Friday Reads: How Can People be so Heartless (and wrong)
Posted: June 20, 2014 Filed under: morning reads 39 CommentsGood Morning!
Well, I’ve been looking at a lot of things recently but nothing sticks out to me more than the insane ideas that right wingers cling to even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Let’s look at a few today.
This one is really delusional. Mike Huckabee thinks that MLK would think that marriage equality is “like the holocaust”. You’ve got to be kidding me!!! Does he really say these things because he believes them or because he needs to boost the ratings on his show?
“We are under an obligation to obey God and the law, and if necessary, to defy an institution that is out of control,” the former Arkansas governor continued.
To make his point, Huckabee quoted from a letter that Martin Luther King’s Jr. wrote while spending eight days in the Birmingham Jail for fighting to end segregation.
“One may well ask, ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?'” King had written. “The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘An unjust law is no law at all.'”
Huckabee continued reading from King’s letter: “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal.”
“I wish I had penned those words,” Huckabee exclaimed. “But they were penned by someone who understood freedom, and understood that there was a time to stand up against law when it has become unjust. Those are the words that were penned in 1954 by Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from the Birmingham Jail.”
Some one, please explain how this Texas judge decided that the fathers of two babies weren’t the appropriate parents? Two married gay Dads were
denied the right to adopt each other’s biological son born as twins. Here’s the story of their conception and surrogate mother.
No matter, everyone gets a thank-you note with a special image — the same ultrasounds of the “twins” that Hanna posted on Facebook. (“They’re actually half-siblings,” says Riggs. “Two dads, one mom. But we say twins.” “Actually,” Hanna says, “We call them ‘the boys.’”) To him, the images say quite clearly, “This is where your money went.”
Here’s the story of the Texas judge that will tear the brothers apart if one of their fathers accidentally dies before they come of age.
Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs are the proud fathers of Lucas and Ethan, who were born in April, after they’d connected with a surrogate mom, CharLynn.
Each of the men is a biological father to one of the babies. But, because Texas has a ban on gay marriage (it was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge last February, but the decision was stayed pending appeal), and because a judge can use his or her own discretion in these cases, neither of the men is currently on the birth certificates of either of the boys, nor have they been able to co-adopt each other’s biological child.
So, here’s some more craziness. It’s this week’s latest in second amendment overkill. First up, the case of instant karma.
A man in Macon, Georgia accidentally shot himself in the penis while attempting to holster his gun last week.
According to WMAZ Channel 13, the man was parked at a gas station and was attempting to put away the .45 caliber pistol when it discharged, striking him in the groin.
The man immediately drove to a friend’s house. According to police, the victim dropped his pants to find that he had shot himself in the penis and that the bullet had exited his body through the buttocks. As he disrobed, the spent round fell to the floor.
Unfortunately, the next links I have are more tragic.
The father of a newborn is now dead because of stray bullets from his neighbor who was drunk and an ex-felon to boot. This is from Florida, of course.
A musician, teacher and new father is dead after a stray bullet pierced the wall of his Florida home on Tuesday and struck him in the back of the head. The Panama City News Herald reported that 33-year-old Justin Ayers and his wife were welcoming their 3-day-old baby home from the hospital with relatives when Justin was killed.
The bullet came from the house next door, where 62-year-old Charles Edward Shisler picked up a .9 mm pistol by the trigger, causing it to discharge. When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they found Shisler standing on his porch, although he initially was “belligerent” and uncooperative.
“The damn gun doesn’t usually shoot,” said Shisler, according to his arrest report. “You have to squeeze the hell out of the trigger to shoot it.”
The man accused of shooting two law enforcement members in California, including a Bureau of Land Management ranger, has had at least one previous run-in with law enforcement and has described himself as the target of a massive government conspiracy.
Brent Douglas Cole, 60, was named by the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office on Monday as the suspect in Saturday’s shooting that also left him wounded.
Anna Ferguson, assistant district attorney for Nevada County, confirmed to TPM that Cole was also facing misdemeanor charges in Nevada County Superior Court for allegedly carrying a loaded firearm. He was charged on Jan. 26.
The Union newspaper in Grass Valley, Calif., published an article that quoted from court documents in the case. The documents showed Cole believed he was the target of a massive conspiracy…
It seems like every day, these folks just get crazier and crazier. It’s not even the little nut jobs in the rural south or the rural west. We often wonder if it’s truly mental illness or some really mad folks being whipped into a frenzy by the likes of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. What do mental health professionals say about the connection between massing shootings and mental illness? This is a MOJO interview with “Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, and one of the leading researchers on mental health and violence.”
In the face of it, a mass shooting is the product of a disordered mental process. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist: what normal person would go out and shoot a bunch of strangers?
But the risk factors for a mass shooting are shared by a lot of people who aren’t going to do it. If you paint the picture of a young, isolated, delusional young man—that probably describes thousands of other young men.
A 2001 study looked specifically at 34 adolescent mass murderers, all male. 70 percent were described as a loner. 61.5 percent had problems with substance abuse. 48 percent had preoccupations with weapons. 43.5 percent had been victims of bullying. Only 23 percent had a documented psychiatric history of any kind—which means 3 out of 4 did not.
People with serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, do have a slightly higher risk of committing violence than members of the general population. Yet most violence is not attributable to mental illness. Can you walk us through the numbers?
People with serious mental illness are 3 to 4 times more likely to be violent than those who aren’t. But the vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent and never will be.
Most violence in society is caused by other things.
Even if we had a perfect mental health care system, that is not going to solve our gun violence problem. If we were able to magically cure schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, that would be wonderful, but overall violence would go down by only about 4 percent.
Amanda Marcotte believes there are five issues where the wing nuts are getting wing nuttier by the minute. They are immigration, sexual violence, 
Gay rights, Domestic violence, and bare minimum standards of politeness. Let me quote from her example of sexual violence.
In the past four decades, relentless feminist campaigning on the issue of sexual abuse and rape has created some amount of consensus about what rape is and what it isn’t. Until recently, even the most belligerent rape apologist had to admit that “date rape” is a thing that actually happens in the real world and that no really does mean no. Sure, anti-feminists still try to deny the extent of date rape and argue that consent is more confusing than it actually is, but even they had to admit that clear-cut cases of non-consent amount to rape.
But ever since Obama started a White House task force to combat campus rape, suddenly we’re back in the ’80s again, with conservatives trying to argue that women can literally be forced to have sex against their will and this somehow doesn’t count as rape. In a recent Washington Post column, George Will accused women of making up rape to gain the “coveted status” of “victimhood”. His evidence? A story of a woman who said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you,” to her alleged assailant. But no apparently doesn’t mean no to Will, not if the victim knows her attacker and/or she doesn’t fight him off with violence. Similarly, both A.J. Delgado of the National Review and Stu Burguiere of The Blaze argued recently that because consensual sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol happens, all non-consensual sex under the influence should not be considered rape.
Let me just end this foray with a shout out to the St Louis Dispatch that dropped George Will over his comments on the “coveted status” of rape victims on campus.
The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch announced today that it has dropped conservative columnist George Will’s column from the paper, citing a recent piece in which Will asserted that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoyed “coveted status.”
In the controversial column which drew a letter of reproach from four U.S. Senators, Will wrote that college administrators are being “educated by Washington.” Will wrote, “they are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous” they are promoting the idea that victimhood is “a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.”
In a letter to readers, the Post-Dispatch apologized for running the offending column, calling it “offensive and inaccurate.”
Here’s a great “Bizzaro world” example of a Republican on Sexual Assault and Abortion and a little nutso ideas on GLBT too.
Republican Maine state Representative Lawrence Lockman is under fire for comments he’s made in the media regarding rape, abortion, and homosexuality.
An investigation by Mike Tipping, an activist with Maine People’s Alliance, found numerous offensive comments made by the Republican in various newspaper interviews.
Perhaps the most inflammatory was a press statement from 1995 in which Lockman says “If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”
That wasn’t all.
According to the report, Lockman once implied that the HIV virus can be spread through mosquitoes and bed sheets. Lockman also asserted that liberals helped exacerbate the AIDS epidemic by assuring “the public that the practice of sodomy is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted and depraved crime against humanity.”
In a letter to Bangor News, Lockman once wrote “Clearly the practice of sodomy is learned behavior, and those addicted to this form of biologically-insane sex are at high risk for all manner of serious medical problems.”
Lockman also spoke out against HIV infected students attending school, saying “It’s peculiar that the government is telling health care workers that surfaces contaminated with bodily fluids should be thoroughly disinfected, but at the same time they are telling us that toilet seats have some magical property that they are able to resist viruses.”
He also tried to alert people to a “secret gay affirmative action plan,” saying “You can bet the rent money they will demand that employers set up goals and timetables to achieve 10 percent homosexual representation in the workforce and in government contracts.”
How do people with such poorly wired brains wind up in positions of authority?
I’m still at a loss as to why there seems to be a perfect storm these days in which the wingiest and nuttiest of the right wing seem to have risen to the top of the septic tank. I have decided it has something to do with our president’s racial heritage, the right wing media being so outrageous and so available, and the funding provided by complete idiots like the Koch Brothers. There is, of course, the total take over of the Republican party by religious extremists, libertarians, and corporate lobbyists. I really can’t decide if we should rejoice in the fact that demographics will soon put an end to this or hunker down because it’s going to continue to get bad in the short run.
So, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Thanks for the good read this morning Dak. As for George Will, I don’t know how that old relic stays employed. He’s been spouting BS and calling it valid opinion for decades. He used his position on ABC Sunday talk to propagate the lie of Obamacare “death panels”. It seems to me that you can’t be a member of the GOP unless you’re also a committed LIAR.
And to knock down Mike Huckabee’s assertion that MLK would have opposed same-sex marriage Here are a few quotes from Coretta Scott King, a woman who actually knew and loved MLK and dedicated her life to carry on his legacy.
Source: Reuters, March 31, 1998.
Coretta Scott King,
“I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice,” she said. “But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'” “I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people,”
Source: Chicago Sun Times, April 1, 1998,
“We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be,” she said, quoting her husband. “I’ve always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy,
Source: Chicago Defender, April 1, 1998, front page
“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood,” King stated. “This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group.”
Thank you, Mouse. I’m so sick and tired of right wingers invoking MLK’s name in defense of their evil agendas. I’m damn sure that Huckabee would have been one of the first to go along with Hitler’s extermination of the Jews–has he actually forgotten that Hitler also tried to exterminate homosexuals, gypsies, and even Catholics?
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0033.html
Mike Huckabee is such an ignorant oaf. One of the earliest symbols of the Gay rights movement was the pink triangle. The triangle was the symbol the SS put on gay men at imprisonment. Lesbians were also imprisoned but not at the rate of gay men. Gay men were actively sought out, rounded up, imprisoned in death camps, tortured and used for Nazi scientific experiments.
MIke Huckabee, you need to educate yourself, then Shut the Fuck Up you dimwitted fool.
They evoke all kinds of craziness from historical figures that would be enraged at the misrepresentation. All of the founding fathers would have a hissy fit! I think even dim old Ronald Reagan would laugh at what they say about him.
I was so sick about it today that I could not bear to look at the news today, much less get online. Your post was a 1 Dak…
I am so sick of listening to the insanity being treated as if it had a valid place in a debate that I have “tuned out” pretty much. You can only listen to the psycho babble for so long before your head begins to implode from the weight.
Listening to elected officials deny climate change while chanting the bible, or trying to follow the illogic of those “speaking on behalf” of women’s issues when they don’t have a clue what they are saying, coupled with “this is a Christian nation” bequeathed to us by god is enough to send me round the bend.
Then throw in the real criminals like Chris Christie and Scott Walker for good measure and I am unable to understand why anyone with a live brain cell can possible support this backwards party come election time. Yet they do. Why is that?
Rick Perry is considering throwing his pointed hat into the ring and has publicly declared that homosexuality is no different than alcoholism. This from a man who is unable to count beyond the number two!
No wonder I keep Amazon in business! There is no way to “debate” insanity and those who openly practice it.
Then, there’s Bobby Jindal who either lies or is completely maniacally delusional.
Oddly, Brent Douglas Cole sounds quite a bit like Glenn Greenwald in his logic about the government. In one case the issue is guns and the other it’s privacy, but the one-track thinking is the same.
Greenwald:
Cole:
In each case, no supporting evidence is offered.
That is a nicely telling pair of quotes, BB. They are both paranoid.
50 years ago tomorrow, 21 Jun 1964, in Philadelphia, Neshoba Co. Ms. Three civil right workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Earl Chaney were murdered by the so called good Christians of the community, and of the KKK. In Honor of the three who were slain by white Christians, we will never forget.
We will never forget!!!!!
Coretta Scott King
Source: Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1998, sec.2, p.4.
“For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people,” King said at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund…. “Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement,” she said. “Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.”
Thank you for remembering, Fannie.
Some additional historical background: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were part of the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 ( known as “Freedom Summer” ). The Project’s orientation took place at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. Early on the morning of June 20th, 1964, Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney left Oxford, Ohio for Mississippi, where they were brutally murdered the following day.
Some of the photographs in the video above were taken at Western College. The College ( now part of Miami University of Ohio ) has an archive and memorial devoted to “Freedom Summer”. My mother was a teacher at Western.
http://westernarchives.lib.miamioh.edu/freedomsummer/conference/history/
Thank you Fannie and Beata. Beata — Your mother must have been a wonderful teacher.
Michael Schwerner, also from NY, had been in Meridian, Lauderdale Co. Ms. living with his wife Rita, 6 months prior to his death. James Chaney was born/raised in Meridian, Lauderdale Co. Ms.
On the 16 Jun, the night riders struck the Mt. Zion Methodist Church, in Philadelphia, Ms. There had been a meeting, and they attacked several men, and then burned Mt. Zion to the ground. Andrew Goodman had arrived the day before he was murdered. He was the first of couple of thousand who were going to be arriving in order to organize and set up the freedom school at Mt. Zion.
On the 21 they drove from Meridian, to Philadelphia to investigate and check out the Mt. Zion Church Burning……….They were spotted, and the Sheriff’s department was notified, and planning was put into motion to get rid of them, and killing them.
Did you see Rachel Maddow’s show last night? She had a long segment on how James Chaney’s gravestone has been stolen or damaged again and again over the years. There are still so many racists among us. It’s a learned behavior, and so many parents–and authority figures like Huckabee–are helping to pass the hatred on, generation after generation.
BB you can’t pick who your family will be. If I could wish away my ancestry, wouldn’t be much left to tell. The Christians will tell you that America was founded by them. That this land is there land. When we know darn well that many of them hated and killed native Americans. And when they did so, like during a big massacre, they were given medals and awards for doing so. Just like those who burned the witches in Massachusetts. For some bizarre reasons the Christians doing the killing were always rewarded in some way. It has a lot to do with family customs, and what was handed down from one generation to the other, and alot to do with economics and money, and education.
The greatest effect on my folks was the civil war. It was a rich man’s war, and the poor man’s fight. The tensions from 50 years ago seem to be escalating, in all aspects of our lives.
That’s why I fight for Madeline Taylor, the Vietnam Veteran who has been denied the right to be buried with her spouse at the Idaho Veteran’s Cemetery. In the south, family cemeteries will not allow Union Soldiers to be buried alongside the Confederate soldiers. They will shun those who don’t believe the way they do.
There are laws against destroying headstones, but it’s never enforced unless it’s somebody buried a black person, in the white family’s cemetery. Then the sheriff does something about it.
My mother’s lineage connects to these families. I’ve tried to protect her for many years, she’s gone now. She was the backbone of my family, my rock. She had the key that unlocked many hidden stories, some she blocked out for years. She learned from her ancestors, from the little church, the little school house, her environment. Some of the learning could never be undone. It was the way of life, and everyday living that shaped who she was. And so it is today with us.
On the 50th year, here comes this disgusting man, the former wizard of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, who gets up on the Imperial Fox News Pedestal and moans and groans about the democratic women of this country, having uncontrollable libidos. Here he is pitting MLK against the Gay Rights, and using Nazism. When it was his Christian brothers, Sam Halloway Bowers, and Rev. Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen, along with the Cecil Price, and Lawrence Rainey, outstanding members of the Baptist Church, and the KKK, who were killing civil rights workers, who were burning the black churches, who were funding political groups, like the National State’s Right Party. Gathering plates full of money from attorney’s, from the doctors, and from the KKK, to continue their brand of terrorism. There goals were pretty much the same as Huckabee’s own home grown republican terrorist. Who refuse to food stamps to the poor, who would rather see hospitals close their doors to the poor, than help our President with the ACA coverage. Would rather kill Medicaid than give poor and working class access to health care. Pretty much like 1963, Mississippi, where a black person couldn’t enter into a white man
(the good Christians) hospitals. And the same goes for educations. If a woman was caught talking to black man, or looking him in the eyes, she was degraded as a slut, who couldn’t control her libido. Then they beat the shit out her.
Prior to this time not one white Christian was ever successfully convicted of civil rights violation. The threatened, they assaulted, they shot and killed many a black man/woman/child, and it took years before Rev. Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen was finally convicted after 35 years of freedom. And the community of good Christians looking the other way. Knowing damn well his involvement. It took years for Sam Halloway Bowers to be brought to justice.
We learned last week that Chris McDaniel of Laurel, Jones Co. Ms. (just a hop and skip away from Neshoba Co. Ms.) received monies from Carl Ford, who was the attorney for Sam Bowers, and we see yet another good Christian, and see what he stands for, the KKK, and disrespecting a disabled woman who is hospitalized, and yet they look the other way. And regarding the color of law, they refuse continue to deprive and refuse women, and gays their constitutional rights.
Martin Luther King is the real deal, Mike Huckabee should never align himself with such a great man of honor, on this 50 anniversary of our friends who were killed trying to help people to vote.
Bigots like Huckabee need to go home, they have no good words, or deeds.
I think it is important to remember that Christians played an important role in the fight for civil rights as well. Many Christians were motivated to join the civil rights movement because of their religious faith. My father was one of them. After he left the seminary, where he was studying for the priesthood, he worked to organize voting drives in black churches across several states. I remember black ministers who were friends of my parents coming to stay at our house when I was little. It was unheard of, even in the liberal town where I came from, for blacks to stay overnight at the house of a white person. But my parents believed in equality for all, and that belief came in large part because of their Christian faith.
It’s amazing to me how two radically different interpretations can come from the same material. People pick and choose what they want to frame their life choices.
I once asked my boyfriend’s physicist father if understanding quarks would ever help us to understand human nature. He said no, that human beings are far too complicated. Quarks are easy to understand in comparison.
I knew Catholic religious sisters (nuns) who protested against the US providing military aid to the right-wing juntas in S America, were arrested and served prison terms for trespassing on military grounds to protest, and who employed a gay man as one of their office staff. They also told some very funny — and pointed — jokes about the Pope.
I know a Catholic who practices in a community clinic, provides care to homeless teens, and prescribes birth control along with other appropriate meds to girls and women regardless of marital status.
Then again I have relatives who can read “do unto others” in their bible, and live the complete opposite.
I wonder what makes the difference. Is it the personality, the upbringing (surely not, so many of us have escaped from harsh, god-as-bringer-of-retribution upbringings), the intelligence (or lack thereof)?
That’s very true, Beata. Christianity has been greatly damaged by people who claim to be Christians but are really (I’m sorry if this sounds crazy) truly evil people who have been warped somehow by ugly beliefs and hatreds taught by evil people like Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, Jerry Falwell.
Both. I just wish the demographic change would hurry up.
Huh, I read this article about 15 min ago — when I went back to get an excerpt and link to it, they’d slashed out all the interesting parts. The description of Kwolek being a woman chemist at a time when chemists, especially in industry, were overwhelmingly male. Also how she loved speaking to girls and women about how interesting chemistry and science was, and encouraged them.
Kevlar is also extremely useful in some canoeing, kayaking and climbing gear. I never knew before that it was invented by woman.
More ways they think that women’s bodies belong to the state.
Another wall crumbling …
That’s wonderful! I was raised Presbyterian.
Surprise, surprise /s
http://seattletimes.com/text/2023880023.html
The prosecutors really think they have a strong case against him. That and Chris Christie is about to bite it too. Jindal’s three top fraud investors just got arrested for fraud too down here. WTF are these folks thinking?
This is a really good post and I’ve really like the links in the comments as well. Thanks so much.
In World Cup news, Costa Rica made me very happy by eliminating Italy and advancing to the Group of 16. The Ticos are for real.
Ralph,
When does the U.S. play again?
Sunday at 5:00 pm Central time against Portugal.
Thanks!
that was a great game. some great futbol played today.
Yes Ralph, I was thinking the same thing.