AUGUST 2022 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Carl Paladino, Former New York Gubernatorial Candidate.  Every foray into Paladino's campaign history reveals a racist, sexist, piece of work. He is currently running for a congressional seat in the Empire State and is endorsed by none other than the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, Elise Stefanik. The Buffalo businessman has been making some headlines lately for a slew of hot takes he’s had over the past month.

About a week after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered, Paladino posted (and subsequently deleted) a Facebook conspiracy screed implying that the mass shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde were not real or orchestrated by deep state operatives.  Before admitting that he did make the post, Paladino initially denied having shared the pathetic conspiracy theory, saying: "I don't even know how ti post of Facebook." 

After more pressure was put on him to “cowboy up,” as the gun enthusiasts love to say, like a true coward, Paladino offered up this backward-crawling explanation: "I just didn't remember the fact that I published it; I couldn't remember. It was written by Jeff Briggs, a good friend from Rochester. I published it because he is a friend."

Blame his “good friend?” In fact, Paladino has a new offensive set of remarks and ideas, first uncovered by Media Matters. Bottom of Form

According to the report, Paladino appeared last year on a weekly Buffalo radio show, called The r-House Radio Show, hosted by real estate executive Peter Hunt. Hunt was asking Paladino about how conservatives could get “roused” up in a state that votes predominantly blue. “How do you get people thinking about the possibility of change here in New York state and what that might mean ... for everyone here?”

Paladino begins by telling Hunt he was just thinking about this very topic “the other day.” Well, not exactly. See, according to Paladino, he was hanging out with some other good friends, and “somebody had mentioned on the radio Adolf Hitler, and how he aroused the crowds.”

Okaaaaaaay. Weird soundtrack for a group hangout, but let’s see where this is going.

Paladino sort of laughs with this worn-out white supremacist trope of a talking point. “And he would get up there screaming these epithets and these people were just, they were hypnotized by him. That’s, I guess, I guess that’s the kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational.”

Someone inspirational. Like Hitler.

Paladino then makes a vague and somewhat rambling attack on “RINO-ism,” and Hunt quickly changes the subject to “deficit spending” in New York State.

It isn’t shocking that people like Paladino, and Trump before him, look up to Hitler and his supposed charisma. Decades ago, Ivana Trump did an interview with Vanity Fair and let the antisemitic cat out of the bag when she revealed that a book of Hitler’s speeches was the only book on Trump’s nightstand.

2. CongressMAN Jim Jordan. It’s pretty clear that attacking Roe v. Wade is nowhere near the end of what Republicans are hoping to accomplish. Conservatives across the nation have been targeting LGBTQ folks—and specifically trans folks—with an extra vigor over the past couple of years. For context, in his opinion supporting dismantling Roe, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the court should reconsider protections for marriage equality.

So, this isn’t just hysteria or panic talking. With this in mind, in an effort to protect marriage equality, House Democrats recently introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which aims to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and codify national recognition for same-sex and interracial marriages.

So, Republicans are now tripping over themselves to figure out how to vote away human rights without losing constituents or making their queerphobia even more obvious than it already is. Unless, of course, you’re Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, in which case you use your speaking time to rant about Donald Trump, “smear” campaigns against Brett Kavanaugh, and … crime rates in cities. Okay.

“We thought the Democrats were obsessed with President Trump,” Jordan begins. “But Justice Thomas is a close second. This bill is simply the latest installment of the Democrats’ campaign to delegitimize and attempt to intimidate the United States Supreme Court. It started when President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh; that was just too much for the left to bear, and they launched a smear campaign in an attempt to derail his nomination.”

He goes on to say Democrats are introducing this bill to distract from inflation, immigration, and violent crime in urban areas, and are trying to “manufacture” a crisis to help them get votes in November.

“We are here for a charade,” he insists. “We are here for political messaging.”

And here is a longer clip of Jordan’s rambling insistence that this bill is “unnecessary.”

“We think this legislation is unnecessary,” Jordan says in part. “Justice Alito was very clear—again, it’s been read several times—the Dobbs decision should not be misunderstood or mischaracterized to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion. The Court couldn’t have been clearer. The Obergerfell decision undid what 35 states have on their law in their respective state. 30 of those states, it was the vote of the people, as I said before. But this legislation, I guess, is going to just go after that decision of those respective states and, as I said, the voters in those states.”

Okay.

3. Wacked Out Alex Jones. Controversial conservative radio show host Alex Jones seems to enjoy digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole. Not only did he claim that a devastating school shooting was not real, but he attempted to badmouth the judge who is overseeing the defamation case that parents of a child from Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed against him.

The parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy who was shot and killed in the 2012 attack at the Connecticut school, said Jones’ hoax claims on his Infowars website have turned their lives into a living nightmare with threats, abuse, and harassment occurring daily. As a result, they filed a case against Jones, who admitted this week during trial the shooting was “100% real.”

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They are seeking $150 million from Jones, who has already been found liable in courts in Connecticut and Texas for defamation after making false statements that the school shooting was not only a hoax but that the grieving parents were liars. He claimed that the students who died were paid actors hired by Democrats to push gun-control measures.

"I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors," Jones said on his show. Politifact has tracked several instances of Jones' comments where he told individuals that "Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured."

Twenty students and six teachers died in the tragic incident that Jones purposely claimed was not real to increase his show’s engagement.

Of course, Jones was dragged for this, but that’s not all. What he didn’t expect were the texts exposing how much his show was making despite his claims he was bankrupt during the trial.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Mark Bankston, disclosed to Jones and the court that he had recently acquired evidence proving Jones had lied when he claimed during discovery that he had never texted about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. According to Bankston, it seems Jones' attorney may have accidentally sent him two years of cell phone records that included every text message Jones had sent.

The cell phone records show that Jones did indeed text about the Sandy Hook shooting.

"That is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text messages about Sandy Hook," Bankston said.

And—shocker—this isn’t the only lie Jones said under oath. According to CNN, he was also asked during cross-examination whether he had connected Judge Maya Guerra Gamble to pedophilia and human trafficking. While Jones claimed he never did so, Bankston played a video for the court of an Infowars video in which he did just that.

In the video, Jones attacked Gamble's prior work for Child Protective Services by claiming the agency had been "exposed" for "working for pedophiles.”

Jones had described the same judge as “demonically possessed” prior to his testimony Tuesday.

He said, referring to Gamble: “They all act demonically possessed: The judge, the lawyers,” he continued. “People … committed to a cult ideology of the new world order.”

But of course, his defamation doesn't end there. He again attempted to badmouth the judge on Wednesday, calling her terms like “whacked out.”

Calling him out for his actions, the judge said:

"This is not your show. Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath. It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify. Yet here I am."

The Texas jury awarded the Lewis’ 4.1 million in compensatory and a whopping 45.2 million in punitive damages, a small price to pay for Jones’ ignominious conduct.

4. West Virginia Republican Senator Robert Karnes. Anti-choice, and conspiracy theorist Senator Robert Karnes has said an awful lot of ridiculous things on Twitter, but his comments during a debate on an abortion bill on July 31 were outright dangerous.

There were arguments on both sides of the controversial bill, but Karnes’ comments were particularly repugnant. Karnes used his time to suggest that children who’ve been raped “romanticize” their sexual abusers. His thinking, apparently, is that a minor victim of sexual abuse believes they’re in a “relationship” with their rapist and even see them as a “boyfriend.”

“You know the dynamic in these relationships quite often is that the child has a very romanticized view of what’s happening. … They think that this is their boyfriend,” Karnes said.

After finishing, Karnes asked state Sen. Stephen Baldwin his opinion, to which Baldwin replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

But again, this isn’t Karnes’ first foray into being the worst the right-wing has to offer. Karnes has repeatedly used the “groomers” argument against bodily autonomy and reproductive rights advocates.

Karnes wasn’t the only GOPer to make nonsensical arguments against abortion at the debate. State Rep. Chris Pritt tried to argue that forcing absent fathers to pay child support would “encourage” more abortions. What?

Pritt then suggested that since pregnant people don’t want to fight for child support, they’ll “go over to Virginia” for abortion care.

Last Friday’s vote on the state’s uber-restrictive abortion bill ended without a decision. The senators passed the bill with a 21-10 vote but adjourned without a final resolution.

West Virginia Metro News reported that both the House and Senate were unable to come to a final decision. The primary issue was that Republicans didn’t believe the bill went far enough.

There were debates about removing criminal repercussions for health care workers and doctors who provide abortions from the bill, and a debate over the time period abortions would be allowed in the case of rape or incest, which was reduced from 14 weeks down to 8 weeks.

Essentially, the state’s conservatives weren't happy to make any concessions on abortion access. 

Karnes called the bill without criminality for providers a “pro-abortion” bill and blamed Republicans for failing to ban the right to reproductive choice outright.

“This is not a pro-life bill; this is a pro-abortion bill,” said Senator Karnes, blaming some of his party colleagues who had pushed to loosen its policies. “This was done by this party.”

5. Lauren Boebert (R-Col.). High school dropout Boebert gave a civics lesson yesterday complaining the fate of dogs in countries with armed citizens to countries without civilian gun ownership. Of America, she said,

“if the citizenry in America is disarmed then we are no longer citizens. We are subjects. You know here in America we have gourmet treats for puppies. We have these amazing groomers for dogs."

If you aren't sure what dogs have to do with guns, Boebert clarifies,

“In Venezuela, they eat the dogs, and it started because they do not have firearms to protect themselves, to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.”

Unfortunately, her scholarship is limited. A quick check of countries with low gun ownership rates reveals that many of them — most of Europe, for example — have low rates of dog eating. Although the citizens of Italy, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg are fond of horse meat. Boebert has yet to address the role of guns in that culinary choice.

She has already fired up the prophylactic election denial claims, saying to whoever will listen,

"We're already detecting some stealing going on,"

And she is talking about the Republican primary.

According to election conspiracy theorists, Maricopa County is the hub of all the election shenanigans in Arizona. Bill Gates, Chairman of the Republican-controlled County Board, which oversees the vote in the country's second-largest election jurisdiction, has fought back. He has asked Lake to put up or shut up.

"It is beyond irresponsible for a major candidate in the Republican Party to be making these allegations. If they have proof, they need to provide it."

But as Rudy Giuliani said, also in Arizona,

“We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”

And that is the Republican Party today. They live in a post-truth, alternative facts world. Conservatism is a religion, and its adherents prefer faith to reason. They warn of Jewish bankers issuing in a ‘new world order.’ And claim leading Democrats, in cahoots with Hollywood luminaries, run a child sex ring in which children are scared to death so liberals can harvest their adrenaline as a youth enhancer.

They see America as a country where gays have an agenda. Where teachers indoctrinate kids to change their gender; feminists smack testosterone-deficient men around; liberals are gun and Bible grabbers. And Christians are persecuted for their faith.

It is hard to understand how people believe this stuff. Although dragging young kids to Sunday school, and planting them in church pews to be indoctrinated in the unbelievable, is a good start.   

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And the August IGGY winner is:

Wow! All candidates this month are worthy of an IGGY, but for sheer evilness as a “human” being, the August award has to go to the nauseating Alex Jones.  He epitomizes the true spirit of the IGGY.