April 25, 2013
Mother Jones Magazine is insane. I’m just gonna go ahead and say that right here at the starting gun.
I know that Mother Jones is insane because I used to be insane and read it. I was 22-ish, I thought George W. Bush orchestrated 9/11 “for oil” (those two words explained everything), and I loved Mother Jones. It gave me all sorts of wacky ideas, and bolstered the ones I already had.
The folks at Mother Jones have a huge problem with cheating and lying. Unless, of course, they are doing it.
I remember reading a lot of outrage in Mother Jones back in the day about President Bush’s “secret wiretaps” and how evil and dark and un-American they were. I probably read 12,000 op-eds about the PATRIOT Act and attacks on privacy and the scary Orwellian world we now lived in.
Which is why it’s even funnier that Mother Jones is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly bugging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)’s headquarters.
The freedom-fighters at Mother Jones released a twelve-minute audiotape allegedly obtained by illegally wiretapping McConnell’s campaign offices. And what were McConnell and his staff doing on the tape that has Mother Jones so outraged? Something I do every time I get the chance, for fun and profit:
Making fun of Ashley Judd.
See, Ashley Judd was a potential Senate candidate. She decided to run due to an inflated sense of her own intelligence and abilities, which is not uncommon in people who have been in a lot of movies and have hired lackeys around telling them how smart and pretty they are all day. I don’t know why Ashley decided to drop out, although I’m a little disappointed because I’m sure her speeches would have been excellent blog fodder.
In any case, the folks at Mother “Illegal Wiretapping Is Bad, M’Kay” Jones are allegedly all kinds of cool with illegal wiretapping as long as they are the ones doing it.
In their defense, they’re saying they didn’t produce the tape, it came from an anonymous source, and “it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation.”
I wonder what style of bugging operation it was that made it okay? Or did they hire the copy boy to stand around with a digital voice recorder in his pocket? ‘Cause that’s sooo much better.
It’s a difficult time to be Mother Jones. Four employees are also being deposed in a lawsuit filed by an Idaho corporation with the weird name Melaleuca which alleges that MJ published false statements about their CEO, who has the awesome name Frank VanderSloot. Apparently MJ called him a “gay-basher.” I don’t know anything about ol’ VanderSloot, but I really hope his corporation makes toys and/or candy, because shouldn’t a guy named VanderSloot make toys and/or candy?
I bring up Mother Jones only because they, in their infinite kindness, have provided me with a handy guide, in the form of a March Madness mock-up, to the best places in the United States in which to live. I already live in one of them, Mississippi. We have only one abortion clinic left, and the day it closes, I’m going to have a full-blown party, with cupcakes. I might even invite Mother Jones.
And speaking of VanderSloot’s Toys & Candy, Inc. (not their real name), Idaho is on the list, too. MJ broke the list of bad states up into four user-friendly groups, and Idaho falls into the “Rocky Mountain Lows” group, along with Utah, Arizona, and Colorado. They’re singled out for the same reason as a lot of these states: outlawing abortion past 20 weeks.
It makes me wonder if there is any week past which Mother Jones would outlaw abortion. Thirty-three? Thirty-nine? Forty, one hopes?
My home state of Texas is on there, of course. “[H]ave you seen what Texas did to Planned Parenthood?” asks Mother Jones, and I glow with pride. Texas joins Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to form the “Bully Belt.” “Midwest Madness” includes both Dakotas, as well as Kansas and Michigan. Mississippi is in the “Southern Inhospitality” category with Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama. Somebody call Mr. Pulitzer and tell him to get down here with a prize!
All these states have perpetrated grave crimes against women’s rights, such as 24-hour waiting periods and “transvaginal probes.”
Note to writer Kate Sheppard: Uh, that’s called a sonogram, and you have to have one when you get an abortion, even in states that aren’t so darn mean. Also, if you’re really squeamish about foreign objects going into your vagina, an abortion clinic may not be the best place for you. Because that wand of injustice is the gentlest thing that’s going to happen to your lady business in there.
Also, imagine my shock when I googled “transvaginal ultrasound” and found page after page of outraged abortion advocates comparing it to rape. I have been “raped” twice, then, and I didn’t even get to have an abortion. Typical Kristen, always the last to know.
Due to Mother Jones having nothing better to do in between lawsuits, we now have a handy list of states with at least a little bit of gumption in fighting for the human rights of the unborn.
Thanks, Mother Jones! We really appreciate it!
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