Anti-gay bigot Linda Harvey wants to go clubbing

Linda Harvey of Mission America spoke to BarbWire columnist Gina Miller on her radio show this weekend, where the two reprised their attacks on LGBT rights as a demonic, destructive force.

Reflecting on a campaign to push for LGBT rights in Southern states, Harvey said anti-gay activists should have the same “kind of boldness” and go to pride parades and “places that are homosexual” like San Francisco, Provincetown and Key West.

Miller, however, cautioned that “a lot of the homosexual radicals are radical and they’re violent and vicious,” adding: “These people are vicious and we’re not. That’s the thing. We’re not vicious but we know the truth and the truth is on our side.”

I didn’t know that San Francisco was a “homosexual place”.  I mean, I knew that teh ebil gays like the city, but I didn’t realize that every person there was LGBT.  Same with Provincetown and Key West. You would think the LGBT community would have noticed this and said something years ago.

Or maybe she’s talking about going clubbing with us.  I’m not sure how this tactic is supposed to work, bc generally speaking when I go clubbing I’m looking to have fun, and with an attitude like hers, I don’t foresee much fun.  I think there might be some tension.

In the interview, Harvey also dismisses harassment faced by LGBT youth:

Harvey and Miller then dismissed a Human Rights Campaign survey on harassment of LGBT youth in states like Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, which they claimed — without any evidence to substantiate their claims — was a complete sham.

Miller said: “No I don’t believe it, while there may be some element of bullying — of course bullying happens all the time for various reasons in our schools, that’s the way kids are — but no, I don’t buy it and further they can easily make up these statistics…They’re using these kinds of statements whether they’re true or not to create a false image, a false impression that homosexuals are bullied and where is this rampant epidemic of homosexual kids?”

I guess in her world, all you have to do is believe really, really, really hard and reality bends to your wishes.  Oh, wait. I forgot she’s religious. She does think that’s how reality works.

Anti-gay bigot Linda Harvey wants to go clubbing
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Republican official showcases upper level ignorance

Last week, Russell Pearce, a top Arizona GOP official had some interesting things to say about low income Arizonans (Arizonians?):

Tuning into The Russell Pearce Show on Saturday nights on Phoenix talk-radio station KKNT 960 AM can be illuminating.

For example, on one recent episode, the recalled former state Senate president got off on the subject of public assistance in all its various forms.

He suggested that if people would just give him the authority, he’d set things right with all these here gub’mint programs.

“You put me in charge of Medicaid,” Pearce told one caller, “the first thing I’d do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

Down deep, Pearce really is an old softy. This is just his version of tough love.

“I know there’s people out there [who] need help, and my heart goes out to them, too,” he explained that same evening. “But you know what? That should never be a government role. That’s a role for family, church, and community.”

So generous. So thoughtful. Why, if only we had more people like him in the world, all our problems would be solved!

::we interrupt this post because I need to go find a bucket to puke in…ah, much better::

Anyone remember the Count?  From Sesame Street.  Imagine his voice as we say:

One, one fail!

Two, two fails!

Three, three fails!

Four, four fails!

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Fail the first- He’d “get” low income women birth control or tubal ligations? What does that mean? You’d force them?  You do know that’s a violation of their privacy and their bodily autonomy, right?  What’s that? You don’t care?  Oh, silly me. I forgot we’re talking about the women folk.  In this country, they get different, and fewer rights, than men do (at least according to the GOP assbigots).  Oh, and is he going to “get” these to the women folk free of charge?

Fail the second- Drug testing low income government assistance recipients.  ::Le sigh:: This.  Again.  How many times must reality smack these Republican nincomfucks upside the head before they will listen (yeah, yeah, I know)?  Here is yet more evidence that Republican views are divorced from reality:

The testing is meant to assure taxpayers their money isn’t being “wasted” on the less desirable, those who would somehow manage to buy drugs with the assistance. But in Tennessee, where drug testing was enacted for welfare recipients last month, only one person in the 800 who applied for help tested positive. In Florida, during the four months the state tested for drug use, only2.6% of applicants tested positive. Meanwhile, Florida has an illegal drug use rate of 8%, meaning far fewer people on services are using drugs than their better-off counterparts. The drug testing cost taxpayers more money than it saved, and was ruled unconstitutional last year.

Then there’s the lovely state of Utah:

Utah has spent more than $30,000 to drug test welfare applicants after it passed a new law last year. But in that time, just 12 people have tested positive for drug use, according to state figures.

Utah doesn’t randomly test applicants or require them to all undergo a drug test, but instead requires them to complete a written questionnaire that is meant to screen for drug abuse. Those who have a high probability are then given drug tests. The state spent nearly $6,000 on written tests for 4,730 applicants, 466 of which had to take a drug test, which cost more than $25,000. The law doesn’t disqualify those who test positive but instead requires them to go into a substance abuse treatment program.

And in Virginia:

Virginia Republicans are reviving plans to force welfare recipients to take drug tests before receiving benefits, saying they have found ways to reduce the price tag that doomed the proposal earlier.

“We got hung up last year on the cost, and it seems that we determined the costs aren’t as great as we were told last year,” said Del. Dickie Bell, R-Staunton, the bill’s sponsor. “There are new methods of screening and testing used other places, and some are practical and could be applied here.”

Bell hasn’t introduced drug test legislation yet for the 2013 General Assembly session. The bill he introduced in the last session would have screened all state welfare recipients and then administered drug tests to those suspected of drug use.

The legislation failed, however, after the state estimated it would cost $1.5 million to administer the tests, compared with the estimated $229,000 that would be saved by stripping benefits from those who test positive.

I’m starting to see a pattern:  Republicans are idiots.  Drug testing welfare recipients is a waste of taxpayer dollars because there are insufficient numbers of low income Americans who are doing drugs. Stop trotting this bullshit out.

Fail the third-Pearce’s comments make use of the GOP talking point that welfare recipients are not working.  A large number of them are working:

Over the last two decades, large shares of SNAP households have become working households. In 1989, 42 percent of all SNAP households received cash welfare benefits and only 20 percent had earned income. By 2010, over three times as many SNAP households worked as relied solely on welfare benefits for their income.

Despite the large jump in unemployment during the recession, the share of SNAP families with earnings has continued to increase in recent years.  This suggests that for a growing share of the nation’s workers, having a job has not been enough to keep them out of poverty.

(via Media Matters)

Another thing that many Republican officials fail to realize is that many of the people who benefit from government assistance are children and the elderly.  You know, the people who don’t/can’t work or are retired.

Most SNAP recipients were children or elderly. Nearly half (48 percent) were children and another 8 percent were age 60 or older. Working-age women represented 28 percent of the caseload, while working-age men represented 16 percent. (source)

That ties in nicely to fail the fourth-that the government shouldn’t assist low income families.  It’s funny, to hear the arguments from opponents of marriage equality, it is in the government’s best interest to forbid same sex marriage because think of the kids. If the government has a vested interest in thinking of the kids as a reason to make same sex marriage illegal-don’t they have an interest in supporting those families with kids who are struggling to put motherfucking food on the table?!  But no, think of the kids is a refrain only trotted out to oppose marriage equality (and of course, it’s not about the kids in that case either, otherwise, they’d see the many LGB families with kids that would greatly benefit from having their parents in a legally recognized marriage).

The fail is further added to when you recognize that private charities are not up to the task of providing for the millions of Americans who require financial assistance and they NEVER were (libertarians, take note).

The power of the fail is strong in Russell Pearce.  Thankfully, he has since resigned.

 

Republican official showcases upper level ignorance

Another Republican lie about unemployment benefits Debunked

Republicans love to talk about how the poor are lazy moochers who won’t get off their asses and get jobs (not true), that they’re poor because they don’t work hard enough, or are drug addled miscreants who need to be tested before they get benefits (methinks we should be testing politicians if anyone’s to get tested).  No matter how many times these talking points are debunked, they continue to exist. They’re memetic vampires.  Or zombies.  With no heads.

One of their favorite talking points is that granting benefits to poor people makes them lazy and disinclined to get a job.  A new study from Regis Barnichon of the Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional in Barcelona and Andrew Figura of the Federal Reserve Board shows that…wait for it…wait for it…

That’s just another myth about the poor!

While far from the only Republican objection to an extension of unemployment benefits, one of the primary arguments was that the very existence of unemployment insurance itself was part of what caused unemployment. Despite the fact that there were as many as three jobseekers in the U.S. for every open position, Republicans commonly argued that if only unemployment benefits were cut, people would go out and find work.

The recent study by Regis Barnichon of the Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional in Barcelona and Andrew Figura of the Federal Reserve Board, finds that the impact of extended benefits on unemployment is quite small — on the order of one-third of one percent — and that it has no discernible effect on labor force participation rates.

To be sure, the study did find that the benefits extension (which they refer to as Emergency and Extended unemployment Benefits, or EEB) increased levels of unemployment. But the small size of the increase, given the high levels of unemployment in the country during the time in question, argues against the wisdom of wholesale benefits cuts.

“We estimate that [EEB] had non-negligible effects on the unemployment rate in recent years,” the authors write about the benefits extension. “At the same time, because EEB has very little effect on the behavior of the relatively large share of individuals who are at the beginning of their unemployment spells, the overall effect of EEB on the unemployment rate is fairly modest; at its peak (in terms of the average number of benefit weeks provided) EEB boosted the unemployment rate by one-third percentage point.”

Further, they determined that “the effect of EEB on the [labor] participation rate is estimated to have been quite small.”

(via Daily Kos)

I’m sure that once Republicans hear this news, they’ll stop telling this myth.

Really. I have the utmost confidence.

It’s set to happen just after they accept a woman’s right to an abortion.  Any minute now.

Another Republican lie about unemployment benefits Debunked

The right wing rage machine

In a recent back and forth at Pharyngula, I was told by a commenter that despite the fact that I’m a gay, atheist, black man, that I have no reason to be concerned about facing violence for being any one or all three of those.  This, despite the fact that the United States still has a problem with anti-LGBT violence and homicide:

The 2012 report documents 2,016 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence in 2012 (a slight 4% decrease from 2011), and highlights a number of disturbing multi-year trends of severe anti-LGBTQ violence. LGBTQ people of color were 1.82 times as likely to experience physical violence compared to white LGBTQ people, and gay men were 1.56 times as likely to require medical attention compared to other survivors reporting. The report also found that transgender people were 1.67 times as likely to experience threats and intimidation compared to LGBTQ non-transgender survivors and victims. “Though the recent spate of hate violence incidents in New York City has captured the media’s attention, this report demonstrates that severe acts of violence against gay men, transgender people and LGBTQ people of color are, unfortunately, not unique to Manhattan nor to the past month, but rather part of a troubling trend in the United States,” said Chai Jindasurat, NCAVP Coordinator at the New York City Anti- Violence Project.

[…]

In 2012, NCAVP documented 25 anti-LGBTQ homicides in the United States. This continues a multi- year trend in high anti-LGBTQ homicide rates nationally (30 were reported in 2011, the highest ever) , and is the 4th highest yearly total ever recorded by NCAVP. Lisa Gilmore from Center on Halsted Anti- Violence Project in Chicago, Illinois cautions that the number of homicides may be even higher: “Over the last several years, not only have we seen consistently high rates of anti-LGBTQ homicides, but we also know there are many more homicides of LGBTQ people, especially transgender people and people of color, which go unreported. Twenty-five LGBTQ hate violence homicides is an alarming number – and we know it could just be the tip of the iceberg.”

The 2012 report found that 73.1% of all anti-LGBTQ homicide victims in 2012 were people of color. Of the 25 known homicide victims in 2012 whose race/ethnicity was disclosed, 54% were Black/African American, 15% Latin@, 12% White and 4% Native American.

The report also found that 53.8% of anti-LGBTQ homicide victims in 2012 were transgender women. This is a considerable increase from 2011 (40%) and continues a three-year trend toward disproportionate and severe violence experienced by transgender women.

“For a third year in a row, NCAVP’s findings reflect a disproportionate impact of severe and deadly violence on people of color,” said Maria Carolina Morales from Community United Against Violence in San Francisco, California. “This is also true for transgender women victims, all of whom were people of color, and continues a multi-year trend that transgender women of color are targeted for deadly violence.”

It’s clear that being LGBT still puts many Americans at risk for increased violence. Being a Person of Color increases those odds.  Last I checked, I was both of those.

Please don’t misunderstand me:  I’m not paralyzed with fear. I don’t and *won’t* own a gun (that would merely increase my chances of being shot and/or killed; if I want to decrease my chances of facing violence, owning a gun is not the way to go). I’m not going to constantly look over my shoulder and worry that everywhere I go I could be subjected to violence.  I am, however, aware of the increased risk I face, compared to other, more privileged individuals (like the person I spoke about above).  I also know that I live in the south:  an area of the United States that’s far from tolerant of People of Color, LGBT individuals, or atheists (who are distrusted as much as rapists, despite the fact that being an atheist causes no harm to others and has no moral component).

A huge contributing factor to the increased chance of violence faced by PoC, LGBT people, and atheists-perhaps an overwhelming one-is the right wing, white supremacist rage machine in the United States. The events in Ferguson, Missouri have shown that the drum beats of the right wing rage machine continue unabated.

How Will the Right-Wing Hate Media Distort the New Evidence in the Michael Brown Murder Case?

The defenders of Darren Wilson, the white police officer who repeatedly shot an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown at least 6 times in Ferguson, Missouri claim that “the facts” will clear their champion of any wrongdoing.

Unfortunately for Darren Wilson, the facts of what transpired on the day when he shot Michael Brown in the face and body with multiple bullets have not been kind to him.

Independent witnesses have told the press and federal investigators how Michael Brown was unarmed, had surrendered with his hands in the air, and was repeatedly shot by Darren Wilson. These witnesses are African-American.

For the white bigots who defend Darren Wilson, as well as the Right-wing hate media that stoke the flames of white racial resentment and white supremacy, black people’s truth claims about racism (regardless of the mountains of empirical evidence in support of their experiences) are de facto and a priori judged to be insufficient by the White Gaze.

This is part of a centuries-long tradition in America, where for most of the country’s existence, African-Americans were not allowed to testify in court or to have any type of legal standing.

In the post civil rights era–and especially since the election of Barack Obama–the Tea Party GOP and the White Right have demonstrated that they would like to return to an arrangement of civic and public affairs in which black people are silenced and muted. In all, the Tea Party GOP and its allies yearn for the civic erasure of black and brown people—it enrages the White Right that they cannot follow through on their wishful dreams of social and political death for black Americans.

The American Right-wing’s defense of the killer cop Darren Wilson is instinctive: it is an extension of a base hostility to the freedom, well-being, life, liberty, and happiness of black and brown Americans.

To point. The most morally rotted and ethically suspect supporters of Darren Wilson have collectively donated at least 500,000 dollars to protect him from the consequences of killing Michael Brown.

As I wrote here, donating money to Darren Wilson (and other white vigilantes and extra-judicial killers of black people such as George Zimmerman) is the new lynching photography of the 21st century. Instead of buying postcards of hung, tortured, and burned alive black bodies, those who donate to Darren Wilson enjoy the vicarious pleasures of killing a black person by proxy. Michael Brown, and by extension other black American men, are born with a bounty on their heads.

Darren Wilson is the white gunslinger who brought the black “thug” to “justice”. This is cathartic violence for the White Right and its Fox News driven propaganda machine.

My opponent at Pharyngula actually said he thinks he faces a greater chance of facing violence than I do.  This despite the fact that he’s almost certainly a cisgender, white, heterosexual man.  Yes, because cisgender, white, heterosexual men in the United States face sooooo much oppression, bigotry, and discrimination.

The right wing rage machine

Today in Anti-Lgbt news

Todd Starnes, a FOX News contributor graced the world with his views on same-sex marriage (I don’t recall asking him though).  From Right Wing Watch:

In an interview last month on the Daystar program “Joni,” Fox News commentator Todd Starnes agreed with the suggestion that marriage equality will legalize man-dog marriage.

Discussing the case of a Colorado bakery that denied service to a same-sex couple (and which ironically baked a cake for a “dog wedding”), Starnes agreed with cohost Rachel Lamb’s assertion that man-dog marriage is on its way, saying, “when you redefine marriage, that means anything goes.”

It’s that time again folks!  Let’s play clear up some misconceptions and harmful lies being spread by right wing conservatives (that’s a full time job on it’s own, which I’d be happy to do, if I was getting paid)

Point the First:  Marriage Equality is about opening up the institution of marriage to all consenting adults.  Please note those last two words-consenting and adults.  Not between adults and children-children cannot consent.  Not between adults and animals-no one is arguing to allow marriage between humans and animals, and even if they were, again, no consent.  Right wingers have a difficult time understanding consent.

Point the second:  If you run a public business in the United States, you cannot discriminate against your customers.  That means that a cake baker that runs a public business cannot discriminate against a lesbian couple.  That would violate the anti-discrimination laws.  I know many fundamentalist religious nitwits think that their “sincerely held religious beliefs” are a get out of jail free card to discriminate against LGBT people, but really, it isn’t.  If you run a private business and you want to be a bigoted, discriminatory asswipe, fineby me it’s lawful, even if I think it is immoral and unethical.  If you’re a public business, no way, no how.

 

 


 

Gambia passes bill imposing life sentences on gays

An extreme anti-gay bill was recently passed in Gambia:

Gambia has passed a bill that imposes life sentences for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ in what is already one of the most homophobic countries in Africa.

Officials told AP on Monday that the bill was passed last month and gives life sentences to ‘serial offenders,’ people with HIV and those suspected of having sex with someone who is under 18, disabled or drugged.

Suspects who are parents or guardians of the other person or ‘in authority over’ him or her are also targeted by the bill.

Gambia already punishes gay sex by up to 14 years in jail under a law that was extended to women in 2005.

Remind me again, this is the 21st century, no?  This is yet another example of a country pushing its archaic, regressive, anti-equality views on its entire population, with no regard to the human rights of its citizens.

 


 

 

Gay US college student gets note on first week of semester: ‘Faggots don’t belong here’

A gay student at Azusa Pacific University (APU) in California, US returned to his room in the first week of semester to find a note pinned to his door.

However, this was not a welcome note, in fact quite the opposite. Scrawled in green pen were the words: ‘Faggots don’t belong at APU. GET OUT.’

The individual who received the note has not been revealed, but the image of the note which was pinned to his door has gone viral on Twitter.

This ought to be counted as terrorism. Whoever wrote that note clearly wanted to scare the student away, and I can easily understand how fearful that might make him (or other LGBT students for that matter).

 

Today in Anti-Lgbt news

Voting in Ferguson, a televangelist lies, and more

GOP Calls Ferguson Voter Registration Drive ‘Disgusting’; Terrified Community Will Start Voting

The executive director of Missouri’s Republican party could barely contain his rage when he learned that one of the facets of recent protests in Ferguson has been a voter registration drive. His reaction betrays a sense of entitlement that comes from living in an age of political apathy: citizens shouldn’t be allowed to vote for change when they see injustice in the world, that isn’t “fair.” Have we gone mad? That’s exactly what voters are supposed to do.
Like many economically distressed communities around the country, Ferguson’s voter turnout for the last few elections has been dismal. Just 12% of residents bothered to vote one way or the other in the last election. It may explain why Ferguson’s politicians are mostly white and mostly out-of-touch with the residents.


 

Right-Wing Media Continue To Decry Ferguson Residents Registering To Vote

Breitbart: “Liberal Activists” Are Promoting Voter Registration Drives That Local GOP Calls “Disgusting.” On August 18, Breitbart quoted the Missouri Republican National Committee executive director who attacked the registration effort as “completely inappropriate” and characterized voting rights advocates’ calls for Ferguson residents to “get on the juries, choose your leaders” as “liberal activism”

[…]

Fox News: Voter Registration Booths In Ferguson Show That “Protestors Aren’t Out There For Free Speech.” On the August 21 edition of Fox & Friends, host Anna Kooiman complained that Ferguson residents protesting the fatal shooting “aren’t out there for freedom of speech. They’re out there to push their side.” Co-host Clayton Morris responded, “Setting up a voter registration booth? Yeah, you think?”

[…]

Rush Limbaugh: Registering Voters In The Wake Of Michael Brown’s Death “Encompasses Everything That The Democratic Party Is.” On his August 19 radio show, Limbaugh also criticized the Ferguson voter registration drive, and condemned Democrats for “try[ing] to ramp up black turnout” by exploiting Brown’s death


Hey Look! Pat Robertson told a lie!

Televangelist Pat Robertson on his “700 Club” show today decided that repeating many right-wing lies about what happened in Ferguson during the shooting death of 18-year old Michael Brown would be a good idea.

Robertson called the unarmed college-bound teen a “giant” and surmised that he must have been on a “hallucegenic” [sic] or “PCP” because he “acted like someone who was crazy” who “beats the daylights out of” officer Darren Wilson. The octogenarian also wondered aloud why the police didn’t “do a blood test on that guy, on the dead man,” whom Robertson couldn’t bother to mention by name.

Robertson also repeated the lie that officer Darren Wilson’s “occipital bone was crushed.”

And he chastised Attorney General Eric Holder for standing up for the oppressed — which is in part his job.

“It just looks bad,” Robertson lamented — not once ever offering one word of sympathy for the death of Michael Brown.

I’m shocked, I tell you! SHOCKED that Pat Robertson displays not compassion for the death of a young unarmed black man.


 

Missouri Councilman Excuses His Racism As Being ‘A Very Active Republican’

 

Says it’s a feature not a bug.




 

okay but when you have holocaust survivors and people who were activists during the civil rights movement supporting mike brown and then KKK members and neo nazis supporting the officer you should be able to figure out which side is the right one.

(via blastortortoise)

 

 

(source: sand&glass, via angrynativefeminists)

 


Houston Gay, a 103 year old who marched with MLK 50 years ago, at a peaceful demonstration in Ferguson.

(source: zubat; via angrynativefeminists)


 

Voting in Ferguson, a televangelist lies, and more

Todd Starnes is reality challenged

Todd Starnes is the religion reporter for FOX News.  Feel free to laugh at that sentence. I sure the fuck am.  Among the many deeply incorrect beliefs he holds, he thinks that the protesters in Ferguson were the ones who attacked the media:

Oh, I don’t know Todd.  How about because the police and SWAT teams were the ones who accosted and arrested reporters?  Not the protesters.

Todd is also angry that President Obama didn’t offer condolences to the police officer who murdered Michael Brown?  Yeah, I know, I know.  It doesn’t make any sense, but this is Todd Starnes.

 

(hat tip to TheNewCivilRightsMovement)

Todd Starnes is reality challenged

We ought to worry less about Islamic terrorists and more about domestic terrorists

Many people in the United States have an irrational fear of Islamic extremists.  Such attitudes permeate our society to such an extent that people who are Muslim or are perceived to be Muslim have been discriminated against, or faced Islamophobic bigotry.  This, despite the fact that the United States has only faced one domestic attack carried out by Islamic extremists-the September 11 attacks.  This irrational fear extends to people of all backgrounds-white, black, men, women, homosexual, heterosexual, theist, and atheist.  People have called for profiling of Muslims at airports, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Muslims do not all look the same, nor do they belong to one ethnic group.  This is a telltale sign that one is showing anti-Muslim prejudice.  You cannot look at a person and discern whether they are Muslim or not.  Islam is one of the 3 largest religions in the world, with billions of adherents. Yes, many of those who follow Islam (Muslims) can be found in the Middle East, and many do share similar ethnic backgrounds.  There are, however, Muslims in other countries who do not share the ethnic backgrounds of Middle Eastern Muslims.  There are white people who are Muslims.  If an airport were to engage in profiling of Muslims, what would they look for?  Profiling works based on appearance, so clearly airport security would be looking for visual cues that determine if an individual is a Muslim.  What cues would these be though, given that all Muslims do not look alike, nor do they all belong to the same ethnic groups?  Moreover, in the zeal of some to criticize Muslims, they criticize other religious groups that they think are Muslim, such as Sikhs.  Wearing a turban does not indicate ones religious beliefs and certainly does not indicate that one is a Muslim.  In addition, just because a person is a Muslim does not mean they are a terrorist.  Claiming that profiling is necessary to weed out terrorists does nothing more than treat countless people as if they’re guilty of being terrorists simply because they might look like what Islamic extremists look like. That’s a morally reprehensible view, and one similar to protestations from political officials in the US that all black people are in gangs or are poor folks.  It is simply not true.

Another huge problem with the focus on Islam as a huge danger to the United States, is the fact that people are overlooking domestic terrorists.  The Southern Poverty Law Center cataloged over 100 incidents of domestic terror plots, racist rampages, and conspiracies since the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995.  All these attacks were from right wing terrorists acting as individuals or as part of a group.  These are men and woman who are citizens of the United States and have committed or plotted to commit acts of terror against the citizenry or government. These examples far outstrip the one occasion of Islamic terrorism on our shores (an attack which I wholeheartedly condemn, and make no attempts here to dismiss or minimize).

Recently, the nonpartisan National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism released the findings of a study that found that sovereign citizens are a greater concern than Islamic extremists:

The 2013-14 study results show that law enforcement’s top concern is sovereign citizens. Although Islamic extremists remain a major concern for law enforcement, they are no longer their top concern. Approximately 39 percent of respondents agreed and 28 percent strongly agreed that Islamic extremists were a serious terrorist threat. In comparison, 52 percent of respondents agreed and 34 percent strongly agreed that sovereign citizens were a serious terrorist threat. This is interesting because sovereign citizens were ranked as the eighth highest group of concern among the 2006-07 sample.

(source, via DailyKos)

These finding obviously do not mean that government agencies are ignoring Islamic extremists. Nor do the findings point to the non-existence of threats from Islamic terrorists.  The findings point out that domestic terrorism is a serious problem in the United States, and given our media, this problem is overlooked.  We continue to do so at our own peril.

We ought to worry less about Islamic terrorists and more about domestic terrorists

Michele Bachmann says dumb shit…again

She may be on her way out, but Rep. Bachmann still has time to say completely idiotic shit:

“Foreign nationals that have come into the United States are between 300- to 500,000,” Bachmann told an incredulous Crossfire co-host Van Jones. “My heart is broken for a female college student in Minnesota who was raped, murdered and mutilated by a foreign national who came into our country. We had a school bus full of kids in Minnesota — four children were killed on that school bus because an illegal alien driving a van went into that schoolbus.”

What she’s talking about is unclear.  This could be the school bus incident she’s referring to, but she doesn’t make it explicit.  Plus, that was in 2008.  This is 2014, and she’s ostensibly talking about the immigrant children coming to the US that has the GOP up in arms.  How a horrible incident in 2008 relates to that is unknown.  It is also unclear who she is referring to when speaking about a female college student who was raped.  Nor do we know how that horrible act relates to the wave of immigrant children venturing to the United States.

What does seem to be clear is that Rep. Bachmann is attempting to link two horrible events with the waves of immigrant children coming into the US, and she’s not using any logic whatsoever to connect the events.  Is she scared that children as young as toddlers, coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, are here to rape college students?  Is she worried their presence will lead to horrible accidents throughout the US?  Has she forgotten that these are children and teens we’re talking about?  Why is she eyeing them with suspicion and uncertainty?   Does she have evidence that these children are a threat to the US? Or is she engaging in xenophobic fear-mongering?  Somehow I don’t think we’re going to get concrete answers.

I wish that Rep. Bachmann would display some empathy and compassion.  In many cases, these children are coming from areas with crushing poverty and extreme violence:

Although there has always been crushing poverty in Central America, violence in the region has escalated in recent years. For example, Honduras has the most murders per capita of any country.

Drug cartels and gangs are at the root of the increased violence. Some of these children are fleeing gang initiations, according to several reports.

Where is her compassion?  Why doesn’t she seem to care that these children are fleeing horrible circumstances?  Does she not care?  Silly questions, I know. We’re talking about Michele Bachmann here of course she doesn’t give a flying fuck about immigrant children.  Maybe if they were a different color

Michele Bachmann says dumb shit…again