I’ve never been to Mississippi. I guess I never will.


There are politicians there who want to murder me.

Robert Foster, a former Mississippi House lawmaker who lost a 2019 bid for governor, is using his social-media platform to call for the execution of political foes who support the rights of transgender people.

He ran for governor of the state. He lost. But he still got 18% of the vote — I am not reassured at the thought that about a fifth of the state didn’t find that automatically disqualifying.

This guy wants to kill me for being an atheist, too.

Do I need to mention that he’s a Republican?

Comments

  1. beholder says

    Religion poisons everything yet again.

    I dread our new era of American politics when these people will be in power again, thanks to the people in power now who are too complacent to stop them.

  2. raven says

    LOL, I just posted another wannabe mass murderer running for office.
    You have to add Oklahoma to your list of places to never visit, especially if they actually do start hunting down and executing “godless communists”.

    Pastor Jarrin Jackson:

    This, as RightWingWatch notes, is not the first time that Jackson has expressed his thirst for communist blood. In fact, he has been known to go on and on about how “fleshly” good it would feel to shoot “godless communists” in the face.

    Pastor Jackson also shared his beautiful dream of using military tribunals to send “godless communists” to “burn forever in a lake of fire,” while speaking at a rally last year for Oklahoma GOP Senate hopeful Jackson Lahmeyer.

    This pastor in Oklahoma is running for state senator.
    He wants to set up military tribunals to try and execute “godless communists”.
    He has no idea what godless communists are but that is no problem. He just wants to kill liberals, Democrats, uppity women, and everyone else not an illiterate hillbilly Republican.

    But really this is no big deal.
    This story is old after all.
    It is now a whole two days old, from March 25, 2022.

  3. raven says

    This is definitely the season for death threats from right wingnuts.

    A few days ago, one of the Russian trolls threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on me. To be fair, it wasn’t just me, but myself and a few tens of millions (at least) other people.

    If you aren’t very bright, your only hammer is killing, and everyone you don’t like is a potential dead body. It’s all very fundie xian.

    They also use “communist” a lot.
    Communists more or less don’t really exist any more.
    It is clear that they have no idea what a communist really is and just use the word as an all purpose insult. An insult just like educated, liberal, social justice warrior, scientist, cuck, and/or normal person.

  4. Susan Montgomery says

    A potential downside of any universal healthcare scheme is people like him (and the loonies that would vote for him) having a say in everybody’s healthcare.

  5. snarkrates says

    Mississippi–the answer to the question: what has 4 i’s but will never see.

    Also the answer to the question: What does every southern state give thanks to for it’s mere existence not making them look quite so bad?

  6. Pierce R. Butler says

    I feel I ought to point out some redeeming features of my native state.

    Uhh…

    Many of us know the proper spelling of “y’all”!

    Stand by for further bulletins. (Bring a lunch.)

  7. Timo Kaaarp says

    Is it just too damn hot in the southern states for white people to operate like fully formed, reasonable humans? I know Australia has big problems with white people that can’t think straight and South Africa certainly has history there.

    The Scandinavian’s (+Nords, Fins etc) do seem to have many societal positives so, maybe white people should stick to where snow falls in winter, as a minimum, and leave the melanin positive zones alone.

    Of course, temperature doesn’t explain Putin but Trump, who spends a lot of time in various swamps, could be clinically stupid because of climate.

  8. birgerjohansson says

    Nooo! Don’t send your wingnuts to Scandinavia! I know a lot of them are descended from here – a constant source of embarrassment to us- but if they have been in Merica long enough to grow heel spurs they are yours.

  9. birgerjohansson says

    -Just spread a rumor people in Albania have struck gold. Then encourage the MAGA people to go there in search of riches.

  10. simonhadley says

    I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Biloxi. You aren’t missing anything of value by avoiding the state.

  11. StevoR says

    You, me would’ve thought this classic, raw Nina Simone song would be well and truly ancient -okay medium old (?) history by now.

    Seems it ain’t.

    For .. fucks sake.

    One of the most powerful musical performancs I’ve ever seen. Just listen to her voice, her body language here. Think about the tioems and context and courage she showed..

  12. says

    birgerjohansson@10 Kim’s father was a big movie nut, said to have a collection of 20 thousand films.. He was so much of a movie nut he had South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang-ok and his wife Cho Eun-hee kidnapped to help improve the North Korean film industry. (Shin and Cho eventually managed to escape.)

  13. revmatty says

    It’s not that those 18% didn’t consider that disqualifying, it’s the fact that for most of them that was why they voted for him. Living in the midwest and traveling through the south the past 20 years has left me no hope that this country will ever be better than that.

  14. StevoR says

    @ 14. birgerjohansson : What do you have against the people of Albanis that they deserve that? Haven’t the Albanians got things bad enough already?

  15. ilr1950 says

    I spent a summer in Mississippi thanks to the USAF, Keesler AFB. Unless you like seafood and gumbo there isnt a lot to recommend the state and Oklahoma doesnt even have good food to offer. People like this scare the ever living bejeebers out of me and since I live in Texas there are more than a few in the surrounding areas. But what particularly terrifies me is so many of those nut cases are either my age (old) of the age of my sons. I grew up around good ol’ boys who still thought we should be out of Nam and grew out their hair and patchy beards as soon as they got away from home. My kids grew up in the 80’s and went to NIN concerts. There didnt seem to be any major political insanity brewing. WTF happened?

  16. crimsonsage says

    Insert Ralph Whiggum “I’m in danger” meme here. Seriously though this is just one reason why tons of queer people are buying guns.

  17. R. L. Foster says

    I want to stress that I am in no way related to that half bright buffoon in Mississippi. My Foster surname is an adopted name. My gg-grandfather was orphaned at age two and was taken in by a family named Foster in 1849. Why he took on their name is a bit of a mystery. My yDNA family line is named Watts. I just felt a need to be clear about that. None of you are in any danger from me.

  18. larpar says

    I’ve been to Tupelo. Saw the first building Elvis ever left. No need to go back.

  19. says

    Trans people bother Foster, but not Eliot Cutler. Cutler is another “family values” republican and failed candidate for governor of Maine.

    Former candidate in Maine arrested on child porn charges

    Two-time Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler was arrested for possession of child pornography on Friday, two days after search warrants were executed on his two homes in the state.

    Cutler, 75, ran for governor twice as an independent and used his personal wealth to bankroll both campaigns.

    He was charged with four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a child under 12, Hancock County District Attorney Matthew Foster said. Each carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

  20. petesh says

    @21, @24: Phil Ochs was good at rousing the bourgeois rabble, but Bob Dylan had a better and deeper critique, which (if you forgive the masculine) remains terribly relevant almost 60 years later:

    … The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
    And the marshals and cops get the same
    But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
    He’s taught in his school
    From the start by the rule
    That the laws are with him
    To protect his white skin
    To keep up his hate
    So he never thinks straight
    ’Bout the shape that he’s in
    But it ain’t him to blame
    He’s only a pawn in their game …

  21. says

    snarkrates@7

    The stats in the article are quite clear. If you put republicans in power, you’re basically flushing your future down the toilet.

    birgerjohansson@14

    The Albanians don’t deserve that.

  22. andrei613 says

    @12 Timo Kaaarp

    That’s an interesting hypothesis. It could explain why the wingnuttery up here in Canada is so much less than to our immediate south.

    Granted, we had the FluKluxKlan mother-trucker occupation of Ottawa recently, but the key point is that outside of a few wingnuts, no politician found any use in supporting them. The one batshit crazy political party utterly failed to win even one seat last year.

    Plus, we get our issue worked out with a Saturday night of Hockey Night In Canada, with two major battles on last night, the classic Leafs – Canadiens and the Battle of Alberta on after that one. Both were great. We can sublimate our aggressive feelings with such fare. :-)

  23. nomdeplume says

    Wing-nuttery in Australia is roughly correlated with temperature – Queensland, Northern Territory have a fair number of loons. On the other hand, so does Tasmania….

  24. birgerjohansson says

    I just revisited ‘Pinkeye’, the South Park episode where Cartman dresses up like Hitler.
    (Correction, one of the episodes where Cartman dresses up like Hitler) Cartman is basically channeling the archetype of the crazy southern right-winger. Did the S P makers hang out in Mississippi much?
    .
    Regarding Australia, I always assumed it was the combionation of the Murdoch assholes owning all the newspapers and the rural Australians never outgrowing what passed for culture in the 1950s. This resulted in horrible politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator, plus lots of corruption.

  25. Larry says

    Flew over the state at 35000 feet one time. It still felt like I’d lost a handful of points on my IQ.

  26. Silentbob says

    @ StevoR

    Not that I particularly want to encourage the offtopiccyness, but you might “enjoy” so to speak:

  27. StevoR says

    @ ^ Silentbob : Cheers!

    @33. birgerjohansson :

    Regarding Australia, I always assumed it was the combionation of the Murdoch assholes owning all the newspapers and the rural Australians never outgrowing what passed for culture in the 1950s. This resulted in horrible politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator, plus lots of corruption.

    Pretty much. Not just Murdoch since Channel 7 (TV) boss Kerry Stokes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Stokes ) is also similarly pushing the LNP reich wing ideological line and not just papers sicne the TV esp. Murdoch’s Sky News played a big part in overthrowing the more moderate Turnbulland inflicting Scotty from Marketing the worst,most dishoenst, corrupt and outright sadistic PM of my lifetime on the Country. Plus we’ve got a long sad history of racism including our racist White Australia policy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy ), the deliberately forgotten Frontier Wars (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-27/map-of-indigenous-massacres-grows-to-include-more-sites/10040206 ) as welas previous fears like the “Red Scare” and “yellow peril” and anti-AChiense riots inthe goldfields era and so on so.. yeah. A very long not so proud history of racism and xenophobia still lingering under the surface of our culture and exploited by the reich wing constantly especially recently under the current Abbott & Morriscum regimes.

  28. Silentbob says

    @ StevoR

    Also this one which is about as raw as it gets:

    But I’ll stop there.

  29. cartomancer says

    I don’t think it’s a temperature thing. We have plenty of these arseholes here in the UK too, and our climate is much more suitable for the melanin-deficient and heat-averse. Portugal, meanwhile, is much too hot for habitation, yet they are surprisingly liberal and progressive.

  30. Rich Woods says

    @cartomancer #38:

    Portugal, meanwhile, is much too hot for habitation, yet they are surprisingly liberal and progressive.

    Probably because Portugal had half a century under a corporatist and nationalistic military dictatorship, and that experience is still within each family’s living memory. Give it another twenty-five years and people will be ready once more to sleepwalk into handing over their liberty to some populist nutter ready to other the people who are not like them and blame those monsters for some nebulous evil conspiracy against the morals of society.

  31. tuatara says

    Given what is currently emanating from the cold heart of Moscow one cannot ascribe high temperature as the cause of the wingnut brain-addling disease afflicting the world.
    The twin prions of religion and power take effect in all climates.

  32. StevoR says

    FWIW According to tonight’s Media Watch theonly grups still supporting Morriscum’s are “..retirees, Christians & Queenslanders.”

    Our Deep North at its worst again.. It along with Murdoch and Clive Palmer and his multigazillion dollar propaganda spewings really stuffed us all up last election destroying Bill Shorten with his audacity to actually offer some vision and honesty last Federal election here Sigh..

    Clarifying from typographicals in #36 :

    .. Not just papers since the TV esp. Murdoch’s Sky News played a big part in overthrowing the more moderate Turnbull and inflicting Scotty from Marketing the worst, most dishonest, corrupt and outright sadistic PM of my lifetime..

    & Plus we’ve got a long sad history of racism including our racist White Australia policy; the deliberately forgotten Frontier Wars as well as previous fears like the “Red Scare” and “Yellow Peril” and anti-Chinese riots inthe goldfields era and so on..