Back in the 1980s there was what was commonly known as the “Satanic Panic. Alligations included claims of abuse and orgies for Satanic purposes. Those who seriously looked into it found no evidence at all, not one jot, it was complete fiction being promoted as fact.
Sound familiar?
Yep, we are back to it all once again. Democrats are supposedly all Satanic and anybody not on board with that claim is supposedly into Pedophilia. Most notably from the past week was nutter-in-chief Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene promoting the claim that Republican Senators. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney “are pro-pedophile.”.
Why?
Her “evidence” is that they joined Democrats in a procedural vote to move forward with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. That supposedly makes them pro-pedophile because of the absurd and utterly false claim that the Judge has a history of “showing leniency towards pedophiles.”. Fact check that and you find that the basis of it all is pure fiction.
Greene’s claim is beyond preposterous. She knows this but does it anyway because pushing this hot emotional button is a trigger designed to inflame. In one sense the satanic panic of the 80s never really went away, it lived on within religious micro-cultures, and is now going mainstream once again.
Meanwhile, if she actually does care to openly discuss pedophilia, then she might perhaps be interested in the Daily Show. This did a clip listing the actual Republican pedophiles within her own party.
Surprise – she has no interest and does not appear to have any worries or concerns about any of them …
It is perhaps in many ways a very Shakesperian trope for the court jester, the satirical Daily Show, to be the one that speaks truth to power.
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.
The Putin Fan Club
[April 8] Lance Wallnau praises Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for resisting the West’s efforts to “force vaccinate their values of wokeness into the nation”: “[They] don’t want our transgender ideology to infect their youth.”
- It takes an astonishing degree of stupidity and ignorance to think that Transgender is an “ideology” or communicable disease, but hey, this is Lance, he will always step up to that mark and deliver.
- Way to go Lance. This is exactly the thing that Putin has been so worried about. He is afraid of the societal transformation that’s going on in a tiny sector of people in America. That’s why he’s cutting the heads off of 12-year-old girls and exterminating cities. Makes total makes sense.
Sophie Lawton, Danil Cuffe, Zachary Pleat, Natalie Mathes, and Madeline Peltz @ Media Matters: Far-right influencers push Russian propaganda to claim the reported potential war crimes in Bucha are a false flag.
- Embarassing fact check: Mainstream media outlets have reported on satellite images dated from when the Russians were still in total control. They show mass graves, bodies that show signs of execution, and streets of the once-quiet town “littered with burned-out tanks and corpses.
- Propaganda 101 … deny deny deny. It all has echos of Comical Ali. He rather famously gave an interview back in 2003 in which he claimed that there were no American tanks in Baghdad, when in fact they were only several hundred meters (yards) away from the press conference where he was speaking and the combat sounds of nearing American troops could already be heard in the background of the broadcast.
Racism
Mario Murillo says that “if you cannot renounce critical race theory, you are a racist,” before declaring that “the Democratic Party is of Satan and every true American has got to rise up and stop it right now.”
- Mario Murillo Translator: “True American” = Anybody who is both racist and also batshit crazy like he is.
Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer promises that if elected to the U.S. Senate, he will sponsor legislation to “cutoff ALL Federal funding to any school district in America that teaches Critical Race Theory or Woke Sexuality.” He’s going to call it “The Millstone Act.“
- In other words, this will not cut off any funding for anybody ever.
Voting
CA GOP Secretary of State Candidate Rachel Hamm Wants to ‘Make It Hard’ for People to Vote
- She is running for election because she claims Jesus appeared in her closet and told her to do so.
QANON
Appearing at the ReAwaken America tour, Eric Trump posed with anti-vax QAnon conspiracy theorist Scott McKay (aka “Patriot Streetfighter”) who has repeatedly and openly threatened to kill health care providers.
- The choices you make regarding those you hang out with tells us a great deal about who you really are.
Regarding QAnon conspiracy theorists, white nationalist and “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Vincent James has no problem with them: “Say what you will about QAnon folks, there’s a shit ton of them on the boards of all sorts of organizations out here and I’ll take them over liberals any day.”
- Vincent only likes the people who embrace weird shit
- Also this past week he brushed the dust off the same old QAnon claims when he says, “we should be calling liberals pedophiles though. That’s what they are, proponents of child grooming, pedophilia, and child sacrifice.”
Truly Bizzare
Matthew Chapman @ Raw Story: Sarah Palin says she’s personally ‘insulted’ because Biden picked an ‘ill-prepared’ Black woman for the court.
- “personally ‘insulted’” !
- Nice to see that Palin continues in her tradition of being a “Stupidity” pioneer.
Grant Atkinson seems to believe that President Joe Biden is personally responsible for the fact that the Masters golf tournament does not have ice cream sandwiches for sale this weekend.
- For some, no matter what it is or why it happened, it is apparently Biden’s fault. Being ready to blame Biden for anything and everything is fast becoming a new profession for some.
David Barton asserts that “the more secular a nation becomes, the more mental health issues you have.”
- Mr Barton has a long well-established record of not being aquainted with truth, integrity, or honesty, but instead simply makes stuff up.
- As is usual with him, he simply makes the claim and does not cite anything at all to back it up.
Patrick Howley wants to bring back literal witch trials.
- Why bother rolling everything back to the 1950s when you can instead go all the way back to the 1600s
- Honestly, we should never ever be afraid of witches. The people to fear are those that burned them alive.
- Patrick’s homework for next week is to read The Crucible.
If anyone wants to spend $11,000 on a bottle of Trump Vodka signed by various racists in order to help out a Proud Boy Jan. 6 insurrectionist, there is one for sale.
- Such a bargain, who can possibly resist? [Hint for the humor impared: The answer is almost everybody]
The Marriage of Church and State
Mario Murillo proclaims that Christians must get more involved in politics because “the Satanic agenda being pushed by the Left is killing people. It is drawing them toward death.”
- History teaches us that mixing politics with religious fanatics has always panned out so well in the past.
- Mario Murillo Translator: “Satanic Agenda” = anything that does not exactly align with his batshit crazy and very extreme beliefs.
The Disney War
From the folks who are pissed about Disney daring to raise an objection to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill …
- Scott Lively declares that “every MAGA mom, dad, grandparent and concerned patriot” needs to understand the danger posed by the “Dystopian Pedophilic Disney Corporation.”
- “Do you see Minnie (Mouse) in a dress?” asked Oklahoma GOP state Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson. “Or do you see Mickey holding a penis?”: “The people at Disney are pedophiles.”
- Josh Bernstein vows to be “relentless” in his effort to personally destroy Disney because everyone who works there is “disgusting, sick, woke, leftist pieces of trash.”
- Mario Murillo declares that … “the takeover of The Disney Company, like the takeover of our classrooms, was a coup planned long ago. What a prize! What a masterstroke for the side of evil—to take over our children and bring down our nation.”
… and on that note who do have this …
The False Profit$
Pastor Shane Vaughn did a livestream blaming former President Barack Obama for COVID-19 in which he proclaimed that everyone involved is “treasonous”: “They should be hanged on the first gallows. They turned on their nation to hide their crime. They are guilty of treason.”
- Can anybody remind me who was president when COVID emerged back in 2019
- Yes indeed, the good Christian and ever so “loving” Pastor is indeed saying “It was the Black Dude and he should be hanged.” I’d speculate that he is not familiar with the recently passed anti-lynching law.
MAGA Candidate Pastor Mark Burns Urges Christians to Smash the Windows of Antifa Activists’ Cars
- The bit in the bible that suggests turning the other cheek appears to have gone wooshing right over his head.
The supposedly “praying medic”, Dave Hayes, assured his followers that there is no reason to be alarmed by the “globalists” trying to “starve us to death and destroy our economies” because God will miraculously “multiply the food we have” and allow cars to run without gas.
- Number of examples where food is actually supernaturally multipled and a gas consuming car runs without gas … ever … in all of human history – exactly zero
- If you check the posting made by Mr Hayes, you will find he edited it. He looked at it, read it, made some tweaks, and said – yeah, this is it, this is what I’m going with.
- It’s not just his car, but also his brain that is running on empty.
Pastor Mark Burns again pledged that if he’s elected to Congress, he will push to reestablish the House Un-American Activities Committee in order to hold Hillary Clinton “accountable for treason.”
- Call me tad picky if you wish, but being held “accountable for treason.” tends to generally require you to have actually committed treason.
- If he really did reestablish the House Un-American Activities Committee, then item one will need to be itself, because the previous Un-American Activities Committee is commonly recognised as Un-American
- Personally I’d not be too worried. When he last ran in 2018 only 1,600 people actually voted for him.
- Yes, this is the guy who was interviewed by CNN about his fictitious biography and walked off in a huff when faced with the facts, then later admitted that he had indeed made it all up. That would normally be a political deal breaker, but these days apparently not.
Statistic of the week
Interesting Insights
Just a random collection of articles that caught my eye …
- Leyla Santiago @ CNN: Emails show one of DeSantis’ stories backing the rationale for so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law didn’t happen as the governor says.
- John Fea @ Current: Charlie Kirk: “Huckster. Snake oil salesman. Charlatan.”
- Anti-Defamation League: Unmasking “Clandestine,” the Figure Behind the Viral “Ukrainian Biolab” Conspiracy Theory.
- Ryan Bort @ Rolling Stone: Fox News Doctored Clips of Obama’s Visit to the White House to Make It Seem Like Biden Was Lost.
- Will Sommer @ The Daily Beast: Alex Jones Accused of ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Scheme to Hide Money From Sandy Hook Families.
- Kathryn Joyce @ Salon: The guy who brought us CRT panic offers a new far-right agenda: Destroy public education.
- Kelsey Butler @ Bloomberg: Anti-LGBTQ Proposals Are Flooding U.S. State Legislatures at a Record Pace.
Quote of the week
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It’s only painful and difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid.
Commonly attribted to Ricky Gervais, but Belgian comedian Philippe Geluck appears to be the actual originator of this
One Last Thought
In a time to come, if things are as some believe them to be and you find yourself standing before the pearly gates, then you might pause and worry about who is in there.
I can assure you that you will not need to worry about encountering any of these fanatics or MAGA pastors, they will not be there. A far warmer place has been reserved for all those that have tossed decency, integrity, truth, compassion, and basic human empathy under the bus.