Heroes and Zeroes: Newtown Conspiracies, Gun Nuts and GOP Rape (VIDEO)

Welcome to The Stew?s weekly column of winners and losers, heroes and zeroes, foolish and fabulous, in the world of politics, news and pop culture.

This week: Debunking conspiracies, Westboro Baptist gets punked, the gun nuts come out in droves, and the Republican?s return to ?legitimate rape.?

Heroes

Anderson Cooper calls out the conspiracy nuts on Newtown and Jeff Ross punks the Westboro Baptist bigots.

Anderson Cooper: One of the more disturbing trends that we?ve seen in the wake of mass shootings like Newtown and Aurora is the rise in the conspiracy theories surrounding them. It?s hard to know what to make of these ?theories,? but their existence points to a frightening, unhinged underbelly of the citizenry that perhaps has always been there, but in the age of the internet and social media now plays out for all to see as videos go viral and blog posts are picked up at breakneck speed.

Here in Colorado, we have people claiming that James Holmes, the alleged shooter in the Aurora massacre, is some sort of Manchurian candidate-type operative, who has been used by the government as a patsy as a means to overturn the 2^nd Amendment. In Newtown, the conspiracy nuts are claiming that the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary never actually happened and that the scenes that played out in front of the public were conducted by government-paid actors. These people claim that the children who were supposedly killed have shown up in pictures, post-tragedy, and that the whole incident was an elaborate lie used to push gun control and disarm the citizenry.

To me, the way in which these ?theories? flourish in our society is a very disturbing indication of the mental state of the country, and Anderson Cooper decided to take a closer look at them on his program Friday night with Alex Seitz-Wald from Salon and Jonathan Kay from the National Post:

KAY: The Internet has turbo-charged the conspiracy theory movement, because the big challenge for conspiracy theorists used to be getting the word out, because respectable journalists wouldn?t touch their stories, but now conspiracy theorists, usually they don?t even bother trying to go to the mainstream media, they just publish it on their website and they can create their own little echo chambers of paranoid individuals who all share the same distrust.

Unfortunately, in the age of Fox News and the proliferation of right-wing propaganda, which has made a point in breeding this sort of paranoia, these ?theories? can take a much stronger hold than they ever could in times past.

WATCH the clip from Anderson Cooper 360 (story continues below):

Jeff Ross: I think most people can agree that the bigots of Westboro Baptist are nothing more than a hate-group and should be designated as such. In fact, the most popular petition at the White House petition site has now garnered over 300,000 responses demanding that the government officially categorize Westboro as a hate group.

But sometimes, humor and ridicule can play a part in raking groups like Westboro over the coals and diminishing their influence ? especially when it?s done face to face. Case in point: comedian Jeff Ross roasted the group in person, in front of their church in Kansas. Best line:

?American soldiers died for your right to protest funerals; hey I got a good idea, return the favor ? and die ? get it??

Ouch.

WATCH (story continues below):

Zeroes

As the gun safety debate continues in Washington, pro-gun activists are throwing out their most ridiculous examples of ?if everyone had a gun,? and the GOP trips up on their preoccupation with rape ? again.

Larry Ward: the dumbest gun nut in America

Larry Ward: As with the Newtown conspiracy theorists, the pro-gun lobby is trying to rewrite history in their own image. They like to throw out examples of Hitler as a gun-control enthusiast ? a claim handily debunked ? and now Larry Ward, founder and chairman of Gun Appreciation Day, would like to posit that if the slaves had only had guns of their own, slavery in America would have never happened:

?I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country?s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.?

That comment is so utterly preposterous, I have no words?

WATCH (story continues below):

Rep. Phil Gingrey: It would seem that when it comes to the GOP and the subject of rape, these dudes just can?t keep their pie-holes shut. Exhibit A: Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), who inexplicably came to the defense of Todd ?Legitimate Rape? Akin:

?I?ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true,? Gingrey said, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. ?We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ?Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don?t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.? So he was partially right wasn?t he??

??Look, in a legitimate rape situation? ? and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that?s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ?Hey, I was raped.? That?s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape,? Gingrey said. ?I don?t find anything so horrible about that.?

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)

Why Gingrey even brought up Akin is a complete mystery and he went on to defend Richard ?Rape Babies are a Gift from God? Mourdock:

?Mourdock basically said ?Look, if there is conception in the aftermath of a rape, that?s still a child, and it?s a child of God, essentially,? Gingrey is quoted as saying Thursday.

I?ve said before that I believe many men like Akin, like Mourdock, like Gingrey in the Republican Party fantasize about rape and the degradation of women ? they get off on it and they enjoy the idea of it. Violence against women for them is a perverted fetish that they dream about because they enjoy that kind of dominance and control. They also view women as nothing more than sperm receptacles, so the nature of conception is completely inconsequential and beside the point in their twisted way of thinking. If anybody has a better explanation, please enlighten me.

Needless to say, Gingrey?s comments have prompted a whole new round of hand-wringing within the GOP, who got their asses whipped in the general election thanks in large part to their sustained war on women:

?This is actually pretty simple,? said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. ?If you?re about to talk about rape as anything other than a brutal and horrible crime, stop.?

Good advice. Unfortunately, the Kevin Maddens of the world have been entirely trumped by the crazies in their party and no one gives a rat?s ass what any sane or moderate member would have to say.

That?s it for this week! Join us next week for more Heroes and Zeroes!

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