It is perhaps traditional to do a recap of the past year within the final Dec posting. Honestly, it has indeed been quite a wild ride this past year, one that yielded a great deal to mock and laugh at. However, even during this past week, fools have not taken a break from saying and doing utterly crazy stuff. It means I’m forced to let the idea of a yearly review slide and simply do a posting of yet another week’s worth of weirdness.
OK, so let’s pause the preamble and dive right in.
The really good news from the past week is that Boebert has thrown in the towel and quit her attempt to get elected in Colorado’s 3rd district. This is because her opponent, Democrat Adam Frisch, is doing rather well. Gosh, could it have been that theatre incident that involved this good devoted “Christian” being caught on camera jacking some dude’s beanstalk?
While great news for Colorado’s 3rd, it is unfortunately not her end-game … yet. She is now planning to go after retiring Rep. Ken Buck’s seat over on the eastern side of the state, a location she does not live in, so perhaps she hopes they don’t know her.
She made the announcement in a video posted to Facebook, saying it’s the “right move for me personally, and it’s the right decision for those who support our conservative movement.”
Her new district, the 4th, is Colorado’s most conservative district (Ken Buck previously won it with 60%), but Boebert is not Ken, so will they choke on the idea of this carpetbagger representing them?
I sincerely hope that it will indeed be her end-game.
As they often do, the Onion truly nails all this in one …
Moving on, yes, once again, even on the last day of the year, you will find a selection of some truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days.
With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of absurdity and stupidity.
The Cult of Trump
RF: Trump hyping so many unreliable polls showing him with these huge leads really sets him up to look bad if he doesn’t actually win big in Iowa & NH. He’s been telling his followers every day for months that he has massive leads. Now all the sudden he’s saying he might get cheated.
- Just to be clear, we are talking about Republican primaries – he is priming the pumps to claim that Republicans stole his big leads in the Republican primaries from him. He is just so damn predictable now … 1) promote false expectations, 2) undermine confidence in elections, 3) deny the result if it doesn’t go his way.
- Meanwhile his cult of glaze-eyed devotees will believe it all.
Hey, do you remember that Health care package that was just two weeks away back in 2016? Apparently it is still future dated …
- Not sure MAGA grasp yet that it will remain permanently two weeks or more away.
Also this past week, CNN reported that the Former White House chief of staff, John Kelly has been telling friends that Trump ‘is the most flawed person’ he’s ever met …
“The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,”
- Good for him to be saying it now, but for quite some time he happily took Trump’s pay check and kept his lips sealed.
Maine
As we all know, this also happened …
- One rather fascinating reaction from MAGA is that as far as they are concerned, that part of the constitution no longer applies. Since they have opted to go there, then let’s also remove the 2nd amendment as well.
Journalism & the Purge
So this “purge” claim popped up this past week…
- Well gosh … I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the GOP adopting a strategy of constantly lying and then venomously attacking the press when they point it out.
- His claim of “Excluded and Purged” is not a factual claim. The new reality is that it is impossible in 2023 to be a Republican and a good journalist, for the same reason it is impossible to be a flat-earther and a good astronomer.
- Trumpism is literally incompatible with truth.
- For the curious his source is via this link. The data comes from an online survey by Syracuse University of 1,600 U.S. journalists (425 daily newspaper journalists, 175 from weekly newspapers, 536 from television stations, 104 from radio stations, 218 from online news organizations, 85 from wire services, and 57 from news magazines). One can only wonder if they picked just real journalists, or if that also included those that cosplay that role such as Newsmax and Fox News staff.
Lies, Gaslighting, and Fox News
For the “They-are-all-the-same” adherents … er … no they are not, they really are not …
- Fox News “journalism” appears to consist of reporting the complete opposite of actual reality.
- If you ever wondered why so many are so disconnected from reality, then look no further than outlets such as Newsmax and Fox News. While Trump might have done it to Stormy Daniels for cash, they are doing it to all of us, also for cash.
- What is clear is that Fox News is more creative than the Sci-Fi channel.
- Why would she say stuff like this? What Fox News does not tell you is that Jessica Anderson has a huge conflict of interest, She not only worked in the Trump Administration, but she is also a Heritage Foundation Exec director.
- What is true is the Trump did indeed “Turn the economy around”. Unfortunately, before he did that it was already going in the right direction
Christmas Weirdness
Can you spot the difference? …
- Hint: One is a narcissistic psychopath, devoid of empathy, decency, compassion, morality, conscience, and remorse and the other is the polar opposite. If you can’t work out which is which then you are in a cult.
- I do have to admit that Trump really captures the spirit of the season. If 2024 does not work out for him, then perhaps he has a job opening at hallmark doing greeting cards.
Some really did do deeply weird things when they first woke up on Christmas day …
- Fact Check: It’s not just XX and XY, some are a mosaic of both XX and XY. Some also have XXY or XXYY, or XXXY. Then there is also Gender dysphoria. The reality of biology is that it is not clean and binary, but instead is bimodal. Reality is a stark contrast to what people might believe.
- Meanwhile Christmas day at his house must have been a blast. If you check his Twitter timeline he appears to have spent a lot of that day rage tweeting … or … if you check the timing, the tweets go out exactly on the hour, not just a few mins after or before, so clearly, as a blue tick guy, he is trolling by scheduling his tweets to drive up traffic and earn $$$. He tends to not engage or comment, but instead just tosses out inflammatory stuff and then runs. Best play, if he is in your Twitter timeline, is block because it’s all just trolling noise.
Ms Gabriel thinks saying Merry Christmas upsets liberals ...
- Rock solid guarantee you can take to the bank – the number of liberals upset by this is zero.
- Making this Don Quixote move perhaps suggests that windmills are now in danger.
Now this next one is truly wild. An article in a Christian publication said Jesus was Asian because he was born in Bethlehem. A bunch of conservatives are *very upset* about that.
- Yes, the borders of Asia, though changed over time by politicians and mapmakers, have always included Palestine and the city of Bethlehem. What’s to argue about? …. apparently quite a lot.
- The link is to an article by Hemant about it all. The actual article within Christianity Today is found here at this link.
- Here is the CT tweet promoting their article, and yes the comments under it are indeed ignorance incarnate as many rage tweet that Jesus was born in Palestine, hence is not Asian, and thus to suggest he was is Blasphemy. Prepare to facepalm or at least to be entertained if you dive in there …
It’s as if those rage-tweeting believe this …
Haley’s political career
We live in an age where you might still anticipate that mocking a disabled journalist would have ended Trump’s career and yet here we are. You might also have expected what Haley said this past week to be the end of her political career, but such a thought perhaps underestimates the depths of right-wing bigotry.
Least you missed it, this is what happened … (the person asking the question was not an interviewer, it was a voter at a town hall meeting) …
Even Christie can get a laugh out of it …
We are now perhaps fast learning that the Top 5 “Unfair Trick Questions” to trip up GOP Presidential candidates are these …
- What caused the Civil War?
- Was Slavery bad for Black people?
- Who won the 2020 election?
- Is climate change real?
- Is white supremacy bad?
Incidentally, her refusal to identify slavery as the root cause is not a new stance for her …
Nebraska is still doing hypocrisy
When they need to help themselves they do, but god forbid that they actually help others …
- For a guy who shoves his religion in everybody’s face, it is notable that Pillen appears to have given a hard pass to the actual teachings of Jesus. Example … “And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” – Luke 3:10-11 … and there is plenty more that is similar.
- Apparently welfare is just for farmers, not kids.
Good News Items
One event this past week is an encouraging one. The world became a slightly better place because Donald Wildmon has died …
- It is traditional to say nice things about people when they die, but in this case I’m taking a hard pass on that. Wildmon was an obnoxious homophobic shit and also a deeply fanatical religious extremist, who devoted his life to propagating his bigotry. The world truly is far better off without him.
- His legacy is that he founded a hate group, the AFA.
One of the consequences that happens when you elect smart people who actually care about those that elected them is that they get stuff done …
Finally…
The image below is actually an old story repeating itself.
Henry Ford was the same. In 1918 he bought a newspaper and then proceeded to publish articles in the paper under his own name claiming a vast Jewish conspiracy was affecting America. As a result, both Hitler and Himmler loved Ford. He is even mentioned favorably in Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf, so yes, I do get how many Tesla owners now feel …
So this happened this past week …
Yes indeed, attempting to pass laws to put up religious posters is still a thing, and also a rather tempting target for the creation of posters that conform to the rules …
- Side Note: You know what would have been cool about the 10 commandments? If one was, “thou shalt not own other people“. Seems like a no brainer, but no, instead we get 5 about how we need to stroke gods ego and have him be the best and not talk bad about him.
- Irony Alert: The folks who claim the Bible is their ultimate source of all morality, if asked, usually can’t tell you where in the bible the big 10 are.
Interestingly enough, while the new draft Oklahoma law mandates a 10 commandments poster in all schools, it says nothing about the language that the poster should be in. For example Arabic …
OK, one last thought
Yes, 2023 has indeed been a truly wild ride … but … up next is 2024 announcing “Hold my beer and watch this”.