North Dakota: Legalized Abortions Cause School Shootings
U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer knows why there have been so many school shootings in the U.S. over the past few years, and it’s not because of easy access to guns or inadequate treatment of the mentally ill. No, the Republican from North Dakota insists, the rise in school shootings is directly connected to the legalization of abortion and a supposed decline in Christian values. “We learned this week that the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to rape and advocated that military personnel and colluding chaplains who proselytize should be court martialed,” Cramer said during a commencement speech at the Catholic University of Mary that, miraculously, went unnoticed by the national media until this week. “Forty years ago, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned abortion on demand. And we wonder why our culture sees school shootings so often.” Cramer’s link between “normalized perversion” and mass murders rings eerily similar to Michele Bachmann’s argument that the September 11 terror attacks in 2001 and 2012 were God’s way of passing judgement on our country’s moral demise.
Missouri: The Gays Killed the Bullying Bill
Missouri's Republican state Rep. Sue Allen has called on her constituents to contact openly gay lawmakers Jolie Justus and Mike Colona and blame them for the death of her anti-bullying bill. The key difference between Allen’s bill and other, more successful anti-bullying legislation is that it bans enumerated lists of specific groups of people that need protection—such as gay and transgender students—because she believes they are too partisan. “I typically try to keep partisanship out of my message, but this is an issue for the Democrats who wish for certain students (LGBT-gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) to be ‘enumerated’ within school policies ... What they [Justus and Colona] don’t seem to understand is that stronger policies help ALL students, even those they would have characterized.” The problem with Allen’s argument is that listing specific groups does not, as she suggests, negate protection for anyone else, it simply ensures that any bullying of people who identify with these particularly at-risk groups is reported.
Kansas: Let’s Rise Above the N Word
Kansas State Board of Education member Steve Roberts stood his ground Tuesday in the face of offended fellow board members, defending his use of the N word during last month’s meeting “100 percent.” In response to a comment from Topeka’s former NAACP president about the need for more African-American history in schools, Roberts launched into his own monologue about pushing “the frontiers of political correctness” with regard to the N word—using it in full. When the board reconvened this week, Roberts was confronted about his use of the word and how it offended people in the room, but he was remorseless. “I did my best to say the ‘N word’ clinically. I’m willing to be considered politically incorrect. I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Roberts said, suggesting that his critics were simply seeking media attention.
MInnesota: What’s Next, Political Bias for Health Care?
Michele Bachmann wouldn’t say she was happy to find out that the IRS had, in fact, been targeting conservative groups seeking nonprofit status, but the revelation did bring her some satisfaction. The representative from Minnesota jumped at the chance to use the IRS scandal as evidence that the overreach of big government has gotten out of control, suggesting that if nonprofit organizations were targeted for their political beliefs, who's to say the same system of discrimination won’t be used for other programs, such as health care? “Knowing it’s the IRS who will be the enforcing mechanism for this new entitlement program of Obamacare, it is very important to ask—and now it is reasonable to ask—could there be potential political implications of access to health care, denial of health care? Will that happen based on a person’s political beliefs or their religiously held beliefs?” Bachmann asked at a Capitol Hill rally Thursday. “Those questions would have been considered out of bounds a week ago. Today those questions are considered more than reasonable and more than fair for the American people.”
