Carry on my wayward son… before I shoot you.
On Monday, during a House Appropriations Committee meeting to discuss feral hog population, Rep. Virgil Peck (Asshole-Tyro) said — in public, mind you — that it might be a good idea to control the illegal immigrant problem the way Kansas controls the feral hog population — by shooting them from a helicopter.
Peck made his comment during a discussion by the House Appropriations Committee on state spending for controlling feral swine.
After one of the committee members talked about a program that uses hunters in helicopters to shoot wild swine, Peck suggested that may be a way to control illegal immigration.
Appropriations Chairman Marc Rhoades, R-Newton, said Peck’s comment was inappropriate.
Rhoades said he thought Peck was joking, but added, “Hopefully he won’t do it again.”
Asked about his comment, Peck was unapologetic. “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person,” he said.
He said most of his constituents are upset with illegal immigration and the state and federal government response.
He said he didn’t expect any further controversy over his comment. “I think it’s over,” he said.
Last month, another state legislator, Rep. Connie O’Brien, R-Tonganoxie, apologized after referring to a college student as an illegal immigrant because of her “olive complexion.”
First, I highly doubt this is the way southeast Kansans speak; tossing out jokes about genocide willy nilly. Now, I’ve never been to Kansas, but I saw The Wizard of Oz, and I don’t remember Dorothy taking a detour to shoot some Mexicans.
Second, what is with people shooting shit from helicopters? Is this a real thing that people do? Whatever happened to grabbing a six-pack of brewskis, setting up a perch in a tree, and just hanging with your bros? Are we really just gunning animals down from helicopters now (even if for the purposes of population control)? That doesn’t seem right. What do they do with the hogs after they’re all riddled with bullets?
Third, really? This is what passes for humor among the Teabillies?
Fourth, I need a drink. My head hurts.
I’m off to look for my long-form. It’s borderline illegal to be brown in this country.
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
beltane
Virgil Peck? WTF. These people cannot be real, they are stock figures of rednecks straight out of central casting. I read about another one this morning, from Tennessee, whose name was Mae Beavers.
Warren Terra
Let’s be clear: is the problem Missouri, or Oklahoma?
Mr Furious
Aren’t helicopters fucking expensive? I mean, surely a crack shot redneck can bag more illegals with a pickup and a spotlight, right?
Loneoak
Hunting Mexicans by foot is hard work. He would have to hire a day laborer to carry his pack.
Warren Terra
Also, I missed this part the first time I skimmed the post:
Now, if their complexion were really, really green you’d maybe be justified in questioning their immigration status – but olive? That’s not remotely a good reason to suspect they weren’t born here, let alone that they’re here illegally. I mean, I guess you could use complexion as a reason to question someone’s right to be here, but only if you take a homeland security approach to the question.
The Dangerman
The Right has descended into simply being the Party of Angry White Men and Women. For example, there are some troglodytes that are saying that the Japan EQ/TW/Meltdown clusterfuck is payback for Pearl Harbor. They’ve lost their minds in their fury.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Wow, making that comment is so much worse than ordering drone strikes in Pakistan that end up blowing actual people to pieces.
jonas
Lemme guess. I bet this guy is also a self-proclaimed pro-life, born-again Christian. Just a hunch.
Viva BrisVegas
Man – the most dangerous game of all.
As part of the House Appropriations Committee couldn’t Peck organise the purchase of a small Caribbean Island on which his fellow Republicans could enjoy some R&R with high powered rifles?
It seems reasonable enough to me.
MikeJ
OT, but where’s Randinho? Sounders are playing Posh Spice’s team.
The Dangerman
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
With the approval of Pakistan and with people killed being almost overwhelmingly insurgents. Sure, sucks to be an innocent, but wars have collateral damage.
Chris Grrr™
The crazy 27% probably agree…
S. cerevisiae
Sad to see the spirit of Col. Chivington is still alive and well. Sand Creek may be one state over, but this scumbucket would be right at home 150 years ago and would most likely volunteer for the “militia”
Neutron Flux
I live Kansas. Many of the folks here do talk this way.
I’m kinda used to it.
Martin
Genocide? Genocide only applies to humans. We’ve got a lot of work before we get the GOP to recognize immigrants as human.
Svensker
@The Dangerman:
My, that’s a shiny crystal ball you got there.
Mike in NC
@beltane:
Virgil Peck[erhead] is a great name for a psycho! Every day I see more and more people who look like they walked off the set of “Justified”.
Lavocat
Over the past decade – and certainly since 9/11 – I’ve noticed a distinct trend in closet bigotry suddenly becoming mainstream, and decidedly uncloseted.
It always seems to be clothed in – “hey, I was only JOKING!”
Uh-huh. Yet THINK about that for a minute. This person thinks this is FUNNY. It’s FUNNY to proclaim your bigotry to the world. It’s just a joke!
Freud would have a field day with these motherfuckers.
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
“Wow, making that comment is so much worse than ordering drone strikes in Pakistan that end up blowing actual people to pieces.”
Yup. I come to B-J specifically for the group-guffaws that are generated by the fact of the drone strikes. And they say us libs don’t have a sense of humor…
beltane
@Martin: The GOP has also been working hard to make people forget that they are human. It works both way.
MD Rackham
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Ah, the sheer beauty of the false dichotomy. Radiant in its purity.
How about we don’t shoot either Afghani boys from drones or illegal aliens from helicopters?
See, that was easy to resolve, wasn’t it?
The Dangerman
@Svensker: @Svensker:
I have a pair of shiny balls, neither of them crystal.
Now, I’ll leave it to you to find how many innocents were killed in air strikes. Not 518; not even close.
Svensker
@The Dangerman:
Again, I marvel at your crystal ball(s).
Did you know there were WMD in Iraq? Yessirree. I heard it on the TV.
Dee Loralei
Sounds like #4 reactor at Fukashima is about to meltdown. Tepco has pulled all 50 workers from site.
SHIT!
The Dangerman
@Svensker:
Did you mistake me for a supporter of the Iraq War? Sorry, you would be wrong.
As for where I get my information, well, if you can provide me with some links to disprove my claim, well, I’d be happy to read them. Apparently your claim is that all our Media does is lie; doesn’t impress me.
Cat Lady
@Dee Loralei:
Yup. It’s all over except for the finger pointing.
Comrade Mary
The reactors are so closely clustered together. If they’re pulling workers from No. 4, is it really safe to be at the reactor next door?
Cassidy
Might be a good way to control Republicans in Kansas also.
Svensker
@The Dangerman:
If you can provide me with links showing there aren’t chocolate chips cookies flying out of my left ear, I’ll be happy to read those, too.
(Or maybe Nanaimo Bars, come to think of it. Mmmmmm. Nanaimo Bars.)
Mark S.
@Cassidy:
I don’t know, Kansas seems a tad red to me.
I’m just saying we’ll need a lot of helicopters.
dmsilev
I confess to being confused. Exactly which Kansas border are illegal immigrants sneaking across? Is there a need to construct a fence to seal off the flow of illicit Okie migrants or something?
dms
Jay C
As if it needs any more FAIL, another thing that struck me about Rep. Peck’s (this clown is a Congressman? – Jeebus on a tricycle!) inane remark is his seeming notion that “illegal immigrants”, rather than simply living in motels, and working in some factory in town, spend their days milling around in little flocks out in the hills, or the scrub, or whatever Godforsaken hellscape they have in southeast Kansas. Just like “feral hogs”? How does he propose to “hunt” them, then? Leave a case or two of Dos Equis in a clearing, and pick them off through a night scope?
Comrade Mary
NHK English not mentioning the evacuation at all, just white smoke. The fuck, North American media?
Cat Lady
OT, but Anderson Cooper is melting down now too. Fukushima is officially fUXX0r3d. The good news – wind is carrying it east! Note to Hawaiian and left coaster BJers: Iodine.
dmsilev
@Jay C: That occurred to me as well. I have this vision of a pickup truck owned by some landscaping company driving through a suburb en route to a job, and a helicopter pops up over the horizon, fires off a few rounds, and then flies off in search of more prey. Hey look, a cleaning service van!
dms
Roger Moore
@Lavocat:
It’s not that they really think that it’s funny. It’s damage control. Once the words are out of their mouth, they have three choices:
1) Apologize and admit that they said something dumb
2) Double down and claim that what they said is perfectly fine
3) Pretend it was all a joke
Option 1 doesn’t work because it makes you look weak, and that’s the worst sin of all to these idiots. Option 2 will really piss people off and is only viable if you live in wingnut central. Option 3 lets you pretend that you don’t really believe that shit you just said to people who were offended while still letting people who agree that you think it’s not completely crazy.
Neutron Flux
@dmsilev: They work in the meat packing plants. Real Americans won’t do the work, no matter the pay.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
My guess is it’s those DFH Coloradans. They’re crazy enough to elect a Democrat Governor and vote for a Kenyan usurper as President, so they must be really dangerous.
The Dangerman
@Svensker:
Couldn’t give less of a shit if there are chocolate chip cookies flying out your ear; however, if you’re going to start throwing around “crystal ball” accusations, I’d really welcome some links disproving my information. Otherwise, I have to choose between a wide number of media outlets or sticking my fingers in my ears screaming “la-la-la everyone’s, lying to me”. I choose the former, tyvm.
Innocents getting killed in drone strikes (or any other strikes) sucks shit; however, there are insurgents in Pakistan that Pakistan doesn’t want there and that NATO doesn’t want there. If you can look in your crystal ball and find a way to deal with insurgents that doesn’t kill innocents, well, I’d bet Obama would love to hear it.
Svensker
@Neutron Flux:
Got any info on what’s going on with the reactors now?
Neutron Flux
Just what I heard on CNN. That they are evacuating the whole crew of Operators.
This is unimaginable to me. I am familiar with a PWR’s Operating Procedures, Abnormal Operating Procedures, Emergency Procedures, Severe Accident Management Guidelines, NRC B.5.b requirements and the Emergency Plan.
None of these documents contemplate a complete evacuation.
This cannot be completely true. There must be a rotation plan or something.
Mike G
This is the same kind of ‘humor’ guffawed at daily by millions of slack-jawed droolers on Flush Limbaugh’s bilge funnel.
Authoritarian bullies making jokes about committing violence against the powerless, ha ha ha.
MikeJ
@Svensker: MSNBC has a screaming hed. But of course we all know nuclear power is completely safe and if you say otherwise you;re a Luddite.
Svensker
@The Dangerman:
My point is you seem to believe people on the TV (or website or newspaper, whatever) telling you the people who have been killed are “insurgents”. And I say, how the hell do you know? The people who are telling you that are the same people who swore up and down there were WMD in Iraq. Credibility? Not much.
Unless you’re commenting from Pakistan with inside knowledge.
I prefer to think about cookies and nanaimo bars.
Ash Can
What’s even worse about that linked article are all the criminally insane cretins defending Peck in the comments section. I mean, we’re talking about a complete and absolute lack of basic human decency. It makes me feel physically ill. Oh, and did you know that Obama is just as bad because he made a crack about looking like a Special Olympian when he bowls?
Jeebus. I’m with you, ABL; I need a drink too. Make mine a double. Actually, a triple. Oh fuck it, just hand me a fifth of vodka with a straw in it.
MikeJ
@MikeJ: What did they call it on the Simpsons? An unrequested fission surplus?
GregB
At least the NH GOP-er who was advocating killing off the mentally ill has decided to quit.
That still leaves about 299 more batshit insane wingnuts in the NH State House.
Neutron Flux
@MikeJ: I am not here to blow smoke up your ass. The folks here are way to smart for that. I will just tell what I know.
I have my opinion and you are smart enough to form your own.
joeyess
Hailing from Eastern Kansas, I can assure you that this is the way they talk down there. Their representative in Topeka knows his constituents very, very well and he has nothing to fear. His statement and refusal to apologize speak in concert. They’re a bunch of backwards-assed-country fucks.
Trust me.
Svensker
Aljazeera live blog has this, which is less drastic than CNN’s take:
*
Timestamp:
12:00am
Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, held a brief conference about the nuclear situation, these are the key points.
– An appeal not to panic buy fuel especially in areas not affected by the quake, they think the containment vessel on Reactor No3 has been damaged
– Radioaction levels have fluctuated throughout the day, at one point all staff were evacuated for safety due to a dramtic increase in radiation at the front gate.
– Tempratures are rising in reactors number 5/6 and in the spent fuel rod tank in reactor no 4.
– They are considering the option of spraying water onto the heating reactors from the air.There are issues getting water into Reactor numbe 4 containment pool.
Comrade Mary
CNN and MSNBC are are not giving you the full story. (Shocked, eh?)
NHK World (the English feed) is reporting no such mass, total, final evacuation of workers. Edano may have misspoken or there may have been a mistranslation during the press conference, but it appears that:
* They are evacuating all non-essential personnel
* ALL workers were evacuated after a radiation spike, but only for 45 minutes
From the Metafilter thread, where someone is live-translating/summarizing NHK:
The Dangerman
@Svensker:
If you want to go metaphysical on me, I don’t know for 100% sure of anything I can’t personally witness and, even then, I can’t be sure (am I intoxicated, etc.). I can’t tell you for 100% sure there is a nuclear problem in Japan. I can’t tell you for 100% sure there was an earthquake. However, if a bunch of media tells me there was an earthquake and there IS a nuclear problem, I’m 99.9999% sure. Same with the drone strikes.
Edit: And, if you want to toss WMD at me again, there were lots of reports, pre-war, there was no WMD in Iraq (see Ritter, Scott).
TooManyJens
Demonizing illegal immigrants? Check.
Flying in a helicopter? Check.
It’s like somebody gave Jim Oberweis a gun.
(At least we didn’t elect that guy.)
soonergrunt
Anderson Cooper has a guy on right now talking about a scandal with the Tokyo Power company (the reactor owners) in 2002 and 2003 about faked safety inspections, and more failures of a similar nature in 2005 and 2007.
Neutron Flux
@Svensker: CNN does get breathless. I just listen for numbers and factual updates from NHK.
There will be many, many interesting facts that will come out in the follow up root cause investigation.
Caz
Awesome! Controlling the feral Mexican population by shooting them from helicopters! That is hilarious. And I’m not sure I would be totally against that!
Troll out!
Dee Loralei
I’ve had too much horror visited upon me today from devouring all this Japanese news. I’m gonna go watch “Mansfield Park” and enfold myself in some Jane Austen. I need her sweetness and gentle humor.
Ash Can
@TooManyJens: He runs a good dairy, but for cripes sake, don’t let him anywhere near government.
Tim
I grew up and spent most of my life in South central Kansas, and yes, this is standard.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
Omelets, how the fuck do they work?
Loneoak
Anyone else see the piece in Wonkette about the US choosing Tokyo Electric Power, owner of the Fukushima plant, to built some nukes on the Gulf of Mexico? Nice to know we give certifiably corrupt foreign companies the freedom to dump not only crude oil but also plutonium in the Gulf.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: Shouldn’t it be
“Fuckin omlettes. How do they work?
Neutron Flux
@Loneoak: It is my understanding that plant that will be built at the South Texas Project will be supplied by Toshiba. Toshiba owns part of Westinghouse Electric Company and these plants will be basically the AP 1000 design.
Maybe TEPCO owns a piece of Toshiba, but I do not know that.
Paul
I take a small consolation in the fact that he botched the joke: “…found a problem to our immigration problem”. Moran.
Martin
@Neutron Flux: Damn. All hope of solving our Texas problem dashed just like that.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
This politician is almost as depraved as those who publicly wish that people they’ve never met should “die in a fire” (DIAF).
.
.
MattR
@Neutron Flux: From wikipedia
Calouste
@MattR:
__
Free market in full swing there I see.
Neutron Flux
@MattR: Wow. I did not know that TEPCO wants a stake in the new plants. Thanks so much for the information.
I wonder if that will go forward. Hell, I wonder if the whole project will go forward.
Doug W
What an absolute asshat. Actually, an asshat is probably less objectionable than this scumbag… What if we start targeting scumbags?
mclaren
Jokes about genocide? That’s the Murkan way, lady. Don’t git yer panties in a twist, li’l gal, Murka was built on genocide.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
Huh?
Sad that innocents get killed in any war; isn’t my choice. Isn’t even my choice to be involved in a War in AfPak now; if Bush hadn’t fucked up and focused on Iraq, we’d probably be all home by now. Instead, AfPak is a mess. It needs to be cleaned up. If that means an omelette, so be it.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
.
.
It has come to my attention that this etiquette is often used by balloonbaggers when cursing progressives, liberals, or anyone left of right-of-center.
.
.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Oh, Kansas. First the “olive complexion” lady, now the “hunt them from helicopters” dude?
It’s like they’re delegating the Palin to as many members of the state GOP as they can.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@TooManyJens: Do you know, between him and the fact that Haagen Dazs is owned by a family of rabid supporters of the Israeli settlements, my ice-cream choices are just being whittled down to a mere nubbin of choice! It’s very sad. How can such nasty pieces of work produce such delectable goodness?
Tim
In partial defense of my home state, let me add that Lawrence, the home of my alma mater the University of Kansas, is quite liberal; Douglas county in which KU and Lawrence reside, is always the lone dot of blue in a sea of red during presidential elections.
KU also has one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation.
Plus it’s a great party town and a hub for progressive culture/music/food/beer; kind of like a smaller Austin, TX. And it’s just 45 minutes from Kansas City!
And I love my Jayhawks! Rock Chalk!
RyanS
I wish you where right but I’ve lived here for almost 20 years and immigrants are by far the most put upon minority here, and lately it seems to be getting worse.
RyanS
@Tim: Lawrence is like another country compared to the rest of the state.
Mike in NC
@RyanS:
John Brown would be so proud. I’ll stick to my enclave on the coast, as Sully so memorably phrased it post 9/11.
Yutsano
@Svensker:
I hate you. Now I’m gonna have to make some this weekend. And Nanaimo is a lovely little town.
wenchacha
At least the Congressnutter didn’t say anything nasty about teabaggers like that guy from NPR did when a tape was edited to make it sound like he did.
‘Cause that woulda been bad.
Why can’t Democrats and liberals be civil, fergawdsakes?
Ecks
@dmsilev: Yep, them Okie’s are sooners. Always sneaking across borders before they’re allowed to be there. Sooners is just a fancy way of saying the “Oklahoma Illegal Immigrants”. Just carpet bomb the whole state, genocide is fun!
(what you’re offended? Lets see… uh… I don’t expect any further controversy over my comment. I think it’s over. There, those are the magic words that excuse any amount of jackassery I believe. If only the NPR guy had thought to say this he never would have been fired.)
(Just kidding, that one files under IOKIYAR)
prufrock
@RyanS: This seems to be a trend in red states. Austin, in Texas. Lawrence in Kansas. Huntsville in Alabama.
What do they all have in common? They’re where all the smart people in the state live. Two university towns, and the home of a bunch of rocket scientists.
alwhite
I’ll bet this dingbat is a “right-to-life-er”. I wish someone would ask him if it was OK to shoot pregnant immigrants if they are past their 6th week. Or if he would be in favor of requiring the hunters to show the immigrants a sonagram before shooting them. Or perhaps government paid teams of doctors to rescue fetuses after the moms have been shot. I’d love to hear his answers.
Lavocat
@Roger Moore: I used to think this, too. That is, until these so-called “jokesters” engaged in these “serial jokes” which basically means they are not jokes at all but just barely contained, barely camoflaged bigotry.
You see this especially among the national pols. They REPEATEDLY get called on their nonsense and claim, “C’mon, I was really only joking and you can’t possibly be offended by it because that’s not REALLY what I meant.”
It’s basically open and violently-hostile bigotry simultaneously in denial. It’s cognitive dissonance in the extreme. It both amazes me and scares the hell out of me. It’s the sort of thing that I suspect becomes pervasive when a society is about to become completely unhinged.
I mean, shit, these fuckers REALLY believe in this stuff and they say it out loud to seek validation from others who they strongly suspect feel the same way. We’ve seen it in New Hampshire with Mr. Siberia and we’re seeing it now in Kansas with Mr. Helicopter.
When the inmates are running the asylum, I believe we have good cause to worry about our collective future as a society.
America is ripe for fascism right now.
Bobby Thomson
I find your lack of lack of faith charming. There’s a reason Kris Kobach is the Secretary of State.
A Farmer
I can’t speak for southeastern Kansas, but I can imagine somebody saying that in west central Ohio. I’ve heard several people say they hate basketball because there aren’t enough white guys and I’ve also been told that we need to blow up every country in the middle east and take their oil because gas prices are too high. That was just the last week. Now on Mexicans people are split, some hate them and some want the cheap labor.
valdemar
Here is commie liberal muslin Europe, that (i.e. Kansas bigot) is pretty much how we imagine all white Americans talk, unless they come from New England or California. Tell me we’re wrong to make such an awfully sweeping assumption…
Bulworth
Oh, cmon. He said he was “joking”. What’s this world coming to when a person, an official legislator type person, can’t joke about shooting and killing some illegals? And besides, he’s just “frustrated” with all the illegal aliens going on. He’s just lettin off some steam, etc. But maybe he can talk to that other NH legislator type person who wanted to send mentally deficient folks out of the country.
Citizen_X
@Mike G:
Oh, Limbaugh’s got more this week, just for the Japanese who, ha ha, are suffering from multiple disasters! Haw haw haw!
(Sorry, Huffpo link.)
Paul in KY
@Neutron Flux: Oh, I think if you paid them $30.00 an hour you’d find lots of Americans signing up.
Shit, I might.
Paul in KY
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Will you just go ahead and DIAF?
twiffer
@The Dangerman: um, wasn’t “payback” for pearl harbor our dropping 2 fucking atomic bombs on japan? what is wrong with these people?
@Citizen_X: ah, more people who lack even a passing familarity with tectonic theory. joy.
matryoshka
@Citizen_X: This reveals the caller’s idiotic reward/punishment paradigm that comes straight out of the “Christian” death cult. How stupid do you have to be to think that the world is a mechanized, orderly dispenser of just rewards and fair punishments? This caller’s probably believes he or she is going to be Raptured up and out of harm’s way, and because he or she is so impaired, is incapable of seeing or imagining actual scenarios that might come to be and come up with possible ways to meet them…aside from killing all the brown people and teh gays.
ETA: Sorry to use irony quotes around Christian, but I make a distinction between the self-proclaimed and the actual, who are usually much quieter about it.
Angry Black Lady
@Paul in KY: how depraved of you! you’re as bad as they are!
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whargarble
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Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Paul in KY:
.
.
Are you being sincere, balloonbagger? You want me to die in a fire?
.
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Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Angry Black Lady:
.
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Pretty much, Angry Black LINO. (Oh, you have to think about it calmly for a moment and be an honest and fair person to understand the issue.)
.
.
Dr. Psycho
@jonas: Won’t he be surprised when Jesus says to him, “The bullets you fired at the least of your brethren, you fired at me.”
Dr. Psycho
@alwhite: You clearly have not heard about the video game “Border Patrol”: http://www.ubersite.com/m/87395
Tehanu
@Lavocat:
It’s cognitive dissonance in the extreme.
Somebody on alicublog or Sadly, No! the other day — sorry, don’t remember who — explained it: No cognition, no dissonance.