This Was "America's Mayor", Once

 

Watch "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani call Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis a "ho," and the Christian audience at the ReAwaken America tour go wild for it last night. pic.twitter.com/yy68oan7lg

— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 8, 2024

He's not half racist and misogynistic, is he? It reminds me that he went out of his way to defame, and continued to defame, two Black, female election workers, also in Georgia.  But because my government name ends in the same vowel as his, let me help him with the pronunciation of Ms. Willis' name:

And she isn't a "ho"--but an adult female who can socialize with another adult person. Are we going to sit here in 2024 and pretend a professional adult woman is not allowed to have adult relationships? That "dating" is some form of harlotry?

Is this the Middle Ages?  I do not want to hear sexual slurs about anyone under the sun from this sleazeball. 

TWGB: All Accessories

 

Speaker Mike Johnson says the House is working on releasing new Jan. 6 tapes and will blur out the faces of rioters:

“We don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other, you know, concerns and problems.” pic.twitter.com/dExchE0qbr

— The Recount (@therecount) December 5, 2023

Rep. Mike Johnson doesn't want people who participated in the riot/insurrection on 1/6 to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ. Not retaliated against, as in, their neighbors would raise a hand against them? Interesting and prudent. Not charged by the DOJ? Is that like obstructing justice? Because that very definitely sounds to me like obstructing justice. 

Does DOJ probably have all the tapes for the most part anyway? Likely. But why is Mike Johnson signifying he's trying to protect the January 6th people? He has to because he has to curry favor with the world's most undisciplined and ungovernable people? He basically is one? 

Sure. Stuff like that. MTG has given him the malocchio.  He's got pains in his liver already. The thing where he was against George Santos' expulsion but it happened anyway and the thing where he was against the ongoing shitshow of the Biden impeachment inquiry but then decided to be for it? This is what a man does when he's clinging to the side of a cliff by dry little crack-dwelling plants.

Makes You Wonder (UPDATED)

 

Although the video with the above fascist symbolism with Ron DeSantis superimposed was posted by, and then deleted by, a fan account, the troubling specter of That Gay Ad having been produced by a staffer with DeSantis' campaign does make me wonder. 

See, we've seen this before. Fascist imagery just showing up at random starts to show a pattern that doesn't really feel all that random at all, but more like a test-balloon. The atmosphere in Florida is a bit cozy for the Nazi-lovers, and the GOP in Florida seems kind of okay with their existence (and assistance). 

It's how I feel about the history curriculum in Florida whitewashing slavery. If it can be called ignorance, it's ignorance of a very deliberate kind (a kind Ron DeSantis himself is very much in step with.) Radicalization is a choice. (I don't even know where to begin with the idea of the Chiclet-heads of Prager U having anything to do with school curriculums.)

It's not just DeSantis, it's the party. It's just not usually as ham-fisted as the above, and of course, it was posted by a fan. (My gut says "Plausible deniability" after the Pride month ad.)  But whatever it is DeSantis seems to be doing, it looks like telegraphing to the white supremacists and Christian nationalists to get onboard with him. And that test-balloons like these are flying is a four-alarm fire.

UPDATE: And it was apparently right to wonder- the person (now fired) who made the video was...an aide with the campaign.

UPDATE: This piece by Tim Miller describes just who this Nate Hochman is--a Generation Z edge-lord who considered Nick Fuentes "based" and was going to be putting the words literally in DeSantis' very large (I think his jaw unhinges like a boa constrictor!) mouth.  But here's the part that sort of reveals what the game is:

He went on to discuss the merits and demerits of one of America’s most vile humans, saying the fact that he has said “super edgy things means that there’s a pretty strong ceiling to what you can actually accomplish in politics.”

“Edgy” is definitely one way to describe Holocaust denial!

When the Dispatch asked him about his Fuentes remarks, Hochman acknowledged that he said some “really stupid things, which I don’t actually believe”—but did not apologize.

"Edgy" is like "ironic" or "just kidding" or "sorry, not sorry". Walk-backs and obfuscation are tactics.  In the meanwhile, while we're just shitposting on the good old socials and all, just making our memes, some of the message gets through, and some more people are just a little radicalized. It's incremental and excremental. 

It's why I'm not putting all my hope on the youth--some of them are already on a pretty shitty path and after all, there were Boomers who were radical liberals and "didn't trust anyone over thirty" and my generation X had its share of folks who were about to "sell out" and some but not all millennials count as "woke". Grown people are supposed to demonstrate leadership and set examples. Just like we've got a lot of Gen Z young folks who are fed up with the system that put them through shooter drills and told them to expect less bodily autonomy than previous generations, we've also got some racist incels who legit think Elliot Rogers had a point. And that current is what deeply concerns me, because the pose of irony and the dismissal of actual empathy as "virtue-signaling" and "shitlibs" and being "snowflakes" is all a way of keeping the baby Nazis from wandering off and trying to be human.

But to bring it back to Meatball Ron--back when he was a teacher, in addition to getting history wrong, he was fraternizing with the kids and trying to be cool.  That's him also in this campaign--extremely online and led by callow youth instead of being capable of "leadership" until forced to fire an alt-right dickhead in the midst of also firing 1/3 of his campaign staff. (Which is still not leadership.)

What I'm saying is--I really don't wonder. The GOP invited the alt-right in and that's what they are going to be. 

Texas and the Cruelty of "Pro-Life" People

 

Texas women are telling their stories about their troubled and forced pregnancies under their state's strict anti-abortion laws, through tears and even vomit. They are testifying that they do not feel safe to be mothers in Texas, because it is not a safe state to be pregnant if abortion care does not exist there. It is a brutality that they have to tell these deeply personal stories under derisive and uncaring questioning under the assumption that the state's penalizing of fertile women for the heartbreak of reproductive mishap is not responsible for their misery is appalling, but worse is that they did undergo unnecessary injury, expenses, pain and suffering, because surgical options they could have had were made inoperable for them. 

Texas has a shitty record for maternal mortality. Let's get that upfront. Infant mortality as well. An actual pro-life position might well include trying to improve these stats with better health care access. But the rate of uninsured, access to hospitals for rural folks, and cost of getting medical care in Texas isn't a priority. I mean, not for the supposedly pro-life psychopaths in charge like Abbott, Patrick and Paxton. 

Figuring out ways to punish women and doctors for even having abortion as an option, apparently is. 

Kennedy, Caviezel, and the Conspiracy Theories

 

I was prepared to just dedicate a little space to the "surprise" movie of the summer, a little action picture (I guess it's action?) starring Jim Caviezel (whose work on "Person of Interest" was quite all right) and which is just a bit controversial. You know, in the way that the movie is at least thematically related to Qanon, and Jim Caviezel is a big old Q-Krazy. As in, when he promotes the movie, he adds a dollop of adenochrome discussion which is a descendant of the gnarly old anti-Semitic blood libel, which itself can be traced back to "the Jews killed Jesus".

So of course it's being promoted to Christian groups and conservatives with a "pay it forward' scheme that seems to be plumping its box office totals, in rather the way mass book-buys aid conservatives on the best-seller lists. 

Now, as for me, I don't like to criticize art I haven't sampled and don't mean to yuck anyone's yum over wanting to see the movie--which may very well be worth it at the price! I'm just naturally skeptical over something that might very well be soft-peddling hard bullshit that misrepresents human trafficking and how to combat it. It also strikes me as really odd that just as focus has come upon the real-life group formed by Tim Ballard who inspired the movie--he's checking out for a while. That may or may not be anything sketchy. 

But I'd hate to see anyone fall unawares into any of the Qanon-related "rabbit-holes".  Or decide to freelance to combat human trafficking because they think they are "helping".

(I do have to say that this "raising awareness" of human trafficking with a look of earnestness reminds me a bit of the "Kony 2012" viral video from nearly a dozen years ago. I recall one of the makers of that video was briefly checked into a health clinic or something in the surrounding attention. And some very cringe music videos surfaced.) 

The Minivan Taliban Are Being Fascist Again

 

Oh hey! Um, the freedom mommies went fascist again, and this time, they singled out Jewish people as if the Jewish people who are Americans weren't really Americans because they think this is a Christian nation and I guess they think all the Jews should go live in Israel and be Meggido'd. But I'm also going to be exactly the kind of person who points out that the last thing the quote says is seriously 14 words-compatible. 

They are talking about the survival of the Christian nation and their kids not being exposed to information that makes them doubt the cult of anti-science bullshit they are about to be raised in. 

The freedom mommies started by being bullshit about vaccinations, masks and school shutdowns (and I could go on a rant about fascist eugenics and the cult of clean blood but I could write a book about that and won't), probably because having kids at home impacted on their ability to daydrink and parent badly. Now, these assholes want to be fucked up because they have to explain complicated facts to their kids like gay people just love people who are the same sex as them and transpeople also use bathrooms. You know--easy explanations for shit that isn't hard. 

This is why they decided Jews are scary and probably pogroms will have to happen. Because they got momentarily inconvenienced into caring for their fucking kids, and they still don't, because they are doing this signifying shit, and probably have no idea where their kids are while they are being about FREEEEEDUMB!. But they RILLY RILLY care about their kids so much. They won't do anything about like, school shooters or poor kids getting fed or shit like that. But they will totally stop your LGBT kid from feeling like a loving community exists and probably make your POC child feel like something is missing from their history lesson, but not from their schoolyard bullying. Also too, they love quoting Hitler and being Hitler adjacent. Apparently.

(We love this game. Conservatives get to be fascists, and pretend that when you call them out on the fascism, they were only playing. It has never been cute.) 

These idiots are the reason I will never, never feel like a selfish monster for not having kids. These special beings squirted out kids and suck so hard. 

Klanned Karenhood and Their Fellow Travelers

 

I saw this on Twitter, and wanted to talk about why this particularly bothers me as (extreme Quark from Deep Space Nine voice) a "biological female"--there is a thing we don't really address much: toxic femininity. We can talk about abusive men, men who think with their fists, masculinity in the form of right-fighting and DARVO--but not these women. The ones who wouldn't do violence themselves but would cheer their men on for doing it. (They are also sister shafters--they would sell out any number of women in an instant to gain points with the patriarchy.)

Now maybe the above screencap of a freedom mommy calling for Biden's execution is unfair: she was mad because she thought US military service dogs were left behind, and while that wasn't exactly the case, I also hate to see animals potentially harmed and could get good and fighting mad about it. But I'd have checked the story, and not gone right to talking about execution because I'm not one of these ol' gals.  

But the freedom mommies don't need good reasons to want violence--it avenges them. Or at least satisfies them that their loyalty to the patriarchy has a payoff. See how they love when the daddies get in on the action? Think of a woman goading her significant other to go fight that man who has been looking at her. (Think about the history of white women and lynching, and TERFS and violence against trans people.) They don't get to rock the block of someone they don't like, but they do get told that the one who rocks the cradle rules the world. 

I'm not blaming William Ross Wallace for it--that was the era. We just aren't in the 19th century anymore. And my real problem is--WE AREN'T GOING BACK TO IT, EITHER!

I Never Will Forget.

 I see the folks who are having a little problem with seeing a Gay Pride flag at the White House, and I am so sorry, but--

Protesters have breached the Capitol. They’re outside the Senate chamber pic.twitter.com/I021tKliUD

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021

The Trump fans brought Confederate flags into the Capitol and tried to run up a Trump flag. The pride flag is about honoring the human rights of some of our citizens and the Trump fans were literally carrying flags of treason. Every Trump flag is about denying a legitimate election in favor of the seditious, lying punk who tried to hoard state secrets for reasons as yet unknown. I will never forget that desecration. The Pride flag is not that. 

Why don't they focus on stuff that's way more hurtful, like the Nazi flags outside of Disneyland? 

Or do we already have the answer to that? 

Shiny Happy People

 

I cannot recommend this Amazon Prime documentary enough, because the reality of the IBLP and the legacy of Bill Gothard has a real impact on politics today. The "Evangelical vote" in this country is about, to some degree, this anti-science and abusive cult of kept-sweet femininity and abusive masculine authority. It's about deadening children's creativity and independence.  It's about reinforcing gender stereotypes and blaming victims for their abuse. It's about taking away the voices of the abused. 

It's about taking away scientific facts, and inserting one's own religious bias.  You know how they do. It's about wisdom books that have no wisdom in them. It's about elevating positive thinking and shutting down critical thinking. It's about denying reality and smiling when the camera is on. It's about little kids being made emissaries of their parents' religion and not being compensated. It's about Jim Bob Duggar being a stingy controlling SOB. It's about Mike Huckabee helping whitewash child abuse. 

When you look at Josh Hawley and his weird kvetching about masculinity, or the Liberty Mommies astroturf bullshit--you are seeing something that stems from this movement. They want to be the umbrella over you to prevent Satan doing his closet boogeyman stuff to your life. It's kind of really well-funded and super-sad. Because it is rooted in patriarchy and ignorance and weirdos who want to spank little kids. 

What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Iowa?

 

The whackadoodles of Mike Flynn's travelling psyops parade decamped at the Doral where they were welcomed among the other bedbugs. It's an explicitly Christian Nationalist gimmick, and many Christians do not enjoy the political posturing. While Trump was not there in actuality, he was there in the form of his idiot son Eric and probably Lara Trump--they have been tight with this weird community of anti-vaxxers and convoy-promoters and school board and hospital protesters. And when his Iowa rally was called supposedly due to the weather, The Former Guy called in to let convicted and pardoned felon, the man who was collecting bucks from Russia and Turkey, Mike Flynn, know that he was definitely welcome in a second Trump Administration.  As he's been saying. 

Of course, one should be aware by now that Flynn is, to put it delicately, batshit. Someone who wants to overthrow the government, celebrates chaos, and thinks there's vaccines in the salad dressing isn't normal.  But this is Mr. 5th Generation Warfare, the guy who is telling his followers to look out because the internet is being used to tell people weird shit in order to manipulate them. Which is fun stuff from the guy whose son spread Pizzagate memes in 2016 and himself talked about Agenda 21, which is actually dead stupid. 

The coterie of kooks include Julie Green, who I almost feel sad for, because she is on a level of toxic dumb shit that is hard to divorce from thinking--is she okay? Why do people let her just be delusional like this? Is there money in it? 

(I mean like, fortunetellers do get paid sometimes, it's a reliable bunco. But when someone is so repeatedly wrong, shouldn't they they get moved to the next town by ripped-off and unhappy customers? Unless they have found the marksiest of the marks. And that is the Trump mishpocha. They want to believe.) 

TWGB: Arraignment Eve

 

Exclusive: Trump to be formally arrested and charged with 34 Class E felonies for falsification of business records tomorrow. But he will not be handcuffed, placed in a jail cell or subjected to a mug shot, per a source debriefed on Tuesday's procedures. https://t.co/3cqbNJD8VS

— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) April 4, 2023

It's a wild thing to consider in TrumpWorld: Is it better to surrender oneself and not have the mugshot. or is losing the mugshot losing an opportunity to have Trump mugshot-branded swag? On one hand, a mugshot is very bad because a president shouldn't be a felon. On the other hand, the market is there. And it would be the manliest mugshot the world has seen. (Lie: that would be the mugshot of Francis Albert Sinatra who was booked for the charge of seduction--and his hair was perfect.) 

This Holy Week, the transit of Stunato Mundi is truly a representation of the Stations of the Ass and It's Foal he rode in on and no one's palms are clean. Between you, me, and the whole entire internet, I am going to be sick that the arraignment of Trump on April 4th will give Christianist Doomsday heads some Maranatha energy and lets total racist assholes make MLK analogies. People are seriously covering his willing surrender in NYC (his hometown) as if it was notable that he didn't, I dunno, abscond to Argentina. It's for the drama. Trump is a thirsty bitch who lives for the drama. He could have done this by Zoom.  He wanted a display of pretend martyrdom.

MAGAS: Donald Trump is not your bridegroom, Gurl. Just drop that like it's hellfire hot. He's also not a martyr for any damn cause and isn't being denied going to the mountaintop of a second term. He's a twice-impeached pussy-grabbing, mafia-adjacent, seditionist who is wildly earning all the indictments. Get a whole grip on reality. The man looks bad right now because he's been bad forever and never got good. 

His campaign boasts that he's raised $7 million or so since the indictment. If I believe that: good. That money could have gone to actually viable Republican candidates instead of this guy. That money is several $$$ less in MAGA hands. 

To Love and Be Loved

 

Today the Respect For Marriage Act passed the House, and it's not perfect, but given that DOMA wasn't so long ago, it does mean things have changed. The "defense" of marriage then meant defending straight marriages--which never had been threatened by same-sex marriage at all. The weird hue and cry against marriage equality was that by some evil voodoo, queer people gaining some measure of security and happiness would take it away from straight people. 

This was always dumb. How? How would it do that? Why would anyone argue something so irrelevant? 

But let's dwell for a minute on the tears of Frau Hartzler. 

As I presided over the debate for the Respect for Marriage Act, I had to remind Republicans like Vicky Hartzler their time for debate expired.

For too long, Republicans have tried to stop a full vision of marriage equality in America.

Their time has expired. pic.twitter.com/gDNgsbWWXj

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) December 8, 2022

This woman had the nerve to be verklempt that other people would have their right to pursue happiness protected because it made her feel less safe to be a bigot, and she shed real tears begging others to show the courage of their bigotry, too. She felt like her religion and worldview were damaged by others' acceptance of queer relationships in defiance of whatever she thinks "the true meaning of marriage" is.  The thought of it cramps her privilege--to be married according to whatever her biblical view says and also to deny that security to others. 

TWGB: Everything Looks Worse in Black and White

 

The image I went with for today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag is a black and white rendition of the one-fingered salute his faithful crowd gave him his past Saturday as he gave more of his "American carnage" type of doom-saying with the obvious punchline of how only he could fix it. He's been dipping a little deeper into Qanon signifying lately, and I can only surmise it has a lot to do with their being a goddamn cult that worships him, that they will believe anything, and they are primed as hell for violence. If you are a legally-jeopardized twice-impeached one-term wonder with multiple indictments potentially coming your way and a very limited defense, and are also Donald Trump, insurrectionist, sure, what the hell: 

Threaten mass violence in case of indictments. 

But is it fascism? Oh hell. It isn't history repeating, but it's been rhyming for a while now, ok? If you are looking for exact parallels, hey, maybe that isn't the metric we want to be looking at. I will say that Qanon is obviously a derivative of Nazi (and earlier) anti-Semitic blood-libel though. And that actual demonization of the other creates a permission slip for doing any amount of horror to one's political enemies. Look at this:

Pastor Mark Burns, at Eric Trump and Michael Flynn’s event in Idaho: “I’m coming here to declare war on every demonic, demon-possessed Democrat that comes from the gates of Hell!” pic.twitter.com/URUcHo11V8

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 16, 2022

Trump has been using religion as a way to prove legitimacy and religionists (Christian Nationalists) have been using Trump to try and make their religious POV into law.  There are a number of evangelical "prophets" who insist God told them Trump never lost the 2020 election or is definitely coming into power again.   And you know who would have really hated this kind of thing--our founding fathers. This religious enthusiasm is too much. This dictating from the pulpit. This non-separation of church and state. 

There Was a Rally in Wilkes-Barre

 

The picture above isn't from the rally Trump held in Wilkes-Barre, PA for Doug Mastriano (insurrectionist) and Dr. Oz (snake oil salesman) but from May of this year, when it was all about the primary. Sure, Trump was already a one-term, twice impeached former president, who incited an insurrection riot and had already had 15 boxes of stuff taken from his Mar-A-Lago country club/domicile at the time. But his support was enough to boost Dr. Oz over the top in the GOP primary. 

Trump has since had a lawful search warrant served back in August to have even more classified and other documents horked out of his increasingly dodgy-seeming resort, once referred to as the "Winter White House". It might look bad, and I suspect the reason why is bad. But why would Mastriano and OZ turn down such valuable assistance? 

But They Keep Admitting It, Though.

 

It took me a minute to settle into words what rubbed me the wrong way about MD Gov. Larry Hogan being upset that President Biden referred to a portion of the GOP--the MAGAs, as "semi-fascist. I guess it comes from addiction consciousness--a drunk will deny they have a problem even when confronted with the number of "empties" in their trash. A problem gambler will deny they are out of control even when they are cataloguing their property for what can be sold to cover their debts. It sounds to me like denial--a state of mind just hardened into coping every day with a problem so big it has to hit bottom to finally confront, despite the well-intentioned interventions of others. 

Larry Hogan is what you might call "one of the good ones"--a Republican with which we still can speak. But he's still off in the idea that his party has a temporary illness, and doesn't want to say aloud the bad thing that happened to his party. 

It's not as bad as NH Gov. Chris Sununu wanting an apology from Biden for saying it.  How about--no? If I tell a friend her dress is too short and the world can see her whole panties when she bends over, I mean it. Facts don't care about someone's feelings. And Governor Sununu's party has got a fascism problem. 

Want to Hear an Identity Politics?

 

Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump WH aide, lost his mind after his interview with the @January6thCmte yesterday.

He accused the committee of being “anti-white” and referred to his female colleagues who spoke out against Trump as “thots and hoes.” pic.twitter.com/S7wOdH3tY1

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) July 20, 2022

You know, I've voiced my fears before that there are people who experience morality as a category error, in the sense that for them, morality is based on who you are, not what you do. It's why they can't understand how religious leaders, who are by identity always moral, can be perverts, or how cops, who are supposed to represent the law, can ever be perpetrators. Men based on identity are heads of household and common sense leaders, women are emotional and subordinate. White people are in good neighborhoods, etc. Christians are good, heathens bad. 

"Identity politics" is a term right wingers use, I think badly. It's fine for groups to make political alliances that are advantageous for them. They accuse Democrats of using identity politics ("the black card" or "the gay card", feminism, etc.) to signify allyship for political support, but man, have they ever weaponized the white, Christian identity folks. 

The "White Life" Decision

 

Miller: President Trump… I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday pic.twitter.com/RqxmbT8jx5

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 26, 2022

I listened more than once, because I could imagine a person with some kind of rhotacism or being a bit tongue tied trying to say "Right to life" and it being misread by CC as "white life". It isn't. She said this was a victory for "white life" and she means white ladies are going to have babies and she thinks they will be  a future that belongs to people like her. Because people like her will be controlling the education and the libraries of the future. She is one of those "Hitler had a point" people. Her point is that maybe she's stopping POCs from aborting also, but they will experience generational attrition by other means (also known as "Republican approaches to the general welfare") . She has faith that stopping abortion stops the browning of America. 

It's the racism. I want to mostly go smashmouth on the misogynistic sock puppet pro-lifers make of the Christian god and the absurdity of the imaginary fetal friends the pathetic sidewalk theocrats try to make of the "unborn children"--the unself-aware, pre-sentient, un-forebrained and unquickened get of some male's leg over. I don't try to get feathers from eggs or seek shade from an acorn, so I for one, understand that different things are not the same and wish everyone else did. The idea of fetal personhood because of solely human DNA is stupid--so many miscarriages--all deliberately ensouled by a creator who knew they would not prosper? All with the personality of a toenail.  Less sentience than an ant. It can't be true. 

But right here in the US, there is an idea that generation is destiny. All these little nits growing up to be white supremacist lice, as John Brown might say, of people who think a Civil War 2.0 is brewing over the culture war of the uterine battleground. That is not about religion, but white supremacy and hurting people just because. 

So, things I found out today--Trump had a rally--wow, did not anticipate, not still a star power that makes us wonder when he will make an appearance. Also too, is supported by fascists who increasingly say the supposedly silent things out loud. 

It seems very ugly, and something we should all work very hard to defeat. 

I don't think Ron DeSantis can out-Nazi Trump, but I think he'd be very competitive. 

UPDATE: The Congresswoman says we didn't hear her right but I'm pretty sure she thinks it is better to seek forgiveness than fail to issue her followers a permission-slip...you know what? She isn't asking forgiveness just lying. She can fuck her blonde-ass self and see if she gives birth to a whole master race. I hope she tries and it hurts.

The Muckrakers and the "Penitent"

 

There is a rumor about one of our GOP congresspeople that I want to obliquely address because it is not well-founded and the timeline doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense. The person in question is not someone I am a fan of, in fact, I think she is a clown who cheapens the political discourse and has no real interest in government policy as much as signifying and showing herself. 

I will not ever call out someone for fucking for money, because if you know what it is to need the money, you get it. And I also don't think anyone's abortion is immoral. If you ever did sex work or terminated a pregnancy for reasons--those are your reasons, and I don't come at someone for that. But if you ever have been there, a sex worker, or having had emergency reproductive care, you don't get to judge other people about what they have done for their lives. Good for me and not for thee isn't morality, it's just selfish and judgmental. She has done other things.  

TWGB: No Kings

It makes sense to me to open this post with Donald Trump signing the front of Bibles for Alabamians who have survived the extraordinarily severe tornado outbreak that killed 23 people. He would surely sign the cover, as it is the only part I really think he ever looked at. But that isn't weird. A Bible is a keepsake book, a thing you won't throw away. And the signature of a President, no matter which one, is a kind of historical record. Many Christians have keepsake Bibles where there is a place to recognize family histories like births and deaths. It's a part of our family lore and hand-me-down heritage to gift a Bible to a newlywed couple to remind them to raise their family in the faith. My parents received such keepsake Bibles that I ferreted out as a unchurched child among our various basement treasures--put-away unfashionable clothes and holiday decorations and military mementos and other random things people in their thirties have that their kids might find. 

I found the religion I didn't have--and because I was a reader, read. But there was nothing in those keepsake gifted Bibles that made me feel anything different about us--other than that my immediate family never indoctrinated me into this thing of religion that their families obviously had, that we never practiced. I used the unused pages to try and fill in the family history bits that had been left not filled in, but didn't even know what apparently, family Bibles should have recorded. 

What I did know, though, was better than religion--I had safety. My parents taught me to be capable. I wasn't brave, but I could fake it. I wasn't strong, but I could find strength. I was not fast, but I could be ready. I was smart, but they taught me when to not be too clever. I don't know what Donald Trump was taught when he was a wee'un, but I don't think it is too much removed from his grandfather who started hotels that might have offered more than the usual accommodations. He was taught to monetize, to capitalize.  And this is what he does. He moved from residential real estate to casinos because here is more money there. And then branched out to other ventures like a modeling agency, that wasn't too far removed from human trafficking. 

Things being sex-trafficking adjacent though, are necessarily bad, and it looks like Trump and the GOP are pretty well sex-trafficking adjacent. (More so than usual.) A recent bust of a spa chain that deals in massages and more which was goddamn close to Mar-A-Lago brought in NFL Patriots owner Robert Kraft, but the founder of this little old business selfied with so many prominent GOP figures, but most notably Trump at the Super Bowl. Well, I guess for a person with a dodgy business, friend in high places could come in handy. She also took pics with Jesse Watters and Judge Pirro and all the Trump kids and so on. 

Donald Trump likes to talk about sex trafficking along the US border. This, under his very nose--is actual sex trafficking. 

But is there more to the story? Is the madam trafficker also selling access to a certain person inclined to be accessible at one of his business addresses?  Yes? He is often there and is apparently susceptible to people who want to drop him a note that says anything like "Dear king". 

Now, my friends, you know in this country there shouldn't be any kings but Jesus and Elvis, and Elvis has left the building. Trump is no "King Cyrus" either. Trump being called "King" is weird, but his accepting hints of policy from randos who frequent his business is also very weird.

I look at his trademarks, and have to wonder what this is all about. Is he eventually setting up actual escort services and what could generously be called spas along the lines of Mme. Yang at any of his properties abroad as a kind of full-service agreement? After all, this is the guy who is not at all circumspect with his own sexual continence. But I also wonder--what about the blackmail potential? Trump has used surveillance on people at his properties. To what end, though?

Is That Scoundrel Roy Moore Still Here?

Roy Moore files a complaint to block the Alabama Senate result https://t.co/gfW48uSq6G pic.twitter.com/fwFAVaxRME

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 28, 2017

Roy Moore would like to file suit to delay certification of the Alabama Senate election results because he believes there is FRAUD! (In a state with voter ID laws, no less!) And he found a conspiracy theorist who does MATH! that agrees with him! He's also taken a lie detector test that shows that he doesn't think he did anything sexually inappropriate so people should stop SAYING BAD THINGS! And he'll have to stop fundraising if the election is really over, and then he'll only have his charity-grift.


And he can really go away now. He was a terrible candidate and he lost despite endorsements from Steve Bannon and the President and a bunch of fairly awful evangelical people who should feel bad about themselves and won't.

UPDATE: The lawsuit was rejected because sometimes a loss is just a loss.