This week Rep. Paul Ryan took the cake. After debuting his embarrassing copy-and-paste job on the war on poverty last week, only to get his knuckles rapped by the very scholars whose work he cribbed, Ryan outdid himself with a clumsy bit of dog whistle politics blaming black “inner city culture” for poverty.
This isn’t the first time Ryan has choked on his dog whistle. On the campaign trail he told a reporter that the solution to America’s “crime problem” was to go into inner cities and “teach people good discipline, good character. Later, he blamed “urban voters” for the GOP’s loss in 2012.
Here’s the rest of the worst from the right wing this week:
- Michele Bachmann told CPAC attendees that theirs is, “at its core an intellectual movement."
- During a private gathering of conservative bloggers and media, across the street from CPAC, Ann Coulter compared changing U.S. demographics to “being raped.”
- Coulter also threatened Republicans who support immigration reform with “death squads."
- Fox News host Stuart Varney was outraged that states are continuing to feed the poor, despite cuts to food stamps.
- Varney also criticized Obama’s move to make more Americans eligible for overtime pay, suggesting that overtime pay would make employees “greedy," and that President Obama was "buying votes" buy pushing for overtime pay.
- Fox’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck was concerned that it was “inappropriate for the president to be advertising a law” — one that he worked to pass and is his job to enforce — in his “Between Two Ferns” interview with Zach Galifianakis. Maybe Hasselbeck was upset because it worked. Healthcare.Gov saw a 40% increase in traffic after Obama's interview with Galifianakis.
- Bill O'Reilly said that President Obama shouldn't have done the Galifianakis interview, because "Putin is watching" and might think Obama is a "lightweight." O'Reilly also said that Abraham Lincoln would never have sullied the "majesty" of his office with jokes. O'Reilly must not be aware of old Abe's love of jokes — especially fart jokes.
- In a WorldNet Daily column, far-right minister Scott Lively — who has praised Russia’s “gay propaganda" law, and played a key role in crafting Uganda's anti-gay law — said that the Ukraine conflict is being driven by " conflict between the U.S. and Russia" over "the question of homosexuality."
- Also writing in WorldNet Daily, Erik Rush claimed that President Obama is backing a "Nazi Regime" in the Ukraine to "touch off World War II" and bring about "the destruction of the entire American system."
- Fox News contributor Ben Carson told Breitbart TV that America is "very much like Nazi Germany," "because of the PC police.”Carson also told the Family Research Council's "Washington Watch" that Americans are losing their first amendment rights to denounce homosexuality, after Carson himself denounced gay rights with no consequences at last weekend's CPAC conference.
- Pat Robertson said the God caused a blackout on Washington, DC as a “fun way" to punish Democratic Senators for their climate change talkathon.