Phil Valentine; Jimmy DeYoung; Dick Farrel; Marc Bernier.  These four guys have several things in common – Syndicated hate radio talkers, anti-vaxxers, anti-science, racists, climate-deniers, religionists, and all dead.  Marc Bernier, who had dubbed himself “Mr. Anti-Vax” was the latest hate talker to have died after spreading disinformation on vaccines and conspiracy theories about the Coronavirus pandemic. His death, along with the others, not only demonstrates in real time the dangers of playing Russian Roulette with a deadly virus, but also lays bare the cesspool of disinformation they helped create and perpetuate.

Rush Limbaugh was the most significant figure in the rise of modern hate radio in the 90s, casting the Clintons as objects of hyper partisan hate, conspiracy theories, and grievance.  Remember the list of people that the Clintons supposedly murdered?  That vicious lie was so pervasive that it is now embedded in the DNA of political conservatives and formed the foundation of the idiotic Q Anon conspiracy theory culminating in a violent attack on the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the US government.

These four deplorables, included in a much larger group of deplorables like Alex Jones, feed a steady diet of anger, lies, distortions, gross exaggerations, conspiracy theories, and right wing red meat into a counterculture drowning in obsession and devotion to self-destruction.  Trump is one of the most successful politicians to tap into this counterculture which has formed the core of his base, dominating all of rightwing politics today and destroying what’s left of the Republican Party.  The ecosystem they enable has sickened millions, caused untold deaths, and is holding back the entire country from recovery from the pandemic.  These low budget hate talkers are the heartbeat of this ecosystem, pumping toxic disinformation into syndicated networks that is literally getting people killed including those doing the pumping.

I wish no harm to anyone, but it’s almost impossible for me personally to have any empathy for the self-inflicted death these hate talkers caused themselves and untold others, not to mention the financial burden of huge hospital bills left to their families to carry.  Is this the way nature cleans the gene pool?  That judgment is above my pay grade, but my observation is that this is exactly what’s happening; unfortunately they’re taking untold numbers of innocents with them, and that is nothing but tragedy in its purest form.  Perhaps all this senseless ignorance and death will drive at least some of their adherents to rethink their devotion.  We can only hope.

John Pierce is an attorney and defender of RWNJs, including 17 Capitol Hill insurrectionists, the Kenosha Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, and…wait for it…Rudy Giuliani.  He disappeared last week, and an associate from his law firm, the so called National Constitutional Law Union, lied to one judge that he’d been in an accident and then admitted to another judge that Pierce is hospitalized for COVID, on a ventilator, and unresponsive.  Pierce is well known as an advocate of right wing weirdos, has denigrated vaccines and protested against masking and social distancing.

Yet another rightwing weirdo is felled by his/her own stupidity.  This time, though, a lot of guys who also bought into The Big Lie are also unrepresented in federal court on charges related to the insurrection on January 6th.

Irony or Karma.  The answer to both inquiries is YES.

This photo has been circulating on social media this last week:

This is the cover of the July 1983 Moral Majority Report, a newsletter conceived and published by Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, a Reagan era mouthpiece of what has now morphed into the American Taliban.  At that time, the HIV crisis was arising, and predictably, right-wingers were judgmental about the outbreak, but worse, even then they got the virology wrong, donning masks in an effort to scare the shit out of people about a virus that didn’t transmit through the air, but by bodily fluids.

Back then, the mask was used as a weapon against science and one of their targets, the gay community.  Today, once again masks are being used as a weapon against common sense and science, but in the opposite of the use in 1983.  Back then, right-wingers donned masks to push their message; today they accost people wearing masks and rail against mask mandates to push whatever their message is today. The obvious conclusion is that conservatives are not only totally corrupted; they have been corrupted for decades, moving facts around to fit their narrative.  Add the cancer of Donald Trump, and the corruption is complete, and political conservatism becomes a toxic soup of lies, distortions, disinformation, and cruelty for the pure sake of cruelty.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, but in the case of the American right wing, it gets worse.

It will come as no surprise that Greg Abbott is now infected with Covid-19 and no one knows how many people he spread the disease to before the announcement today.  Just last night he appeared at a Collin County GOP fundraiser where hundreds of attendees  were maskless and refused to social distance.  Who knows how many knuckle dragging anti-vaxxers were in the room.

Another standing room only event in Collin County tonight.

Thank y’all for the enthusiastic reception.

Let's keep this energy up and send a message that Texas values are NOT up for grabs in 2022. pic.twitter.com/wlPZyrHpx3

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 17, 2021

This won’t be a wake up call, though, since Abbott is desperate to be re-elected so he can prepare for the presidential race in 2024.  He doesn’t care if Texans live or die…it’s all about staying in power.  No matter who has to die for him to do it.

On top of everything else we call him, we can now call him #superspreadergreg