Idiots & Assholes (Politics)

Fu-Q

Posted by Shoogle on December 26, 2020
Posted in: Bullshit Detector, Cultural Wasteland, Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was supposed to be posted months ago but the nitwittery of the subject matter made it hard to finish. Better late than never?

I probably shouldn’t be so astounded that something like QAnon became such a massive “movement.” It’s a pro-Trump religious cult after all, and we’ve all seen how Trumpers don’t exactly question what they’re told to believe. Its followers believe everything Q says as if they personally know the people behind it aren’t lying to their stupid faces. So it’s basically a massive online Trump rally in that regard. (I was going to call it “political LARPing for retards” but decided against it.)

QAnon’s absurd theories have many levels, circles, and loops. Some of the most eyeroll-worthy claims:

  • Furniture company Wayfair has been using their products to transport children in a sex-trafficking ring. That’s why so many of their closets have girl’s names. SO OBVIOUS!
  • COVID-19 was engineered by Democrats/Bill Gates/George Soros/etc. to purposely hurt Trump’s presidency. OF COURSE!
  • A shadowy cabal of Democrat and Hollywood pedophiles secretly runs the government as the “deep state”. OH YES!
  • Hillary Clinton was running a sex-trafficking ring out of a Pizza parlor basement. (Technically this came shortly before QAnon, but many of his followers were early believers in “Pizzagate” and it was quickly absorbed into the Q canon, so it may as well have come from Q.)
  • Robert Mueller and Trump were secretly working together against the “deep state” pedos and Mueller’s investigation was all for show. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!
  • Trump uses hand signals in his press briefings to make the shape of the letter Q, as a signal to QAnon followers. CAN’T YOU SEEEEE IT?
  • JFK Jr. faked his plane-crash death and is living secretly as a Trump warrior. NATURALLY!
  • Trump’s choice of necktie color sends out secret signals to QAnon followers. Example: a yellow tie during a COVID-19 press conference indicates “all clear” (the virus is fake). WATCH THE SIGNS!!1!1

So…yeah. They’re not exactly living in the same universe as the rest of us. They live in a world where pedophiles and sex traffickers lurk around every corner, and they don’t give a shit if their antics interfere with legitimate organizations who are actually battling this stuff. Their fixation on child sex is more than a little disturbing, if you ask me. They really seem obsessed with it.

Anyway, here are the most obvious signs that QAnon is a massive, bullshitty hoax, a collective delusion that’s going to fuck with our country for years.

  • It was spawned on 4chan. 4chan is no more, but if you even halfway pay attention to internet culture, you know that if something originated on 4chan you should take it with a square-mile-sized grain of salt. 4chan was a playground for racists, incels, rape apologists, Nazis, and all the other dregs of humanity you can think of. They turned trolling into a sport, doing their best to make peoples’ lives miserable just to amuse themselves. QAnon is just a long-haul trolling campaign that has gotten wildly out of control.
  • Trump is touted as a mighty warrior in the battle against evil. Are you fucking kidding me? You really think Trump is capable of doing anything that doesn’t personally benefit himself? Have you been paying any attention to his behavior at all? The man is an emotionally unstable, morally bankrupt, mentally declining sociopath who takes no action unless he gets something out of it. This is common knowledge, folks. Trump is incapable of being the savior of anyone but himself. Q’s followers say this is all an act to throw everyone off the scent of his secret heroic fight, which shows the rest of us that these fuckwits are able to rationalize literally anything to confirm their delusion.
  • The targets. Just who is behind this evil sex-trafficking of children, you may ask? According to QAnon, it’s Hollywood elites and powerful Democrats. Specifically, Hillary Clinton. Oh, and the Jews (naturally). This is basically Trump’s 2016 campaign turned on its ear and severely perverted for maximum pearl-clutching. This means all those morons who are still fixated on Hillary’s emails can say “See? SEE?? I knew she was up to something!!”
  • Declaring all media as part of the evil scheme…except Fox News and OAN. Because these two mouthpieces of the Trump admin, each with long histories of spewing provable lies, are the ones which have the real answers. They’re so totally unbiased! Riiiight.
  • Failed “insider” predictions. Time after time Q has predicted things that never came to pass. Stuff like: Trump was launching a coup against the “deep state” and would open thousands of sealed indictments. There would be widespread civil disorder as a result. Then he’d declare martial law and order the military to take over. Yeah, how’s that going? The most famous failed prediction is probably when he said Hillary was going to be arrested in 2017. Whoops. These all had specific dates attached to them, and none of them happened. That’s why his more recent predictions have become more and more vague, leaving them up for interpretation and letting deranged imaginations run wild. Q followers actually don’t care if the predictions have completely failed, because they’re already used to waiting for the often-predicted End Times that never seem to come. It’s like a cult within a cult.
  • Spoon-feeding “secret truths” to the gullible. This goes for all conspiracy theories: everyone wants to be in on a secret. Everyone wants to feel like they have answers, even if they don’t have any questions. It’s addictive, I know. The problem is that followers of Q aren’t willing to apply even a tiny grain of critical thought to what they’re reading and sharing. Instead they willingly guzzle it down, because it helps them feel less shitty about supporting an un-American, un-Christian, sexual predator piece of shit like Trump.
  • When asked for proof of anything, the typical QAnon zombie goes glassy-eyed and repeats the phrase “Do your research!” As if that means or settles anything at all. For them, “research” is sitting on the toilet and looking at a bunch of shitty Q-related videos and memes.
  • QAnon beefs up follower counts and sells tons of merchandise. Many “influencers” (god, I hate that word) on social media are injecting QAnon material into their regular content to pull in more followers and cash in on those sweet, sweet ad clicks. Even the yoga and spiritual communities are getting infested with it. It’s pretty gross. And there are tons of online shops hawking Q crap to those with money to flush down the toilet. Which is actually kind of funny in a “holy shit these people are dumb” kinda way.

There are probably more, but this is about as much as I can stand to write about it. The whole thing is laughable but also terrifying, because it signals a dangerous turn for this country and its psyche. It’s bad enough that so many people voted to keep Trump for a second term, but a large group of them are also these QAnon dipshits. And now we have Q supporters in Congress. Fuuuuuuck.

Yes, supporting Trump makes you a shitty person

Posted by Shoogle on July 26, 2020
Posted in: Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Don’t you just love generalizations? But in this case I think it’s justified. And just FYI I’ve been stewing about this for many months, so if I come across as angry or hateful, well…let’s just say Trump and his simpering fans bring out the worst in me. 😀

Over the past couple of years I’ve discovered that Trump is the perfect subject for gauging someone’s character. When I learn that someone supports Trump, it tells me everything I need to know about their politics and morals, and how deep (or shallow) their convictions are. It’s super convenient because for me there’s really no grey area. “Oh, you voted for him? And you still support him after all he’s done? OK, I see. No, you don’t have to justify your views to me. I already know everything about you.”

So how can this one fact about someone inform me of their entire character? Well, I tend to put them into certain groups, and each group has its own dumbass behavior that gives it away. Here are some of the most common ones. If you need examples of anything mentioned below, go do some Googling because there’s more than enough evidence out there. Or you could go read the comments on a Fox News story, but I really don’t recommend that. Your intelligence will be severely degraded for hours after.

Pro-death pro-lifers — Trumpers who call themselves “pro-life” don’t give a shit about babies after they’re born. (Actually, this is true of most anti-choice folks.) They don’t think women can be trusted do make their own decisions. They’re fine with breaking up families of brown people and throwing their kids into cages. They’re OK with letting hundreds of thousands of people die from COVID-19 because trusting science “infringes on their liberties.” Some Republican mayors and governors have even gone so far as to forbid any mandatory mask measures! Why? Because they think it’s God’s will that thousands of people die as the virus burns its way through our cities. The dead are basically sacrifices for the economy. Yeah, that’s suuuuuper pro-life of you.

Christian hypocrites — Trumpers who claim to be righteous, God-fearing Christians are actually the phoniest “Christians” — and some of the most morally bankrupt people — in America. They ignore his adultery, sexual harassment, pathological lying, racist shit-stirring, ethics violations, lawbreaking, and laughable pandering to them. They overlook these and many, many other things because they have a guy in power who’s trying to ban abortion (though he’s surely paid for many) and advance the nutty evangelical agenda. Because of this they’ve forfeited their right to criticize anyone else’s morals ever again, so they can shut the fuck up. An article in Washington Monthly puts it just right: “Trump takes kind old ladies who worry about the unborn and transforms them into hate-tweeters. He turns upright and model citizens into apologists for sexual assault, white nationalism, business fraud, self-dealing and foreign interference in our elections.”

Phony patriots — Many Trumpers love to squawk about the sacredness of our Constitution, even as he squats down and takes a gigantic shit all over the Constitution every single day he’s in office. They cheer his demonizing of the free press, they love his public personal attacks on anyone who calls him out on his bullshit, they’re fine with his hundreds of ethics violations and self-dealing, they had no problem with bribing Ukraine to help him win re-election, they’re silent about his using military force on peaceful protesters in D.C. so he could have a photo op…the list of his dictator-wannabe actions goes on and on. And they defend it 24/7 as if it’s totally normal.

These fuckers are un-American and have zero convictions, and the same goes for the cowardly elected GOP lawmakers who refuse to police his behavior. I watched hours and hours of craven, bile-spitting Republicans do and say literally anything to defend Trump’s corrupt and treasonous acts during his impeachment, all because they were either benefiting from it financially or they were afraid he might tweet something mean about them. Imagine if Obama did any of the things that Trump has gotten away with — he would have been lynched by conservatives and burned on the White House lawn within days.

Spineless rifle-strokers — Gun-toting Trumpers are some of the worst. These weirdos fetishize high-powered firearms in a way that’s truly disturbing, and they just love being seen in public waving their fully-loaded dick enlargers around. They screech endlessly about their right to own guns that nobody but the military should have, while thousands are killed each year by unhinged psychos spraying bullets into crowds and schools. Gun nuts don’t give a shit about dead kids — they just want to hold and caress that cold, heavy steel and fantasize about saving America from tyranny. Meanwhile, actual tyranny lands on our doorstep as Trump sends masked, armed goons in unmarked vans into Democrat-run cities to kidnap protesters off the streets. Where are you tough guys with your badass weapons now? This is your chance to fight back and be heroes at last! Aaaand they’re nowhere to be seen. Either they’re cowardly little posers like we always knew them to be, or they’re standing aside because Trump’s goons are mostly attacking lots and lots of black people. (Actually, they’re both.)

Anti-mask fuckwits — It would be a shame to ignore the coronavirus denialists, right? These troglodytes live in their own little world, where science is a lie and nothing in the news can be trusted unless it plops from the distended cornhole of Fox News, Breitbart, OAN, or any number of other batshit-crazy extremist conservative orifices.

To them, wearing a mask is “tyranny” and “conditioning.” Any measure taken to stop the spread of the virus is seen as an attack on America’s liberty, maybe even its very soul. They go to church, grocery stores, concerts, parties, and conventions while proudly proclaiming their independence of the evil influence of masks or social distancing. Many of them later become sick and die, and some publicly regret their actions and beg others not to be as mind-blowingly stupid and selfish as they were, but few of their fellow “patriots” ever listen. Oh well, maybe it’s just nature weeding out the dumber bits of our gene pool.

Conspiracy dipshits — What to say about these people? Well for starters, critical thinking isn’t part of their daily routine. They’re so desperate to make sense of the pandemic chaos, so determined to make their 2016 vote for Trump somehow not the biggest mistake of their lives, that they will believe anything they read on the internet that paints him in a good light. It doesn’t matter how outlandish or insane it is, they’ll greedily swallow it and then shit it out all over social media as “OMG The Actual TRUTH You Gotta SEE this OMG”. The Black Lives Matter movement is funded by wealthy Jews who want to control America? Sure. Obama is a secret Muslim who wants to ban Christianity? Of course! 5G wireless is the real cause of the pandemic? Yes! It’s all soooo obvious, you guys!!!1!

These nutjobs were bad enough before the election, but now we have this QAnon bullshit to wade through. It’s too moronic and convoluted to sum up easily because the rational brain wants to reject it outright, but in a nutshell QAnon (which Buzzfeed rightly calls a “collective delusion”) says Trump is single-handedly fighting the (nonexistent) Deep State in its efforts to take him down. They also think there’s a cabal of celebrities running a pedophile ring via a pizza parlor somewhere, and naturally Trump is fighting them too. But in secret! As if he has the brain capacity to even remember what he had for lunch yesterday. And they accept it without question, and it all comes from some anonymous douchebag who drops cryptic comments in a 4chan forum (which, ironically, has ties to child porn). The “movement” has gained international legs, which means America isn’t the only country plagued with a large number of internet lemmings.

Gay Republicans — And then we have a small but obnoxiously vocal number of Trumpers who fall outside of the “100% hetero with a clearly-defined gender” zone. These people are a shade browner than other MAGA turds because they’re voting for someone who actively oppresses them. Trump and his simpering enablers in D.C. (not to mention all those right-wing federal judges he’s installed) are doing everything they can to make sure gay folks can be discriminated against at every opportunity. A gay Trumper is a self-loathing twat who stubbornly clings to conservatism even when he realizes how damaging it is, and he causes severe harm to others when he somehow convinces them that conservatism is gay-friendly. I should know — I went through all that twattery in my early years, but luckily I snapped out of it and figured some things out.

The rest of the assholes

So…what about those who don’t fall into any of the above categories? Let’s say you’re not particularly religious, you’re ambivalent about the military, you don’t think about the abortion debate much, you have a vague knowledge of the Constitution but you leave the details to the scholars, etc. Well, all that doesn’t matter — supporting Trump still makes you a total shit of a person because by default you endorse all his other corruption, such as:

  • He’s distrustful of experts and hard science…not great for a pandemic
  • He used his “charitable foundation” to put money into his own pocket, for which he was fined $2 million to pay back 8 charities
  • He fawns over murderous dictators and tries to emulate their authoritarian actions
  • He gleefully courts racists and conspiracy nutjobs
  • He was fined $25 million for his scammy university which ripped off thousands of people
  • He pardons convicted criminals if they’re vocal supporters
  • He doesn’t read his daily security briefings, which is why he didn’t know about the Russian bounty thing (in fact he barely reads at all)
  • He told the public that injecting disinfectant might work against the coronavirus, and hundreds of idiots actually did it
  • He’s gone out of his way to fuck with the upcoming elections and accept help from any country willing to interfere
  • He’s using the presidency to funnel profits into his own businesses (emoluments what?)
  • He’s spent $137 million of your money on trips to his resorts for golf (per Trump Golf Count), plus he charges the Secret Service to stay there…at full price
  • He spouts complete nonsense about the coronavirus: it’ll just disappear, it’s only the flu, you can inject sunbeams to kill it, you can drink disinfectant to cure it, this or that drug totally treats it, masks are dumb, etc.
  • When someone shines a light on his wrongdoing, he fires them and replaces them with one of his ass-licking toadies
  • He’s using the DoJ to investigate and attack his enemies, and to hinder investigations into his own conduct and businesses
  • He tells dozens of lies a day, things that are easily fact-checked
  • He calls Mexicans rapists and killers, and wants them all deported, and yet he employs many illegal immigrants at his hotels and clubs (until the press made it public and he had to sack them)
  • He demonizes the free press, calling any unflattering news about him “fake news”, especially stuff that’s 100% accurate
  • He spends more time on Twitter than doing his actual job, sometimes posting 100+ tweets in a single day
  • He’s been getting rid of much-needed experts in many government agencies, replacing them with people with zero experience to basically neuter the agencies and let corruption thrive
  • He’s working hard to loosen regulations on corporations so they can pollute the country and fuck customers over more than ever
  • He made sure that millions of coronavirus stimulus money went to personal friends and businesses he has connections with
  • He does everything he can to stymie any sort of Congressional oversight of his doings
  • He crusades against mail-in voting with outright lies about “voter fraud” (WA is one of several states which has been doing it for years with no problems)
  • He forces his Secret Service to attend rallies during the pandemic, and many of them have gotten sick

And that’s just what I came up with off the top of my head. His evil fuckery is well-documented, and anyone who can look at it and still say he’s “a great guy who’s just trying to do what’s best for America” is, by association, a fuckery-enabling asshole with zero moral compass who enjoys watching the world burn.

Some might say this attitude is intolerant. “Typical libtard intolerance! Can’t handle different points of view.” Oh yeah…I’m intolerant as fuck. I’m intolerant of all the shit I listed above because rational, decent people don’t do those things, especially those in the highest office of the nation. I’m also pissed off for having to watch such morally-retarded people drag America further into the sewer.

“But I love Trump and I’m a good person!” you might say. “I donate thousands to charity! I rescue puppies! I volunteer daily at homeless shelters! I adopted 14 orphans! I saved a baby from a burning building! I fight to save the environment! I have three Purple Hearts! I invented Post-Its!” Well la-dee-fuckin-da. Who cares? You’re still shitty and God hates you. Keep rescuing those puppies, though. It’s not their fault America elected a goddamn adult baby.

Look… You’ve had almost 4 years to figure this guy out. If you’ve been paying attention to what he does, not just what he says, and you can honestly say you’re fine with it, that tells me all I need to know about what kind of person you are. If you’re on my social media and we’re not that close, I’ve already booted you. If you’re a friend, you surely know better than to bring this subject up to me. If you’re family and you still talk to me, I’ll still talk to you…but not about politics, never again. I’m done arguing and trying to reason with Trumpers and conservatives in general — I’ve done it for years and have nothing to show for it but damaged family relationships and countless hours wasted debating online. Nobody’s mind is ever changed, and I honestly have better things to do with my time. So I’m just going to try and survive this pandemic and focus on staying sane until that vile orange douchenozzle is no longer in office.

Mealy-Mouthed Moron Menaced by Meanies with Mics

Posted by Shoogle on April 7, 2020
Posted in: Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

A friend of mine on Facebook recently lamented Trump’s childish hostility towards reporters who ask difficult questions (and many asking easy ones). I agree: Trump has been a massive dick to hardworking journalists who are giving us real news, not the half-assed tripe that spills from his drooling mouth.

Naturally, his Facebook post rubbed a MAGAt the wrong way. She spouted the usual right-wing excuses: the press is out to make Trump look bad, they’re trying to trip him up with “gotcha” questions, they ask him the same thing over and over, blah-blah-fucking-blah. It’s soooo tiresome and it shows a staggering willingness to gobble up whatever narrative their GOP overlords feed them. But what else is new in Trumpland, right?

I can’t stand to watch his “press briefings” on COVID-19. I just can’t ruin my day like that. But I’ve seen many clips of his outbursts, and what I see is reporters asking him direct, important questions that trigger him into a weird kind of attack mode. He interrupts, he stammers, he calls them names, insults them and their work…instead of just answering the questions. This is why reporters ask him the same question again and again: they never get a straight answer!

Someone from NBC News asked him, “What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?” Instead of showing leadership and strength (as if!), he flipped his goddamn wig. “I say that you’re a terrible reporter! That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” So….was that question trying to trick him into taking “blame” for the virus? Or was it something every national leader gets asked in a time of crisis, when citizens need reassurance that their government is here to help? Gee, let me think…

Another reporter asked why America still lags behind countries like South Korea on testing per capita, and he snapped, “You should be saying congratulations instead of asking a really snarky question.” Congratulations? On what, the fact that our testing lags FAR behind these other countries? Oh that’s right, he takes responsibility for nothing. And rather than answer a difficult question, he stomps his little foot and pouts. Because he’s a fucking toddler.

The idea that those naughty reporters and the EEEvil Media are trying to make him look incompetent is a fairy tale cooked up by Fox News and OAN. He certainly doesn’t need them for that — he’s an old pro at it.

Longtime smoker somehow gets cancer

Posted by Shoogle on February 8, 2020
Posted in: Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

So Rush Limbaugh has lung cancer.  Well, isn’t that interesting.  Here’s my little personal history with this guy.

In the early 90’s, when I left home and moved to Phoenix to do the college thing, I discovered Rush on the radio.  To my small-town mind, which hadn’t been exposed to a lot of politics (and before then I didn’t really care about it), he seemed to make a lot of sense.  I loved his parody songs, some of which were wickedly clever, and his over-simplified way of pitting Us. vs. Them felt right.  Liberals were the ones destroying America, they were the danger to be conquered at any cost!  And I believed him.  I really didn’t know any better.  Yes, I knew I was gay, but I hadn’t come out to anyone officially and I didn’t really feel the need to.  So I went along with it, thinking I was a conservative and hyping Rush to everyone I knew.  My mom was delighted when I told her about him, and she became a massive fan and longtime listener (much to my shame years later).  I laughed when he called women “feminazis.”  I chortled when he basically called Chelsea Clinton an ugly dog.  I cheered him on while he ranted scandalously for countless hours about Whitewater and Vince Foster’s suicide and Bill Clinton’s alleged affairs.  America, fuck yeah!!

But the longer I lived in Phoenix, and the more I began looking around and exposing myself to different ways of seeing the world, the less certain I was about calling myself a conservative.  Rush began to sound a little…crazy.  His conspiratorial spiels got stale, and I began to realize that it’s all just fluff that preys on peoples’ insecurities.  White peoples’ insecurities, to be more specific.  So I just tuned him out, feeling I’d outgrown him.  A few years later, in late 1999 (literally the last day), I moved to Seattle to start a new life.  I was exposed to more culture and political views, came out to everyone officially, and further cemented my position as an outspoken Liberal.  You know, the ones who are supposed to destroy America and all that?  Uh-huh.  I felt like I’d finally reached the Age of Reason.

During visits to my little hometown, though, my mom still had him on the radio all the time, which was upsetting.  She was still hooked, and by this time Fox News has started to become part of her daily news intake as well, which didn’t help things at all.  Fox News became ten times worse than Limbaugh, delivering carefully-crafted fear and paranoia targeted directly at her demographic:  the aging boomer.  It was a double whammy that changed our relationship forever, leading to many political arguments about stupid shit that I knew she was far too smart to believe, yet they convinced her anyway.  To her credit, though, my mom was 100% accepting of me as her gay son and always supported marriage equality.  She immediately accepted my partner (later husband) without blinking an eye, which I’ll always be grateful for.

My mom died suddenly a couple of months ago.  We stopped arguing about politics about a year before Trump was elected (she said he scared her, interestingly), but I’ve always regretted introducing her to Rush Limbaugh — chances are she would have found out about him somehow anyway, but I’ll never forgive myself for contributing to the poisoning of her mind and worldview that way.

OK, back to Rush.  Now, I’d never wish cancer on anyone.  What a horrible way to go.  Cancer killed my dad a couple of years ago, and it has claimed several other family members and friends over the years.  But when I found out that Limbaugh already has advanced lung cancer…I smiled.  The phrase “Reap what you sow” came to mind.  For one thing, he’s smoked cigars for ages, because he doesn’t think it’s necessarily bad for you.  But more importantly for me, this man has spewed bigotry and lies for decades, to millions of listeners to gladly eat it up without question.  He’s contributed to the culture of assholery that has become part of the conservative norm:  publicly troll and ridicule the innocent and weak, champion authoritarian ideas, cheer for the corrupt billionaire class, tear down those who would make our world a cleaner and safer place to live, exploit his listeners’ racist tendencies, support Trump 100% no matter how many laws he breaks…Limbaugh’s legacy is undeniably toxic and has done massive damage to our political culture and discourse.  He basically opened the door for self-serving monsters like Trump, which is unforgivable.  (Naturally, Trump asked him to put off his cancer treatment so he could attend the SOTU address and receive a totally-unearned “medal of freedom” for some reason.  Classic Trump, LOL.)

And as a side note, apparently Rush is super friendly with God now:

I told the staff today that I have a deeply personal relationship with God that I do not proselytize about. But I do, and I have been working that relationship tremendously, which I do regularly anyway, but I’ve been focused on it intensely for the past couple of weeks.

Well, now.  The man dedicates his life to spreading hate, lies, and division, then figures he’ll assure his spot in Heaven by gettin’ good with God at the end.  Why is he doing that, if he felt in his heart he was doing righteous work all his life?  People like him always think they’re doing righteous, godly work.  Could it be that he’s got some regrets?  Might there be some doubt about his “guaranteed” arrival in Heaven?  If God exists, he/she/it isn’t going to overlook the damage you’ve done, so prepare for your life review at His feet, Rush.  It’s gonna be pretty cringey.

So yeah, I’m not feeling one tiny shred of sympathy for this cancer-riddled old man.  Unlike most Americans, he’ll have the best treatment money can buy and he’ll likely die in absolute comfort with an endless supply of happy pills.  I predict he’ll get a hero’s burial, broadcast live on Fox News, while famous right-wingers fling their weeping bodies onto his coffin and mourn the loss of such a valiant soul.  On social media there will be weeks of public weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and all that other dramatic shit.  And then, finally, he will be gone.

In fact, the public teeth-gnashing has already begun on social media.  I can barely bring myself to read any of it.  Right-wingers on Facebook and Twitter are oh so appalled that some might be glad to be rid of him, even cheering for his death, and their fairweather outrage is pretty comical considering their absolute lack of compassion in so many other ways.  Kids torn from their parents’ arms and babies dying in Trump’s border camps?  Those brown people deserve it!  But this right-wing radio guy gets cancer and HOW DARE YOU NOT WEEP??  Let’s see what happens when Obama falls ill or dies — these “compassionate conservatives” will be dancing in the streets, I guarantee it.

So let them mourn their precious radio guy.  As for the rest of us, we’ll be fine.  We won’t shed a single fucking tear.

News from the American Hellscape: Bullets and Bullshit

Posted by Shoogle on August 12, 2019
Posted in: General Blatherings, Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This “invasion” nonsense has been spouted by racist nutjobs for decades.  I remember in the mid-90’s there was a lot of frothy-mouthed hysteria about the “Aztlan conspiracy”, which claims that illegal immigrants are slowly and methodically invading the Southwest U.S. in an effort to re-colonize it and magically turn it into their own country.  Yeah…totally plausible.  This idea lives on today, spouted by the NRA and its mouth-breathing supporters.  And when unhinged guys with access to ridiculously powerful guns actually believe such obvious fairytales, it’s not much of a leap for them to take the next step of killing brown people in the name of “preserving American sovereignty” or whatever made-up excuse they can come up with.

The NRA Has Long Urged Americans To Arm Themselves Against An Immigrant Invasion

In 2013, LaPierre wrote an apocalyptic op-ed in The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet that has published white nationalists. LaPierre’s op-ed, titled “Stand and Fight,” was eerily similar to the manifesto reportedly written by the El Paso shooter, as well as those written by the attackers in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Poway, California.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee took a break from his full-time job of fellating Satan to tap out some tweets about how gun violence can only be stopped by prayer and absolutely nothing else.  Because it’s worked so well already, right?

Mike Huckabee: Thoughts And Prayers Are ‘Only Thing’ That Will Stop Mass Shootings

On Monday, the former Arkansas governor and twice Republican presidential candidate wrote a post on his blog where he attempted to make the case that “thoughts and prayers” are “the only thing that’s ever really going to help.”  Huckabee said mass shootings will never stop until “kids are brought up once again to believe that we are all made in the image of God, that life is sacred and superficial differences like skin color are meaningless.”

And here we have the standard “blame the homos for mass shootings, because why not” post from a clueless Republican politician, someone who likely also believes vaccines cause autism, the earth is only 6,000 years old, gay marriage causes deadly hurricanes, Jesus was a blue-eyed white guy, contrails are targeted poisonings for population control, and the moon landing never happened.  Jeezus — someone please take this bitch to a drag show and let her experience a little joy in her life already.

Ohio GOP Lawmaker Blames Mass Shootings On Trans People, Gay Marriage And More

“The breakdown of the traditional American family (thank you, transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates); fatherlessness, a subject no one discuses or believes is relevant; the ignoring of violent video games; the relaxing of laws against criminals (open borders); the acceptance of recreational marijuana; failed school policies (hello parents who defend misbehaving students); disrespect to law enforcement (thank you, Obama); hatred of our veterans (thank you, professional athletes who hate our flag and National Anthem); the Dem Congress, many members whom are open anti-Semitic; the culture, which totally ignores the importance of God and the church (until they elect a President); state officeholders, who have no interest whatsoever in learning about our Constitution and the Second Amendement; and snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President.”

Meanwhile, the Cheeto-in-Chief acted predictably shitty by using dozens of dead brown people (his favorite kind of brown people, apparently) as an opportunity to get in some “good” campaign photos.  Such empathy and class!

Trump Slammed For Tone-Deaf ‘Photo-Op’ With El Paso Orphan

None of the eight victims still being treated at El Paso’s University Medical Center agreed to meet with Trump during his visit, The Washington Post reported. A hospital official told CNN that the general assessment was that there was an “absence of empathy” from Trump. During his hospital visit, the president boasted about the crowd size at his campaign rally in El Paso earlier this year and called former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a city native and Democratic presidential candidate, “crazy.”

And then we have this:  a dipshit who thinks he’s being super clever walks into a Wal-Mart fully armed and armored, just days after another Wal-Mart was sprayed with bullets that killed 22 people.  Predictably, people freaked out and he was arrested.  He wanted to “test” his Second Amendment rights (sigh), and by his logic, the fact that it ended this way somehow proves that his rights were infringed.  What a prick.  This “reasoning” is a perfect snapshot of America as were being held hostage by open-carry fetishists who basically think they’re above the law.  They get off on putting guns in peoples’ faces and telling them not to worry — I think it gives them some kind of hero boner or something.  The fact that he put so much time and effort into this bullshit stunt (and even livestreamed it) proves this.

Armed Man Who Sparked Panic In Missouri Walmart Was Conducting ‘Social Experiment’

He was carrying an AR-style rifle and had a handgun attached to his hip, which was also loaded. While in the store, he appeared to be taking a video of himself with his cellphone as he pushed a shopping cart. An employee then pulled the fire alarm to alert customers to leave the building, and an off-duty firefighter took him into custody until police arrived. No shots were fired and no one was injured.

And finally, we have a predictably shitty response from a Republican congressman when one of his supporters said illegal immigrants should be shot.  He didn’t shut the man down and condemn the idea of killing immigrants, oh no.  Instead, he corrected the guy on exactly which type of immigrants should be shot.  It’s stunning, and yet…should we expect any different from today’s Trumpublicans?

Republican congressman silent as constituent urges shooting immigrants

The congressman, who goes by the twitter handle @DocAbraham, was speaking at a meeting of the extremist “Acadiana Patriots” Thursday when one of the members began ranting against immigrants and pro-immigrant members of Congress.

“I think some of these people, whoever they are, ought to be shot,” said the man.

“Let me jump in here,” said the congressman who would be governor. “Many of those apprehended are not Hispanic, they are Chinese, Pakistani, Indian.”

News from the American Hellscape: Blasphemy Burgers

Posted by Shoogle on June 27, 2019
Posted in: General Blatherings, Holy Shit! (Religion), Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

Only in America will someone take a fantastic invention that could save the lives of millions of animals and turn it into a hysterical religious shitfest.

Christian TV Host: Meatless Burgers Are Satanic Plot To Create ‘Race Of Soulless Creatures’

“When you go to your favorite fast food restaurant, you are going to be eating a fake hamburger. You’re going to go to the grocery store and buy a pound of fake hamburger or a fake steak, and you won’t know that it was grown in some big corporation’s laboratory. This is the nightmare world that they are taking us into. They’re changing God’s creation. Why? Because they want to be God.”

Creating veggie burgers is “wanting to be God” and “changing God’s creation”?  Please tell me where I can find a meat burger that God created.  Following their logic, airplanes are also tools of Satan because God never meant for us to fly.

If you must look at this through a religious lens (sigh), aren’t they just taking the plants that God created and shaping them into a different form for our enjoyment?  Nah, that idea is too crazy.

This is just one of many unhinged things he’s said over the years.  I wonder what happened to this guy as a kid to transform him into the raving, drooling lunatic he is today.  For fuck’s sake, somebody get him into therapy before he hurts someone.  A mind that believes this kind of stuff is not a healthy one.

This goes for any religion: if your faith is threatened by some satirical jabs on a T.V. show, maybe your faith isn’t as strong as you think.  This is fiction, something you should be familiar with.  Relax, snowflakes — your religion is still heavily dominant in this country, and it isn’t going to collapse under the influence of a satirical T.V. show.

Oh yeah, and if you’re going to protest a TV show, at least to take the time to figure out what channel/service it’s on so your protest goes to the right place.  Jesus.

Thousands of Christians Demand That Netflix Cancel a Show It Does Not Air

Some mistakes are simply too beautiful to have happened by accident—too comical to be explained by anything other than divine intervention. See, for instance, a recent petition from a Christian group calling on Netflix to cancel Good Omens,which the group considers “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable.” The problem, of course, is that Netflix does not air Good Omens; it’s an Amazon Prime series.

So this company used to copy DVDs and Blu-Rays, then bleep out naughty words and snip out nudity and/or violence.  Then they’d stream the final version to people who are so fragile that exposure to such content would shatter their very reality.  Here’s how I envision these folks watching unfiltered shows:

“He said the F-word!  Nooooooo!”  [rends garments]

“I just saw a breast!  Gaaahhhhh!!”  [stabs eye out with fork]

Anyway, the company was busted for piracy and sued into the ground.  But somehow they stuck around, and then they started pirating and chopping up shows from streaming services, amazingly thinking they would be OK doing that.  Nope.

VidAngel Hit with $62.4 Million Judgment for Pirating Movies

VidAngel ripped movies from DVD copies, and then streamed them to users with offensive content filtered out. The company argued this was allowed under the federal Family Movie Act, but Birotte did not agree and ordered the service to shut down in December 2016. The company later relaunched a filtering service for Netflix and Amazon, which continues to operate.

How could they possibly think that breaking copyright protection and sharing the content was in any way legal?  I remember a similar service many years ago that would do this to movies on videotape — they’d bleep and snip away all the bad (good) stuff, then copy them to new tapes and rent them to the aforementioned fragile types.  It didn’t work out then, and it ain’t working out now.

She fed him bleach to treat his autism.  BLEACH.  The same stuff we use to clean clothing, scrub toilets and tubs, and all that good stuff.  And because she saw a video about its “health benefits” on YouTube, it’s obviously a miracle cure.  What could go wrong?

Police Let Mom Keep Feeding Son Bleach After She Showed Them YouTube Videos, Doctor Approval

Search YouTube for “Miracle Mineral Solution” or “MMS” and you will find a trove of videos about how consuming bleach will treat various illnesses—acne, flu, malaria, HIV, hepatitis, cancer, and autism.

Why are people so willing to believe such obvious nonsense?  We’ve all been asking that question a lot these past few years.

News from the American Hellscape: Pride & Prickishness

Posted by Shoogle on June 19, 2019
Posted in: Heterosexually Challenged, Holy Shit! (Religion), Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Such petty bullshit coming from our government. But should we expect any better at this point?

Trump Administration Denies U.S. Embassies Permission To Fly Pride Flag

U.S. embassies in Germany, Israel, Brazil and Latvia requested permission from the State Department to fly the rainbow flag on their flagpoles and were denied, NBC News reported Friday, citing three unidentified American diplomats.

But wait! Some embassies are essentially telling Trump to shove his anti-gay flag policy right up his gnarled old cornhole. Some are flying giant rainbow flags anyway, and others are putting up rainbow lights, etc. Awesome.

Some U.S. embassies still hoisting rainbow flags, despite advisory from Washington

Since the State Department began rejecting all embassy requests to hoist rainbow flags outside the mission buildings during LGBTQ Pride Month this year, some U.S. diplomats have been finding ways to defy, or at least get around, the new policy.  Although most embassies seem to be toeing the line, the policy shift appears to have sparked something of a revolt among diplomats.

This is probably my favorite one, however:

Some embassies that have flown the flag in previous years opted this year to commemorate the month by posting on their websites President Trump’s statement affirming LGBT rights and inviting nations to join a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.

California’s Governor even called Trump’s bullshit:

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR DEFIES TRUMP, FLIES RAINBOW FLAG OVER STATE CAPITOL DURING PRIDE MONTH

California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered that for the remainder of Pride month the rainbow flag will fly above the state’s capitol building, directly flouting White House policy.  The rainbow flag was raised over the California capitol building, flying alongside the Stars and Stripes and the California state flag.

Such compassion! Such Christlike behavior!

Tennessee Deputy, Pastor Calls For Execution Of LGBTQ People

A Tennessee deputy and pastor is being investigated by the District Attorney’s office after he gave a sermon calling for the government to round up and execute members of the LGBTQ community.

“Send the police in 2019 out to these LGBT freaks and arrest them,” Fritts continued. “Have a trial for them, and if they are convicted then they are to be put to death. Do you understand that? It’s a capital crime to be carried out by our government.”

Charming. You know, if Jesus came back today he’d slap the living shit out of this piece of trash. He did say something that made me laugh, though:

“I’m sick of sodomy getting crammed down our throats,” Fritts said during his sermon.

Um… If anyone was cramming sodomy somewhere, it probably wouldn’t be down your throat. You know?

Oh, he knows. It’s common knowledge these days that anyone this homophobic is hiding some seriously queer skeletons in his closet. It’s something we’ve seen a thousand times from a thousand vehemently anti-gay types, all of them crowing about the evils of homosexuality and how it’s “infecting” our country with…whatever. I think we should start taking bets on how many wangs this guy has had in his various orifices over his lifetime. 50? 200? Always done in strict secrecy, probably using church funds to keep the dudes quiet. You know it’s true! It’s only a matter of time before the story breaks, and I can’t wait…

Wow.  This gay guy is the social media manager for the NRA.  He’s got some questions (and a bit of whining) for his fellow gayfolk.  Let’s take them one at a time, shall we?

I wish the gay community were more accepting of gun supporters. I should know.

If we in the gay community know we are frequent targets, why do we overwhelmingly oppose laws that protect our right to defend ourselves?

Typical NRA thinking: the only way you can be safe is carrying a gun around everywhere.  “Hey, let’s head out to the club!  Just let me grab my pistol.”  What kind of life is that?  And how is it safer if average citizens start walking around with automatic weapons?  What a sad, paranoid way to live your life.

Why do I find myself, at party after party, defending my decision to work for the NRA?

Well, let’s see.  How about…because you work for a corrupt and dangerous organization that glorifies weapons which can kill dozens of people in just a couple of minutes.  You know, like at the Pulse nightclub and dozens of other public places.  Do you really need more reasons?  There are quite a few more.

Why does my wanting to own a firearm make some gay people I meet accuse me of being self-hating?

Hmmm.  I’ll bet you’re a Republican too, because you’d pretty much have to be.  So maybe they think you’re self-hating because you’re aligning yourself with people who actively work to suppress and dehumanize gay people like yourself.  Ugh…gay Republicans are already insufferable, and adding gun-worship to the mix is especially gross.

Why is a community that prides itself on inclusion and tolerance so intolerant toward the Second Amendment, the NRA and those who believe in the right to self-defense?

To quote one of the comments on this article:  “It’s not that the gay community ‘is so hostile toward the Second Amendment’, it’s that we’re hostile towards the NRA because (I’ll stick to the facts and refrain from chanting obscenities) they’re divisive fraudulent money grubbing Trump supporting homophobic liars. They don’t exclusively OWN the second amendment and define what it means.”

This is exactly right.  The NRA is a shitty organization which has abused the Second Amendment for decades.  So fuck off with your self-pity — if you want to be liked, make yourself likeable.

I’m happy to see this artist finally see a little bit of compensation for the abuse he and his art have taken at the hands of Nazi wannabes. Of course they’ll still use Pepe to their own stupid ends, but Alex Jones can’t even touch Pepe again. (Stay tuned for the follow-up story where he violates the agreement and does it anyway…)

InfoWars Must Pay Pepe the Frog Creator $15,000, Never Sell Pepe Merch Again in Settlement

InfoWars founder, conspiracy theorist, and tainted supplement pitchman Alex Jones has settled with artist Matt Furie, creator of the unfathomably widespread Pepe the Frog meme, for $15,000 after InfoWars used the image on an obnoxious poster it sold during the 2016 elections, Vice reported on Monday.

News from the American Hellscape: Measles Mambo

Posted by Shoogle on June 1, 2019
Posted in: General Blatherings, Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Once again Russia succeeds in tearing the country into two camps, when there really should be only one.  You know, the one where science wins over conspiratorial peepeecaca.  Critical thinking is basically dead in America since social media came along — we read shit on Twitter and instantly believe and spread it as fact, which is exactly how we ended up with a fascist orange twatwaffle as president.  And now we have the highest number of measles infections in decades.  Where does this end?

Russian trolls spurred anti-vaccine debate with misinformation on Twitter, says new study

“Compared with average users, Russian trolls, sophisticated bots, and ‘content polluters’ tweeted about vaccination at higher rates,” the study, led by professor David Broniatowski, reports in its findings. “Whereas content polluters posted more anti-vaccine content, Russian trolls amplified both sides.”

And looky here, who would have guessed?  I see they lumped blogs in with social media, which I don’t agree with.  You have to seek out and subscribe to blogs, but social media is in your face all the time with few controls on what you see, and it makes spreading misinformation easier and faster than anyone ever imagined (other than Putin, who seems to have perfected the craft).  Having said that, I have seen some blogs that eroded my brain a bit. 🙂

Twitter is eroding your intelligence: Study

Using Twitter reduced performance on the test by about 25 to 40 per cent of a standard deviation from the average result, as the paper explains.  Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, described these as “pretty big effects”.  …This finding, the paper notes, bolsters the conclusion that blogs and social networking sites actively impair performance, rather than simply failing to augment learning.

A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment on the study.

Oh, this splotch-faced douchenozzle again?  He’s been busy spreading his fetid, racist stank all over Europe, trying to recruit more Aryan mongoloids to fight in his war against brown people, or whatever it is.  Too bad he can’t be bothered to do the appropriate paperwork…

Italy blocks Bannon’s plans for right-wing political academy

Italy’s populist government is blocking plans by former White House adviser Steve Bannon to set up an academy for future populist leaders in a medieval monastery in the mountains outside of Rome.  On Friday, Italy’s government said it was revoking the rights to the property, which were given to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a think-tank affiliated with Bannon.  Among other problems, Italy’s culture ministry said the institute has not paid concession fees and failed to do maintenance work on the monastery.

This is epic.  If you’re looking for a bite-sized summary of Trump’s red flags and possible/likely crimes, this is it.

Ex-Ethics Chief Tweets Very Long List Of Bad Signs From Donald Trump’s Presidency

The former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics urged the American public on Friday to pay careful attention to everything that’s going on with President Donald Trump’s administration.

“Heed the signs and don’t underestimate the threat to our republic from within,” tweeted Walter Shaub, who served in the high-ranking role under former President Barack Obama and then for six months under Trump until his resignation in July 2017.

Here’s a snack-sized copy of the entire Tweet thread for your convenience:

Heed the signs and don’t underestimate the threat to our republic from within:

  • Trump obstructed justice
  • A McConnell-packed SCOTUS says precedent can be changed more easily than previously thought
  • AG Barr is an open partisan and slow-motion Saturday Night Massacre beneficiary
  • White House ignores congressional subpoenas, document requests
  • Mnuchin is violating a law on turning over taxes to House
  • Barr & Senate allies want to investigate officials who investigated Trump to retaliate against them and deter future efforts to hold him to the rule of law-State Dept is setting up a commission to supplant human rights with “natural law”
  • An Inspector General found standing room only in border detention cells, with detainees standing on toilets to breathe
  • children stolen from parents at the border are dying in internment camps-Trump cut resources for investigating domestic terrorists
  • FBI reports a recent significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism
  • evidence found of a white supremacist plot to add census Q to help gerrymander in ways “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites”-Trump is still resisting setting up defenses against foreign election interference
  • Trump’s personal attorney solicited foreign govt investigation of current Trump political rival Biden
  • AG Barr said something in a weird interview about investigating former Trump rival Clinton
  • There’s cause for concern Trump/Kushner personal interests may be influencing middle east policy
  • Ignoring Congress, Trump declared fake emergency & abused authority to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia to continue its atrocities in Yemen, after it murdered a Washington Post reporter
  • Trump declared fake emergency to get more power to ramp up activity at border
  • ethics violations (and ethically dubious conduct not rising to a violation) occurring at an unprecedented rate among Trump appointees
  • senior admin official says she doesn’t care about an ethics law
  • if impeached, Trump says he’ll try to get SCOTUS to overturn the impeachment
  • McConnell, who blocked Merrick Garland ostensibly because it was an election year, shamelessly hinted this week that he’d be willing to fill a SCOTUS position for
  • Trump in an election year
  • Trump is praising autocrats, undermining allies
  • Tone of OLC’s recent opinions has changed under Assistant AG Steven Engel, who was tied to one of the torture memos
  • Military went to the border for Trump
  • Military hid a ship to placate Trump
  • Airborne seen wearing MAGA patches
  • Trump admin & Graham inexplicably advocating war in Iran/Venezuela
  • DOJ experimenting with new legal theory for prosecuting those who publish classified information (raising a question as to whether the theory will be limited to hostile foreign actors or expanded to journalists)
  • some public voices are normalizing Trump admin conduct
  • voicemail from Trump lawyer to Flynn shows a disturbing carrot/stick approach (or worse)
  • Trump has seemed to dangle pardons to buy silence or worse
  • Trump admin officials are violating records laws to conceal actions
  • Trump said “Russia, if you’re listening”
  • Trump said “fine people” marched with nazis
  • Trump has told over 10,000 false or misleading statements, per Washington Post
  • Trump helped cover up Khashoggi murder, and Kushner’s said to have offered advice to MBS on weathering the storm
  • a foreign prince is reported to have said he has Kushner in his pocket (but denies saying that)
  • Helsinki
  • Trump’s behavior is erratic and is marked by frequent lies, bizarre public outbursts, name-calling and confusion
  • no press conferences, and no transparency
  • Trump allies in congress are either lying about the Mueller report or haven’t read it
  • Trump allies in congress are trying to prevent Mueller & others from testifying because they know their base hasn’t read the report and right wing media has kept them from hearing about it

But no, that’s all just Mainstream Media™ lies….

News from the American Hellscape: The Whining Wall

Posted by Shoogle on May 26, 2019
Posted in: General Blatherings, Holy Shit! (Religion), Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Time for another round.

dumbest voters

This, folks, is a thing of beauty. Even today, after Trump’s many broken promises, there are gullible nitwits out there who still think someone’s going to build a wall to keep those dirty, violent brown people out, and they’re willing to donate millions to make it happen (even though Trump personally guaranteed them that the dirty, violent brown people were going to pay for it). So they donated to a crowdfunding campaign to build a wall on their own, and…nothing’s happening. $20 million just went *poof*. It’s hilarious! I hope this happens again and again and again, because they truly do not learn.

UPDATE 5/28/19: Well, what do you know? Today there’s news that they finally built a little bit of wall with this money over the weekend. Not Mexico’s money, but American money. Almost one mile was done, with only 1200+ miles to go, so pony up, MAGAts!

Trump supporters astonished to learn that the man they gave $20m to “build the wall” has nothing to show for it

In response, a fellow promised that he would raise the money for the wall through a crowdfunding campaign that the credulous dunces could send money to. He estimated that he could build it on private land for a mere $1b, because why not. They raised more than $20m, less than one thousandth of the DHS estimate of the cost of doing so, and, with less than 1% of the total cost in hand, the crowdfunder was shut down.

Now, the credulous dunces would like to know the what Brian Kolfage, the fellow who started the campaign, is doing with their millions. Mr Kolfage created a nonprofit to receive the money, but its records are sparse and mysterious. Mr Kolfage became very upset when the Daily Beast’s Will Sommer published an article pointing out that no evidence of progress has been made available, and Mr Sommer countered that he had repeatedly asked Mr Kolfage for a status update, to no avail.

This should send shivers down the spine of everyone, even these Christians who think they’re doing their god’s work. If they’re going to teach “Bible Literacy”, we need to throw in a class on Buddhism Literacy to balance it out. And Islam Literacy. And Hinduism Literacy. And Pagan Literacy. And whatever else we can come up with. Hey, why not Satanism Literacy? It’s related to Christianity, after all, so why not be thorough? This business of sneaking religion into public schools has backfired before — remember when the Satanic Church began distributing pamphlets in schools which were handing out pamphlets about Jesus? Yeah, they didn’t like that at all. But if you really believe the Constitution is a sacred document, you must consider all of it. You can’t just pick and choose what to accept, like you do with that Bible of yours.

Bible classes in public schools are getting a big push from Christian conservatives — and it’s working

Scenes of Bible classes in public school could become increasingly common across the United States if other states follow Kentucky’s lead in passing legislation that encourages high schools to teach the Bible. Activists on the religious right, through their legislative effort Project Blitz, drafted a law that encourages Bible classes in public schools and persuaded at least 10 state legislatures to introduce versions of it this year. Georgia and Arkansas recently passed bills that are awaiting their governors’ signatures.

It basically comes down to this: Trump has made it OK to ignore laws. It’s that simple. Church and state? Who cares! Conflicts of interest? Whatever, not me! The actual law says the IRS must provide tax returns? Nope, we refuse! These people are pissing all over the American rule of law, and so far nothing is stopping them because Trump has strategically installed corrupt garbage-people in positions where they can obstruct any attempt to hold him accountable. (Oh yeah, let’s not forget the House & Senate Republicans who will jump up and lick his arse at every opportunity.) Just imagine if Obama had tried even a tiny fraction of what the Orange Tumor has. Republicans would have burned him alive, and I mean that quite literally.

Well, well, well. I guess he’s just following in the scammy footsteps of his hero Papa Trump. Should we expect differently? When you worship a conman shitbag, you’ll likely become one. No mystery there.

He Founded ‘Students for Trump.’ Now He Could Face Jail Time for Impersonating a Lawyer.

“I see Donald Trump as reviving the Republican Party,” one of them, John Lambert, declared confidently. Last month, Lambert, now 23, showed up in the news again. This time, he had been arrested in Tennessee on charges of wire fraud. According to the federal government, at the same time he was building a nationwide political network and serving as one of the most visible young faces of Trump’s populist movement, Lambert was also posing online as a high-powered New York lawyer, eventually making off with tens of thousands of dollars in fees he stole from unwitting clients seeking legal services.

Oh pleasepleaseplease let this be true. I want to see the NRA collapse under the weight of its own gun-humping hubris. It looks like even all those millions of dollars funneled into the NRA by Russian operatives aren’t going to keep them afloat, which really says something about the level of corruption we’re talking about here. Finally we have a bit of good news after two years of suffering under the most corrupt administration in history. I’m still rooting for this administration to collapse in the same way, but it’s sure taking its sweet time…

Leaked NRA Documents Reveal Gun Group Drowning In Legal Fees
A week before former National Rifle Association President Oliver North said he would not seek reelection after a failed attempt to oust CEO Wayne LaPierre, he warned the group that extraordinary legal fees threaten the future of the NRA.
A series of documents posted anonymously online and verified by both The Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal show the inner machinations of a group plagued by deep financial troubles to the tune of $24 million.

Religious conservative “morals” are anything but

Posted by Shoogle on May 19, 2019
Posted in: Holy Shit! (Religion), Idiots & Assholes (Politics). Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

worship or elseHere we have two stories that perfectly sum up the fucked-up values of America’s religious conservatives.  Let’s start with this:

Republicans Are Pissed About Crackdowns on Vaccine Exemptions

The fight against measles in a handful of states is facing staunch opposition from Republicans and anti-vaxx parents as lawmakers crack down on exemptions that let kids skip vaccinations.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that through Friday there have been 839 individual cases of measles throughout 23 states. That’s the most cases since 1994, making this the worst measles outbreak in decades. In response, a number of states where it’s spread have been trying to limit exemptions, with efforts mostly led by Democrats.

Washington State got rid of personal/philosophical exemptions.  California is making it harder to claim false exemptions.  Oregon got rid of the “moral” exemption.  Connecticut is looking at removing religious exemptions.  Maine has tossed philosophical exemptions.  Slowly but surely, reason and common sense are making headway against tidal waves of anti-vaxxer bullshit, and naturally Republicans are howling like the infantile little assholes we all know they are.  Oh, you don’t want the government dictating your health choices in the face of a nationwide epidemic?  Let’s come back to that when you stop taking womens’ uteruses  hostage because you think a blob is a person.  And speaking of which…

Alabama Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a controversial bill that bans nearly all abortions into law Wednesday evening.  It’s considered the most restrictive abortion law in the United States. The law makes it a crime for doctors to perform abortions at any stage of a pregnancy, unless a woman’s life is threatened or there is a lethal fetal anomaly.

This is the “pro-life” world we now live in, folks:  religious conservatives (overwhelmingly men, naturally) forcing women to give birth to unwanted children, while at the same time fighting legislation that prevents those same children from getting sick…and possibly dying.  They’d also like to let anyone of any mental state purchase automatic weapons, because without all those dead schoolkids they wouldn’t be able to look and feel compassionate by publicly spouting their Thoughts And Prayers™ on Twitter.  And let’s not forget that they overwhelmingly support the death penalty.  Yep, sounds “pro-life” to me all right.

But wait, we shouldn’t stop there.  We can take this so much further.  First we need steep fines on non-procreative ejaculations.  Outlaw jerking off — it’s causing trillions of innocent pre-babies to die in a holocaust of towels and tissues!  Next we need to outlaw the burning of coal and oil, because carbon is one of the building blocks of life (if you believe in that science stuff, anyway).  And what about those poor fetuses and blobs which have now been granted full personhood?  First we need to give them voting rights.  They’ll also have property rights with the ability to rent out space in the womb.  Make them attend church, because Jesus died for our blobs’ sins.  And let them be the second passenger in the carpool lane, fer chrissakes!  That blob is a person, you monster!

But enough of that.  To paraphrase Saint Carlin, these people don’t give a shit about you once you’re born.  Once you’re out of the womb, you’re on your own.  They’ll use their power to bring you into the world, but they don’t want a single government dollar going to help feed and care for you if your mother can’t do it all on her own.  They just want you born, and then you’re not their problem.  This is how they keep women in their place, as the Bible clearly dictates.  Praise be!

This all leads me to believe that the mind of an American religious conservative can be a dark and twisted maze of contradictions and misguided piety.  Selfish, irrational, willfully ignorant and dismissive of established knowledge, compromised by their belief of a guaranteed spot in Heaven, wielding religion as a weapon against those they don’t like, driven to control the behavior of others under the guise of “moral concern” — it’s a scary place, and minds like this have been very busy chipping away at whatever legal protections we still have against their influence.  Now that Trump is in power and appointing hundreds of right-wing judges into lifetime positions, I’m starting think these motherfuckers just might get their wish of a real-world “Handmaid’s Tale.”

I’m fully aware that conservatives automatically call this attitude intolerant.  “Typical intolerant libtard! Can’t stand different opinions.  Fuckin snowflake.”  But you know what?  Nobody should tolerate the kinds of immoral and inhumane things these people are getting away with.  So if I’m an intolerant asshole to them (and I’ve been told as much by a few), I’m fine with that.

Under His Eye…