JD Vance claims that efforts to suppress misinformation and hate speech "are going to destroy Western Civilization. They're gonna destroy Europe, and they would destroy the United States of America if we allowed them to fester. Thank God we have a president now who believes in… pic.twitter.com/EKIIF4rXoD
Sometimes I wonder what JD Vance stands for, but to me, the persistent thing about him is that he tells stories. He creates narratives. He likes a good yarn. Jesuitical Dissembler Vance is insisting that lying is good, actually. I guess if you have a problem with it, you are probably "virtue-signaling."
See what happened there? Lying is good and being concerned with what is true is fatally dangerous. (I personally despise the term "virtue -signaling" FWIW--people have VALUES and CONFESS THEM and LIVE BY THEM publicly if they are sincere in any fashion. Scoffing at the notion means you are basically an amoral putz.)
When asked about the anti-Semitic attack on Josh Shapiro (who Mastriano has derided as being a "secular Jew" which is just not even his place to say anything about) and his association with Andrew Torba who is rabidly anti-Semitic, Rebbie Mastriano steps in to offer the worst of philosemitic bullshit: she and her husband love Israel so much--even more than the "fake Jews" do. I mean, no other country has Megiddo in it, she did not add. Which is mentioned in the Book of Joshua which she and her spouse are ridiculously influenced by--which is just a crazy-ass pile of smiting of heathens by people backed by God, which is totally their thing.
But in their world, people who don't back them are the real heathens, whoever they are. So. Are they reeeaaaalllly anti-Semites? Or just all-purpose haters? Um. Why do I fucking care? These chucklefucks believe dangerous nonsense that has no place in any government whatsoever. But yes, if Jewish people are among the many people they think are part of a "problem" then yes. I would call it that.
Anti-Semitic banners were hung over an overpass on I-10 in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday. Mayor @lennycurry and Governor @RonDeSantisFL have not yet condemned the actions of Nazis in Duval County. There are an estimated 14,000 Jews in the city.
You cannot expect any people who have become friendly with hate to protect anyone; you cannot expect them to recognize people who they have already demonstrated they will exclude. And if seeing is believing, then what I am seeing tells me we are seeing a party taking a very dark turn.
"We come against the animal kingdom. ... (&) against any strange wind...that comes against our president."
"We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now. We pray that anything conceived in Satanic wombs will miscarry."
—Trump White House Spiritual Adviser Paula White pic.twitter.com/R6yHy4xfaV
and see a lot of folks on Twitter wonder "Is this a pro-life attitude?" I can't say it's necessarily pro-life, but it is Biblical. It mirrors Hosea, who prophesized about the times ahead for those who went against the chosen of god:
14 Give them, LORD— what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.
In context it can be taken a couple of ways, literally, that the entire people be cut off root and branch and flourish no more, ceasing to exist, or figuratively, that no thing they attempt will come to any good and history will forget them. (In Jeremiah, God is not so harsh:
Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he my darling child?
For as often as I speak against him,
I do remember him still.
Therefore my heart yearns for him;
I will surely have mercy on him,
declares the Lord. )
Anyway. this kind of language fits in with some of the cultish trappings that surround Trump's presidency. In the recent drop of an audio recording of Trump at a 2018 dinner in which he apparently speaks with Parnas about Ukraine, natural gas, and firing the ambassador. But a really interesting thing stands out:
In a bizarre moment near the end of the dinner, Parnas and Fruman compare Trump to the messiah. Parnas tells him: “It’s like messiah is the person that’s come to save the whole world. So it’s like you’re the savior of (inaudible).”
The two present to him a gift that they say shows how Trump’s name adds up to the same numbers as the Jewish messiah, a reference to the Jewish mystical practice of Gematria. In Gematria, every Hebrew letter is assigned a numerical value, and the sums of those values are then compared to numerical values of other words or phrases to identify hidden meanings or connections.
“The messiah comes out to 424. Your name, your name, it adds up to his name. So it’s 424, 424,” Parnas says.
Fruman adds: “So all Jew people of Ukraine, they are praying for you.” Another unidentified voice tells Trump to “talk to Jared, he’ll explain it to you” — a reference to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is an observant Jew.
This is something I don't know a great deal about, but it is not something Fruman and Parnas are making up--gematria has been used to suggest Trump will bring about the Messiah. (I worry myself that he is likely to immanentize the eschaton.) It had been noted that he has called himself the Chosen one and some around him also speak that way.
Personally, I think this religious-based flattery of Trump is mostly just that--flattery. But in the mind of someone who is a bit of an egomaniac already? Or spread out among people who think Q is a real thing? It's not quaint or ironic, but a bit disturbing.
What the hell is wrong with Bobby Jindal? Because in another context, he kind of implied that it would be worthy of prison for any officials to let their agencies be used in a political way, But apparently, if the IRS was used as Bobby Jindal's shitstirrer, that would be different.
It would not be different. Stop pretending you can use the federal government to be sicced on your pet peeves, Bobby Jindal. We already don't like you. Let's not make it chronic.
I suppose my basic stance regarding the tendency towards joining in with paroxysms of religious fervor is best summed up by Melville's Bartleby: I would prefer not to. Which isn't to say I have embarked on a renunciation of all things spiritual. It's just that I don't find a significant overlap between my path and that of the religious right in this country. To be honest, I am forsworn against the tyranny of little minds (for the benefit of the wise guy who noticed my transcendentalist leanings) and think that any transaction on the moral plain is a dealing with one's self and one's own dealing with their own particular conception of God.
I would want to take something, then, specifically, up with certain announced and unannounced candidates for the presidency, regarding what to do with some American citizens, for whom they would presume to have some executive power to change their lives considerably. And who, contrary to the religious right rhetoric, might not have such a prevailing wind as to dictate what treatment they should expect, as only a necessary expectation that they, too, should be merely treated as human.
The 1990's were weird times to develop ones political persona. I was left-leaning since becoming thoroughly disillusioned when the Iran-Contra clusterfuck came to light, which was only driven home by a 1988 election that turned into a referendum on whether ACLU-card-carrying l-words could ever quite love Mom, the flag, and apple pie, enough for the estimation of real he-man Uncle Sam types who supported an "out of the loop" "wimp".
But I think my opinion got hardened by my understanding of the existence of right-wing militias and my ever-lowering opinion of the Christian right. See, I started noticing that the right-wing religious freaks like Falwell and Swaggart and Robertson always supported Republicans. But the PTL scandals that erupted in 1987 made it pretty clear to me that these types of people were basically carnies making a dime off of people's thirst for gnosis. So why wouldn't they superciliously shill on behalf of the team of law and order and no fun with your fun parts? I watched Footloose, and if I couldn't dance, I didn't want to be any part of their revolution.
You know, reading Charles Pierce is a pleasure for me--he has a wicked way with a phrase and I agree with him on a thing or two. So, I was interested in expanding upon a concern of his that touches on one of my own persistent puzzles--how it happens that people running for office are not called out when they seem to be dabbling--nay, professing, or at least out of one or more sides of their faces--in sheer and utter batshit. There are people who are by no means political neophytes who seem to have been delinquent on their reality bill--they are totally disconnected. I think it would be meaningful if objective reality could be entered into a political debate to actually determine who is more legitimately competent to deal with actual issues and not group hallucinations experienced by FOX News viewers and the WND readership, but I find myself altogether cynical about it.
I found myself not that long ago mourning the reality that there is no penalty for basically racist or conspiracy theorist views in some districts. (Hell, it seems to work, to some degree, to maneuver the "squeaky wheels" into higher profile positioning.) It bothers me to no end that theres a genuine likelihood that this mid-term election might even bring a bumper crop of "knuckleheads" into Congress that makes the 2010 freshmen look like fucking Solons.
But I get the reticence of Democratic challengers to call the whackadoodles out, I genuinely do. You take a contest like Tom Cotton vs incumbent AR Senator Pryor. Now, Cotton has a whole raft of signifying nonsense that has come out of him (blaming Obama for the Ukraine situation, carping on food stamps like they only started being part of farm bills since 2009--not since always), And he's down the line a social conservative--anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage. But he's kind of funky in that Rand Paul, not understanding social contracts kind of way. But you know why Pryor can't call him a whackadoodle, even if the name kind of fits?
It's kind of hard not to write about the Pew Research Center survey that noted that "belief in" evolution has dramatically dropped among GOP-identified people without some degree of snark. I think there are a couple of factors at work there, and I don't really find them that snark-worthy.
I do think that responders are revealing their biases a bit. Evolution as a concept as opposed to just a scientific theory has been used as a politically-loaded issue specifically in how it relates to ideas about education vs. maintaining religious beliefs, so "belief in" evolution is part of a culture war package that I think has been bought into somewhat as a bulwark against secularism and liberalism in general. My experience regarding evolution as science is that a lot of people get a very basic education that they just don't think about. It isn't an intellectual question for them at all. When you get into the "Well, then, how do you think it happened?"question, the whole conversation turns useless. It's not that there's some great revelation that turned evolution on its head and it could be true. They just don't like, you know, the idea. Something, something, but God did...
Why the shift in numbers? I couldn't get anything that solidifies this, but it seems I recall from 2009 on, both major parties started leaking membership as more people identified as "Independent". It strikes me that just as the GOP became more white and Christian, it's really a question of retention--the people who were more skeptical of evolution would be the people more likely to have remained affiliated with the party. But I also wonder about the rise of Christian Dominionism and the homeschooling movement--that possibly has an impact as well.
This is the kind of political/religiously insane-type story that I don't have any ability to resist. Nevada GOP Senate hopeful Sharron Angle, in a report seen in The Huffington Post, campaigned against a local high school wearing black-colored jerseys because they were "evil".
Take it away, Bill Roberts:
Also opposing the black jerseys was another group including Angle, a member, if not its leader.
They argued against our charges wearing black on religious grounds.
I cannot quote scripture as they did to justify their point but the gist of their argument was that black as a color was thoroughly evil, invoking the supernatural and especially the devil my take from dictionary definitions and not from scripture .
Angle may or may not have thought this a political statement. But she became a high profile advocate of a specific religious position during her very first campaign.
Whichever argument prevailed, school administrators caved in and prohibited the Muckers from wearing the black apparel.
As a parent and journalist, I was incensed and made my wishes known to Jones, imploring him to ignore his bosses and go ahead with the black jerseys. He told the “editor” he could not go against the administration but privately said he would follow through with the plan except the administration held the offensive apparel under lock and key and would not give them up.
And then she used that when campaigning for the county school board. How demogogue-ish!
Now this, is fairly absurd, but it's not a stand-alone example of Sharron Angle absurdity. Now, I think Harry Reid probably will retain his Senate seat, even though the polls are tighter than they should be, and I am fairly disappointed with his stance regarding Park 51, which I regard as being most probably political. But I think it's worthy of note that Sharron Angle has the strong support of one Sarah Palin. I also think it appropos to point out a very excellent probing article by Amanda Marcotte at Slate's Double X:
In discussing religion, Angle often edges into the prophetic. When she was confronted about her unwillingness to support exceptions to an abortion ban even in the case of rape and incest, she said straightforwardly, "God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives." She objects to laws that prevent pastors from endorsing candidates from the pulpit. Most interestingly, she claimed that entitlement programs of all sorts violate "the First Commandment," and in case her point wasn't clear, she elaborated in biblical talk: "We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."
Oh. Erm. And compare that to this article from The Awl regarding Sarah Palin's religious connections:
She giddily recalled the day in 2005 that demon-obsessed Kenyan bishop Thomas Muthee laid hands on her for victory in politics. "He didn't know what I was going to do," she said, but he's "so bold," he just kept saying, "Lord, make a way." Muthee also called on God to protect Palin from "every form of witchcraft." (Those last three links are to videos, by the way, so you can see the proceedings for yourself. The Muthee clip is especially disturbing. A warning for anyone with a background like mine: may induce flashbacks.)
To view her submission to these prayers as political pandering is to underestimate the zeal and hubris of someone like Palin. "'She scares me,'" a liberal Wasilla pastor has said. "'She's Jerry Falwell with a pretty face… [P]eople in this country don't grasp what this person is all about. The key to understanding Sarah Palin is understanding her radical theology."
Both Palin and her former pastor have said that they expect Jesus to return in their lifetimes. Other pastors with whom she's connected have made similar remarks.
This is pretty mainline evangelical stuff, but there's every reason to believe her religious convictions only get more extreme. If the media spent less time being entertained by Palin's antics, and more examining her connections, they'd find ample evidence of her fanaticism.
Most of the candidates that Sarah Palin has supported in GOP primaries have lost, and I would like to think that many Americans view her as a strange little political celebrity who doesn't really mean all that much right now, but who the media still finds strangely attractive. But since she's still out there (and I do mean "out there", as her support of Dr. Laura's melt-down suggests), I think it's really necessarily for her to be taken really seriously.
And also, too, she should be laughed at as often as possible.
And so, as the jersey story, and videos of Sharron Angle running from the press, should imply, should many of the people she supports be laughed at.
Sadly, also, too, her former running mate, John McCain, that she has also endorsed. Because he's runnin' down there in Arizona, and saying things and doing things with his usual aplomb! Like creditin' George Bush with ending the war in Iraq nearly two years since he's been out of office! . Because nothing says "being in touch with the American electorate" like supporting GWB!
