Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in same-sex marriage cases that could result in a ruling that makes marriage equality the law of the land. Naturally, wingnuts have already worked themselves into a panic.
- Lawyer and former Antonin Scalia law clerk Gene Schaerr wrote at the Heritage Foundation’s “Daily Signal,” that gay marriage will cause 900,000 more abortions. According to Schaerr, gay marriage “undermines” traditional marriage, leading to lower marriage rates. Lower marriage rates means more unmarried women. Unmarried women have more abortions than married women. Thus, gay marriage leads to more abortions.
- Mike Huckabee drew connections between gay marriage and the ISIS threat. “We’re seeing, certainly at the national level, internally this battle on marriage, but globally what we’re seeing is that there is an assault on the Christian faith in general,” Huckabee said on a conference call about the Supreme Court marriage cases.
- Ignoring right-wing talking points that the biblical definition of marriage has always been one man and one woman, Pat Robertson told his viewers that polygamy was okay during the Old Testament period, because it helped “populate the race,” and saved single and widowed women from poverty. Back on message, Robertson warned “there is no way under heaven” polygamy will remain illegal if same-sex marriage is legalized.
- Radio host Bryan Fischer warned that gay marriage will “turn the Bible into Mein Kampf.”
- Anti-gay pundit Scott Lively warned that the only way to stop gay marriage is an “angry mob” that will take “to the streets with pitchforks and torches held aloft, ready to tear down Frankenstein’s castle with their bare hands if need be.”
- Anti-gay filmmaker Janet Porter warned that gay marriage was responsible for Noah’s flood, and would leave us “uniquely positioned for the return of Christ like no other time in history.”
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The “Do Nothing Congress” Finally Goes To Work
After years of being the most unproductive it’s ever been, the 114th Congress — now with GOP majorities in the House and Senate — is finally getting to work. Here’s some of what the GOP Congress has been up to.
- As one of their first acts, House Republicans voted to give the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans a $269 billion handout by repealing the estate tax, which only applies to about 4,700 households with estates worth $10 million or more.
- House Republicans voted to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $125 billion. Sure, that’s bad news for the 16 million kids in “food insecure” families, but somebody has to pay for that $269 billion tax break for the top 0.2 percent. Right?
- This week, House Republicans advanced a measure to reverse a Washington, DC, law preventing employers from firing workers based on their personal reproductive health choices.
- House Republicans also voted to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, by placing new limits on the agencies writing regulations, and requiring the agency to conduct more analysis and undergo more legal review.
Looney-Tunes Lawmakers
- Wisconsin governor and likely presidential candidate Scott Walker celebrated Earth day by sending layoff notices to 57 employees of Wisconsin’s environmental agency.
- Now that cutting taxes for the wealthy has turned Kansas into a “smoking ruin,” Kansas Republican lawmakers are proposing to make up the state’s $143 million shortfall by increasing sales taxes and excise taxes that would be paid disproportionately by the poor and working class.
- Minnesota’s GOP-controlled House passed a bill that would cut the minimum wage for thousands of restaurant workers who receive tips. The bill creates a “tip penalty” that allows employers to pay employees a lower wage if they make more than $4 an hour in tips.
- Rape victims in Iowa could find themselves sharing parental rights with their rapists. Iowa Republican Rep. Chip Baltimore blocked legislation to prevent convicted rapists from claiming parental rights to children conceived during sexual assaults. Baltimore dismissed the bill as a “feel-good piece of legislation.”
- Tennessee Republican state Rep. Sheila Butt shot down an amendment to an abortion bill that would have created exemptions for rape and incest victims, because “we understand that in most instances this is not verifiable.”
- Republican lawmakers in Washington state blocked a bill to ban abusive “gay conversion” therapy practices, like electric shock and ice baths.
- Hybrid and electric car owners in Idaho will have to pay extra fees. Republican governor Butch Otter signed into law a bill adding an additional $75 registration fee for hybrid car owners, and an additional $140 for electric car owners, to help make up the state’s transportation shortfall.
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Here’s the best of the worst in wingnuttery this week:
- Just in time for the 20th anniversary, conspiracy theorist and Rand Paul supporter Alex Jones told his viewers that the Oklahoma City bombing was a “false flag” designed to embarrass conservatives.
- Potential presidential candidate and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee told Iowa talk radio hose Jan Mickelson that young people should wait until President Obama is out of office to join the military, because of the administration’s “open hostility toward the Christian faith.”
- Uh-oh. Fox News host Chris Wallace wants to put Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, South Carolina) “on the psychiatrist’s couch,” to find out why the 59-year-old lawmaker is a lifelong bachelor.
- Fox news contributor Tammy Bruce compared being transgender to thinking your a cocker spaniel. “At one point when I was a child, I thought I was a cocker spaniel,” Bruce said. So, who really belongs on the psychiatrist’s couch?
- Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow said that Americans are joining ISIS because “Our brand is being diluted, systematically and methodically, by this president.”
- Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy suggest that “Christianity needs to offer a more robust manly, not feminized version of Christianity,” to counter terrorist recruiting in the US.
- Rep. Steve Knight (R, California) warned a constituent who confronted him for voting against amnesty, “If you touch me again, I’ll drop your ass.”
- Responding to a report about efforts to amend the US constitution to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, Pat Robertson told “700 Club” viewers “Hillary Clinton actually wants to restrict the First Amendment right of free speech so that they will protect the political class so that people will be prohibited under the Constitution from criticizing politicians.”
- Clint Eastwood told the audience at the CinemaCon expo in Las Vegas that he didn’t threaten to kill liberal documentarian Michael Moore, but added “It’s not a bad idea.” Maybe Eastwood should stick to talking to empty chairs.
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