A roundup of right-wing madness

-- While we wait for God's Army of Homophobes, Houston chapter to finish collecting their signatures, be reminded that this should be a fortuitous development with regard to Harris County blue turnout.  The HGLBT Caucus mobilizes like nobody else can, and certainly not the Houston Area Pastor's Council.  Things could get really exciting around the polling places in November.  And don't forget that the corporate media locally has not been liberal in their coverage of the NDO's passage, and with a second chance in the fall, need to be pressured to get the reporting correct.

-- Speaking of hard-boiled conservatives who can't give it up, those angry Mississippi TeaBaggers are still fuming and plotting revenge for losing to Thad Cochran and the black Dems there who helped him win his primary.

-- Fox News keeps doing its part to fan the flames of racial and gender strife.  This dude managed to insult African Americans and women in a single slur.

“I call them the Beyoncé voters: the single ladies,” Watters said. “Obama won single ladies by 76 percent last time, and made up about a quarter of the electorate. They depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.”

Those moochers just won't stay in their place, will they?

-- Maine Gov. Paul LePage is vigorously denying that he discussed lynching Democrats with domestic terrorists.  He can't deny he held multiple meetings with them.

Talking Points Memo published on Monday an excerpt from author Mike Tipping's new book, in which he details how LePage engaged with members of the Constitutional Coalition, which is affiliated with the Sovereign Citizen movement. Members of the organization believe the government is planning an attack on Christian Americans by collecting firearms, that it runs mind-control operations and that it was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

LePage reportedly met with members of the group eight times from January through September of 2013.

Tipping, who works for the Maine People’s Alliance, a progressive advocacy group, wrote that when the coalition's members met with LePage they discussed arresting and executing state House Speaker Mark Eves (D) and Senate President Justin Alfond (D) for treason and violating the U.S. Constitution.

Sure hope those radical Mainers don't make their way down here.

-- Back in Texas, Lege Republicans are already objecting to the first bill floated for next January that will address chemical safety regulations in the wake of the West explosion. 

"It seems like we're out there with a power grab," Republican state Rep. Dan Flynn said.

[...]

Immediate pushback from GOP lawmakers on the panel signaled how tough it could be to push substantial changes through the Republican-controlled Legislature next year. They broadly called the first draft "overkill" and openly wondered how small fertilizer plant operators could afford to meet new regulations.

Was 'overkill' the proper word to use here?  State Impact Texas has a little more, including some of the back-and-forth between Flynn and Joe Pickett, who will introduce the bill early next year.

Greg Abbott helpfully offers instructions on how to circumvent his hiding the data about where in your neighborhood the explosive chemicals are stored.

Addressing reporters at a separate event Tuesday, Abbott said official confidentiality can help stop potential terrorists. But he also called the ruling a "win-win" since "every single person in the state" can learn about "chemicals stored in any plant."

"You know where they are if you drive around," Abbott said of chemical facilities. "You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals."

Davis spokesman Zac Petkanas said, "The only thing more outrageous than Greg Abbott keeping the location of chemical facilities secret is telling Texas parents they literally need to go door to door in order to find out if their child's school is in the blast radius of dangerous explosives."

Easy, Zac.  I'm sure these companies won't mind the public streaming in to their offices to ask that question, and I'm sure their public representatives will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when asked.  My problem here is that Abbott just informed the state's terrorist cells how to find the information they seek to plot our destruction.

Why does Greg Abbott hate America?

There's a simple solution to Hobby Lobby

Women should simply incorporate their uteri, and then the GOP would let them do whatever they like.  Or perhaps we could have passed single-payer and avoided all of this in the first place.

The conservative justices on the SCROTUS made yesterday many things -- historical, ominous, enraging are all appropriate adjectives -- but it was also a lot livelier on social media, and all of those instant developments will hopefully reignite a women's rights movement in Texas that will burn until November.  We will just have to wait a bit to see about that.  As for reducing abortions.... no.  Of course not.  Limiting women's ability to obtain contraceptives INCREASES abortions, and if you make legal ones more difficult to obtain, women will have dangerous, life-threatening ones.  What's happening in South Texas right now is proof of that.

Facts can't frack the Republican mind, however.

So we'll just have to see who can win an election in four months.

Update: Texas Leftist wonders whether Greg Abbott would ban contraceptives -- that is to say, ask the Lege to pass a bill doing so next January, after he is elected governor.

My answer, also posted at Wayne's blog, is: Yes.  And not just contraceptives, but abortions entirely.  Perhaps after 20 weeks, perhaps sooner, but in all cases... including rape, incest, and even if the fetus endangers the mother's life.  All you have to do is read what he has already said.

Last January, on the eve of a rally by politically influential abortion opponents, a quote attributed to Abbott in The Austin American Statesman indicated he believed there should be no exceptions in anti-abortion legislation.

“If you really are pro-life, you are thinking about the life of the child,” Abbott was quoted as saying. “And once you start putting exceptions into that, you’re saying that there are certain children who really are not worthy of life.”

Greg Abbott is precisely the kind of shitty lawyer/conservative extremist with a massive ego who would think he could go all the way to the SCROTUS with that law challenged, and win.

Which would set up his bid for the US presidency in 2020 quite nicely.