The economy just had its fifth straight month of adding more than 200,000 jobs, while the Affordable Care Act received high marks even from the vast majority of Republicans who purchased it.
That means it’s time for conservatives to freak out. The right has had to start looking in some dark corners for their outrages, but they were nothing if not resourceful. Below are the seven most absurd things, from gay burger wrappers to gender-neutral bathrooms to the World Cup, that sent conservatives into a tailspin last week.
Bryan Fischer Warns Gay Burger Wrappers Could Conquer Iowa
Radical right radio host and American Family Association leader Bryan Fischer is very concerned about your burgers.
What’s got Fischer all worked up? Naturally, a San Francisco Burger King’s recent announcement that it was planning to sell a Whopper with a special LGBT wrapper.
This may seem like a harmless, even laudable instance of inclusivity on the part of a chain. But, Fischer warns, what if it spreads?
"If this isn't bottled up in San Francisco, this kind of nonsense, then it's going to be spreading across the entire fruited plain and you're going to be going to your Burger King in Des Moines, Iowa and you're going to have a rainbow color wrapper for your Whopper,” Fischer said.
Rainbow color wrappers in Iowa? You mean the fourth state to legalize gay marriage? Never!
Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Confuse the Living Hell Out of Fox News
Fox & Friends gets confused by a lot of things, but this week the lightweight conservative trio got thrown for a real loop by one college’s proposed gender-neutral bathrooms.
“What do you think of that?” F&F’s news anchor said, introducing the segment on Illinois State University’s harmless bathroom sign. “You’ve got the man on the top and the skirt on the bottom.”
Cue Brian Kilmeade: “I would just sit and stare, I wouldn’t know what to do!” (Not the first time.)
But that was only day one. Convinced that the entire world would be just as perplexed and subsequently outraged as they were, the F&F crew dispatched cohost Steve Doocy to the streets to poll some passersby on the freaky new signs – a plan that went seriously awry when every single person, including the kid, understood the signs right away, and even explained them to Doocy and company. Far from being suitably outraged, nobody was the slightest bit troubled by the signs.
Kilmeade remained befuddled. “Makes no sense,” he said. “Why is the torso so big and the dress so small?” To the best of anyone’s knowledge, he’s still working on that one.
Central American Immigrants Might Have Ebola (Except They Don’t)
The same fringe wing of the GOP that has successfully sabotaged any effort at comprehensive immigration reform – and any chance of the Republican Party improving its electoral handicap by 2016 – has had a rough time with the influx of Central American migrants, many of them children, arriving at the U.S.’s southern border after fleeing escalating violence in their home countries.
Those unafraid to demagogue children quickly began to warn about diseases they might be carrying. Which diseases? Why bother to choose? Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) sent a letter to the Center for Disease Control warning of a whole slew of potential plagues, from dengue fever to the Ebola virus. "Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles,” he added for good measure.
As Mother Jones pointed out, this is rich on a number of levels, starting with the fact that the Ebola virus is entirely restricted to the sub-Sahara, which their helpful map illustrates is not particularly near Central America. Moreover, there was no evidence that the children were unvaccinated, especially ironic given that Gingrey himself has fought certain forms of mandatory vaccinations.
That didn’t stop the theory from spreading, no pun intended, as former perennial presidential candidate Ron Paul and Newsmax TV host Steve Malzberg demonstrated last week.
“We don’t know if they’re vaccinated to our standards,” Malzberg said. “They probably aren’t in many cases. …I’m hearing fears of all kinds of — hepatitis, TB, Ebola,” Malzberg continued. “I mean, how do we keep a lid on all this?”
One way is by finding out whether “this” actually exists.
Glenn Beck “Betrays the Republic” by Sending Aid to Migrant Children
Glenn Beck, almost certainly for cynical reasons that have yet to be exposed, announced on his radio show his intention, along with Congress’ greatest hits Mike Lee and Louie Gohmert, to take a variety of aid and comfort to the children stranded on the border in a sort of legal limbo (courtesy a 2008 Bush law).
But even Beck seemed taken aback by the vitriol he received in response to his seemingly harmless plan.
“Everybody is telling me I’m seeing subscriptions down; I’m seeing Mercury One donations down,” Beck said. “I’m getting violent emails from people who say I’ve ‘betrayed the Republic.’ Whatever. I’ve never taken a position more deadly to my career than this — and I have never, ever taken a position that is more right than this. …When America stops being good, we are no longer able to be great.”
Only one month before, of course, Glenn Beck was warning that immigration reform was the end of the Republic, so who knows.
Ann Coulter Thinks Undocumented Immigrant Deserves an Oscar for Telling Story
Those are the conservatives who think Beck’s just being too nice to aliens who need to be shipped home. Conservative pundit Ann Coulter took it a whole step further when she openly mocked a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant who appeared on José Díaz-Balart inaugural broadcast.
“Maria” appeared on the MSNBC show Monday, where Díaz-Balart live-translated her recounting of how the murder of her brother by a Honduran gang sent her fleeing for her life to the U.S.-Mexico border. Maria broke down into tears several times as she told Díaz-Balarz that if she were deported, she’d almost certainly face death.
Coulter’s response? “And the Oscar goes to … THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WEEPING ON MSNBC!” she tweeted, going on to call Maria an “aspiring actress.”
She reserved some hatred for Díaz-Balart, too. “This was on Jose Diaz-Balart's new MSNBC show. I wonder if Diaz Balart's media career is helped by massive Latin Amer. immigration?” she tweeted. “Does anyone who supports mass immigration not have a personal financial motive?”
Well, Coulter certainly does.
Tom Coburn Thinks Legalized Weed Will End in “Tragedy”
Gingrey’s warnings carried weight in GOP circles because he’s a doctor. Meanwhile, Tom Coburn, a doctor in the other legislative chamber, sounded a warning that’s being heard less and less in mainstream politics, even in Coburn’s party: the terrors, largely imagined, of legalized weed.
Coburn doesn’t just think it’s a bad idea; he thinks it’ll end in “tragedy.”
“There’s never been a positive study on recreational marijuana,” Coburn said. “And the connection to further drug use, the connection to depression, connection to lack of motivation — There is nothing positive that comes out of it.”
No word yet on how ”tragic” Coburn considers the unimaginably costly war on drugs.
Conservatives Loathe Soccer Because Liberals Like It
For reasons that entirely pass understanding, conservatives loathe soccer.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Conservative largely don’t have a problem with fútbol, even if they don’t particularly treasure it. But because liberals supposedly treat soccer as the athletic version of a hipster mustache, conservatives have taken to affecting a hatred for the sport that far outstrips whatever they think they’re protesting.
See you now Bernie Goldberg’s “ you soccer punks get off my lawn” post during the World Cup semifinals, which was the Platonic form of the gratuitous anti-soccer rant. “I’ve always been a big sports fan, which explains why I have absolutely no interest in soccer,” he wrote in the National Review. Ha ha GET IT?
At least Goldberg admits he only hates soccer because he hates soccer fans, or at least those in his noggin: “Another reason I don’t like it is because of the Americans who do like it. Most of these sports fans — a term I use with no regard for either word, ‘sports’ or ‘fans’ — wouldn’t know a fumble from a first down, a hit-and-run from a double play. But every four years they show up at bars and go wild when the American team ties the Tunisians zero-zero, or nil-nil, as they call it.”
That’s almost perfect, but is there any way to throw in some gratuitous sexism?
“In soccer, they spend hours frantically trying to score. That’s not sport. That’s a young guy trying to convince his date that he likes her for her personality.” There it is. Don’t change a word.
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