This Holiday, JD Vance is Serving

 

Uh. Huh.

Welp, I'm just screen capping the above Twitter post for posterity in case it disappears, because I believe in sharing the things that bring me joy, and perversely, this does. It sort of sums things up in a way I'm not even sure Vance has totally unpeeled. It's a psychological onion--it has layers.

I really wonder why the Harris/Walz campaign drifted away from calling these guys weird. Because you know what?

This is kinda weird. 

But you guys? You just have the kind of Thanksgiving that makes you happy. Which I'm sure will be very, very traditional. In its very own special way.

Meathead Mike Lee

 

Republicans launched a new conspiracy based off J6 footage claiming an insurrectionist was holding an FBI badge & must be an agent.

The facts?

It was a vape and he was sentenced to more than 4 years in prison.

These lies are sickening. Story… https://t.co/wd14r0qdOj

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 19, 2023

 A lot of Republicans having read the community notes now understand they have been led astray, but Mike Lee, US Senator and former law clerk for Sam Alito, wants to hold on to the fantasy that an FBI "op" instigated the 1/6 melee, and that an undercover fed was for some reason caught flashing his actual badge on camera. In a set-up to compromise Trump supporters to make it look like they stormed the Capitol and beat up cops and whatnot which they did, but to somehow make it look worse for reasons? 

That's fucking asinine. There was no need for an op: every damn extremely online human associated with politics knew what was up that day. All antifa humans knew they were not going there because the headbreakers were coming out in force. MAGAs were being drawn like moths. And actual "cops" seemed to have little clue. This all would make a lot of sense unless your guilty little soul needed a retcon for some reason. 

Like actually being one of the people who wanted to overturn the election.  I don't know why the boy needs to be so shy about it, after Trump misdialed Mike trying to reach Tommy Taterhead. He considered Sidney Powell a "straight shooter". 

Is Mike Lee saying he's still going around looking for the "REAL CULPRITS"? 

Somehow, I'm not buying it. And I think Mike Lee is just playing at being this big of a meathead himself. 

James Ho's Very Unaesthetic Decision

 

I guess there was no reason at all to expect a better comment in the mifepristone case from James Ho, seen in the picture above being sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas at billionaire Harlan Crow's house because why the heck not?  

But while the overall decision is mixed (the abortion pill remains available with some notable restrictions, such as ordering it by mail) I just need to point to the language of Judge Ho's creepy dissent:

In his concurrent opinion, Ho wrote that the doctors will also suffer an “aesthetic injury” if the pills remain on the market.

“Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them,” he wrote. “Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”

Prego fetishists love to see the rounded bellies of pregnant women--do they have standing? I experience an aesthetic injury when I see pregnant people's human rights to make health care choices for themselves violated as a person who theoretically (although probably requiring a late-life miracle like Sarah in the Bible) could still get pregnant myself. Where's my consideration? I experience profound discomfort when I see people forced to experience labor at unwanted pregnancies or to carry pregnancies that will negatively affect their well-being. (Should I go looking for some pro-cancer motherfuckers who find tumors beautiful to go ruin oncology? Of course not. Should a lover of gigantic breasts have veto power over breast reductions--"aesthetic injury!" I mean, why not mandate implants for their sake? If we're imposing upon people, after all.) 

Are we just giving every SOB with an opinion credit for it these days? I consider the poor baby-lover who is sad about abortions as being like the dingus white-supremacist child's opinion of being "traumatized" by diversity: tough actual shit. You live on a planet where people have actual lives that ain't yours, buddy--cope. 

And yeah, a lot of doctors love those unborn babies, but also know very well why abortions are necessary and should stay safe and available. Wanted children are a joy. But we know that pregnant people are discriminated against, that they are targeted for violence and murder by partners, that they may have pre-existing conditions including substance abuse and mental illness that make safely carrying a child (and not running afoul of laws that make murderers of women for activities that could harm fetuses) very difficult. Some patients are prone to miscarriage and fetal abnormalities. Sometimes pregnancies are not a joy. It is possible to celebrate both choices, to honor a patients' will in all cases. 

Zealots and ideologues are poor judges. I think that really, a safe and easily available method for ending a pregnancy is something that should remain lawful with little restriction. And no one should have standing over what happens with a pregnancy until viability but the pregnant person. 

(Nota bene--Josh Hawley's wife Erin of the ADF was counsel in this lawsuit. She is what I would call a "sister-shafter"--she does not give one fuck about female-bodied human rights.)

ABC "Falls" for the Mommaganda

 

Let's try this again, ABC: These moms call themselves joyful warriors, but they are a dark money-funded astroturf group that is allied with the Proud Boys and Oath keepers and are a bunch of Hitler-quoting fascist homophobic Karens. Being a little confused by these concerned women whooping u on their local school boards might have been excusable--if local underfunded media outlets were the ones falling for it. When networks like CNN and ABC are falling for this shit TODAY after all the water under the bridge?

Oh hell, no. That's not these guys falling for the hustle--that a CHOICE. That's ignoring that these folks are using a misguided interpretation of "parental rights" to try and change up the educational programming for other folks' kids and insert their own conservative and religious dogma and, sorry, folks, flat-out bigotry.

There's really no excuse at this point for letting the words "Mom" and "Liberty" stimulate some kind of pavlovian respect response. They are just a cynical political hustle. No one here is brand new to this stuff--and I think we need the goddamn mainstream media to step up to where independent media and left bloggers were, what, like one-two years ago. They came to Philadelphia, a big liberal city in a swing state, for reasons. 

They aren't mad. They aren't fired up--they are just boosting Republican signals ahead of 2024.

The Best Friends You Could Have

 

Yesterday's early news began with word that Clarence Thomas' good friend, Harlan Crow, paid for his nephew's $100K-plus tuition, and this was undisclosed (in the way the gifts of various trips and the real estate transaction regarding his mother's house, where she resides rent-free were undisclosed) and ended with news that he also obviously very good friend Leonard Leo arranged to make payments to his wife, Ginni, as a consultant via KellyAnne Conway as a cut-out, so as to keep the payment, uh, shall we say, hush?

Who in the world has such generous friends?

Thomas has his strong defenders and I've seen all the "whatabouts", but that so many of these transactions were sub rosa paints a less-than rosy picture--and shouldn't it?  They didn't want the appearance of impropriety, but Ginni and Clarence Thomas took the money nonetheless. 

I stared at the blank blog page wondering what I had to say about this, and I'm shocked anything needs to be. Thomas should be ready to resign, and if not, Senate Democrats should be ready to hold hearings and yes, even subpoena wealthy privileged people who don't want to show up if it comes down to that. 

All this time, we've seen Republicans go on the offensive even when they are holding trash cards. When Democrats have legitimate beef, I never hear sizzle. 

It gets tired. Put conservatives on the back foot. Get on them. It's the only damn way.

Greg Abbott is Still Greg Abbotting

 

You can go ahead and click to embiggen the above screencap, but the main takeaway is that Greg Abbott, Christian, can't even acknowledge the victims of a senseless and horrendous crime without pointing out that they were "illegal aliens". The eight-year-old dead child. The two women who died covering their children to try to save them from bullets. This after his appalling failure to even recognize the mass shooting earlier. 

This is Greg Abbott, Abbotting. This is the guy who didn't understand why the federal government would go so far as to feed babies in US custody if there was a formula shortage and who wanted (or still wants--don't even know!) to pardon a man who drove into a crowd of BLM protesters and then conveniently shot one who was lawfully open-carrying. 

It once again looks like Greg Abbott feels like there are mitigating circumstances to murder--if he agrees with who the victims were. But also, too, the murderer was an "illegal," so. There's a reward for his capture. 

I have to wonder if they were shot up by a white guy, would he try and commission a medal? Because that's the vibe I'm getting. 

The War at Home

 

Tonight on ⁦@11thHour⁩ with ⁦@SRuhle⁩: Kansas City shooter was “…fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line”. Grandson says Andrew Lester influenced by conservative media | The Kansas City Star ⁦@MSNBC⁩ https://t.co/IJivWs9Yxx

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) April 21, 2023

A kid was shot because he knocked on the wrong door.  A girl got shot because she turned into the wrong driveway.  Cheerleaders were shot because they approached the wrong car. A little girl and her family were shot at because a ball rolled into the wrong lawn. 

I try to not just blame the guns--our violence problem is exacerbated by the availability of guns, but that isn't the whole problem. There is a synergy between some kind of overly defensive mindset, some kind of near-paranoia, and the access to weaponry, that is the problem. Something has gone terribly wrong with the basic American brain that it looks for enemies everywhere.

Our gun-related violence statistics are something to behold. The grandson of Andrew Lester talks about the viewpoint of his grandfather and you almost wonder how such shootings aren't more prevalent. 

Even while I understand how the AR-15 became a fetish for certain people, I don't blame the weapons--not entirely, even though I think we should keep them out of the hands of people who have previous assault charges, domestic violence, and restraining orders against them. That just seems logical to me. But we have a whole narrative, an NRA/gun lobby voice, saying having guns is your masculinity and your freedom. It's a solution to problems. The rhetoric isn't just home defense--it's payback and civil war. 

The fixation on violence as a front line tactic is disgraceful and damaging to civil peace. The gunhumpers who facilitated this POV need to understand their bullshit is why so many progressives want to ban various weapons. 

I get that the thing (any long gun, automated or not, any handgun, anything that goes boom and fires a projectile) is just a tool. But the rhetoric of gun nuts has weaponized the people for the sake of selling guns. 

And the people go off, hurting people and sometimes killing them. And that is not acceptable. 

Tempest in a Very Peculiar Teapot

 

The discussion of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas' benefactor's unusual collection of Nazi memorabilia amongst his other bits of art are probably most charitably described as tacky and eccentric. Amusingly, he received vociferous support from a variety of conservative pundits, who he had also cultivated and collected over the years. 

In the words of Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."  If that doesn't describe a lot of right-wing media, I don't know what does. 

When I was a kid, I had an uncle who got me interested in numismatics, and I collected things like buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. The little coin shop where I poured over affordable collectibles sometimes had antiques--small historical artifacts, like medals and patches from someone's grandaddy's old footlocker. Anyway, I remember one time there was a patch with a swastika, and I just wanted to see it for a minute. 

The owner asked me did I know where it was from, and I was all of ten or eleven and I knew. Would I like to buy it?  And I decided it was interesting, but I didn't want to own a part of what it was. I was fascinated that I could touch it and handle a symbol I knew was associated with a great evil. But actually bringing it into my parents' house would have felt like doing something wrong to me. I knew what it was; that was enough. 

How Small, Is All

 

The fact that this guy thinks that two loving parents is some slam dunk against Pete and Chasten says a lot about just how broken and unloved these “family values conservatives” are. pic.twitter.com/N1Q65Xze6a

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) March 2, 2023

This Tweet encapsulates for me so much of what is damaged and wrong with the conservatives. Tell me an American veteran became a small-town mayor, married a schoolteacher, rose to a White House cabinet-level position, and adopted beautiful twin babies, and it is absolutely a family that shows what the American dream can be. And conservatives come along, and somehow, this is bad because it is two men? 

Why? What specific thing about them being two men fucks this up for them? The haters can say religion, but why? Buttigieg is more Christian than me. What if there was a God who said "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" What if love wasn't a problem at all?  What if queer people took inspiration for their faith through love for the longest time? What if Biblical gender wasn't as clear-cut as people suppose? 

Night of Elon Knives

 

So, I can co-exist with the best of them, and I won't Tweet this link out on Twitter because I think I understand the new rules, but apparently, if you are a journalist who mentions Elon Musk, Twitter isn't your home anymore. 

Now, it feels kind of thin-skinned, and it is. After all, Musk once talked about something like free speech maximalism, and this is definitely not that. 

He took not his worst critics, but his truest critics, and shat them out the airlock. Maybe he didn't want them to leave voluntarily--but he was fine with them getting bounced. 

Of course, the right wing folks he's been sucking up to love this, because they don't understand the terms of service, they just think that if conservatives anywhere get banzored, then liberals everywhere should be banzored. How else would life be fair? It doesn't sit right with me because I was following basically all of those guys and they were doing the work. 

Now, I have no social media skills (nor 44 billion to buy social media skillz, amirite?) so I don't think I'm big enough to get bounced for my lil Elon parody songs, or whatevs.  But there's the principle of the thing--do I stay when free speech is no longer the point, when the conversation palls, when the party isn't over, but the hosts are worn out and the food sucks?

Yeah, I stay. I don't quit Twitter, it quits me. Because I was here before Musk took over. Because I was a bullied queer kid and am used to hostile environments. Because Musk came to journalism central and tried to gatekeep truthtellers in a world where we all have been gatekept by the dastardliest. 

He had knives out for some of our best--and will need to expect people to want to do their worst. 

He will shut down the servers before he shuts down this roast. Because we operate this spit and the coals and Elon is very high profile and very roastable. He doesn't have a discourse, the discourse has him. 

That's the parasocial relationship Musk developed with actual hyperliterate assholes. It was a bad idea. We like Mars and electric cars, but we will find options. Will he? 

More Like "Anti-Social Media", Right?

 

BREAKING: Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to acquire conservative social media app Parler, the platform has announced.

The move comes a week after the rapper was locked out of his Twitter account and restricted on Instagram for antisemitic posts. https://t.co/P68yuPVMdx

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 17, 2022

News that Ye is buying Parler (owned by George Farmer, who might be better known as Candace Owens' spouse, for all I know) after being anti-Semitic as all hell this past week or so, and all I really wonder is, won't that cause a rift between Ye and his fellow 2020 presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who owns Truth Social, where he goes to be anti-Semitic as all hell? (Truth Social is not being run to be profitable. I mean, not for anyone but Donald Trump.)

Actually, I don't wonder about that. They do not inspire a lot of "wonder" in me at all. 

NEEDLESS EXPOSITION: Yes, I am directly saying what people are saying all over the internet--Candace Owens got into Kanye's ear, wound up his ego, encouraged him to go reckless and racial and get canceled, and then suggested he could take up her husband's stupid social media platform which is kinda not great because of course! If you have your own platform, no one cancels you. From your platform. Although your platform can still get canceled.

I really think he got roped into "running for president" in 2020 the same way--his ego got blown up based on some comments he made about political aspirations, and Republicans ops used him. This is the price of a ridiculous ego and no self-awareness, along with being quick to blame others for his own plays.  

Anyway, good luck to Parler with their new sketchy guy in charge, and keep up the good work of doxxing all your subscribers periodically. It's very antifa of you. (Incompetence is the new radical.)

UPDATE: You know what? I'm used to Kanye doing canned heat like wearing a confederate flag on himself, but maybe I do hope George Floyd's family sues him, Because he got the fentanyl lie from Owens. And while I by all means appreciate trying to expose people who predate upon well-meaning people and perform some kind of tragedy-grifting--we saw that video. We saw Chauvin's knee on that neck. And if Kanye is sued, Owens also deserves her share of attention for perpetuating a lie about a victim of police brutality. 

UPDATE: This jackass is getting sued by George Floyd's family because a man's memory should not be abused for political games and publicity. Kanye could have continued making music and his weird Nerf-looking kicks without adding that to the weird personality-pyre he's making of himself. Also, what is up with this Donda school stuff? It sounds chaotic and not what kids need (parkour and gospel and confidently forming ideas before you know what the hell you're on about).

You Can't Wring the Truth out of Alex Jones

 

Today, a jury decided that Alex Jones' did about a $1 billion worth of damage to grieving families by maliciously lying about them repeatedly over the airwaves, costing them their piece of mind, safety, health, financial security--he just basically made money by opening his lying trash mouth over and over again to call these people liars over, of all things, the brutal tragic deaths of their children. 

For his part, Alex Jones says that he hasn't got the money--he's bankrupt. He swears they will never see a cent as he fundraises. He fundraises so he can continue to do the work of--lying his face off. 

Watching the Sandy Hook verdict live from his studio, Alex Jones makes an urgent plea to his audience for cash, and tells them that none of the money they send him will go the the families because he has filed for bankruptcy. pic.twitter.com/H658p5Sjiw

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 12, 2022

Now, I am a firm believer that if you are such a demented fuckmuppet that you can completely understand that this man perpetrated a politically biased and wholly made-up campaign of lies that ruined the lives of innocent, grieving people and still support Jones that you basically should by all means be hosed of your money. I also believe that if you somehow still and all believe in Alex Jones' lies, there are worse things you could be doing with your money, because by GOD! you are a sick one, aren't you! And I am a believer that somehow, someway, the law will attach the properties of one Alex Jones and alleviate him of his ill-grifted valuta, bankruptcy proceedings or no.  I think one court might take a dim view of being used to circumvent the purposeful findings of another. 

What can't be adequately done, however, is wring the truth out of this monster, and worse yet, you can't wring it out of the kind of monsters who support his lying. 

Now--this man has said demented things that no person in their right mind should be capable of believing, because just a basic awareness of the workings of the world should militate against it. Things like weather machines and actual public figures being part of a ring of demonic pedophiles is an awful lot to choke down for someone who has their head on straight. He says purposefully horrific things all the time for attention.  For clicks and likes and people following him to hear more crazy shit. The idea that there are people who like what he says and then go ahead and believe it gags me with biggest of all possible spoons. 

Jones apologists can pretend this man apologized and disavowed what he said. If he truly felt remorse in anyway, his shenanigans regarding the two court cases (with one to come) would have been utterly different, but instead, he used his time to whine, rage, complain, bitch that he was being shut up and silenced for his truth--not facing the consequences of actual lies, told by him, that he recognized as such and felt any way about. He can't have that both ways. 

The problem for the right wing is, they legitimized this huckster. But why not? Trump, of Trump University and the Trump Foundation, both found to be frauds, wouldn't see any wrong in Jones. Tucker Carlson seems to aspire to be Glenn Beck and Alex Jones' circle jerk spank rag baby. And Steve Bannon literally still has a following of the kind of tools who donated money to Build a Wall that was supposed to be built by either Mexico or US tax dollars and was never going to be built with their money (that went to yachts and whatnots). They aren't just his supporters--they are his kith, kin and kind!

Fox News Hates Families

 

what a monster pic.twitter.com/Nmj2HZl3BO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 11, 2022

Last night, the above screencap sums up the argument that Sean Hannity wanted to make against President Biden--he's a loving father. 

That's it. Joe Biden, the man, not the politician, understood his son was going through a rough time and offered support and unconditional love, and that was...suspicious? As if, if your child was going through troubles, was imperfect, you should throw them out? 

It makes me wonder if conservatives like Hannity are the way they are because they don't have the grace to do that, and I understand a little better why they were ready to kill their own viewers with lies about COVID-19 and profoundly damage LGBT kids with lies meant to alienate their families from them, to not accept them for who they are. 

The most horrible lie--that we are not responsible to one another, that we don't need to care for one another, not even our own families, lies at the heart of it. Suddenly the sad stories of older people watching Fox News all day who can no longer talk to their family members makes sense--their sense of connectedness was undermined in a culture war. 

There is rehab for substance abusers. How does one rehab a person who does not understand compassion? How do you walk them through the baby-steps of learning to regard another human's feelings, their life? 

Fox News attacks Joe Biden through his family not because he is a bad man, but because he is not bad. But they must attack him somewhere, so they find what they think is the softest part. I do not think they understand--it is the strongest part. Compassion is the strength to support others, and Biden has used his time after time in a lifetime of loss and confrontation with the worries of the world. 

I am aghast they this is not understood, because it seems the most human thing to understand. 

Did You Find a Message of Unity and Anti-Violence Divisive Today?

 

This night, President Biden talked about the values of our Founding Fathers; about how all people are created equal in dignity and in their rights. He decried violence and said that this was oppositional to a functional democracy. He did not smear all Republicans, and in fact went out of his way to say he didn't even think the violence-inclined MAGAs were the majority of their party--

And I perused the response on Twitter and elsewhere and heard the sound of a million or so hurt dogs being very, very hit. NO! They want to believe he just demonized HALF THE WHOLE COUNTRY. And this means WAR!!!!!

I think it might be asking too much of Biden's extreme detractors to actually pay attention to the words he said, because words trip them up. They can't hear Biden's words, simply because of where they ideologically came from. This is how their minds work. Just like they can't see the classified docs Trump took as being problematic, they can't imagine anything a Democrat has to say about where we are going as a country can be relevant. It's like a programming problem. They fail to read what it means because liberalism is just an alien program to their hardware and they can't bootstrap compatibility. 

This is largely the fault of conservative media for firewalling them from outside influences, but mainstream media isn't exactly helping, here, dwelling on optics over content and failing to use historical context to appreciate the message being sent.  Why no--it isn't partisan to appeal to all Americans to live up to what were supposed to be our shared values, and I don't understand why bills that benefit our citizens are supposed to be seen as "partisan" even if it should be clear based on voting records that Democrats are more likely to use their office to do things that actually benefit people. 

Mayberry RIP

 

I know this was a rerun, but I did not see it in its original airing, so it struck me with a weird kind of uncanniness--the CBS Sunday Morning show did a piece on Mount Airy, NC, which is sort of acknowledged as the model for the fictional town of Mayberry, the home of The Andy Griffith Show.  It originally aired 9 months after 1/6.  I knew at once I wanted to blog about it. 

I live in one of the big cities that one of the Mount Airy people seems to believe get "burned down every day". It does not. No big cities are getting burned down every day by either BLM or antifa. We are very intact, thanks! If we were not, we are not stupid and would move or something. We would extremely fund the police. We'd be electing really harsh prosecutors. Actually, when they find the arsonists fucking up stuff during BLM protests, it's false flag shit from white supremacists. 

Only 52

 

I screen capped the above Tweet and am linking it because I kind of think it will be deleted, but a Washington Post columnist just recently on Twitter said "Only 10% of girls even get their period. Only 52 girls under the age of 14 got abortions in Ohio last year--and 10 is a long way from 14." 

How many should there be before you give a shit? I wonder, when I see that. See, I know girls as young as five have conceived. Girls who are, say, eleven years old, have been forced to have caesarian births.  At 11 years of age.  Only 10% of girls under 11 even get their period. Only. Only 52 girls under the age of 14 got abortions in Ohio in 2021. 

Only 52--one a week, just in Ohio. Just in Ohio. This is a figure that doesn't look at the Ohio children whose families made them give birth. This is looking at just one state. 

And I don't even know what to do with "10 is a long way from 14." Like, in terms of the child's innocence? In terms of how fucked up it is that she was likely impregnated by a grown man? How does anyone say something like that--as if implying that 14 years olds ate capable of consent and bearing and parenting a child. 

It's still very fucked up and not right, at ten, or fourteen, or really ever for someone to experience a nonconsensual sexual experience. 

I'm trying to not wonder if McArdle even understands what kids are, she of the imagined school shooter kiddy pile-up. She didn't understand what assault rifles did then and doesn't understand what birth for a tween means now. Whether their pelvis can handle it, what it means for the future fertility of the child, whether it is traumatic, how the delivery is made (cut from hip to hip?) how the pregnant child processed the trauma of all of it. 

It's strange to see an argument that was supposed to make the situation of pregnant tweens seem less horrific only--only--hammer home how traumatic and wrong it actually is. And how strange the word "only" can seem when appended to a tragic number.

What Do You See?

 

The Alameda County Sheriff's office is investigating a group of men who disrupted a drag queen storytelling event at the San Lorenzo Library Saturday with homophobic slurs. https://t.co/46G1IDQzVB

— KPIX 5 (@KPIXtv) June 12, 2022

So consider the scene--people in costume are reading books to children in a calm and unprovocative setting, and then weird violent guys show up and say horrible things with language that has no business being said in front of children. It was not weird until these people decided to come on in and make it weird. It was the Proud Boys--you know, the ones who have nothing to be proud about, accept for being accepted by the Miami-Dade GOP and being affiliated with the insurrectionists. Maybe they haven't decided to be as entirely domestic terrorist as Patriot Front this Pride month, but they definitely decided to make an impact. 

Just as a necessary follow-on to what I posted about yesterday--this movement is aiming increasingly harsh public harassment at gender-nonconforming people in what looks to me like a way to "disappear" LGBT people. Like Gov. DeSantis (who was protested today at Chelsea Piers by Chelsea queers) whose "Don't say Gay" law tries to put people back in the closet and jeopardize the employment of LGBT teachers by focusing attention on whether they mention a basic facet of their personal lives, a lot of the legislation that pretends to "spare the children" from adult topics is really aimed at just making it publicly difficult to be any kind of queer. 

Fox Mushroom Farm Has Really Been Spreading That Fertilizer

 

The things you will see on Fox News! (I have called them the mushroom farm which is terribly unfair to actual mushroom farmers and I still like my analogy.)  Apparently, Barr's appointed US counsel in charge of making the Russia investigation look like it wasn't great (despite the multi-volume Senate intelligence report on same) has filed a thing that isn't actually shocking--someone related to the Clinton campaign mentioned to a government agency that a thing they noticed should be looked into, and they never explicitly pointed out that they might be tangentially associated with that campaign, which was over at the time of their being asked. The thing was DNS traffic, and my god, anyone hyping it should have to spell out what they think analyzing DNS traffic means. Because it is actually really boring, and not actually spying or wiretapping. 

The October 2016 news story was so dull I called it "too good to be true" at the time and I'm an obsessive re: Trump/Russia. That's how not a big deal it was. But that doesn't stop the premier propaganda cable news network from bolstering Trump's claims that pointing out a fairly nerdy and easily dismissible propinquity regarding Trump Tower and a Russian bank based on web traffic should result in the electric chair. 

Like, look up things that are publicly available and render an unfavorable conclusion and apparently, that is way too much for our society to bear. That is what this mishigas is about. Someone noticed something in the Trump milieux and not realizing His Nibs was sacrosanct, mentioned it. This got enlarged to supposedly spying on the Trump Administration, and no--the period involving White House traffic was the Obama Administration. Like, maybe Obama can get wee-weed up about it, if he was the type. But I think not. And this is in no way analogous to Trump being "wiretapped!" 

Ted Cruz and His Acrobatic Spectacle

 

I've mentioned before what a loss it is to the theater that Ted Cruz went into politics when it's only too clear, his true love is performance. Last night, the senator took to television to offer yet another performance, that of a penitent, as he knelt barefoot in the snow abjectly hoping that Tucker Carlson would grant him absolution for having dared to call the insurrectionists of 1/6 "terrorists".  He admitted to using "sloppy" language in calling them that--even if it is a word he has consistently used since, well, January 7th last year. 

It is rare to see such nimble bending over backwards in a man of his age, but he has the benefit of no spine and years of practice. But I'm sure he would never take back his estimation of who the true terrorists in this country are, even if they were certainly not the ones who invaded his workplace and threatened to kill his colleagues. He's not that flexible. And he fell short of co-signing Tucker Carlson's pet (conspiracy) theory, that the FBI done did it (which had been echoed recently by the wretched Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene). But give him time. There may be new tricks in the old boy yet.

The Big Lie and the Big Liars Telling It

 

Sen. Rand Paul linked to an interesting thing over at The American Conservative which is sort of an amazing read on how programs to educate voters about how to cast a vote in an election where there were some changes to the usual process due to COVID-19 accommodations and where efforts were made to recruit younger election workers for the same reason, are viewed in a sinister light. Paul, for some reason, chooses to characterize the following as how to steal an election: 

“Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results.”

The so-called "absentee ballots" are just mail-in ballots that some states just use as a matter-of-course. So that isn't sinister. GOTV is not out of the ordinary--people should be encouraged to participate in their civic duties and take notice of their civil rights! The ballots are being completed in a legally valid way. And then they get sent in and counted, and somehow, in Rand Paul's mind, this is a steal? 

But I know why-- "an area heavy with potential Democratic votes". The process is legitimate, but Rand Paul feels like the voters are not. Wow, Rand Paul thinks that, really? How not-shocked can I be?

But this thing about some voters having more rights than others is just GOP kay-fabe right now, and folks like the Schmeckle have to read statements of faith about it on Steve Bannon's podcast, for some reason. Bannon himself makes bizarre statements about "someone standing up to Marc Elias" , which is very WTF--of course there is, it's called the opposing attorneys. They just don't win if the law isn't on their side? Elias isn't winning because he has some weird advantage--he's just really good at reading the constitution and voter suppression is not good small-d democracy or very Constitutional. 

It's not new. But let's be clear--the supposedly sinister steal Rand Paul is talking about has its opposite and more contentious twin on the Republican side. The Liberty Center for God and Country went out of their way to promote the idea that the election was being stolen. They weren't alone. Maybe if instead of figuring out ways to promote the Big Lie ahead of the election, Trumpers tried to GOTV themselves, but oh, maybe they knew the polling would never make that work! Oops! Trump lost fair and square because he sucked. He was impeached and his COVID-19 response was sad. The end. It was simple. He blew it on his own merits. It really didn't require the Democrats acting in any concerted way, and thank goodness, because we barely do. 

And let's never forget, Trump spread the Big Lie early and often, before 2020. Where he went with it after losing the election shouldn't surprise a single soul, and the veracity of his claims should be as doubted as a very doubtable thing. Of course, it's a self-serving lie!  In the real world, we know, the claims the dead vote are lies. We know Trump's alternate electoral slates would have been forgeries. 

He lost. He lost fair and square. The mail-in advantage was only that legitimate voters for once weren't circumscribed by the scarcity of voting places and long lines created by state legislators trying to target voters based on their zip code, ethnicity, and social class. But the voters were still legitimate. 

Any politician claiming the Big Lie this hard, needs to go. I don't care where, they just don't need to be in office. That's who Rand Paul is. He needs to go.