Friday Cephalopod: Cuttlefish are the best kissers in the universe » « No gods, no masters…and no heroes, either

Losing the will to live

World, you aren’t helping. It’s been a long, long day, I thought I’d just browse the news on my brief break, and I run across this.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Monday said that it was a “scary thought” that elites could be culling the population with vaccines to preserve the Earth’s resources.

The Texas Republican spent part of his five-week break from Congress this week by interviewing conservative activist Alan Keyes while filling in as a guest host for Tony Perkins on Family Research Council’s Washington Watch.

Gohmert + Keyes and the Patriarchy Research Council, all in one story. Why didn’t the earth open up in revulsion beneath them and launch them towards Mars in an explosive eruption of lava?

By the way, what prompted that accusation against the liberal elites was that some Texas megachurch was responsible for a measles epidemic because they discouraged their followers from vaccinating their kids. If Gohmert blamed ignorance for a disease, he’d have to take the fall as the Typhoid Mary of stupidity.

Friday Cephalopod: Cuttlefish are the best kissers in the universe » « No gods, no masters…and no heroes, either

Comments

  1. busterggi says

    Because the liberal elite never have their own kids vaccinated, they have them aborted instead.

    Don’t laugh, Gomert believes this.

  4. says

    Why didn’t the earth open up in revulsion beneath them and launch them towards Mars in an explosive eruption of lava?

    Ooh! I think I know this one! Pick me!

    It’s because there are no gods. Well, at least none with any sense of justice or the juice to carry it out.

  6. Greta Christina says

    Facepalming so hard, my brains are flying out of the back of my head.

    Yes, it’s a “scary thought.” It’s also a “scary thought” to think that zombies rule Belgium. It’s a scary thought to think that the coffee I just drank had a mind-control drug put in it, and that soon all the customers of Philz Coffee will be the mindless footsoldiers of the Russian army. That doesn’t freaking well make it true, or even remotely plausible.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my brains back.

  7. shoeguy says

    Louie ‘G is truly a national treasure. Sure Texas has brought us a lot of stupid congresscritters, and several insane Reps, but Louie brings all those mental defects together in one high profile jackass, and squares the result. If he hadn’t been elected we surly would have had to make him up.

  11. robro says

    Gohmert? He’s so dumb he doesn’t know how to spell Gomer?

    Greta—You know very well that zombies only rule the Walloon part of Belgium…or is the Flemish part? Oh, wait maybe it’s the German part. Belgium…what is it? So confusing.

  13. ck says

    It’s because there are no gods. Well, at least none with any sense of justice or the juice to carry it out.

    Worse, what if they survive and reproduce and pass their diseased ideas and thought processes onto their offspring? Can you imagine an entire planet of them?

  16. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    This is one of those times there needs to be meme for something bigger than *facepalm, headdesk, bodyfloor*.

  20. says

    Every time there is a story about Texas there are Texans coming out of the woodwork saying “We aren’t all like that!!1!” Well, guess what. I’m not giving you guys any credit until you stop electing these idiots to Congress. You guys have unleashed on us Gohmert, Ted Cruz, Joe Barton, and Lamar Smith while inflicting Rick Perry on yourself. If you want to regain respect for your state then get rid of these wingnuts.

  21. John Phillips, FCD says

    Jafafa Hots, thanks, that sea slug is a truly wondrous sight and probably more intelligent than Gohmert.

  22. John Pieret says

    Why didn’t the earth open up in revulsion beneath them and launch them towards Mars in an explosive eruption of lava?

    I think it is just as valid to ask why the close proximity of Keyes and Gohmert didn’t result in a stupidity black hole that sucked in the entire Earth?

  23. says

    @Ouabache #20, I recently left Texas, but seriously, everyone there shakes their heads and goes ‘how did this whackaloon get elected’ and then doesn’t turn out on voting day.

    We aren’t all like that, but we sure as hell only seem to elect those that are. *sigh*

  24. says

    More plausible conspiracy theory: the conservative elite are spreading all this anti-vaccine fuckery to kill off the children of the “less elite.”

    Ok, I don’t buy that either, but day-um, that’s serious fuckwittery.

  25. says

    By the way, what prompted that accusation against the liberal elites was that some Texas megachurch was responsible for a measles epidemic because they discouraged their followers from vaccinating their kids. If Gohmert blamed ignorance for a disease, he’d have to take the fall as the Typhoid Mary of stupidity.

    (Blinks…)

    Ah, but, umm… see…

    We totes did do this. It was, in fact, a deft and amazing piece of reverse psychology. We kept telling them ‘vaccinate, you idiots!’, and they figured ‘they’re telling us that because they want us dead, so we’d better not’, and then they didn’t, and boom!

    So yep. It was us!

    So… Umm… Brilliantly played, fellow Illuminati! Brilliantly played!…

    Well, mostly. A bit of a mess the epidemic going way beyond the single Republican senator actually targeted, and even into vulnerable people who were supposed to be protected by herd immunity, actually, but, umm, anyway… Well done. I guess.

    (Somewhat confused, hesitant sinister laugh goes here…)

    Oh, and yeah, about that target, I’m afraid, yes, that it’s totes true, too, about the secret eugenics program..

    Yes, yes, I hear what you’re saying. Guy, none of this is even heritable, so what’s the hell’s the point?

    You underestimate the Illuminati’s wisdom, fool! Sure, it’s true it’s not heritable. But did you realize just taking out Gohmert alone would increase the average IQ of Texas by 50%? Immediately?

    So yeah. I think it’s clear enough. We know what we’re doing, here. Or, at least we’re getting it together at lot better than that fiasco of a floridation conspiracy…

    (Muttering under breath…) … Geez. Seriously? It actually did prevent tooth decay? Stupid. (Smacks forehead…) I can’t believe this. We’re going backwards here, people, backwards…

    (/Anyway… We are subtle. We are evil. Fear us.)

  26. says

    Every time there is a story about Texas there are Texans coming out of the woodwork saying “We aren’t all like that!!1!” Well, guess what. I’m not giving you guys any credit until you stop electing these idiots to Congress. You guys have unleashed on us Gohmert, Ted Cruz, Joe Barton, and Lamar Smith while inflicting Rick Perry on yourself. If you want to regain respect for your state then get rid of these wingnuts.

    Do you know what gerrymandering is, and how it works?

  27. says

    Slavery, civil war, jim crow, lynchings, segregation, etc…
    None of these things reflected a regional cultural problem.

    Just unexpected and unplanned results of political decisions made with the best of intentions.

  28. F [is for failure to emerge] says

    What an odd place to attach that rider of an admission to the finite nature of various natural resources.

  29. says

    Do you know what gerrymandering is, and how it works?

    Gerrymandering explains some of the problem, but they have to have a majority of democracy-hating, right-wing, dishonest hacks in their state legislature in order to put gerrymandering into effect in the first place. It does not explain Rick Perry either.

    In another thread elsewhere I fumed about Gerrymandering as the cause of the problem under discussion until someone politely pointed out that we were talking about the U.S. Senate. Oops. No insult, harm or snideness intended by this post.

  30. says

    On the bright side maybe they’re ignorant enough that they will never find out about the fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan that was part of the operation to find Bin Laden then mistake it for a real one. [/snark]

  31. ekwhite says

    Sadunlap@30:

    That fake vaccination campaign set back the drive to eliminate polio by years and has already cost lives. It pisses me off to no end.

  32. poxyhowzes says

    The thing that bothers me (but does not surprise) is that there enough dumbass Texans to collect into one congressional district to elect this asshole. Unfortunately, after you’ve created Gohmert’s district, you have an apparently infinite supply of dumbasses to pour into other districts.

    Next time Texas wants to secede, please hold the plebiscite immediately in a place where I can vote! –pH

  33. Trebuchet says

    @11, robro:

    Gohmert? He’s so dumb he doesn’t know how to spell Gomer?

    You’ve just insulted Jim Nabors, a married gay man, by comparing him to Gohmert. Don’t do that.

  34. Randomfactor says

    Only the stupid eschew vaccination. If only, “only the stupid” were the only victims.

  35. ck says

    @Randomfactor,

    If health care were free in the U.S. and labour laws protected those who need to do family errands like taking their kids to get routine vaccinations, I could maybe agree with you.

  36. says

    they have to have a majority of democracy-hating, right-wing, dishonest hacks in their state legislature in order to put gerrymandering into effect in the first place.

    Not at all. Even without Voter ID laws, shortening early voting periods, decreasing the number of polling places or voting hours in the “wrong” neighborhoods, spreading misinformation about polling places, days, and hours, and other items in a long laundry-list of voter suppression tactics, the percentage of registered voters who actually get out and vote (sadly) skews old, white, and conservative. You need a bare majority or something close to it.

  37. says

    Over here in Australia, people are desperate over the perspective of an incoming PM Abbott, and are considering to have themselves put to sleep for the next 3 years. I reckon it’s a reasonable proposition.

  39. georgebean says

    I believe I saw that Gohmert/Keyes interview on RWWBlog and Keyes was the source of the very same “scary thought”.

    And the crazy goes deeper than the measles epidemic. What spurred Keyes’ crazy involved the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation’s search for malaria vaccines and other much needed science-based public health efforts in Africa have garnered a lot of publicity. What’s maybe less well-known is that Melinda Gates, who is Catholic, has come out to say that the need most often expressed by the African women she’s talked to is for inexpensive and effective birth control and that she feels strongly that the foundation should respect those choices and lend help that direction too.

    Alan Keyes is a Catholic. He and many other more prominent Catholics have come unglued over the BC deal. And in Keyes fevered mind, these well-intended efforts are fused into a soopersekrit, dasterdly plot to reduce the world’s population from 6 billion to approx 250 million and (to paraphrase the doom and gloom coda Keyes put to this tall tale) “I don’t know of any innocent means they can fulfill this goal to getting rid of 5,750 million people-do you??!”

    And like a good little liar, Gohmert tries trafficking this “scary thought” to the mainstream. It’s a no-lose for him, he won’t lose trial ballooning pew spew to see if’n it might just stick and rally more votes at the election booth. Gohmert is risk-free market research for testing what kind of crazy works manipulating voters.

  41. Nemo says

    @F #28:

    What an odd place to attach that rider of an admission to the finite nature of various natural resources.

    You’re being too generous. He’s only admitting that “elites” believe the Earth’s resources are limited — probably because they lack faith that God Will Provide.™

  43. David Marjanović says

    Hey now, what has mars ever done to deserve orbital nutjob bombardment?

    “Deserve”? It’s the only way to be sure!

  44. Ichthyic says

    Here in NZ a serious outbreak of whooping cough can be traced directly to a single family that refused to vaccinate their children, then took them on holliday to Thailand and brought whooping cough back with them.

    I really do think there should be both civil and criminal penalties for endangering the lives of others by refusing to vaccinate.

  45. says

    In another example of stupidity breaking out in christendom, Pat Robertson is suing documentary filmmakers that exposed his charity for what it is, a way for Robertson to rake in funds he wants to funnel into his various businesses.

    Robertson’s charity “Operation Blessing” is also used for propaganda in the we-do-almost-nothing-but-claim-to-have-saved-the-day category.

    I think he should sue. The documentary will benefit from the publicity, and a court battle will just expose even more details regarding Robertson’s scams.

    An Operation Blessing spokesman told The Virginian-Pilot that they are “considering legal action” against Lara Zizic and David Turner, whose film “Mission Congo” will hold its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival, over the film’s supposed “false and defamatory” content.

    CBN has a history of going after Robertson’s critics; for example, they recently embarked on an unsuccessful push to cover up a video of Robertson — first posted here on Right Wing Watch —arguing that gay men wear special rings that they use to infect random people they meet with HIV/AIDS.

    … Robertson diverted charitable activities to help mining projects that he owned and grossly exaggerated the work of Operation Blessing among Rwandan refugees. …

    … an official investigation into Robertson’s operation in Virginia accused him of “fraudulent and deceptive” claims when he was running an almost non-existent aid operation.

    … Operation Blessing … pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in donations, much of it through Robertson’s televangelism. They include characterising a failed large-scale farming project as a huge success, and claims about providing schools and other infrastructure.

    But some of the most damaging criticism of Robertson comes from former aid workers at Operation Blessing, who describe how mercy flights to save refugees were diverted hundreds of miles from the crisis to deliver equipment to a diamond mining concession run by the televangelist.

    … The pilot said he joined Operation Blessing to help people. Of the 40 flights he flew into Congo, just two delivered aid. The others were associated with the diamond mining. “We’re not doing anything for those people,” he said. “After several months I was embarrassed to have Operation Blessing on the airplane’s tail.” He had the lettering removed. …

  46. everbleed says

    AJ Milne

    Please contact Keith Augustine at Internet Infidels. I am confident he is a trusted intermediary. Mention ‘everbleed’. He will give you a message.

    Thank you,
    Bleed

  49. says

    Here’s more coverage of the Pat Robertson “charity” fraud, as mentioned in comment #45:
    http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/05/mission-congo-pat-robertson-aid-rwanda?CMP=twt_gu

    Excerpt:

    One of the stranger sights of the refugee crisis that followed the 1994 Rwandan genocide was of stretcher-bearers rushing the dying to medical tents, with men running alongside reciting Bible verses to the withering patients.

    The bulk of the thousands of doctors and nurses struggling to save lives – as about 40,000 people died of cholera – were volunteers for the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The Bible readers were hired by the American televangelist and former religious right presidential candidate, Pat Robertson, and his aid organisation, Operation Blessing International.

    But on Robertson’s US television station, the Christian Broadcasting Network, that reality was reversed, as he raised millions of dollars from loyal followers by claiming Operation Blessing was at the forefront of the international response to the biggest refugee crisis of the decade. It’s a claim he continues to make, even though an official investigation … accused him of “fraudulent and deceptive” claims when he was running an almost non-existent aid operation.

    “We brought the largest contingent of medicine into Goma in Zaire, at least the first and the largest,” Robertson said as recently as last year on his TV station.

    Now a new documentary lays bare the extent of the misrepresentations of Operation Blessing’s activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, that it says continue to this day. …

    So, bible-quoting missionaries who are hampering the work of doctors and nurses equals, in Robertson’s mind, “medicine”?

  51. Ichthyic says

    Tony Abbott is very scary.

    he also indicated he will scrap plans to limit the development of new mine processing and shipping facilities around the Great Barrier Reef, something even UNESCO is very concerned about.

    but hey, OZ IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

    as bad as Abott is, one of the things that allows Autstralians to forget just how bad he is, is Rupert Murdoch.

    the world would be a far, far better place if Rupert Murdoch were a poor bastard writing opinion columns for the local paper.