GOP Blaming Immigrants For Diseases GOP Doesn't Believe In

Although some conservative talk show hosts these days are leaning toward believing that measles is no big deal, Republican politicians are starting to frantically cast around for someone to blame, because, omg, measles is kind of a big deal! Hey, didn't Louie Gohmert say something about that last summer, something about immigrant kids? With the scabies and lice? Those are sort of like measles! It turns out that some really good people to blame are undocumented children. They are perfect scapegoats, on account of how they are often brown, and they are small and they can't vote.

On Monday, Ben Carson, a Very Serious candidate for the Republican 2016 presidential nomination, broke ranks with the science-haters in his party and basically said, hell yes you should vaccinate your kids, come on, people! But on Tuesday, he came back to his senses (or to his donors? or to whomever is writing the talking points for Republicans this week?) and climbed back onto the Republican crazy train. TPM reports Carson said: "We have to account for the fact that we now have people coming into the country sometimes undocumented people who perhaps have diseases that we had under control."

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Maine's Republican Gov. Paul LePage, a known lunatic, noted in his State of the State address this week that there is a problem "with some of the illegals who are here today. When they are here illegally, they don't get medical assessments. and the one thing we don't want to see is the uptick in hepatitis C, HIV, and tuberculosis, but it is here." Well, okay, those aren't really measles, but maybe you can catch measles from an undocumented person in Maine, who has TB?

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) agrees. 

I don’t think there is any healthcare professional who has examined the fact, who could honestly say that Americans have not died because the diseases brought into America by illegal aliens who are not properly health care screened.

That is certainly true, Mo from AL, it is difficult to prove a negative. For example, we don't think there's anyone who has listened to you who could honestly say that your pants are never on fire. See how that is very hard to prove?

The overall US measles vaccination rate is 91 percent, which is worse than Libya and Iran. But isn't our fault at all that measles are happening here. It just makes sense that undocumented kids are sneaking across the border, walking straight to Disneyland, buying a park-hopper ticket for $108, and maybe some of that delicious Dole whip, which is great after a 113-mile hike, and giving our unvaxxed vacationing snowflakes the measles. Seriously, why else would you get measles in California, large sections of which have measles vax rates as low as 85 percent? And in some cases, 75 percent? Do you know who else has vax rates of around 85 percent, you stupid large sections of California? Sudan, Indonesia, and Uganda .

So measles is either no big whoop or it is a Serious Problem brought to us by undocumented children, and your Republican elected officials are On It. either way, this is about Freedom, and each family should make the personal choice that's best for them in terms of which which 19th century killer diseases their PTAs will be sponsoring this year. Got it!

[ TPM / HuffPo / WaPo ]