Republicans’ latest awesome idea: have the IRS audit rape victims

ThinkProgress: House Republicans are currently advancing the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, a measure that would impose sweeping restrictions on abortion coverage that could make the procedure less affordable for Americans across the country. In addition to preventing low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to access abortion, HR 7 could also have dramatic implications for the tax code and the private insurance market. One of its most controversial provisions could actually require the Internal Revenue Service to conduct audits of rape victims.

Why? Because HR 7 eliminates medical-expense deductions for abortion care, essentially raising taxes on the women who opt to have an abortion. Like many abortion restrictions, this provision includes an exemption for victims of rape and incest, as well as women who encounter life-threatening complications from their pregnancies. But in order to enforce those exceptions, the IRS would have to verify that the women who are claiming a medical-expense deduction for an abortion fall into one of those three categories, to ensure they’re not committing tax fraud.

Essentially, that would empower the government agency to have the final say over what “count” as a sexual assault or a life-threatening situation. And that, in turn, would force victims to prove their case.

So if you have an abortion after a rape, you have to move heaven and earth to prove that you really were raped — including sitting through an IRS audit, which Republicans have basically argued is the worst thing ever.. But if you shoot someone on the street, you just have to say you were “standing your ground” and you don’t have to prove jack (although it helps if the bullet recipient isn’t white).

I’m not sure which is more disturbing, Republicans’ sick fascination with firearms or their sick fascination with rape. Either way, a lot of Republicans are seriously unhealthy people.

White supremacist learns of his African ancestry

Raw Story: A white supremacist who’s trying to set up a racist enclave in North Dakota received a shock during the taping of an upcoming daytime talk show.

Craig Cobb submitted to a DNA test as part of an ongoing Race in America series on the syndicated “Trisha Show,” and host Trisha Goddard delivered some surprising test results to the 62-year-old hate crimes fugitive from Canada in an episode that will air Nov. 18.

As her studio audience laughed with delight, Goddard, who is black, told Cobb that test results revealed his genetic ancestry was 86 European and 14 percent sub-Saharan African.

Cobb — predictably — denied accepted science and explained away the result as “statistical noise.” “I’ll tell you this,” he said. “Oil and water don’t mix.” For the record, 14% is way outside the range of statistical noise — Cobb’s oil definitely mixed with someone’s water.

Of course, the idea of racial purity has always been a complete fantasy — especially for people of European ancestry. Centuries of conquest and empire and slavery guarantee plenty of “race mixing.” It is simply inevitable. It’s as ridiculous to assume that your family is decended entirely from people occupying one tiny area on a map as it is to assume that your language is “pure” and without any influence from other languages.

The truth, which nutjobs like Cobb undoubtedly find nightmarish, is that if you’re interested in preventing “race mixing,” you’d better invent a damned time machine and head back to some point in prehistory. It is now far, far too late to do it any other way.

Sanford residents will be disappointed to learn they can no longer shoot unarmed teenagers

[click image for link to story]

Bonus: this is the relaunch of the neighborhood watch program that Sanford police chief Cecil Smith ordered shut down in April, citing “no accountability” and no training of watch members. Oddly, there’s no mention of any accompanying crime wave, as an army of Skittles-mad Trayvon Martin-types rushed in to take advantage of the absence of vigilant sentries.

It seems that the neighborhood watch program doesn’t actually accomplish much of anything — other than to make unstable wannabe cops feel important. Sanford sailed along fine without them for months on end.

Poll: GOP approvals in a nosedive

Greg Sargent: A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that disapproval of the GOP’s handling of the budget has jumped to 70 percent. Meanwhile, approval of Obama’s handling of it has ticked modestly upwards.

Only 24 percent of Americans approve of the GOP’s handling of the budget, after a week of battling over the shutdown. Only 23 percent of independents approve, versus 73 percent who disapprove. Among moderates, those numbers are 22-73. That’s nearly three fourths of independents and moderates disapproving. (While independents disapprove of Obama’s handling of it, the numbers are far less lopsided; moderates overall approve of his handling.)

But what’s even more striking is the degree to which even Republicans are divided over the GOP’s handling of all of this, with approval being largely concentrated among conservative Republicans.

Meanwhile, wingnut pundit Erick Erickson, who resides in a private island somewhere far off the shores of reality, tells the faithful at RedState.com, “Republicans are winning the shutdown fight, and Democrats know it.”

Yeah, if they were winning by any more it might actually kill them.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Romney supporter took war with reality to a whole new level

Buzzfeed: One trader lost at least $4 million betting on former presidential candidate Mitt Romney through Intrade, possibly to make it appear he was faring better against President Barack Obama in the waning days and hours of the 2012 election than he was.

That’s what a new study by Microsoft Research’s David Rothschild and Columbia University’s Rajiv Sethi suggests. The study, published earlier this month, analyzed Intrade transaction level data over the course of the final two weeks of the election cycle.

[…]

Rothschild and Sethi found that a single trader accounted for one-third of all bets made on Romney during the two week period of the study, which saw about 3.5 million contracts traded. The total election cycle had 7.6 million contracts traded.

The trader bet solely on Romney and constantly sold on Obama, losing about $4 million in the process.

I’ve been thinking off and on about how conservatives often confuse cause and effect. Most recently, the example that’s come up most often has been the argument that violent video games cause mass shootings. But wouldn’t the sort of person who’d commit that sort of crime be attracted to violent video games in the same way that someone who likes boobs enjoys porn? If video games were responsible for crime, there’d be one helluva lot more murderous loons out there shooting up crowds of people. It’s like saying chess is responsible for war.

But this… this is a whole ‘nother ballgame. This is magical thinking. The problem with doing this is the same problem you have with putting out deliberately biased polling; you can’t lie to people about what they think. People knew who they were going to vote for. If you tell them otherwise, how can you expect them to believe you? Polls do influence polls, but this is just some form of sympathetic magic.

I’m at a loss. All I can say is that Mr. Mystery here is probably someone who blew a chunk of their inheritance — because it’s so freakin’ obvious that they weren’t smart enough to earn that kind of money themselves.

Because the GOP base only responds to ridiculous BS now…

The Hill: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a key architect of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, warned Tuesday that President Obama could use an executive order to legalize millions of illegal immigrants if Congress does not act on the issue.

“I believe that this president tempted, will be tempted, if nothing happens in Congress, to issue an executive order as he did for the Dream Act kids a year ago, where he basically legalizes 11 million people by the sign of a pen,” Rubio told WFLA’s “The Morning Show with Preston Scott.”

"Now we won’t get any E-Verify, we won’t get any border security, but he’ll legalize them," he added.

So, how do you get Republicans on board with immigration reform? Sell them an insane conspiracy theory. That’s what they’re used to and that’s what they like.

"What’s particularly interesting here is that Rubio doesn’t think it’s enough to point out that the current situation is untenable," notes Greg Sargent. "According to GOP pollster Whit Ayres, even Republican primary voters, once they engage on the issue, agree that the current situation amounts to de facto ‘amnesty’ for the 11 million, and want to do something about it. But merely proposing to solve an existing problem won’t do it; Rubio thinks he needs to make inaction appear far more frightening to Republicans by also invoking Obama’s evil intentions, i.e., his secret desire to grant citizenship to them without securing the border.

"Here you have the makings of a way out of the GOP predicament. Republicans can embrace comprehensive reform as a way of frustrating Obama’s secret designs."

But how badly has the Republican Party and their press shop at Fox News and talk radio screwed up the heads of GOP voters? They won’t listen to reason anymore, so you have to cook up some insane and panic-inducing fairy tale about grand conspiracies and scary brown people taking over America.

I wonder when Republicans will realize they’ve taken propagandizing way too far?

Maybe it’s too late for that realization to make any difference. Maybe they already known they’ve twisted the minds of millions beyond any hope of rationality and, as Rubio’s finding out, the only way to lead them anymore is to play along with the paranoid madness the party has instilled in them.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Insurer won’t cover Kansas schools that allow guns

Talking Points Memo: An insurance company based in Iowa has refused to renew coverage for Kansas schools that permit teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms on campus, the Des Moines Register reported on Sunday.

EMC Insurance Cos. made the decision after Kansas enacted a new law to allow the concealed guns on campus. The company told the newspaper the decision was based on financial policy, not politics. The company reportedly covers 85 to 90 percent of Kansas school districts.

"We’ve been writing school business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers,” Mick Lovell, EMC’s vice president for business development, told the Des Moines Register. “Our guidelines have not recently changed.”

It strikes me that insurance companies often find themselves on the opposite side of issues from supposedly “business-friendly" Republicans. Insurerers are raising the alarm about climate change, for example. There’s a reason for that: insurers make their money by accurately assessing reality. “Insurance is heavily dependent on scientific thought," Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, told the New York Times recently. “It is not as amenable to politicized scientific thought." So if something is a really stupid idea — like, say, encouraging people to carry loaded guns in schools — it’s not going to be real popular with the insurance industry. In this case, the science is simple math — every time someone is exposed to a loaded gun, their odds of being injured or killed go up, not down.

And EMC’s stance seems to be having an effect. Despite a new law allowing concealed weapons in schools, no Kansas school district has adopted a concealed-carry policy. It’s one thing to pass these idiotic laws, but it’s another to get them to actually work in the real world.

[image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com]

Political obits for Bachmann seem to all boil down to two points

1. She’s a crazy person.
2. She’s a bullshit artist.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Rightwing nutjob Frank Gaffney apparently not clear on how homosexuality works

Right Wing Watch: Frank Gaffney today made the case on Sandy Rios in the Morning that the increase in the sexual assault rate in the Armed Forces is President Obama’ fault because of his efforts to encourage women and gay people to serve.

After arguing that Obama has “savaged” the military with “vigor and lethality,” he linked Obama’s “sexual experimentation” and “social warfare against the military” to cases of sexual violence: “We’re hearing a lot about sexual assaults in the military and the like, it’s not to defend that by any means but it is to say if anybody is surprised that by putting more women and for that matter homosexuals into the military you are not going to get as a result that kind of unacceptable behavior is fatuous, it’s irresponsible, it’s malfeasance.”

So you see, if you you stick a lot of gay guys and a bunch of ladies in together, of course you’re going to get a lot of rape… Because Frank Gaffney apparently has no idea what homosexuality actually is.

[photo via World O’ Crap]

Arkansas Republican offers insanely unconstitutional amendment to Iran bill

Huffington Post: Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday offered legislative language that would “automatically” punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

The provision was introduced as an amendment to the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013, which lays out strong penalties for people who violate human rights, engage in censorship, or commit other abuses associated with the Iranian government.

Cotton also seeks to punish any family member of those people, “to include a spouse and any relative to the third degree,” including, “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids,” Cotton said.

“There would be no investigation,” Cotton said during Wednesday’s markup hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “If the prime malefactor of the family is identified as on the list for sanctions, then everyone within their family would automatically come within the sanctions regime as well. It’d be very hard to demonstrate and investigate to conclusive proof.”

“An amendment is being offered literally to allow the sins of the uncles to descend on the nephews,” Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said. “The amendment that’s being offered doesn’t even indicate a requirement of knowing violation. … I really question the constitutionality of a provision that punishes nephews for the sins of the uncles.”

The article goes on to point out that this sort of thing is specifically banned by the Constitution as a “corruption of blood” law, which would punish people for the acts of treason of their family members. Cotton defended his amendment for a brief time, then withdrew his despotic proposal when it became clear that it was just too insane for anyone else to support.

Liz Cheney can sleep a little easier tonight.

[image via Wikimedia Commons]

What makes a conspiracy theory too goofy even for the NRA?

Talking Points Memo: Republican lawmakers are pushing legislation aimed at combating a threat to gun rights that even the National Rifle Association has described as pure fiction.

A bill introduced late last week by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) would ban federal agencies, excluding the Pentagon, from buying more ammunition during a six-month period if it currently possesses more than its monthly averages during the Bush administration.

The conspiracy theory that incubated the bill is that the Obama administration is trying to buy up bullets so ordinary Americans have less access to them in the marketplace.

“President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Inhofe said in a statement. “One way the Obama Administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.”

Only it’s false — as no less a pro-gun organization than the NRA declared last year.

Last fall, the NRA issued a statement saying the claim was being pushed in an “Internet rumor mill” and was designed to “stir up fear.” The “more incendiary authors,” the group said, “suggest that these government agencies are preparing for a war with the American people.”

Wait a minute, this should be right up the NRA’s alley; government conspiracy, stockpiling ammo, a big coming something or other requiring some Second Amendment Heroes standing up to a suddenly oppressive government… This thing’s got NRA crackpottery written all over it.

Except for one thing: the NRA doesn’t represent gun owners and it doesn’t protect anyone’s rights. It exists for one reason: to sell guns and ammo. If federal agencies were suddenly buying a whole bunch more ammo, the reaction at NRA headquarters wouldn’t be “OMG THE END IS NEAR!” The reaction would be to pop the champagne cork. If the background check vote proved anything, it’s that the NRA does not care where firearms manufacturers’ profits come from — police, criminal, or in between.

Unfortunately for the NRA, they’re right and the whole story is bullshit. But they never climbed on this myth’s bandwagon because they don’t want to encourage people in thinking that it would be wrong for the government to suddenly and drastically increase their consumption of ammunition. An increase in sales is an increase in sales — and that’s what the NRA is all about.

Boston man chews out stooge from Alex Jones’ InfoWars

[h/t Raw Story]

Christian extremist openly celebrates rape

ThinkProgress: A University of Arizona student sparked outrage on Tuesday for preaching against women while holding a sign proclaiming, “You deserve rape.”

Dean Saxton, a junior, is notorious for giving inflammatory sermons in the middle of campus. This time, he argued that women are responsible for their rapes because of the way they dress and act. Saxton’s stunt may have been planned in response to the “Take Back the Night” protest against sexual violence scheduled Tuesday night.

Saxton cut right to the chase, bluntly stating that girls who dress like “a whore” have it coming:

Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies, said his sermon was meant to convey that “if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped.”

“I think that girls that dress and act like it,” Saxton said, “they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.”

The most obvious point to strike me was that, by Saxton’s own reasoning, he’s just begging for a beating. After all, people aren’t responsible for their own actions, because we’re just mindless Pavlovian meat machines that can only react to things we see. If someone were to read his sign and decide he dearly needed a few whacks in the mouth, you could hardly blame them. After all, Saxton was right out there in the open, being an insufferable asshole with an offensive sign… really, what did he expect to happen?

And of course, the fact that he left that day without feeling the sole of a shoe against his face completely disproves his little theory.

The second to strike me was that no one will accuse all Christians of agreeing with Saxton. But, imagine what the rightwing blogs would do with a pro-rape sign held by a Muslim student.

Today in crazy: Rep. Stockman wants to arm fetuses… or something

I’m a little lost on what part of this is supposed to make any sense. I get that it’s supposed to be a joke, because Republicans find killing pregnant women and abortion providers  hilarious. But the logistics don’t quite work out right. Then again, Stockman is completely insane, so I suppose he saw it and thought, “It’s funny because it’s true!”

This low-wattage bulb is gunning to be the next Todd Akin — pun intended.

[h/t Raw Story]

Untraceable, metal-detector-proof guns on demand — who thought this was a good idea again?

PCWorld:

Technophiles have been playing around with 3D printing for years, but mostly just to make things like little statues or plastic trinkets. Now, however, it’s possible to print items with the potential to leave more of an impact.

Items like guns, for example.

Such is the goal of Austin, Texas-based Defense Distributed, a company that makes gun parts using 3D printers and publishes the designs online for anyone to download. Now, co-founder Cody Wilson said he has received a federal license to distribute and sell firearms. And last week Wilson also announced he’s trying to raise $100,000 to launch a new search engine called Defcad, which would let people share 3D printing blueprints for things like gun parts.

It’s a thorny subject considering the current debate over gun control in the aftermath of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Newton, Conn., in which 26 people—20 of them children 7 years old and younger—were murdered.

Yet at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, earlier this month, Wilson shared Defense Distributed’s vision for the future—one in which anyone can easily access the technology to print gun parts themselves, so that eventually the 3D printing of firearms will become so advanced and widespread that it will make gun control laws meaningless.

Well no, not “meaningless.” Just because a law’s easy to break doesn’t mean no one is punished for breaking it. Ask anyone who’s ever got a DUI. Getting behind the wheel when you’re hammered is the easiest thing in the world. In fact, there are a bunch of easy to commit crimes, from jaywalking to opportunistic murder — oddly, this hasn’t rendered the laws against these crimes “meaningless.” You could use that printer to print out any number of illegal items, but that doesn’t knock the laws off the books. If it’s illegal to own a certain type of weapon, but you print one out anyway, it’s no different than obtaining it any other way — you’re going to need to get yourself a lawyer if you’re busted with it.

But typical “golly whizbang!” tech magazine hype aside, how stupid is all of this? If I download an episode of Mad Men, I’m public enemy number one. If I download and print out one hundred murder machines without any background checks, I’m freakin’ golden.

America has one seriously fucked up set of priorities.

Dick Morris tells CPAC truths they so don’t want to hear

Talking Points Memo:

“Well, we lost,” said Republican strategist Dick Morris as he took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of suburban Washington, D.C., on Thursday. And in order to win the next election, Morris delivered some bad news to Republicans: They need to change.

Morris laid out a number of issues that are currently preventing Republicans from appealing to the minority and women voters necessary to win national elections again, including immigration and abortion. He also broke the tough news to the GOP faithful that the House Republicans’ budget released this week is misguided.

“We lost because of demographic mathematics,” said Morris, who famously predicted days before the November 2012 election that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide. Morris appeared before a room of at least 50 people at CPAC, one of the biggest annual conservative political gatherings, hosted by American Conservative Union.

To fix this problem, Morris urged Republicans to pass immigration reform immediately. Once the immigration issue is out of the way, he argued, Latinos would embrace the conservative values, switch sides and ultimately become “the salvation of the Republican Party.”

But immigration reform, even with a path to citizenship that Morris supports, is not the tough sell to conservatives that it once was.

The harder sell came in his next prescription: Give up on Roe v. Wade.

OK, so Dick’s wrong about immigration reform. Yes, most Latinos want it. But no, it’s not the only goddam thing Latinos ever think about. And no, reversing years of immigrant-bashing isn’t going to instantly bring all those people with the latin-sounding names into the GOP. It doesn’t work like that. And he went on to make the same stupid mistake with Roe v. Wade and then with Republican attacks on entitlements. Just because you stop being a dick about things (no pun intended, Mr. Morris), it doesn’t mean that those who hated you will automatically love you. In fact, it probably won’t make much difference at all. The GOP is the crazy neighbor on the block who shrieks at passing schoolchildren out of boarded up windows. Getting people to change their opinion of them is going to take a while.

Still, it’s all pretty decent advice; the longest journey beginning with a single step and all. Unfortunately, it comes from one of the easiest to dismiss people in all the world — Dick “Landslide” Morris, clown, hack, and huckster.

Josh Marshall: Rand Paul and the Black Helicopters

Josh Marshall: Rand Paul and the Black Helicopters:

Everybody got a kick out of Rand Paul’s filibuster last week. I noted that he actually made the case for what filibusters should be — and thus why filibuster reform is so important. Others focused on the his conspicuous defense of civil liberties. But something has been rattling around my head since that all went down. Was this too-seldom defense of civil liberties or a dog whistle appeal to the black helicopter crowd?…

»READ MORE»

[photo via Dept. of Defense]

Reactionary, polar-extremist thinking endangering lives

The Hill:

Republican lawmakers are furious with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for backing questions about gun ownership during kids’ check-ups.

The practice is common among doctors, who argue it is vital to ensuring children’s safety at home. President Obama has vowed to protect doctors’ right to ask.

But as the gun-control debate simmers in Washington, conservative lawmakers said pediatricians go too far when they inquire about family firearms.

“It’s not their business,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “It’s like asking, ‘Do people pray in your home? Do they voice opinions contrary to the [Obama] administration?’”

First, let me say that Steve King is now and has always been a freakin’ fruitbasket. If it weren’t for Louie Gohmert, he would be — by a comfortable margin — the absolute dumbest man in Washington. Asking whether there are firearms in the house isn’t politically motivated, it’s exactly the same as asking if there are prescription medications or pesticides. If you’ve got them, it’s good to be reminded to lock them up away from kids curious little eyes.

Duh.

But this is a symptom of a larger Republican/Tea Party disease — the belief that if liberals think one thing, the opposite is true. And it’s all very black and white, on or off, up or down. There is no middle ground. Liberals say global warming is a massive threat, so they say it doesn’t exist. Liberals accept evolution, so ‘baggers think this is of the devil. Liberals say guns are dangerous, so Republicans assume they’re freakin’ harmless. And if your reaction to a liberal idea doesn’t make any sense… Well, that’s what conspiracy theories are for. You bend reality and make it make sense:

King, criticizing Obama’s healthcare law, suggested that doctors’ practice of asking about guns could ultimately help the government surveil citizens.

“What they’re doing is compiling a record that, one day, the Obama administration or a succeeding administration could tap into,” King said. “Who is getting those records? They will be in ObamaCare’s database file. That’s part of that.”

He added that it would be easy for Congress to pass a law enabling federal officials to use those records to “identify where guns are.”

Meanwhile, Republicans who actually know what the hell they’re talking about get it.

“Our pediatricians do a fabulous job,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), an OBGYN with an “A” rating from the NRA. “In the spirit of knowing that maybe there were guns in the home, to advise a parent or a legal guardian about gun safety, I think I understand.”

“If I’m a pediatrician, I want to make sure the kids I take care of are safe,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), a physician. “So having a discussion about all types of things … I don’t have a problem with it.”

Unfortunately these days, Republicans who know what the hell they’re talking about — on pretty much any issue — are few and far between. It’s the party of kneejerk reactionaries, pride in ignorance, and logical dead ends.

You liberals think plowing a car into a brick wall at 90 mph is bad? Ha! I’ll show you.

Libtards!

[image source]

Hilariously fawning propaganda from the Fact-Free Bacon

I lierally had to wait until I was finished laughing to start this post. The headline at the wingnut propaganda outlet Washington Free Beacon — “Greatest Living President is Also Fantastic Painter” — was just so over the top that you wonder if the writer got his start writing for the North Korean government. No really, they are absolutely serious.

In writing about self-portaits done by Dubya and revealed by hacked email, a post credited to the entire Beacon staff swoons:

The paintings demonstrate a command of line and color that is rarely seen in the modern-day “art” world. Former President George W. Bush appears to be influenced by such painters as Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet. The portraits also clearly capture the personality of their subject.

I don’t want to get too down on Bush’s art, since he’s not the one who put them out there. But no. Not at all. They are not Degas and Manet. They’re the work of an older guy trying to figure out if painting’s a fun way to while away the hours of retirement.

The Bacon also reminds us that “Winston Churchill also painted.” Which I guess means that Bush is like Churchill kinda if you squint.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this, other than to point out that there are a lot of people on the right who’ll eat this crap up, just like they consume all rightwing propaganda completely uncritically. If you can take Fox & Friends seriously, you can take anything seriously. This is a glimpse of the world they live in. It’d be a little sad, if it weren’t so hilariously stupid.

Wingnuts are jerks — and cowards

Yahoo! News:

Some survivors of the mass shooting in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater last year have been “relentlessly” harassed by conspiracy theorists who believe the shooting never happened, according to a court document.

In a court filing this week, Deputy District Attorney George Brauchler wrote that “proponents of purported ‘conspiracies’ … have contacted victims in this case, some of whom have even gone so far as to recruit other members of the public to contact the victims and to publicly post maps with the home addresses and phone numbers of the victims on various social media sites.”

The targeted people have expressed concerns about their “privacy and personal safety,” the district attorney continued.

The report goes on to remind us that “Sandy Hook truthers” are making asses of themselves as well.

The easiest explanation I can think of for all this is cowardice. Wingnuts live in a post-logical world where they can believe whatever they want to, the facts be damned. And the reason they do this is because they’re crap-their-pants scared of everything. So frightened that they construct elaborate alternate realities where the things they fear don’t actually exist. Global warming means that society will have to make some pretty profound changes, so that’s a hoax. Evolution means that maybe the Bible isn’t as true as they’d like it to be, so that’s a bunch of hooey. Polls show Mitt Romney behind in the presidential election? They’re “skewed” by a media in the tank for Obama.And of course, Obama’s not really the president anyway, since only a citizen can be president and Barack Obama’s a secret Mulsim terr’ist from Kenya.

At no point will a conservative wingnut accept reality if that reality is too frightening for them to face. So shootings that have people talking gun control must be hoaxes. Because gun control terrifies them.

Why does gun control terrify them?

Did I mention they’re cowards? You don’t think you need assault rifles with high-capacity magazines and piles of ammo if you’re in possession of an abundance of courage. Gun nuts are drawn to conspiracy theories for the same reason they’re drawn to guns.

Because they’re children afraid of the dark.