cult of fools

The Cult of Fools – “Lindell’s Lawsuits in all 50 states” – May 15, 2022

by
By bdk, CC BY-SA 3.0

Even after spending $30 million promoting the big lie and getting nothing of substance for it all, Mike Lindell continues to bang his now favourite toy drum. This latest update comes via the UK’s Guardian published an in-depth article covering him and his latest “thinking” on May 12th. It is titled “‘I’d like to file lawsuits in all 50 states’: Mike Lindell still pushing Trump’s lie“.

There they not only cover is latest proposals, but they also do a great job of revealing that actions here will have consequences …

…Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit in February against Lindell, and a month later a judge declined Lindell’s efforts to dismiss the suit. Another voting equipment firm, Smartmatic, has also sued Lindell for defamation for an undisclosed amount….

…“Lawyers must abide by the rules of professional conduct, which forbid lying to a court, bringing frivolous claims and misrepresenting facts,” said Michael Teter, the director of Project 65, a bipartisan legal ethics watchdog group focused on lawyers trying to undermine democracy.

“Mr Lindell may be willing to pay hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to these lawyers to continue the effort that began in 2020 to discredit our elections through bogus lawsuits grounded in falsehoods, conjecture and distortions,” Teter added. “But the lawyers who take Mr Lindell’s money and allow the courts to be abused as part of political theater can, and we hope will, face professional consequences.”…

Beyond the pure entertainment of his crusade that is almost on par with Don Quixote charging at windmills because he thinks they are giants, there is also a dark side. What Lindell is doing will continue to chip away at voter confidence in elections and thus completely undermine democracy. The integrity of 22 and also 24 will be robust, but many will seriously doubt the outcome.

Moving on, below you will find my usual selection of some truly bizarre claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. Each is laced with my snarky commentary. With my usual hat tip to my main source, Right Wing Watch, let’s dive in.

Enjoy.

COVID-19

Francine Fosdick, who presented a “Sword of David” to Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial front-runner Doug Mastriano at a recent QAnon conferenceshe organized, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are turning people into “zombies” and “AI fighting machines”: “Those that took this shot are unfortunately no longer human.”

  • Hey, I rather like the idea of being loaded up with lots of extra AI, where can I get a booster?

Jackson Lahmeyer declares that “we need trials for public health officials and government bureaucrats that oversaw COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Let’s make sure these abuses of power can never happen again and start with Anthony Fauci!”

  • He posted that on Facebook. The qty of stupid within the comments under it is truly outstanding.

Bryan Ardis, the chiropractor who claims that COVID-19 is really a synthesized form of snake venom spread via drinking water, is convincedthat “they used ice (in drinks) on airplanes to be the method of distributing the pathogen called COVID-19.”

  • Your choice is this – do you pay attention to one lone chiropractor spouting claims that have exactly zero evidence, or do you pay attention to deeply experienced subject matter experts from right around the planet from every single nation state, and who have heaps and heaps of verifiable evidence? (Damn, this is such a hard decision to make).
  • The really question is this – is he sufficiently delusional to actually believe this, or is he just malicious and is making it up to grift?
  • Personally I think he just watched “Snakes on a Plane” way too many times.
  • Hey @elonmusk tell me again how conservatism has stayed rock steady through the years.

Pro-Forced Birth

MAGA commentator Jeremy Herrell asserts that rape victims who become pregnant should be required to give birth because “God put the blessing of that child there for a reason”: “Give that child an opportunity to explain that reason.”

  • Is he really claiming that God ordained a rape? Which specific God does he have in mind here?
  • God has actually bestowed intelligence upon some people to refute fools like this.

Homophobia

Scott Lively asserts that “the most violent LGBT reactions have always been triggered by exposing their homosexual recruitment of children.”

  • The daftness here is that nobody gets “recruited”, it’s not a choice.
  • For background context, Scott has created an entire lifetime career generating hatred for the gay community by making utterly absurd claims. For example, he claims that the gay community were the guiding force behind Nazi atrocities.
  • Meanwhile he just loves Putin and has written an open letter to him saying … “You have set an example of moral leadership that has shamed the governments of Western Europe and North America and inspired the peoples of the world.“

Right-Wing “Free Speech”

‘I Want to Censor the Opposition Completely’: Patrick Howley and Dalton Clodfelter Prove Right-Wing ‘Free Speech Absolutists’ Are Nothing of the Sort

  • For these folks, “Free-Speech” simply means them being free to lie, and that everybody else needs to be gagged.
  • Yea, sorry about that, I should have warned you. That loud bang was your hypocrisy meter blowing up.

Christian Nationalists

Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin is not subtle about what she envisions for the state if she becomes governor: “God calls us to pick up the sword and fight, and Christ will reign in the state of Idaho.”

  • Apparently God, the creator of trillions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, is locked out of Idaho and utterly powerless unless this nutter is elected.
  • Actual quote from Jesus: “Put your sword back in its place,” … “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” – Matthew 26:52
  • Meanwhile, Michael Daly writes in The Daily Beast: “Why Idaho’s Janice McGeachin Scares the Bejeezus Out of These Cops.“. They have some deeply serious and very valid concerns about her and who she associates with.

Rachel Hamm believes that she’ll make a great secretary of state in California because she is a Christian, which means that she’ll be honest, fair, and honorable: “Someone who is … godless very likely would not have those values.”

  • Words such as “honest” and “moral” are concepts that are completely unknown and unexplored by modern Evangelicalism.
  • In 2021 a poll of the prison population reveals that 99.9% of inmates are religious. It would appear that the “godless” are a rather dull law-abiding lot.
  • What can I say except to welcome you to 2022 where we now have Diet Christianity – it has all of the Hypocrisy and none of the actual teachings of Jesus.
  • Meanwhile, this past week, she also asks you to join her in praying that “if they create fraudulent ballots” to steal the election from her in California, “they’re incinerated”: “Let’s ask the angels to go burn ’em up. No fake ballots!”, and so when she does not win, she can now only blame God.

David Barton Falsely Claims Voter Turnout ‘Was 100 Percent’ in Early America Because ‘Churches Ran the Communities’

Truly Bizarre

Lauren Witzke is hiring, but the position comes with a few requirements: “Must have experience, be creative, and be an unvaxxed-far right-radical-extremist-christian-nationalist-‘danger to our democracy.’”

  • The quote above is not mockery, that’s what she actually wrote for the job … including the “danger-to-our-democracy” bit.
  • The role she is actually hiring for is a video editor.

The leader of the group “protecting” a Catholic church from pro-choice protesters last weekend appeared on “The Stew Peters Show” Tuesday night, where he claimed that the protesters were following “literal direct orders from the devil himself.” The individual was identified as “Chad McDowell” on the show, but his real name appears to be Max Bernegger.

  • I really don’t think that Trump was giving order to the protesters.
  • Least you wonder, Max Bernegger

David Barton claims that “woke and LGBTQ and CRT and these other things definitely are religions.”

  • I’d bet that he also thinks being non-religious and having no religious beliefs at all is a religion.

Leon Benjamin warns that artificial intelligence “wants to replace the Holy Ghost” in preparation for the arrival of the Antichrist.

  • There is absolutely nothing artificial about the stupidity that is in play here.

The False Profit$

Johnny Enlow is not sure if the Earth is round or flat.

  • Why oh why am I not surprised.

Statistic of the week

Reading about all the weird claims I highlight might motivate you to think that things are getting a lot worse. The truth is that things really are getting a lot better. Yea, the loss of Roe will be truly devastating, but the long term trend of public opinion (the folks that vote) is very much against that …

Interesting Articles

Quote of the week

“You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views“.

Doctor Who (Yes, I know he is a fictitious character, but behind that line was a real human writer who used the show as a opportunity to safely express an insightful political view to a rather large audience)

Leave a Comment

Exit mobile version