Climate Sunday: Amateur Meteorology for Dummies

 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has previously commented on Jewish Space Lasers and may believe in the Deep State Weather Machine, has suggested a rare and curious cure for the wildfires in California--just seed the clouds! It's an existing technology! We have the tools!

Problem is: we don't have the clouds. There is no moisture. The only moisture is what is being scooped up and thrown at the fires by brave airborne firefighters--like these Canadian and Mexican firefighters are doing:

We can't count on some god-like intervention--it's all sweat and tears from here. 

Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities--

 

I recall in the aftermath of 9/11, one of my concerns was for the potential of people seeking vengeance for the tragedy and wreaking havoc on innocent people who had done nothing at all but were just nearby and brown.  Your basic American bigot just wants a reason to start the fuckery. Just like people had conspiracy theories, blamed Muslims, and fucked around post-OKC (even though that was a white supremacist, Christian ID-associated attack), after 9/11, innocent immigrant citizens got profiled, and sometimes experienced tragic racist violence. 

Laura Loomer is an Islamophobe and 9/11 truther and was a guest of Donald Trump at a 9/11 remembrance ceremony. She posted the above racist stupidity targeting VP Kamala Harris as a person of South Asian descent. That was three days ago. The Trump campaign was unaware of this? To her credit--a thing you won't hear me say often--she got called out for her racism by Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

And think what that says about the Trump campaign association with Loomer (IMHO, as dangerous for them as an association with Nicholas Fuentes). Did they not know she said this about people of South Asian descent? When the Trump campaign needs the support of people like Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, and Usha Vance?  Isn't attacking Harris on the basis of her heritage so obviously wrong the campaign should step back from her? 

TWGB: All the Bad Guys

 

Convicted Felon Trump bragging about colluding with Russia in front of all our faces because his supporters are rubes that will support him no matter how treasonous. pic.twitter.com/TKaQfkcZpG

— Tim Hannan (@TimHannan) June 4, 2024

It is fitting that convicted felon Trump chose to once again advise us that he was colluding with Russia just as we hear President Biden make a very clear statement regarding Trump: "All the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man." Putin is a bad guy who has taken a prisoner--effectively a hostage. He's a terrorist. And Trump says, basically, that his terrorist friend will release the hostage if he wins the election. 

Imagine that kind of friendship. "My hostage is your hostage." It sounds like...Trump is a goddamn terrorist too. A hostage taker. 

This is something people need to understand about Trump--in fact, it's something that our foreign allies already do. David Rothkopf, writing for The New Republic, describes the fear of a Trump presidency folks in the former eastern bloc countries experience, knowing he's willing to bargain away their freedom. McKay Coppins in the Atlantic reports in a similar vein: allies are worried that we do not appreciate the threat of a transactional and authoritarian leader inimical to the concept of democracy. 

MTG is Showing her Panties Again

 

She blinded me with science!!! pic.twitter.com/oCKdfkJQzo

— Congressman Jared Moskowitz (@RepMoskowitz) June 3, 2024

Behold, Marjorie Taylor Greene, 

conspiracy theorist, drama queen, 

lacking attention and growing bored 

decided SHE WOULD NOT BE IGNORED!

So, she decided to pick some bones

(using crap she got from Alex Jones)

with Dr. Fauci--it wasn't pretty.

her duel of wits unarmed, a pity!

She subjects herself to ridicule

with a grasp of facts so miniscule

that in a feckless hunt for witches

she revealed herself the worst of--

people to have ever been in congress!

She made the hearing a total farce

because she had to show her arse,

causing her bleach blonde wig to flip

all to earn her soggy potato chip. 

TWGB: Big and Little Lies for the Goon King

 

Crowd size--that's very important to TrumpWorld, because Trump is a size queen and tries to pretend his little fingers are a lie. Eric Trump had to use a lying Charlie Kirk post to play a game of "Make Abusive Daddy Love Me" by showing a Joe Biden crowd as if it were a turn out for his pops. It wasn't the first time the Trump crowds were inflated, they did it just recently regarding his Wildwood stand. But like, of course TrumpWorld does that--the first major kick-off lie of the Trump Administration was Sean Spicer lying about the inauguration crowd size. We get it--Trump wants everything BIGGER.

But you can see where a part of that is "manufactured consent", right? Like, pretending more people really think Trump is great than honestly do, and also, kind of implying people who don't like him are not "real Americans" at all. You can look at Michael Cohen rigging polls for 2016. They are still being rigged a lil' bit, you bet?  (Consider what fake IP addresses can do to online polls.) 

But that's just a little lie--now, that there are undocumented people registering to vote--that's a Big Lie. How can undocumented people register and have their votes even count as valid? Where's the logic, there? 

MTG Doesn't Know the House She Sits In

 

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF: The Uniparty cheers for the man who is actually running the House, Hakeem Jeffries. pic.twitter.com/nQcrRmSTRU

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 9, 2024

 Marjorie Taylor Greene, thinks that she has revealed that there is a "Uniparty" where somehow MAGA Mike Johnson, who is going along with 2020 election denial right this very day, and who vowed to do whatever was in his power to STOP the charges and investigation against Trump, is basically Jamie Raskin in Republican drag. 

OK, Marge at Large. Accept your soggy potato chip. 

MTG would rather have bad attention and be considered a chaos agent, a bad Republican, and so on, than for people to not recognize her at all. 

All very well and good. She is a special one of a kind snowflake in a very unique globe called the planet Earth, existing only this one time in cosmic history. She also isn't helping anyone else but mostly getting attention for herself and helping Donald Trump. Probably because she thinks Donald Trump will in turn do things for her.

TWGB: Cold Courtrooms and Old Farts

 

You are supposed to pity Trump at this point, the miserable wretch that he is, made to sit by his enemies in a freezing cold courtroom morning until night. But is the room literally cold, or just figuratively cold--a place where being faced with people who truly don't care for his demeanor, his policies or anything else about him say that pretty much to his face, where he is obliged to say nothing? I can certainly imagine a few reasons for a little shiver down his back. 

It's not that Trump doesn't have friends in low places, like Fox News, who won't help him try to tamper with the jury--he does. It's that Trump want to thuggishly take care of business himself and be seen like the mob boss he thinks he is, instead of being told to put his phone away like a naughty school child. It's realizing that racking up gag order violations may cost him his freedom--and if he doesn't like the temperature of a courtroom--? It's the pull of his overstimulated ID--needing to erupt in wrath, vs. his wounded narcissistic ego. 

But at least he has the political party he took over to keep him warm. And funded! For one thing, his campaign is definitely going to do more spending at his various properties. I guess he's always sort of done that--but this time it might just be ringing some bells regarding potential FEC violations. 

Does it look bad? Do I need to tell you if something looks bad in TrumpWorld, it probably is bad? 

And of course, there's the MAGA political candidates--his people! And if they want a piece of his coattails (which I insist are those of an unraveled bolero), they will need to kick back 5% of the takings. 

Red Flag Warning--Who Are They Working For?

 

You know, if there are GOP congresscritters who are spouting Russian propaganda (and OMG--there sure are!) maybe we should pay attention to what legislative activity they also seem to be doing on behalf of Russia. 

When Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about Ukraine like NATO invaded it and they are Nazi or anti-Christian, she is directly aping Putin, and what she is saying is pure lies-shouldn't we be very interested in where this fool, who has yakked about Jewish space lasers and spread Q nonsense, gets her information? 

Maybe we should be more curious about why Scott Perry believes Ukraine shouldn't be supported because they can't win. I truly want to know where Tommy Taterhead is getting his extreme nonsense POV from. He seems to have Ukrainian public servants confused with Russian oligarchs. 

Biden's State of the Union: Earning Four More Years

 

President Biden gave one of the most dynamic State of the Union speeches I think I've ever seen. It was part pep rally and part revival meeting for Democrats. It was an expression of the good done by his administration, and a repudiation of the man known as "my predecessor". There was give and take with the crowd, flashes of humor, great sincerity, and most importantly, hope and faith in what this country stands for and can accomplish.

Biden addressed with seriousness our investment in the future of Ukraine, the need to resolve the crisis in the Middle East, he addressed immigration and crime explaining what has been done and what can and should be built on. He drew a sharp contrast between his work and his predecessor's talk. He highlight the success of his record--Republican's might not have like looking at those facts, but he got those fact out there, at one point saying he knew they could read. 

Can't they? They could learn what was successful for themselves. They could even look at legislation before passing on it. 

This speech was about effective government versus stagnation, steady improvement versus just constant useless bitching. It showed President Biden as a man fully aware of the concerns Americans face, and willing to engage with them, and to engage with people across the aisle who might not agree with him. 

What he did not seem was either "sleepy" or "senile". He responded to his hecklers in the audience of supposed grown people with jobs like a comedian who has worked this kind of crowd many a time before.

And of course, there were the chants of "Four more years!" 

TWGB: Trump is Immuno-Compromised

 

Claims of executive privilege and presidential immunity have been something like Citizen Trump's "Rosebud"--they represented a fantasy of unaccountability and lack of responsibility that might just afford an old crook some peace of mind, and that specter of hope has now been taken away. Someone of course will have to pay for this--and it will be his little rubes. When he goes sniveling that "they" (the Deep State, Biden, black hats--whatever) have singled him out, maybe they won't consider this:

Why is Trump the only president who ever had to make this case regarding immunity? Over 200 years of presidents, and not one had this problem. Maybe they were all previously completely capable of doing the job without just rolling in criminality. Trump apparently is not, because this is how he lives his life.

It's a thought! 

However, in TrumpWorld, Trump can only be failed. That's why it was time again for another really futile and stupid gesture on the part of Matt Gaetz et als.  Marjorie Taylor Greene took up the spotlight in explaining:

"And then when Joe Biden was inaugurated, and this entire Capitol complex was surrounded with 30,000 National Guard troops, none of you stood there and called that an insurrection. No, you all stayed silent."

God damn. She's right. When Joe Biden was inaugurated because he was the lawful winner of the 2020 election, and duly constituted authority were placed as security at the inauguration in case Trump and Marge's little friends started trouble again, no one DID call that perfectly lawful act an "insurrection". Will the wonders of correct syntax never cease?  

GOP GONE WILD!!!

 

What in the hell was up today in Congress? First off, it seems like former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy nailed Tim Burchett in the kidneys so hard that Matt Gaetz had to file a report. That's wild. Apparently, McCarthy isn't settling into his post-Speaker life that great. And I do not know what is up between Gaetz and McCarthy but the mutual disrespect is real. Also, McCarthy has been talking shit about his fellow Republicans and this isn't the first time. 

Sounds very stressful.

Also, in the Senate, Markwayne Mullin thought he'd try to throw down with a Teamster on the floor and it got denied by Senator Bernie Sanders, a damn adult in the room. Mullin later appealed on Twitter like this:

For the benefit of the Comfortably Smugs and probably Catturds of the social mediaverse. Look at those guns and those firearms. At the risk of sounding sexist: this man is benching a lot of male insecurity and supplementing with Daddy issues. Somebody hand him a testosterone wubbie to suck on. 

James Comer got DAGGONE DEFENSIVE when Jared "the Smurf" Moskowitz called him out on his own loan to his brother of $200K--exactly like the Crime Family Bidens' Terrible Secret! Why so tense? I wonder? 

Shit, why is everybody so tense?  Is it because the Christian Nationalist who was supposed to be hardcore MAGA offered a clean CR and isn't a big fan of a Biden impeachment because there's no "there", there? (MTG has already voiced her threats misgivings.)

What's next? Is this just a case of elephant musth? Or can we expect MTG to kneecap Lauren Boebert like she was Nancy Kerrigan? (She been going around calling her a "whore" which is just hours of family entertainment where I come from.) Should we expect Harriet Hageman to finally lasso and hogtie somebody like I truly think she's been fixing to do? 

I don't even want to pretend I know. I only know I want to blame Trump because he made violence feel more like an acceptable thing, but that isn't it exactly, either, is it? 

The GOP Appeasement Caucus

 

This flag 🇺🇸 stands for the sovereignty and freedom of other democratic nations or GTFO. We stood with our allies against authoritarianism in WW2 and to not do so now is appeasement. Meathead Mike thinks isolationism is based. The reality is: it's impossible. Reality intrudes. https://t.co/Ff5tEuQm8M

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) September 22, 2023

I remember when the right wing was calling President Obama an "appeaser". They liked to do that, back in the day. They would compare someone to Neville Chamberlain. And along comes Russia, sponsor of their little Tin Godlet, Trump. And some of the biggest Trump fans are all about letting Putin and his desire for lebensraum cook. He'll only take Crimea. He'll only take Donetsk. He's just annexing Russian-speakers...

Lies. Actually, he's performing war crimes , and negotiating how he can keep any of the territory he's seized is...appeasement, politically demonstrating that if you are a celebrity, they just let you grab whatever territory you like. Deciding not to intervene is certainly some kind of moral choice, but I would not commit to it being the right one. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is Just Dumb, You Guys

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene: “You’re going to tell me that back in the Ice Age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice?” (@acyn) pic.twitter.com/5m8770qY26

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) September 5, 2023

Um, no?

There weren't governments that melted the ice. The ice age and global warming are different things. One was a totally natural event and the other is understood to be "anthropogenic"--we are doing it. The global temperature noticeably jumped after the industrial age. We got the "gift of fire" to survive the ice age, but we turned it into coal-burning and oil-burning engines of CO2 production. The ice age ended on its own in the younger Dryas period. There are competing theories about what stimulated the interglacial period, but we don't have much to go on beyond polar core samples or whatever about stuff that long ago--

But about recent history of climate--we've got tons of data. What do you want--beyond, like, the hockey stick? 

Do you want to know what scientists were thinking 200 years ago? One hundred-fifty years ago?  A whole lot of scientists been knowing ago? 

So, just to cut up dumb Marge for posterity, she believes that GOD sent the rains to Burning Man, but they are also being brainwashed to believe it was global warming. So, God sent a weather portent to teach a lesson, but actually not teach people anything at all, because He should have known about the climate science fuckery ahead of time, bein' God and all.  He could have probably left shit alone in that case. Or maybe did science harder. I dunno. Not my circus and the simians in MTG's brain sure as heck ain't my monkeys. But what she's saying doesn't just make her look dumb, she's implying God is dumb, too.

But what I will note for posterity is: she does not make any sense at all. Maybe, and this isn't the first time I noticed it, she's just dumb as hell. She doesn't know shit and can't be taught. My word. Just uncapable to do congressional stuff at all. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene the Purposeful Pornographer

 

It amuses me that some Republicans pretend that Trump indictments are somehow detracting from Biden scandals, when it really looks to me like Biden pretend scandals only exist to detract from the fact that the GOP has placed their ONLY HOPE in Dopey One Kenobi, the twice-impeached one-term wonder who is facing all kinds of legal jeopardy in his post-presidency. They have absolutely no faith that anyone else on their bench could get on the field and play. They pretend that striking Trump down with indictments is only going to make him stronger, but, um. 

That totally feels like a Jedi mindtrick, and that does not work on anyone but the weak-minded. That's why I'm pretty sure that rhetoric is meant for, you know. Republicans. 

So, I get that the whistleblower stuff was mostly just a platform for MTG's stunt--wasn't it? Because it's what we're going to remember. right? Sure, Rep. Jamie Raskin debunked the bullshit that got put out today, but the star of today's clownshow was Marjorie Taylor Greene, inexplicably allowed to be on committees, who brandished a printout of a Hunter Biden selfie from his laptop to pretend that Hunter Biden was doing on purpose porn. 

You know who demonstrated intent to distribute said porn? Not Hunter Biden--Marjorie Taylor Greene. She just waved that stuff about in a committee hearing like Whoa! And frankly, there's no indication he (Hunter Biden) intended to distribute anything on the laptop or licensed the use of his image in any way. And that laptop was illicitly obtained as far as I know.

Look, MTG is all about the prurience. She made a big deal out of "Fang Fang"  not long ago, like all gutter GOP do, and frankly, the allegations made her smile, and I understand why. She needs to feel sanctimonious about something. And my god--Democrats fuck! And coming from a Crossfit gym trampoline, we will accept that criticism from her for exactly what it's worth!

Marge and Russia First

 

Greene: My amendment directs the President to withdraw the United States from NATO. They are not a reliable partner… pic.twitter.com/cnv1OFAMaT

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 11, 2023

I really don't know why she's this way because I don't think there's much overlap in the Venn diagram of her thinkery and mine, but she seems to have no concept whatsoever of how our historical alliances were formed or why they were and is willing to do something Trump fucked with and Putin would love because she is incapable of appreciating why alliances are good, and fucking with them because of your daddy issues is abhorrent. The entire history of the 20th and early 21st century for her is null set. She supports "AMMMUURRUCA FUUURST" in the sense of assuming the US interests lie in not having alliances, as if we did not have interests, because she's too unaware of what our international priorities might be. 

She represents one of the obvious dangers of democracy--she was voted in by people who do not seem to appreciate she has no forebrain. She doesn't have the concept of right and wrong to know that the invader of a sovereign nation (Putin, WRT Ukraine) is in the wrong, and that European nations have noticed that he has in Georgia, in Ukraine, in Belarus, been exceptionally Fucking Around, and people in the countries nearby have become NATO curious in the hopes that Putin would get Finding Out. 

Yesterday's Durham Hearing Was Interesting

 

MAGA wants Durham to be someone he is not and say something he cannot. pic.twitter.com/AJFhrKDf3a

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) June 22, 2023

There's the rub--at bottom, you can't actually deny the evidence of Russia interfering. What you can do, is ignore the evidence of willingness to accept that interference on behalf of the Trump campaign, but at the risk of seeming out of one's depths--as if it were possible to investigate an investigation and come up knowing nothing about it. Even fash-friendly five-head Matt Gaetz was wondering what Durham had been doing with this time. (ALthough he alleged a "cover-up".)

Or you can make false statements to congress because there are just some things you can't say about Trump and Russia--you know, like it never was a hoax. 

After all, Congressional Republicans just censured Rep. Adam Schiff for just that--telling the truth. And for what it's worth, for all the giddy Republicans who noted that Trump's poll numbers and fundraising could benefit from the indictments against him--how do they think a transparently unfair censure of Rep. Schiff is going to make loyal Democrats react? 

This is where the House GOP is now, Speaker McCarthy barely has a grip on his folks, and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were inches from a catfight over the privilege and pleasure of impeaching President Biden for...something. Eating crackers, I guess. (They also want to expunge Trump's impeachment, but we will always remember the "perfect phone call.")

What's that tv quote going around? These are not "serious people".

I see Stupid People, But They Don't Know They're Stupid

 

Musk doubles down on his claims that there's no evidence the Allen, Texas mall shooter had white supremacist beliefs, and that @bellingcat "does psy-ops" professionally. pic.twitter.com/60yvbbspYZ

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) May 16, 2023

Do the big fucking Nazi tattoos confuse Elon, here? Because to the extent we have a potential motive, it looks like this shithead was fucked up about Asians. Also, Musk wants to pretend his weird Twitter obsession is somehow like Inigo Montoya but I don't think Elon's father got killed by the woke mind virus or he's doing anything especially brave by being a shitposter. An actually shit, shitposter. 

Yeah, He's Pretty Much on the Nose

 

our dive into the social media accounts of Allen, TX killer Mauricio Garcia. online, Garcia shared content from far-right extremists. he also signed up for a major incel forum before the attack. me with @MichaelEHayden, @MeganSquire0, and rachel janik. https://t.co/efjAEXQtz5

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) May 9, 2023

So, like, this is me being on Twitter instead of having a healthy middle-aged lady social life, but I notice that Andy Ngo and folks of that nature like the proprietor of the Twitter bar where I hang out and drink and poast think that Garcia's bio is a little too on the nose. Like in "total false flag exactly proving all the shitlib points" kinds of on the nose. I don't know. I'm just saying, the SOB's massive Nazi tattoos really feel like a weird degree of commitment to a bit if the guy wasn't a whole Nazi admirer. 

I'm going with--this guy is a whole ass Nazi. Yep, also entirely buying the incel angle and the Libs of TikTok and Tim Pool follows. Not sure what the problem is--so, just asking questions:

Are the deplorables mad that a person who expresses admiration for Dr. Mengele is a mass killer because I have some seriously bad news for them about Dr. Mengele?

Are they mad he makes their movement look bad as in now we know what their movement is?

Were they kind of hoping it was supposed to be a mass murder attributable to a POC and therefore one they could pin on libs?

Are we supposed to believe Libs of TikTok, and for that matter, cats like Walsh and Knowles, aren't encouraging stochastic terrorism when people like this exist, who are willing to do horrific shit because of what they sopped up online? How much exposure, clicks and likes and homicidal-oriented followers, should equal legal exposure?

Remember when MTG thought Texiera was a whistleblower and not a whole ass Nazi also too? Why is she always up for defending Nazis? Inquiring minds want to know. 

I wish right wingers wouldn't leap to their own defense so quickly before they tried to figure out why their side keeps being these guys. 

UPDATE: You know, this is the kind of guy who was at the 1/6 insurrection.  I mean, this was the kind of guy.  Aaaaanndd the type of girl.

Are we still confused by what we are dealing with? 

Climate Sunday: We Need To Stop Electing Stupid People

 

From the staggering intellect that brought us "Jewish Space Lasers", we now have the super-genius observation that climate change is a hoax because the planet is spinning. No climate change scientist in the history of ever knew about that, Marge. Thanks for your Nobel Prize-level contribution to the fucking dialog. We'll be sending you a participation trophy tout suite for that fucking revelation that no one ever knew before. The Earth spins and revolves around the sun. 

Wow. The tides go in and the tides go out. How does that fucking work? 

Now you know, and I know, this is "speaking jive."  She doesn't know how climate change works or even care. She just wants to fill up the empty space in her and her followers' heads with words that sort of make climate change not seem real. In the meanwhile, she doesn't realize that climate change is happening all around her and threating national security and food security and so much else. 

Now, it might feel like I'm picking on Rep. Greene, and I totally am! She is a dumbass who does not know what she does not know, and also says disgraceful and disgusting things because she really doesn't care what is or is not true. But she isn't alone in being a climate dumbass who never should have been elected to office because she doesn't know her ass from an adding machine. These dipshits are everywhere. 

If we want to save the planet, we need to stop electing stupid people. By we, I mean the people who elect the stupids. And I also get that stupid people are probably elected by people way more ignorant than they ought to be. And I am sick of the way we act like this choice is anything to be proud about, and yes, ignorance is a choice. (Yeah, I'm bagging on the astroturf freedom-mommies again because once again, no one called them on being a bunch of self-satisfied and dark money funded weirdo busybodies who are executing the freedom to parent other folks' children.)  Anyone who wants to deny alternative POV's and restrict the capacity for critical thinking is no one's friend. 

Voters--educate yourselves against the babble-ons. People like MTG should be figuratively pilloried for this level of shameless nonsense-peddling. And also too, should not be allowed to stay in office--should be recognized before getting into office and be just all the hell stopped ideally--but wow. When they are this dumb, how do they stay? 

The Dangers of Vice-Signaling

 

I wrote very recently about Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas' determination to pardon a convicted killer because Tucker Carlson told him to, and the publication of former Sgt. Daniel Perry's prior social media history highlights how very, very, ill-advised it would be to pardon someone like this. 

The documents released Thursday were filed on March 27, when prosecutors announced their intent to introduce messages and posts they'd gathered from Perry's cellphone. Some of Perry’s messages were presented during his trial, including a May 31, 2020, social media post where he said he might have to kill people. But the newly unsealed filing contains dozens of other posts and messages that weren’t presented publicly. 

Each piece of evidence is listed separately in the 76 pages. They include Internet searches for news about George Floyd-related protests, posts of memes that appear to encourage or rationalize shooting protests, and Perry's own messages in which he talks about being angry and scared over the protests or writes about committing violence.

More documentation of Perry's social media history is here.  And to be fair, I might have searched many of the same things he did--because I write about movements like Black Lives Matter being in favor of them and I write about extremist violence being very much against.