It is not “mental illness” – it is minds poisoned by right-wing lies

November 28, 2015 JanF Featured Posts, News and Opinion 24

Right-wing canard alert!!

Yesterday’s domestic terrorism incident at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs generated a cornucopia of right-wing canards (do not cook and eat them, they are poisonous!).

Here’s one! From a congressman … who CNN decided they should have on LIVE TV while the terrorist was still active in Colorado Springs (“CNN: When we can’t be bothered reporting the news, we just make stuff up!!”):

[Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) had no problem] diagnosing the motives and influences of the shooter. “This is a person that has a mental health issue, that is to some level psychotic and crazy,” Kinzinger said. He also said the shooter could have had a “legitimate disagreement” with Planned Parenthood.

Aha! This kind of “legitimate” disagreement?

“We saw these barbaric videos, and that was something that many of us have a legitimate concern about,” Kinzinger said.

He demanded an apology from Planned Parenthood for even suggesting that the terrorist may have been inspired by the anti-woman jihadists in Congress:

“We don’t yet know the full circumstances and motives behind this criminal action, and we don’t yet know if Planned Parenthood was in fact the target of this attack. We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.”
– Vicki Cowart, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

And it is that poisonous environment, fueled by right-wing lies and enabled by Republicans in Congress that has given people like the terrorist in Colorado Springs permission to kill. Maybe there is a mental illness, Congressman, Planned Parenthood Derangement Syndrome – PPDS, with its roots in centuries of misogyny and women as property and reinforced by this terrorist organization:

Own this, Republican Congressmen. You and your party have blood on your hands.

Meanwhile, the sounds of silence from the GOP presidential candidates is deafening:

Approximately 10 hours after a gunman went on a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, only two presidential candidates have issued statements expressing support for either the three victims or the women’s health organization.

Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton
Today and every day, we #StandWithPP.

Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders
We proudly #StandWithPP of Colorado Springs and the brave law enforcement personnel who fought to protect it.

p.s. You can Stand with Planned Parenthood also:

Click to Donate

Missing from the list of canards, however, was “just one good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun”. Maybe it was because there were probably 100 good guys with guns trying to stop this one guy. Or maybe because our right-wing media has people so poisoned that they believe that this was not such a bad guy?

There was a sense of outrage on Twitter yesterday over not just the terrorizing of women and health care providers but the stark contrast between the images we see daily of people of color being gunned down and then a white man who just killed a cop walking out of a building with his hands up and being taken quietly into custody (I wonder if they took him to Burger King on the way to the jail?) . The outrage was not that the killer had not been shot dead (no reasonable person wants that) but the fact that in America right now there are two types of justice: one for people who look like your hunting buddy and one for The Other.

A few hours of Tweets:

Cecile Richards ‏@CecileRichards
We will never back away from providing care in a safe, supportive environment that millions of people rely on and trust.

Eric Wolfson ‏@EricWolfson 15h 15 hours ago
#ThatAwkwardMoment when you try to prove you’re pro-life by opening fire on a Planned Parenthood facility.

Peter Daou ‏@peterdaou 10h 10 hours ago
Two weeks spent degrading #refugee children and it’s a domestic killer who attacks a women’s health clinic #PlannedParenthood

Shannon ‏@shannonrwatts 10h 10 hours ago
Oh wait – #PlannedParenthood had security guard, bulletproof glass and vests, a safe room, and lots of good guys. Now what #NRA? #gunsense

Tony topWave ‏@topWave_ 11h 11 hours ago
.@marcorubio: Religious believers are called to “ignore” laws that violate their faith.
Related story: Right-wing extremist attacks #PP.

Adam Weinstein ‏@AdamWeinstein 11h 11 hours ago
Thank God he wasn’t a black teen ambling up the street with no guns, they might’ve had to shoot him 16 times

Angela Mary Claire ‏@AngeMaryClaire 11h 11 hours ago
If anyone is wondering how you can be pro-life and shoot people, it’s not pro-life, it’s anti-choice. #PlannedParenthood

Shaun King ‏@ShaunKing 12h 12 hours ago
Police take people alive when they want to. Period.

Tom Watson ‏@tomwatson 11h 11 hours ago
Good thing the white gunman in CO didn’t brandish a knife while 25 feet from heavily armed officers. Might’ve ended badly.

Jesse Benn ‏@JesseBenn 12h 12 hours ago
#PlannedParenthood gunman shoots four cops. Puts his hands up, isn’t shot. This is why white people think the system works. It does for us.

Andrea ‏@nonsequiteuse 12h 12 hours ago
Lt. Buckley in Colorado Springs describing PP as “a medical clinic where medical procedures are performed.” THANK YOU. #PlannedParenthood

Susie Madrak ‏@SusieMadrak 12h 12 hours ago
WHY WON’T WHITE CHRISTIAN LEADERS REPUDIATE THIS TERRORISM? (I’ll just sit here and hold my breath.)

No word yet on whether or not this woman gave up waiting. I hope so!

Lisa Rowe ‏@txvoodoo 12h 12 hours ago
And he didn’t even have to say “hands up, don’t shoot.” Whiteness is a shield.

John ‏@linnyitssn 12h 12 hours ago
If this idiot at Planned Parenthood is an angry Pro-Lifer, then hate and lies spread by the GOP are the cause of this.

Connie Schultz ‏@ConnieSchultz 12h 12 hours ago
I am sorry to so often have to think of #PlannedParenthood staff and volunteers as brave, but so grateful to know they are. #StandWithPP

k8 ‏@rolling_2 12h 12 hours ago
“Planned Parenthood doesn’t ‘understand the sanctity of human life” ~ Ben Carson /
OK Irony, you win. #ColoradoSpringsShooting

Zack Ford ‏@ZackFord 12h 12 hours ago
Terrorism = terrorizing people. If you can’t comprehend that this will make women feel scared to enter PPFA, you don’t understand words.

Zeddonymous ‏@ZeddRebel 12h 12 hours ago
Watch out for people assuming he was a loner. Tiller assassin Scott Roeder had ties to Op Rescue, Army of God and the Montana Freemen.

Kevin Drum ‏@kdrum 13h 13 hours ago
Looking forward to toughminded Republican responses to Planned Parenthood terrorism this afternoon.

Molly Manglewood ‏@undeadmolly 13h 13 hours ago
If you ask me it’s pretty selfish of gun shot victims to put conservatives’ gun collections at risk by getting shot by guns all the time.

TC ‏@tchop_stl 13h 13 hours ago
Can you imagine CNN interviewing an ISIS propagandist hours after the Paris attacks & giving him credibility like they did @AdamKinzinger?

Joan Walsh ‏@joanwalsh 13h 13 hours ago
Waiting for apology from @RepKinzinger for saying @PPact was wrong to claim it was the shooter’s target.

Jane Doe, MD ‏@DrJaneChi 14h 14 hours ago
Every violent attack on Planned Parenthood or any abortion provider is a terrorist attack on the availability of legal abortion.

Alexandra @aliemalie 14h 14 hours ago
A clinic needs bulletproof vests. Let that sink in. “Clinic has a… supply of bulletproof vests.” #ColoradoSprings

Dante Atkins ‏@DanteAtkins 14h 14 hours ago
If red states want to protect women’s health, they should spend less time on ambulatory surgery requirements and more on right-wing terror.

Hunter ‏@HunterDK 15h 15 hours ago
We still don’t know if this is an anti-abortion terrorist or just one of the other terrorists that regularly murder Americans for reasons.

Sarah Kliff ‏@sarahkliff 15h 15 hours ago
Statement from the brother of a Planned Parenthood patient.

Note: He was later reunited with her.

Tariq Nasheed ‏@tariqnasheed 15h 15 hours ago
I knew this #PlannedParenthood suspect was white the minute they used the word “shooter” instead of “thug” or “terrorist” to describe him

Dean Obeidallah ‏@Deanofcomedy 15h 15 hours ago
6 people now confirmed shot in Colorado Springs -damn victims if only they had been armed! Oh yeah, 3 were cops and were armed. Ooops NRA

Mrs. Betty Bowers ‏@BettyBowers 15h 15 hours ago
Remember all the right-wing Tweeters imploring us “wait until all the facts are in” before guessing Paris shooters’ religion? Me neither!

patrick ‏@pattymo 17h 17 hours ago
It’s almost as though the GOP’s odious anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric, done solely for political points, has real-world consequences

~

And this. Law enforcement does not respect that laws are broken when terrorists attack women’s clinics. And until they do, this will keep happening, there will be more loss of life and, eventually, women will be afraid to go to a clinic to get cancer screening or birth control pills or … yes … abortions.

ClinicEscort ‏@ClinicEscort 16h16 hours ago
In short, lots of ppl who violently attack clinics started out as protesters, escalated to vandalism, & then leveled up to guns, bombs, etc.

Here is a Storify by Michelle Kinsey Bruns (@ClinicEscort) about violence at Planned Parenthood clinics:
“Vandalism” at Abortion Clinics Is So Much More Than That

When intruders attack a clinic to destroy outdoor security cameras & cut electrical lines, the word “vandalism” erases an important context of violence.

24 Comments

  1. Until we say “No … violence is NOT how we settle our political disputes”, we will continue to have these incidents.

    And the Republican Congress has to stop enabling those who want to solve disputes at the point of a gun. The only “mental illness” is the delusional GOP thinking that words have no meaning and that inciting people to violence is not going to result in violence.

  2. President Obama’s statement:

    The last thing Americans should have to do, over the holidays or any day, is comfort the families of people killed by gun violence — people who woke up in the morning and bid their loved ones goodbye with no idea it would be for the last time. And yet, two days after Thanksgiving, that’s what we are forced to do again.

    We don’t yet know what this particular gunman’s so-called motive was for shooting twelve people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. What we do know is that he killed a cop in the line of duty, along with two of the citizens that police officer was trying to protect. We know that law enforcement saved lives, as so many of them do every day, all across America. And we know that more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them.

    This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.

    May God bless Officer Garrett Swasey and the Americans he tried to save — and may He grant the rest of us the courage to do the same thing.

    • More from last night:

      @HunterDK: Police response apparently complicated by Planned Parenthood’s bulletproof windows. b/c PP needs bulletproof windows. ….and safe rooms.

    • From last night:

      Victor Laszlo ‏@Impolitics 12h 12 hours ago
      As a clinic was attacked, a Republiclown was denouncing Planned Parenthood on CNN, which now challenges Fox for the eyeballs of assholes.

      Fox News Lite … good luck with that, CNN.

  4. In case you missed it: Live Coverage from The Gazette

    “There was a moment this afternoon when a man walked up to the scene with a handgun strapped to his waist and ammunition vest around his chest. He appeared to be asking police if he could help. Officers told him to leave immediately because appearing at the scene while wearing firearms and that equipment was a bad idea.”

  5. Thank you for this Jan.
    I hope more people speak out against the vile bile being spewed by the right-wingnuts and that Planned Parenthood gets some more much needed support.

    • I saw some “people” on Twitter last night calling out Planned Parenthood for “using” this attack to fundraise. No, doodieheads, they need to fundraise because ONE OF THEIR CLINICS WAS SHUT DOWN BY A RIGHT-WING KILLER!!!

      Sheesh.

      I hope people give generously. If Planned Parenthood is shut down, the haters win.

  6. “A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
    ~ Mark Twain and/or Jonathon Swift

    “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. ”
    ~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan

    And these guys: Abortion Opponents Insist The Planned Parenthood Shooting Was Actually A Bank Robbery

    Initially, when police officers were involved in a stand-off with Dear and information about the event was murky, early reports from Fox News quoted a witness who suggested that the first shots were fired from a bank. The anti-abortion website LifeNews picked up that story, spurring the bank robbery narrative.

    When Erick Son of Erick “heard” it was a bank robbery, he tweeted this:

    “[The] Left [is] upset the only people dying at Planned Parenthood today are babies. They were hoping for Christian shooters …”

    No, we were hoping that no one was hurt or killed while seeking medical care because of the outrageous lies promoted by people like you. And may I say “[badwordredacted] you”, you misogynistic ahole!

  7. I have no words other than thanks for posting all this coverage, Jan – it is just sickening.

    • Thanks for visiting, Ono! I keep hoping that [fill in latest horrific attack on our freedoms] will be the final straw that breaks the right-wing camel’s back.

      This sort of occurrence is all too frequent and when one of our country’s two major political parties is literally inciting armed zealots to violence (or vile-ence, as I typed in first!) in order to Get Out The Vote, it makes it that much worse. I will not be like Susie Madrak, holding my breath waiting for Republicans to call this out …

      Susie Madrak ‏@SusieMadrak 12h 12 hours ago
      WHY WON’T WHITE CHRISTIAN LEADERS REPUDIATE THIS TERRORISM? (I’ll just sit here and hold my breath.)

      … I will be working my butt off to get Democrats elected up and down the ticket next year so that the Republicans can be relegated to the dustbin of history.

      The president said “enough is enough” but it really won’t be enough until we can elect a Congress that reflects the values of the majority of the people.

  9. Yr Wonkette weighs in:

    “In another great day for the ‘pro-life’ movement, a gunman shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Friday, killing three and wounding 9.”

    “The shootings are expected to change absolutely nothing in the national debates over legal abortion or firearms ownership, but are at least a distraction from the usual stories about people getting trampled at Black Friday sales.”

    http://wonkette.com/596451/3-killed-in-terrorist-attack-on-planned-parenthood-lets-ban-islam-just-to-be-safe

  11. Great diary. Thanks. Does anyone have a good trusty link for contributing to Planned Parenthood?

    • If you click on the #StandWithPP in the post, it will take you there. I should have labeled it better! I still think everyone can read hovers and, really, they are now just a sad anachronism.

      Here is your own personal link, Portlaw:

      Click to Donate

  12. NEWS UPDATE: The killer admitted that his act of violence was politically motivated:

    The day after a gunman killed three people and shot nine others at a Colorado Planned Parenthood office, officials tell NBC News a motive remains unclear, but say the suspect talked about politics and abortion.

    Robert Lewis Dear, a North Carolina native who was living in a trailer in Colorado, made statements to police Friday at the scene of the Colorado Springs clinic and in interviews that law enforcement sources described as rantings.

    In one statement, made after the suspect was taken in for questioning, Dear said “no more baby parts” in reference to Planned Parenthood, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case.

    WaPo wrote two puff pieces about how sad and isolated the poor terrorist was. I will not link to them. Suffice it to say: lots of people feel sad and isolated and they do not commit murder. But, then again, they don’t have Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson and Ted Cruz telling them that the worst thing in the world is a woman exercising her right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. They should be charged as accessories to this hate crime.

    NARAL has started a petition to ask the Justice Department to investigate the clinic attack as an act of terrorism: Tell the Department of Justice: Investigate Clinic Violence as Domestic Terrorism

    On Friday, Nov. 27, a shooter entered a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing at least 3 and injuring several others.

    This attack, as well as other recent arson attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, have come after the highly publicized release of heavily edited videos by a sham organization run by extremists who will stop at nothing to deny women legal abortion services.

    These attacks on clinics are part of a long history of ideologically-driven violence. They’re perpetrated by an extreme minority that’s committed to ruling through fear and intimidation.

    Let’s call this what it is—domestic terrorism. It’s time for an investigation to get to the bottom of this.

    • The killer had a history of domestic violence. ThinkProgress points out the link between unpunished or underpunished domestic violence and future acts of violence:

      … there’s evidence that conclusively links domestic violence incidents with future violent crimes. Men who hurt their female family members often go on to hurt other people later in life. Domestic violence advocates say that’s one important reason why crimes against women — which are often difficult to push through the criminal justice system, particularly considering the fact that violence against female partners has long been considered the norm — should be taken more seriously within society as a whole.

      “Men who are eventually arrested for violent acts often began with attacks against their girlfriends and wives. In many cases, the charges of domestic violence were not taken seriously or were dismissed,” activists Pamela Shifman and Salamishah Tillet wrote in the New York Times earlier this year. “With so much at stake, responding to violence against women should be a top priority for everyone.”

      Maybe we should call incidents of domestic violence what they are … CRIMES … instead of treating them like some sort of lovers spat. If the clinic killer had been charged with a crime, he may not have been able to legally purchase the weapon he used to kill 3 and wound 9.

    • RonK, can you repost that here? It bears repeating. House Republicans are intent on forging ahead with “mental health care reform” while doing nothing to curtail access to guns. I think mental health care reform would be great, let’s do it! But the proliferation of guns is the leading cause of gun violence. I think we are a few ticks away from complete mayhem breaking loose when armed citizens start shooting at each other like the Old West. We almost had that with the Gabby Giffords shooting: one person in the crowd with a gun nearly shot at someone who was helping Rep. Giffords because he initially thought that person was the shooter.

      • Thanks JanF. I will dig it out and see if I can get it over to the Moose. I believe that the data are still current since no such research is currently allowed by our government institutes. As noted in the post, most of this research was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and other countries.

Comments are closed.