Michigan Democratic incumbent Sen. Gary Peters' Republican challenger John James is running on a platform of unity and nonpartisanship, but behind the scenes, he undercuts his own claims by associating with individuals and groups that promote violence.
On Thursday, after the bombshell revelation that the FBI had uncovered a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, James was perfectly politic and nonpartisan in his public response.
He shared a tweet posted by the Republican majority leader of the Michigan state Senate, Mike Shirkey: "A threat against our Governor is a threat against us all. We condemn those who plotted against her and our government. They are not patriots. There is no honor in their actions. They are criminals and traitors, and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
A few hours later, James himself tweeted his own public denunciation of Whitmer's would-be kidnappers: "I took an oath to defend the Constitution and this nation against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC," he wrote. "Those who threatened our State must be prosecuted to the fullest."
But despite his active Twitter feed, James remained mysteriously silent this spring when armed protests took place at the Michigan State House against Whitmer's stay-at-home order amid the coronavirus pandemic.
James did not comment on nationwide news coverage of online personal threats made against Whitmer.
In video footage obtained by the American Independent Foundation from an Aug. 6 GOP meet-and-greet in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at which James spoke, the candidate complains that the country is being run from "the top down" and not "the way it was intended, from the bottom up."
James asks his audience, "Who here is sick of being dictated to?" and is greeted with applause and cheering.
Later, he tells attendees, "Like I said a couple of minutes ago, who here has a beef with some of the things that the governor has been doing in the past couple months?"
The cheers are deafening, and one attendee shouts, "Hell, yeah!"
And for a candidate who recently released a campaign ad proclaiming unity as his core value, James has gotten cozy with some questionable individuals and groups — including some with notable ties to right-wing violence.
In July 2018, during James' first failed Senate campaign, he was publicly endorsed by infamous far-right musician Ted Nugent, who proclaimed James his "blood brother."
Nugent even performed at a James campaign rally that October that was headlined by Donald Trump Jr.
Nugent's endorsements of right-wing violence are well-documented.
"It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist," Nugent said at a concert in August 2007. "Mao Tse-Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up. ... Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun."
At a 2012 NRA convention, Nugent said that if Obama were reelected, Nugent would find himself "either ... dead or in jail by this time next year." At the same event, he compared Obama's administration to coyotes who needed to be shot, and told his audience that they needed to "ride into that battlefield" and "chop (Democrats') heads off in November."
Nugent expressed unreserved support for a group calling itself the Michigan Militia in May 1995, just a few weeks after the group came under scrutiny for a potential connection to the bombing on April 19 of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The right-wing extremist paramilitary organization claims armed citizens must join a militia in order to protect themselves from tyranny and overreaching government agents.
Less than a year before the bombing, former militia head Norman Olsen had proclaimed at a recruitment meeting: "If this country doesn't change, armed conflict is inevitable." Reporting after the building was bombed suggested that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the perpetrators of the attack, might have attended meetings of the group.
"I shoot with these people," Nugent said in defense of the Michigan Militia. "I have been to target practice with them. I find them professional, hard-working people."
In 2014, Nugent became a card-carrying member of an anti-government, pro-gun group, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.
Its leader, radical right-winger Richard Mack, has described his own organization as "the army to set our nation free" and said that the "greatest threat" Americans face is their "own federal government."
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mack also has said that he fantasized about the day a sheriff would be the "first one to fire the next shot around the world and arrest a couple of IRS agents."
Besides his association with Nugent, James also has ties to other questionable groups.
He has been photographed with and is alleged to have received campaign contributions from Ryan Kelley, founder of the American Patriot Council. The group hosted a June 18 rally where members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, some of whom were charged with plotting to kidnap Whitmer, reportedly attempted to recruit new members.
And James raised some eyebrows in August when six or seven members of the far-right Proud Boys turned out in their signature black polos with gold trim, some of which sported "Proud Boys" logos, to volunteer at an event James was headlining.
"John was invited as a guest to an event that was hosted and organized by Republican groups," a James campaign spokesperson said in a statement. "John did not have contact or any knowledge of any hate groups that were in attendance. John was at that event for a short time before attending other campaign events that day."
But Randy Bishop, organizer of the event, hosted by the Antrim County Conservative Union, said he knew the Proud Boys were in attendance as they had bought tickets ahead of time, and confirmed that they did volunteer, hanging banners, serving food, and checking in attendees.
"[The Proud Boys were there to] take care of any problems that should arise if somebody wants to get violent or protest against our rights, they're there to simply defend them," Bishop told Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
How do you change the mind of a right-wing extremist in America today? How do you change the mind of a diehard Trump voter? You don’t. It’s a waste of your time and you have better things to do. We are not going to unite as a country anytime soon after what has happened.
I was raised in the ’80s to be a right-wing extremist like my father. I was sent to an extreme right-wing (John Birch Society) summer camp where I was brainwashed to be a heartless, paranoid conservative, just like my dad. I used to believe that homosexuals, atheists, immigrants, liberals, and anyone who wasn’t white like us, were out to take away our rights as good, god-fearing Americans. When I heard the words humanist, environmentalist, feminist, educated, and equal or civil rights, I’d get irritated, suspicious, and angry.
I was taught that if someone challenged my statements or beliefs, they did so because they were scared or intimidated and afraid of the cold hard truth. I was taught that liberals and Democrats were brainwashed and trained to ignore the truths regarding what was really going on in America. Arguing with a liberal was a complete waste of time, my dad would say. They were too dumb, too brainwashed and there was no way we could change their minds.
Every time someone argued with me about anything, I felt contempt. I felt ridiculed. I felt like they were telling me I was stupid and wrong. I felt they were telling me that my parents and everything I knew to be true was a lie. Just having someone argue with me or having my point of view challenged made me angry, regardless of the facts presented. I was taught not to believe your facts.
If you are wondering how to deal with a member of America’s extreme right, forget it. It’s a waste of your time. In fact, the harder you try to convince right-wingers or Trump voters that Trump is destroying America, the more they’ll support Trump and argue with and belittle you. As much as we all want every American to be mature, compassionate, and to believe only in actual facts, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. They think of us as their enemies. The GOP has been overthrown by the extreme right and they have zero interest in working together to actually keep America great.
It’s taken me over three decades to reject the filth, paranoia, and brainwashing that my dad, the extremist John Birch Society and the National Rifle Association emphasized. Both of my parents hate me for rejecting their nonsense. If I was more like them or Donald Trump, Timothy McVeigh, Ted Cruz, Ted Nugent, or David Duke, they’d be happy. Since I was 17—I’m 48 today—I’ve worked hard to not be anything like my dad. I’ve countered much of the ideology and negativity that was ingrained in me, but it’s been a struggle overcoming the lack of reasonable and honest judgment that was omitted from my upbringing.
I first began writing my thoughts down in 2011, after getting extremely frustrated with both of my parents when visiting with them for family events. I was also freaked during the 2012 presidential election when a few of the candidates started speaking nonsense and hate—things I had heard when I was an impressionable teen. That 2012 election revealed a lot about America when extremism began making the gradual shift from the fringe to the mainstream, and its cause gained a serious amount of traction.
Over time, it became obvious that I was writing a book about the role my parents (specifically my dad) played during my childhood, intentionally or not, in corrupting my life by molding me to be just like them. I shudder to think of what sort of person I would be today had I not escaped the influence of my upbringing. I’ve always known that there was something wrong with my parents. Had I not come to understand this, I’d likely be dead, in prison, or be a right-wing extremist politician.
Hate or Be Hated: How I Survived Right-Wing Extremismis my story of being raised by a paranoid, white-trash hillbilly in the woods of western Washington preparing for the impending communist invasion or overthrow of our country. One hundred percent of all book sale proceeds are going to the ACLU. It’s about how it took 30 years to undo the right-wing brainwashing I endured as a child. It gives a glimpse into what kind of family produces Americans who are primed to believe fake news and put their trust into anyone who seems as angry as they are.
This book is about my personal journey and the way these attitudes directly caused so much suffering in my own life as well as how they are still influencing the choices and decisions being made by a large percentage of people in this country today. It’s about my anger and embarrassment over who I was and how I was raised in an environment that didn’t value empathy, honesty, or caring. I am angry and embarrassed that on some level, I still want my dad to be proud of me.
Only in the past few years have I been able to look back over the life I’ve lived and seriously examine my childhood. I’ve had to come to terms with the thoughts, decisions, and actions that were a direct reflection of what my parents taught me as a young boy. This examination has been stressful and unsettling and has brought to the surface a lot of deep-seated anger which I’ve carried most of my life. I never understood it until recently. No child should experience the paranoia, despair, and isolation that my dad instilled in me. No child should be taught by radical right-wing American extremists that the only options in this life are to “hate or be hated.”
The United States of America has undergone a major upheaval and most people are still struggling to understand what the hell happened. What’s happened is done. The Republicans won and we need to get over that and never quit fighting to save this country. The only issue left at hand is that all of us, the Democratic Party, the progressives, and the true lovers of freedom must unite now or we’re going to be looking at more than just four years of this terrifying situation. We have to work together. All of us. Just like they did.
IMAGE: Supporters of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hold their hands to their chest as the national anthem is played at a campaign rally in Concord, New Hampshire January 18, 2016. REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller took to Twitter on Tuesday to call Hillary Clinton a “cunt.” The tweet was quickly removed, but not before it was retweeted multiple times. Miller initially blamed the message on hackers, then said it was a retweeting oversight.
According toPolitico, Miller was celebrating a new poll that shows Trump ahead in Pennsylvania.
That tweet was scrubbed from Miller’s account soon after it appeared. Miller claimed he’d been the victim of hackers, writing, “@MillerForTexas HAS BEEN HACKED. The disgusting re-tweet has been removed and we have changed all account passwords. Be advised.”
That tweet was then erased as Miller and his staffers decided to go with a more believable story. In twosubsequent tweets, Miller wrote, “The campaign was retweeting information today and inadvertently retweeted a tweet that they were not aware contained a derogatory term. The tweet was taken down as soon as possible. Commissioner Miller finds the term vulgar and offensive and apologizes to anyone who may have seen it.”
That excuse doesn’t really make sense, considering that the original “vulgar” tweet wasn’t a retweet. We know this because Twitter labels retweets, and Miller’s tweet included no such indication. Politico suggests that the tweet, which was manually posted, originated with “pro-Trump, alt-right account, @TheRickyVaughn.” Weirdly, Miller, or one of his staffers, copied the language of the first tweet, left the word “cunt” in there, but added the phrase “Go Trump Go!”
A Politico reporter got Miller on the phone, and he told the media outlet that someone in his office was responsible for the mistake.
“I can assure you I did not post that,” he said. “Maybe the staffers took a screenshot and posted that.”
Which is also funny—though not in a ha-ha way—since Miller recently made a big deal on Twitter about how he writes his own tweets. He also made fun of Hillary Clinton for not doing the same.
“#CrookedHillary needs a dozen people to check her tweets,” Miller tweeted. “My thoughts are my own. Healthy as a bull here. #wikileaks.”
The Texas Tribune notes that Miller “has previously had to answer for a post suggesting the United States nuke the Muslim world, and another comparing Syrian refugees to rattlesnakes.”
IMAGE: Far-right rocker Ted Nugent endorsed Sid Miller for Texas Agriculture Commissioner in a TV ad. Screenshot from Youtube.
Ted Nugent was reelected to the National Rifle Association’s board of directors just weeks after he promoted a fake video of Hillary Clinton being shot and during a year in which he caused a national controversy for promoting anti-Semitic material.
During a May 21 meeting of members at the NRA’s annual meeting in Louisville, KY, NRA election committee chairman Carl T. Rowan announced that Nugent was one of 25 individuals elected to a three-year term on the NRA’s board, terminating in 2019. Nugent received the second most votes:
As a musician and conservative commentator, Nugent is to many the most recognizable member of NRA leadership. He has served on the gun group’s board of directors for more than 20 years. In the group’s 2013 board elections Nugent was second only to Iran-Contra figure Oliver North for most votes in favor of reelection. He frequently mixes his pitches for the NRA with inflammatory commentary, such as when he told people to join the NRA while calling for the “evil carcasses” of President Obama and other progressive politicians.
Nugent is a fixture of the NRA’s annual meeting, delivering talks in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. During his speech at last year’s meeting, Nugent talked about shooting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and called the president “Osama Obama” and offered to charter a boat ride to take Obama “back to Kenya.” At the 2012 meeting, Nugent set in motion a visit with the Secret Service after telling NRA members he would be “dead or in jail” if Obama was reelected as president.
As the NRA annual meeting wraps up tomorrow, Nugent will deliver a talk called “2016 Election Do or Die for America and Freedom.”
Nugent’s 2016 has so far been marked by particularly ugly rhetoric.
In January, Nugent called for Obama and Hillary Clinton to be hanged for treason for their supposed malfeasance during the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks.
Nugent caused widespread controversy in February after sharing an image on his Facebook page that suggested Jews are behind a conspiracy to enact stricter gun laws. After coming under fire from the Anti-Defamation League and other groups, Nugent further claimed that Jewish supporters of gun safety laws are “Nazis in disguise.” As condemnations continued to roll in, even from far-right pro-gun organizations (but not the NRA), Nugent eventually apologized, claiming he did not realize the image he shared that placed Israeli flags next to faces of 12 Jewish American politicians and gun violence prevention advocates had a “connection whatsoever to any religious affiliation.”
In March, Nugent called a critic with a Hispanic name a “beanochimp” and suggested the man should die.
Later that same month, Nugent shared a misogynist chain message about why men supposedly prefer guns over women, which included claims like “guns function normally every day of the month” and “A gun doesn’t mind if you go to sleep after you use it.”
On March 31, Nugent posted a racially derogatory image on his Facebook page that he said was an advertisement for a moving company called “2 niggers and a stolen truck.”
In a May 10 post to his Facebook page, Nugent shared a fake video that showed Hillary Clinton being graphically shot to death by Bernie Sanders. He added his own comment: “I got your guncontrol right here bitch!”
Trump-mania, gun-nuttery, and the world’s scariest reality show. Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the loony, bigoted, and hateful behavior of the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:
5. Lou Dobbs
The Fox Business host, who previously was chased out of CNN for being such an overbearing anti-immigrant conspiracy nut, has turned lately into a full-throated fire-breathing pro-Trump zealot.
Randomly sample a dozen or so of Dobbs’ tweets from the past several months and behold the missives of a man on a holy mission, heedlessly sheering himself of even the most nominal pretenses of objectivity in his quest to herald the coming of The Donald. To take just one example, Dobbs suggested recently that Paul Ryan was unfit to be House Speaker for showing even the slightest reluctance to support Trump as the nominee of his party.
Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity may be smug and persistent in the oily, obsequious manner in which they roll out the carpet for Trump, but nobody matches Dobbs, whose unbridled devotion to the man resembles the frenzied, speaking-in-tongues ardor of someone who has touched the feet of God. (Seriously, just look at some of these.)
You know you’ve reached a low point in the annals of cable news bombast when Bill O’Reilly, of all people, has to be the one to bring you to task. And yet, so it was on the Factor Wednesday night when O’Reilly challenged Dobbs on his blind devotion to Trump and demanded to know if Dobbs was capable of saying anything critical about the candidate.
When Dobbs grumbled and blamed the mainstream media, O’Reilly shot back, “If he’s Jesus, how can you analyze him?”
He concluded, “According to Dobbs, Donald Trump is Jesus… And Jesus never put out his tax returns!”
A board member for one of the most powerful and influential lobbying groups in America has suggesting that the frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president should be shot in cold blood. That’s just kind of where we are right now.
“I got your gun control right here, bitch!” Ted Nugent wrote to Hillary Clinton in a Facebook post published Tuesday, linking to a YouTube video depicting the former secretary of state being gunned down by Bernie Sanders.
Nugent also told his Facebook followers that President Obama “should be tried for treason & hung. Our entire fkdup gvt [sic] must be cleansed asap,” a few short months ago. The man has long been the patron saint of American gun nuts, and of unhinged threats against people in power. Good thing he doesn’t hold any positions of influence — right?
Two weeks after Tennessee passed a controversial law empowering psychologists to refuse service to gay patients under the pretense of “religious liberty,” two conventions in a row canceled their events in the Volunteer State
In protest of a state law they say is an affront to the profession of counseling and the worst legislation the group has tracked in decades, the American Counseling Association has canceled its annual conference scheduled for Nashville next year.
[…] For Nashville the loss of the convention at Music City Center could cost the city more than 3,000 visitors next year, $4 million in combined local and state tax revenue and a local economic impact of up to $10 million.
The American Counseling Association’s CEO said the law was “in clear violation” of the group’s ethics code. He added: “No other state has a law like Tennessee’s.”
Then the Colorado-based Centers for Spiritual Living, which had planned to hold a conference in Nashville, piled on. Its leader told The Tennessean: “There are a lot of LGBTQ people that are involved in the world, period, but (also) in our organization. We did not think in the practice of openness and inclusivity that that law would serve them very well. They felt violated in the action of that, so we chose to take a principled stand. It’s against what we hold to be true and believe. We believe in the equality of all humanity.”
Remember when people were hailing Trump’s hiring of Paul Manafort as an indication that his campaign was going to shift toward becoming more serious? Never mind!
“This is the ultimate reality show,” the campaign manager of the presumptive GOP nominee said. “It’s the presidency of the United States.”
Manafort made the dubious remarks during a Tuesday night appearance on Hardball.
He said that Trump had run “the first modern campaign in the social media era. He understood how to use earned media instead of paid media. Instead of using 30-second spots, he had a dialogue with the American people, both through his access to the media and through his campaign appearances. And he also had a vision of what the American people wanted.”
There was much hand-wringing from the Religious Right when a crass, big city, philandering, secular totem like Trump all but walked off with the GOP nomination. To a purist Christian theocrat, of the sort that rallied behind Ted Cruz, Trump’s record on abortion and LGBT rights is dubious to say the least.
But just as the “establishment” and “moderate” flanks of the party are learning to swallow their poison and get behind the Donald, so too will the religious extremists. This week we got an early indicator of that shift in Troy Newman, an anti-abortion extremist and a weathervane for the sort of feeble about-face we can expect to see from the Religious Right, which is on its way to making a Devil’s bargain with Trump.
Newman articulates his shift in the form of a “pithy” acronym: He supports the Donald because he will Take back the Supreme Court; Remove and Replace [ObamaCare]; Undo! [everything]; Make America Great Again [like the baseball cap sez]; Prosecute Planned Parenthood. (RWW has reposted the acronym in full here.)
That last point may be a curious one to anyone who watched Cruz inundate Trump with criticism for his stated belief that Planned Parenthood has done some “very good work for millions of women.”
But perhaps this is just another reminder that this election shall serve to make feckless hypocrites of everyone on the right who once condemned Trump: from the moderates to the extremes, everyone is getting in line behind Donald.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!Get This Week In Crazy delivered to your inbox every Friday, by signing up for our daily email newsletter.
The Iraq War lies that just won’t die, another bigoted county clerk, an insipid hissy fit from a Glenn Beck acolyte, and Ted Nugent’s remarkable transformation! Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the loony, bigoted, and hateful behavior of the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:
5. Sean Hannity
Some folks learn; other folks, you can’t teach ’em.
Media blowhard-in-chief Sean Hannity must have been trying to boost GOP ascendant candidate John Kasich’s conservative bonafides. When the Ohio governor spoke with the host of the eponymous chatterdome Hannity Wednesday night, they engaged in that regular Fox News past-time of rewriting history and casually smothering facts in a mudslide of smarmy insinuation.
Specifically, they revisited the fantasy of Saddam Hussein’s phantom weapons of mass destruction — a golden calf that Hannity, either disingenuously or betraying a mightily willful ignorance, still worships.
JOHN KASICH: Part of the problem was we got in the middle of a civil war because we thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction–
SEAN HANNITY: I still think he did.
KASICH: Pardon?
HANNITY: I still think he did. I think he got them out in the lead up to the war. And I think he brought them to Syria.
KASICH: Well, you know, maybe he did, but the fact is — you know, look, the fact is that if — well you say he had them, I don’t know. There’s no evidence to say he had them.
Kasich’s sensible nature and apparent grasp of reality served him well in New Hampshire this week. But if he keeps this clinging-to-facts nonsense up, there’s no way he’s going to make it to the convention.
Kim Davis’s little stunt is behind is — and while we may not see many more county clerks willing to spend a night in lockup, that doesn’t mean anti-gay public servants are going to let their bigotry go without a fight. Or in the case of a West Virginia clerk, without reducing some newlyweds to tears by telling them their marriage was an “abomination.”
As originally reported by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Samantha Brookover and Amanda Abramovich went to the Gilmore County Courthouse to make their union official, only to be berated by a deputy clerk named Debbie Allen, who loudly told the couple that God would judge them, even as she was preparing their marriage license.
From the Gazette-Mail:
The clerks don’t dispute that Allen told the couple that what they were doing was wrong and that they would be judged, but they also stressed that they did not view the statement as an “attack.”
“We did not attack them,” Allen said. “We did not yell at them. We were not aggressive with them. I felt I talked nicely to them.”
Brookover and Abramovich, though, say Allen huffed, took their driver’s licenses, made copies, slammed down the copies and then, for two to three minutes, yelled that what they were doing was wrong in her eyes and in God’s eyes and that no one in Gilmer County would ever marry them.
The couple had brought family members. They had the camera ready. It was supposed to be a happy day. Instead, in Brookover’s words, they were “flabbergasted and hurt and angry like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I just told them my opinion,” Allen told the reporter. “I just felt led to do that. I believe God was standing with me and that’s just my religious belief.”
The West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act currently making its way through the state legislature, if signed into law, would presumably allow Mountain Staters to argue that civil rights laws don’t apply to them because of their religion. Until then, it’s good to know that even though Debbie Allen’s “deeply held religious beliefs” are being trampled upon by two gals getting hitched, she was still able to maintain her dignity as a good, practicing Christian.
Heidi Cruz — whose husband came in first in the Iowa Republican caucus despite her reported antipathy for Hawkeyes — has some interesting ideas about hubby Ted’s campaign.
Chatting with a Palmetto radio host Tuesday, the Goldman-Sachs-exec-turned-full-time-prospective-first-lady explained how Cruz was making the charge to the White House in order to “show this country the face of the God that we serve.”
Heidi Cruz told South Carolina radio host Vince Coakley yesterday that even if she were not married to Ted, she’d be trying to work on his campaign because “this country is in crisis and this individual has an incredible talent to bring us out of this crisis.”
This is in a large part, she said, because “this Christian God that we serve is the foundation of our country” and people need to be reminded that “Christians are loving people, are nonjudgmental people, but there is right and wrong, we have a country of law and order, there are consequences to actions and we must all live peaceably in our own faiths under the Constitution.”
Christian rhetoric is a fixture on the campaign trail, of course — recent ads released by Marco Rubio have shown that even robots believe in life everlasting — but the Messianic self-regard coming from the Cruz camp is a bit much even by those standards.
Tomi Lahren, a 23-year-old host on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, was very threatened by Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime performance. That’s because the show, you see, was not kind to “little white girls,” at least according to the jejune little tantrum she threw on her show Wednesday.
“First it was ‘hands up, don’t shoot,’” Lahren lamented. “Then it was burning down buildings and looting drug stores, all the way to #OscarSoWhite. And now, even the Super Bowl halftime show has become a way to politicize and advance the notion that black lives matter more.”
First off, please note the “more,” and put your hands together for a slow clap applauding Lahren’s limp, disingenuous way of dismissing a movement meant to call attention to the senseless deaths of men and women. (See also: “All lives matter.”)
According to Lahren, Beyoncé’s politically-charged performance amounted to the artist “ramrodding an aggressive agenda down our throats, and using fame and entertainment value to do so.” Which is true, especially when you consider that Beyoncé’s Super Bowl half-time performance was the first time an artist has ever used their work to advance a point of view, or used entertainment to reach people’s hearts and perhaps challenge them to confront the ways in which the world has been less than perfectly just and humane.
In fact, her performance, which included references to the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter movement amounted to “ripping off the historical Band-Aid.” Beyoncé chose to “play the victim” rather than “be a cultural leader.” Yes, take another look at Beyoné’s show-stopping number, and be smothered in the noxious vapers of her victimhood.
But shut your mouths, you PC fun police — “This isn’t about equality,” Lahren insists. It’s about how Beyoncé, “like President Obama, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Al Sharpton and so many others just can’t let America heal.” Damn, Beyoncé — how dare you keep telling people that America isn’t perfect?
Lahren thinks America is perfect, Beyoncé. Stop crushing her dreams!
C’mon, Beyoncé — “White people like your music too,” and “Little white girls want to be like you just as much as little black girls do.”
Lahren’s tone-deaf, insipid little hissy fit is worth seeing in all its miserable glory. Video below. Pass the bowl of little white girl tears.
Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP & BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security! Know them well. Tell every1 you know how evil they are. Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!
Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense …
Media Matters noted that the image originally appeared on the white supremacist site Stormfront in 2014. Nugent was widely condemned for sharing the image, and lashed back by accusing any Jews in favor of gun-control of being “nazis [sic] in disguise” and saying that anyone who couldn’t see that was a “racist prejudiced POS.”
Just when you hope that mankind couldnt possibly get any dumber or more dishonest, superFreaks rise to the occasion….
Finally, just for an encore, in his syndicated column published Wednesday, Nugent claimed membership in the African-American experience in a piece entitled “We Blacks: Democrats’ Modern-Day Slaves,” in which he referred to the Democratic party as “modern slave masters” and enjoined readers to “stop the Democrat scam and celebrate real freedom with a focus on our black future.”
Nugent wrote:
The Democratic Party has preyed on black brothers and sisters for too long. What they have done to black America is arguably a crime against humanity. They have essentially killed the dream of the promised land that brother Martin Luther King spoke about, yet the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and others still support the Democratic Party. Simply amazing.
Black power begins with recognizing who our real enemies are and who are friends are. The Democratic Party is nothing more than a pack of wolves festooned in shiny, white sheepskin.
So, just to recap: Nugent espoused white nationalist propaganda and then wrote a piece called “We Blacks.” All in one week.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!Get This Week In Crazy delivered to your inbox every Friday, by signing up for our daily email newsletter.
Of course. It makes perfect sense. Why couldn’t I see it before?
There could never have been a Holocaust had the Jews been armed. Granted, the Nazis swept aside the armies of Poland and France like dandruff, and it took six years for Great Britain — later joined by Russia and the United States — to grind them down. But surely Jewish civilians with revolvers and hunting rifles would have made all the difference.
Much as I’d love to take credit for that insight, I can’t. No, it comes from presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson in a recent interview with CNN. “I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said.
This has become a recurrent theme on the political right, the idea that unarmed victims of violence are to blame for their own troubles. And not just in the Holocaust. Rush Limbaugh said two years ago that if African Americans had been armed, they wouldn’t have needed a Civil Rights Movement. The founder of so-called “Gun Appreciation Day” said, also two years ago, that had the Africans been armed, there could have been no slavery.
It’s so clear to me now. Guns don’t take lives, they save them. Guns make everything better. Carson is a surgeon, not an optometrist, but golly gosh, he’s sure opened my eyes.
As a friend recently observed, what if Trayvon Martin had had a gun? Then he could have killed the “creepy-ass cracker” who was stalking him. Surely, the court would have afforded him the same benefit of the doubt they gave George Zimmerman, right?
And what if the men on Titanic had been armed? That tragedy might have had a happier ending:
LOOKOUT Iceberg dead ahead!
CAPTAIN No time to port around it. Get your guns, men! We’re making ice cubes out of this sucker!
KATE WINSLET Jack, is that a Colt in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
LEONARDO DICAPRIO It’s a Colt, woman. Now, stand aside.
Hey, what if Jesus had been armed?
“Thou wisheth to nail me to what? I think not. Come on, punks. Maketh my day!”
The possibilities are endless. So I’ve taken the liberty of composing a new campaign song for Carson, to the tune of “If I Only Had a Heart” from The Wizard of Oz:
When a man’s an empty holster, no courage does he bolster No confidence is won What a difference he’d be makin’, he could finally stop his quakin’ If he only had a gun
He could stand a little straighter with that ultimate persuader And wouldn’t that be fun? He could put an end to static with a semiautomatic If he only had a gun
Can’t you see, how it would be? Woe would avoid his door The crazy guy would pass him by Or else he’d shoot — and shoot some more
Oh, the shootin’ he’d be doin’, and all the ballyhooin’ The way the folks would run His life would be so merry in a world of open carry If he only had a gun
If you think Carson might like the song, I would not mind at all if you shared it with him: www.bencarson.com/contact.
What’s that? You think I’ve lost my mind? You’re calling me crazy? Boy, that makes me so mad I can hardly control myself!
If I only had a gun…
(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)
