This past week saw “The debate”. What can I say except perhaps to suggest that it was more akin to watching “two elderly guys arguing about golf … FFS“. One deep fear is the raw terror of the thought that Netflix might order a full season pickup of Trump v Biden.
To be clear, it was not a “debate”, but instead was this …
… or if you prefer it in picture form, then this …
What perhaps sums up all the reactions rather well is this …
Since the “debate” there has been a lot of chatter about Biden dropping out.
Seriously!
That is deeply misplaced chatter. It was the Philadelphia Enquirer that got it right …
Why is that the right call?
Well let me put it this way with an easy voter guide …
I know you are seriously worried, but consider this takeaway …
- Yes Biden is old, but he is both decent and effective. He also not only surrounds himself with experts, but he listens to them. We will be fine if he wins.
- Trump is a convicted felon and sexual predator who can’t stop lying. He surrounds himself with sycophants who only say what he wants to hear and panders to religious fanatics for support. It would be a disaster of epic proportions if he wins.
For rational sane people it really is not a difficult choice to make.
A few others also had rather sensible takes on it …
OK, one last thought, Judd is correct …
I’ll let PoliticsGirl have the last word on this … we have got to be both practical and strategic right now because there is just too much on the line … why should we waste time talking about 90 minutes that did not go well, when we can point the the last three and a half years that have gone well …
OK, so let’s leave the topic of “the debate” at that, and move on.
Once again below you will find my usual selection of some of the other truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. Each is laced with my snarky commentary.
With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of raw absurdity and deep stupidity.
The Cult of Trump
The National Faith Advisory Board held a prayer call for former President Donald Trump ahead of the presidential debate during which Paula White prayed that he would have “the mind of Christ” and speak “with the wisdom of God” while Jentzen Franklin prayed that God would give Trump “the tongue of the learned” and expose the “wickedness” and “evil intent” that he claims are in President Joe Biden’s heart.
- Translation: The support base for the convicted one proceeded to make an even stronger case for atheism.
Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalist Doug Wilson complains that by giving women the right to vote, “we were, in fact, taking it away from families.“
- Ah yes, the good old days when ‘families’ just meant whatever the man decided. Let’s make patriarchy great again!
- In Doug’s world, when women gained the right to vote, it somehow magically took away that right from families. Because, you know, families are a single entity with one collective opinion and a hive mind.
- Least you wonder, also according to this guy slavery was a time when the black people were very happy … really. He is what is known as a “neo-Confederate”.
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton is a member of the GOP platform committee and he vows to ensure that it aligns with “the first twelve chapters of Genesis.“
- It says ever so much that their go-to guy for their platform committee is a guy who promotes religious and historical fantasies as fact.
Jack Hibbs credits Noah Webster, the guy who wrote the dictionary, with being “personally responsible for Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.” (For context, Webster was himself rather hot about the Ten Commandments – this is a Hibbs attempt to claim that the Ten Commandments played a role in the Constitution)
- Fact Check: Nope, it’s a lie. Webster was not among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Deep SCOTUS Impact
So yes, some totally insane rulings this past week. The chevron ruling is the most impactful, and is all about old rich guys buying SCOTUS justices to enable them to become even richer by getting rid of regulations that eat into their wealth …
Executive branch agencies will likely have more difficulty regulating the environment, public health, workplace safety and other issues under a far-reaching decision by the Supreme Court.
The court’s 6-3 ruling on Friday overturned a 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron that has instructed lower courts to defer to federal agencies when laws passed by Congress are not crystal clear.
This is where things now stand …
… but as I said, the Chevron power grab by the judiciary is a really big deal …
Ten Commandments & Bible
Jack Hibbs, yes him again, says that by putting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, “teachers are not going to be raping kids any more.”
- There are multiple very obvious problems with his claim that exposes it as total BS, so let’s briefly articulate the big three obvious ones … 1) Teachers don’t rape kids. Doing so would be a bit of a career decision … 2) His “magic” list of 10 has failed to prevent pastors and youth leaders in churches abusing kids, so why would putting them into schools do anything? … 3) His “magic” list of 10 rules says absolutely nothing about not being a sexual abuser or raping anybody.
- Just to drive that point home: MSNBC Report – “Rampant child sexual abuse is occurring in churches — not at drag shows“
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry defends his state’s recently enacted Ten Commandments law, saying the Supreme Court “got it wrong in the 1940s when it created this metaphor of church and state.”
- Translation: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry says fuck the constitution, I’m going to ram my specific variation of religion down all your throats
- I did also cover the utter absurdness of the act he signed and flagged up some juicy details within the lawsuit filed against it within a separate article.
Oklahoma Schools chief Ryan Walters says the Bible will be taught in public schools in Oklahoma because it’s “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution.”
- Er …No, it wasn’t. These guys don’t say stuff like this because it is true, but instead they say it to tap into the religious demographic for support.
- For Mr Walters the three R’s now consists of this Holy Trinity – indoctrination, proselytization, and constitutional desecration.
- It will be fascinating to see what happens when the mandated preaching of fanatical fundamentalism is imposed upon Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, right wing Mormons, right wing Pentecostals, etc.
- It also means that Oklahoma geometry teachers will have to teach 1 Kings 7:23 where Pi = 3.
Babies, IVF, and Forced Births
The observation that “they are coming for IVF next“, is not fear mongering, it’s a literal fact …
- MAGA stance … Conception by rape = ok. Conception by incest = ok. Conception by IVF into consenting persons = line drawn. Oh and lets not forget … Kid dies in mass shooting after being born = also ok.
- These “children” that Rep Rosendale and others are so concerned about are literally clumps of 100-200 undifferentiated cells smaller than a pinhead which can be frozen for years in liquid nitrogen.
Some make the utterly heartbreaking choice to abort because there is no way for the fetus to survive due to congenital anomalies. It’s a healthcare choice taken to reduce suffering, trauma, and pain. Fanatically religious MAGA extremists like Tony Perkins strive to impose their batshit crazy beliefs by taking the stance of “Nope, you can’t do that, you need to continue and experience as much pain and suffering as possible” …
- The ABC News Article that Mr Perkins strongly objects to is here. The June 24 study itself that is the basis for that article is here. Mr Perkins tweet that pisses all over the reporting is here.
- When you vote in Nov, vote against the current reality of having old, white, non-medical religious fanatics imposing pain, suffering, and death.
Homophobia on Steroids
Christian nationalist Joel Webbon continues his attack on gay people: “If you’re willing to sodomize someone, then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to doing unspeakable things with children.”
- Guys like Mr Webbon appear to spend many hours every day thinking long and hard about gay sex.
- The only people I’ve ever known who are concerned about what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms are those who simply cannot confront the truth of what they want to do in the privacy of their own bedroom because it frightens them. Their religious belief has painted them into a corner and they can’t come to terms with who they are. A very limited perspective on sexuality often stems from a place of insecurity and fear
- Side Note: Mr Webbon is such a deeply weird religious fanatic that he wants to see a “distinctly Christian preamble” added to the Constitution and all Ten Commandments turned into law, including “you shall have no other gods before me.”
Conspiracy Claims
MAGA pastor Mark Burns released an ad before his GOP runoff election in S.C. this past week (June 25) and it’s predictably bonkers: “Any country that would spy on Christian church attendance is just one step away from all-out gun confiscation and totalitarian communism.“
- Yes he was lying, because absolutely nobody is spying on churches … but hey, this is the guy who made up and promoted a completely fictitious biography and then got exposed on camera for doing so.
- For a bit of context, he stood unsuccessfully for Congress in South Carolina in 2018 and 2022, then switched to a deep red district in 2024 and advanced to a runoff for the Republican nomination.
- For good measure his ad also goes full anti-vax.
- Yea, you want to know the result don’t you, OK so here is the link – The really good news is that he lost. The scary part is that it was damn close (he got 49%), or to put that into real numbers, 27,043 republicans went “Yep, this liar and con man represents us“, but even amongst deep red republicans, a majority of 28,130 took a hard pass on this guy. (Don’t celebrate yet, the winner, Sheri Biggs, still ticks all the usual boxes, pro-gun, pro-trump, very religious, etc…).
Miracle Claims
Dave Hayes Claims: prayers fixed his broken iPod dock and allowed his friend to drive her car on an empty tank for a week.
- Apparently God has no time to deal with Mass shootings, Gaza, Sudan, or Haiti because he is busy looking after iPod docks and empty gas tanks. #priorities
- Evidence for his claims? … oh come now, you know the game plan here, exactly nothing because we are supposed to just believe the guy who is the same guy who vigorously promoted all the QAnon claims week after week for years and each one failed every single time.
Not a Drag Queen
If I asked you the name a megachurch pastor who has been exposed as a guy who sexually molested a 12 year old girl and other kids, the correct response would be …”Which one?”. Here is this week’s candidate, and no it is not Pastor Robert Morris from TX, that was last week …
- Once again … not a drag queen, but instead was both a Pastor AND school board president.
- Note the accountability – “Resigned”. Not sentenced to life, not imprisoned, not awaiting trial, not run out of town, not even bloody fired. Resigned. As if “I’m quitting my job” was somehow accountability for raping kids.
Deeply Weird
Mark Meckler says that if his organization actually manages to convene a convention of the states to propose constitutional amendments, it will literally be “the biggest political event in the history of the world.”
- LOL … no.
- The item there that actually qualifies as the “biggest in the history of the world” is his excessively inflated view of himself and his rather bizarre political antics.
Andrew Torba, the antisemitic white nationalist founder of Gab, vows that he will “take any necessary measures to guarantee that my children are raised in a White-majority community.”
- I rather like the idea of him moving far far away. Norway would probably do the trick, but I don’t think they would have him. Perhaps Siberia in Russia will have him. I’d be happy to help him pack and I’ll even give him a ride to the airport.
- Actually, thinking about it a bit more, being an open white supremacist might also do the trick because literally nobody wants to live near them. They are terrible people and we’d all be fine if they just stayed amongst themselves.
Sen. Josh Hawley declares that “religion unites America” but the “radical left” is trying to “erase the foundation that this country has in, yes, the Bible”: “We don’t need less Christian influence in our society. … We need more, in every part of government.”
- Indeed yes, we have all learned from history how religious fanatics have … (*checks notes) …”united societies” … or to put that another way, what exactly were people fleeing from in Europe during the 1600s when they arrived in America? (some of us did not sleep during history classes).
- Meanwhile, the First Amendment enters from stage left and proceeds to cough loudly to draw a bit of badly needed attention.
Eric Metaxas says that celebrating Juneteenth is “evil”: “It’s the celebration of victimism, of victimhood.”
- Slaves were considered to be property, like a horse or a dog or a wagon, before emancipation. The end of that sounds like a pretty big deal, and well worth celebrating, doesn’t it?
- I’m looking forward to him having a pop at July 4th next week by claiming that is also “evil” and “the celebration of victimhood“. Then after that he can do Easter.
The False Prophets
Prior to the debate, self-proclaimed “prophet” Hank Kunneman expressed the hope that at the start of the presidential debate, former President Donald Trump would move to shake President Joe Biden’s hand but then reach up and pull off Biden’s face so we can “see who is under that mask”: “Wouldn’t that be great for the whole world to see?”
- In his strand of modern Christianity, he has not only turned stupidity into a performative art, but is also promoting it as a virtue. This is by design because it naturally selects the most deeply gullible followers who will be willing to open their wallets for him.
Florida is as usual being Florida
Republicans in Florida want poor kids to suffer more. If you vote for them, you do too …
There Really is Good News out there – Actions have consequences
Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein @ Politico (June 28): Steve Bannon to report to prison Monday after Supreme Court declines to give him a reprieve
- Quote: “the influential right-wing podcaster will head to prison on July 1, with his release date just days before the November 2024 election.“
Finally…
How to Boat (yes, Sarah Cooper is back) …