5 worst right-wing moments of the week — Chris Christie is very sad he only makes $700,000 a year

We are playing the world's smallest violin for Christie, who says that he is "not wealthy," pays too much in taxes

Published April 20, 2015 6:00PM (EDT)

  (Reuters/Carlo Allegri)
(Reuters/Carlo Allegri)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet1. Bill O’Reilly rails absurdly about how it’s open season on White Christian males. Even John Stossel can’t sway him with facts.

Bill O’Reilly sees no pattern in the numerous incidents of police killing and brutalizing of black men in this country. No pattern at all. But he does see a pattern of people picking on white Christian males. They are “under siege.”

“The fact that I am white and in a powerful position makes me the enemy,” he whined on his show this week, adding that anyone who denies American values are being threatened, “is a dishonest idiot.”

This campaign of white male suppression is being carried out by, who else, women and minorities, or as O’Reilly prefers to think of them, liberals and "race-baiters." Among those race-baiters? New York Times columnist Charles Blow, Tavis Smiley and anyone else who suggests that black men are disproportionately targeted by police. O’Reilly does not want to talk about that though. He wants to talk about his group's grievances. “Our traditional American values are under siege everywhere,” the arrogant Faux Newsian asserted. “It’s a fact.” Examples included how “human beings” are being redefined by these anti-American zealots (that’s a reference to abortion rights, just so you know); how marriage is being redefined and how dreadful "narcotics" (his word for pot) are being legalized.

The horror.

O’Reilly remained stalwart in his assertions, even when his Fox fellow traveler, John Stossel, pointed out the utter folly of his argument.

“Your ‘war on Christianity,’ you’re just a 10-foot-tall crybaby,” Stossel, a self-described secularist, said. “It’s not so bad. Christians aren’t being killed.”

Yeah but, “They’re verbally being killed,” O’Reilly countered.

Unimpressed, Stossel said, “So what?”

“You shouldn’t be diminished because you believe a certain way,” O’Reilly protested. “Aren’t you outraged by that?”

“What’s diminished?” Stossel asked, then mentioned an ABC News pollsaying that 83 percent of Americans identified as Christians. “You are the majority. You’ve won.”

“It’s not a matter of winning,” O’Reilly replied. “It’s a matter of respect.”

Aw, poor Billy O’Weilly. His feewings are weawy weawy hurt. No wespect.

2. Sarah Palin’s reaction to Hillary Clinton’s campaign start: Hey, what about me?

Sarah Palin just wants everyone to know she still exists and that she can be equally incoherent in Facebook posts as she is in speeches. Also she, like Hillary Clinton, once rode around the country in a bus and had reporters frantically chasing her and wondering where she would show up next.

No fair, no fair, Sarah Palin said in essence. Hillary Clinton stole my idea of being chased by the media. No one has ever thought of that one before, that’s for sure.

Here’s some of what Palin posted to Facebook:

“Hmmm, as people all over the country are reminding each other, this Hillary Scooby-Doo Tour thing sure looks familiar. We’re flattered the liberals think the idea is really keen! Since it’s ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday, it’s also pretty keen to thank the democrats for taking a page out of our playbook and also to share the picturesque, sincere, no-media 'One Nation' RV trek of ours a few years ago.”

Nope, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to us either. But she did conclude, ominously, “Makes me want to fire up the RV again, load up the kids…"

Hoo boy! Sure hope she's not serious.

See her self-aggrandizing video and read her incoherent ramblings here.

3. Michele Bachmann says Obama will bring about the second coming of Christ. Wait, isn’t that a good thing?

Color us confused. Michele Bachmann, no big fan of President Obama, told the always rational folks who listen to “End Times Radio” that indeed, the End Times are near. Aren’t they always?

Who and what is ushering in this Armageddon, this End of Days, or whatever your personal favorite name is for the Great Cataclysm? Why the Anti-Christ himself, President Obama, by negotiating with Iran, and as Bachmann says, “turning his back on Israel.” While End Times sound really really scary and bad, the irony is that those End Times are precisely what need to happen for the second coming of Jesus Christ. So, that’s a good thing, right? It is when you are a fundamentalist Christian. So maybe she should be thanking Obama. Hallelujah time is nigh!

Bachmann prattled on nonsensically about fatwas and supreme leaders of Iran. She is, funnily enough, an expert on Islamic scripture as well as Christian scripture. Who knew?

"If the United States turns its back on Israel, as our president is doing today, in my opinion, we cannot continue to indulge in the fantasy that the United States will be free from receiving the negative blowback, or curses, in biblical parlance, that could come our way and they could be severe," she said. "If we actually turn our back on Israel," Bachmann said, the U.S. can expect to "reap a whirlwind."

It’s all very very concerning, and yet, curiously, joyful.

4. Chris Christie: Poor me. Wah wah.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his wife Mary Pat are not wealthy, according to them and them only. Never mind that their $700,000 income last year puts them easily in the top one percent of earners. That’s not how Christie defines wealth. “Wealth is defined a whole bunch of ways,” Christie said in an interview with the editorial board of the Manchester Union-Leader. Wealth is a feeling, and he just does not have that feeling.

The reason Christie does not feel wealthy is that he has four children, he said, and that he has worked “really hard.” Also, other people don’t think of him as wealthy, he argues, and therefore, he is not wealthy.

The subject came up because the Christies, along with the rest of America, filed taxes last week. But Christie, unlike the rest of America, reported earnings of $700,000, a figure that puts him pretty solidly in one percent land.

"The fact that my wife and I, who are not wealthy by current standards, that we have to file a tax return that's that thick ... is insane," Christie told the editorial board. "We don't have nearly that much money."

We feel just terrible for the Christies, and the fact that they had to file that big fat tax return. That's hard.

5. Men’s rights blogger: Women with short hair should be monitored by the authorities.

Men’s rights nutjob Roosh V,  who blogs under the moniker “Pick Up Artist,” always has extremely helpful suggestions for women. He thinks women would take more responsibility for themselves if rape on private property was decriminalized, for starters. Thanks, Roosh! Or should we call you Mr. V? How exactly decriminalizing rape would help women is kind of murky.

This week, the Rooshter made an even more bizarre suggestion for how law enforcement should occupy their time, now that they’ve been freed up from all that pesky rape stuff. The authorities should be alerted when women cut their hair short. This, he says, is an act of self harm. Worse still, it hurts men (the group Roosh actually purports to care about). When women cut their hair short, they are trying to appear less fertile and therefore less attractive to men, he reasons.

Here it is from the horse’s (ass) mouth:

“If a woman cuts her hair to a short length, or shaves it outright in a Skrillex haircut, we can now confidently say that she is making herself appear less fertile, less beautiful, and less healthy. A woman cutting off healthy hair is one step away from literal cutting of her skin with a sharp object, because both behaviors denote a likely mental illness where the woman presents herself to society as more damaged than her genetic condition would indicate, suggesting that she has suffered environmental damage that has reduced her overall fitness. She must be monitored by state authorities so she doesn’t continue to hurt herself.”

Stupefying, no?


By Janet Allon

MORE FROM Janet Allon


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Alternet Bill O'reilly Chris Christie Conservatives Fox News Michele Bachmann Sarah Palin