less people think they're "in touch." In fact, it's gotten so bad that I'm worried people might stop listening to them, which is why I started this blog.

The really great thing about this self-reinforcing cycle of wingnut demise is that it has distilled the crazy down to the number that keeps popping up: 23%:

Q: Do you think the Republican Party is in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today, or is it out of touch?

In touch: 23%   Out of touch: 70%

George W Bush's final approval rating when he left office was 22%. 23% of Americans are functionally illiterate. A 1999 Gallup poll reported that 23% of Americans heard a voice or seen a vision in response to prayer. In 2009, 23% of Americans thought Barack Obama was born outside the US. And, perhaps most miraculously, 23% of Americans (40% of white southerners) would side with the confederacy if the Civil War broke out today.

Given how often it shows up, it seems fair to say that 23% of Americans are batshit crazy. and yet they seem to control a much larger percentage of the leaders in our "democracy." Since I don't see much chance of changing the gerrymandered congressional districts, or the hypo-democratic US Senate, I guess we're just going to have to keep the wingnuts talking in order to convince a few more of the crazies to give up on the GOP.

Hate Group President Tony Perkins Wants Republicans to Stop Giving to the GOP and Give to Him Because He Really Hates The Gays

Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins, photo from CNN.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, whose past ties to white supremacists he still claims he knew nothing about, is not so evasively ashamed of his very public position that gay people are subhuman. In fact, he's so pissed the GOP isn't openly hating on the people who decided the 2012 Presidential election that he wants his fellow gay hating wingnuts to stop giving money to the GOP, and give it to him instead, so he can do their money justice by hating on people enough to get rated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

From The Hill:

Tony Perkins, in an email sent to his supporters, criticized the Republican National Committee over a report released last month that suggested the party should reconsider its messaging on same-sex marriage to appeal to younger voters.

"Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t send them a dime of your hard-earned money," Perkins said in the email, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

"If you want to invest in the political process, and I encourage you to do so, give directly to candidates who reflect your values and organizations you trust — like FRC Action."

I'm tempted to send Perkins money just to encourage him to keep talking. Even the suggestion by Reince Priebus that maybe the GOP should keep on hating, but just not be so vocal and mean about it, is enough to set Perkins off into an intraparty equivalent of firing on Fort Sumter.

The uneasy alliance between Wall Street Whores and the Racist Christian Right, which has powered the GOP for decades, has never been more strained. The Wall Streeters have managed to rip off neo-confederate working class voters for decades without any populist retribution (they even managed to corporatize the supposedly populist tea party). But when the GOP, in its zeal to keep winning elections, realizes gay voters actually won the election for Obama, and that maybe they're going to have to be a little more accepting (eg, telling gay people they don't hate them, just their filthy lifestyles), that's a gay version of the Edmund Pettus Bridge too far.

Luckily, Tony's little hissy fit goes well beyond money. Yes, when Tony fires on Fort Sumter, he uses all his barrels, and he enlists his friends to fire too!

Thirteen social conservatives, representing various influential groups, wrote Priebus ahead of the RNC's quarterly meeting this week in Los Angeles to sternly rebuke the conclusions of a post-election report that advised Republican elected officials to adopt a softer tone toward social issues. 

"We respectfully warn GOP Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support," concludes the letter, which was obtained by and independently verified by NBC News in advance of the meeting this week.

Tony Perkins appears before the Council of Conservative Citizens
Photo via Box Turtle Bulletin.

The election conscious members of the GOP still want to support their core principles of hating on people, they just want to be quiet and nicer about it. This, of course, isn't good enough for Tony. Unless you're out in front of the hate group with Tony, equating gay people with pedophiles, you're not supporting the GOP principles.

Since the GOP cannot afford to lose their hate group base, they're stuck with the very real possibility of a Huckabee or Santorum surge in the 2016 primaries [KTW will be betting on Huck if we get a new incarnation of Intrade in time] that will chase the Wall Street Whores out of the party* possibly for good, because even the most powerful Wall Streeters might not be able to control the kind of hate that these people could bring to the White House. And if there's one thing Wall Street hates, it's lack of control.


* Don't worry, money grubbers, there are plenty of Democrats willing to work The Street with you, which is why KTW supports the Daily Kos Motto "More and Better Democrats."

Keep Talking, Wingnuts Inaugural Post Subject is a Wingnut Favorite

For the most part, I plan to let the wingnuts talk for themselves on this blog. I have no need to take extra time from my day to mock the idiotic statements from Republicans, Libertarians, and various other shades of wingnut Galtian Overlords. I have other media from which to do that. The things I post here will be actual quotes from actual wingnuts that don't need any dissection or additional commentary. They will be sparkling gems from Winglandia that shine brilliantly with even the slightest touch of soft fill light.

I've been toying with this idea for a while now, adding #KeepTalkingWingnuts to various tweets and posts, but  the horrific red tide of stupid kept coming in so hot and heavy that I figured I really needed a place to collect and share the vast steaming pile of offal that comes pouring out of their mouths on a regular basis.

So, without further ado, here's Celeste Greig, the head of the largest GOP volunteer organization in California, on the GOP's favorite topic:

Greig was in the midst of criticizing former Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin for saying that victims of "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It was a remark that many believe led not only to his defeat in November but also helped tarnish the Republican brand around the country. 

"That was an insensitive remark," Greig said. "I'm sure he regretted it. He should have come back and apologized." 

Greig, however, went on to say [emphasis mine, because: Keep Talking, Wingnut!]: "Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it's an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don't know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don't know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act."