They Aren't Serious People

 

Two relatively weird and messed up things (I guess not just two, but these were the ones I was tracking) happened today--the Trump Administration got to pretend they were being "promises kept" about releasing the so-called "Epstein files" and they also seem to have gotten the Tate Brothers extradited from Romania. 

I'm not going to touch on Romanian politics or how President in fact Elon Musk is rooting for the pro-Russian candidate and mad the democratic republic wants a do-over and all that--my bandwidth is limited, and TrumpWorld is messy enough as it is. Per my understanding Cailin Georgescu earned his troubles honestly and you want to keep that between him and the country his dumb ass ran, cheated, and was caught on the verge of insurrection in. 

For a lot of reasons, I don't find that funny, myself. I do think it's very funny we are going to pretend the Tates are supposed to be, adamantly, "innocent until PROVEN guilty" when we just horked them out of the environment people were trying to find them guilty in. And their whole schtick was advertising themselves as successful pimps and human traffickers and admitted to being all the bad things they are accused of. 

Idolatry and the Ten Commandments

 

The theocrats want to put the Ten Commandments in schools for the children's own good. The mere presence is supposed to imbue them with morality. Or would it? I think it isn't about moral instruction of young people so much as a moral win for them. Essentially--it pretty much boils down to letting the children of lesser gods know who is top dog around here. Yahweh. The Storm God of the Near East. You really don't need to venture too far from the first Commandment, or the second, depending on which tradition you follow (because different versions of the Ten commandments exist) to realize that an explicitly "Judeo-Christian" symbol is being put in schools to tell everyone the religious preferences of the dominant culture: "Put no other God before me."

We are told he is a jealous god in the Holy Bible. As a kid, this struck me as weird--who is he jealous of if he's the only game in town? (That, along with "Who the heck is he talking to at creation?" was enough to drop a pretty big silver piece about the traditions that preceded it and the hard work of scrubbing out the "other guys".) But that's not really it, is it?

We are also told humans were made in God's image--it's the other way about. God is jealous because he was made in ours. He throws tantrums--like drowning the world except for one family, or destroying whole cities--not because it is godly, but because the threat of violence is something humans understand: "Someone in power is angry--let's behave for God's sake!" 

I Never Thought of it As a Property Issue

 

The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that priests have an absolute "property right" not to be sued for sexually abusing children https://t.co/ipSlulmZok

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 12, 2024

I always thought that whoever would hurt one of these, the least of God's children, it were better a millstone were around their neck--so why not a civil payment which is only rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's? And also--rendering unto the community the price of violating the community's trust--making meaningful restitution.  After all, for what was done to any of His children, was that not also done unto God? And isn't the payment for that more severe? Is repentance not a part of forgiveness? Should one avoid recognizing a great wrong? 

How is there supposed to be forgiveness without repentance? 

TWGB: Epstein and the Other Shit

 

Trump is on the Epstein flight record and he made Acosta a cabinet member and Bill Barr, whose Daddy had a connection with young Epstein, visited the prison where the notorious pedophile pimp was stowed and the man dies shortly thereafter, and this is not actually anything Trump fans are concerned about, as previously well-noted. We know what Trump is and has been--he likes young girls and surrounded himself with pimps and pedophiles for years. And was involved with young, attractive women as often as possible. 

But you know what? Trump fans are rape apologist culture personified. He's supported by the religious right, the refuge of pedo pastors and promoters of the gospel of blaming the victim. That Trump is a godly man or a man of faith is a little lie the Trump cult likes to tell themselves.  It's a part of the bigger picture of the true Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Trump they have is lacking, so the faithful make up the Trump they want. It goes with the fake prophesies about Trump as chosen by GOD (so why did he lose 2020?) 

Trump will tell them, and you, like he wants to tell the courts--it was STOLLEN! Like, he's entering a 32-page round-up of voter fraud lies to an actual court. Shades of German servers and Italian satellites and Venezuelan software and bamboo ballots. Take it from Ken Block, who was hired by Trump to look into voter fraud--it was not a thing. 

But Trump loves that Big Lie. And in light of his adopting the language of "vermin" and "dictatorship", it's a good idea to see where he's going with the Lost Cause, Big Lie of his election--

He thinks he wants to rally in Madison Square Garden and other places he is not supposed to be a winner, in hope of winning not just swing states, but blue states.  So, that's great--because he pretended in 2016 he could have won California except for all the immigrants cheating (a lie he still makes to this day--that somehow, there's a magic path where people come over the Mexico border, get magic double-secret citizenship, and can suddenly vote in elections--he's barking fucking mad). 

Faith With Only Signifying Indignant BS Works is Dead

 

The LA Dodgers decided to recognize the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for Pride, and then they didn't, and then they belatedly did. The decision to support the Sisters is the right one, even if it's getting stupid flack, and here's why, from me, the erstwhile Catholic-adjacent agnostic.

The ministry of the Sisters has gone among the people and held them up and comforted them and tried to teach them to be considerate and do no harm to one another, It has used satire of organized religion, but that's because those memes are accessible and subject to very real conversations about the actual harms that bigotry in religion causes, and that the failure to be real and upfront about sexuality in education perpetuates. 

Marco Rubio can pretend that the Sisters are anti-Catholic because of their criticism of a faith that hasn't delivered for the downtrodden--he can pretend LGBT sexuality is a choice and a sin for whatever deflection from his lived reality floats his boat, but in the real world, you either serve one another or you will be marked by the master you actually serve. And Marco serves himself. For all I can tell. And the people who wanted to protest the Pride celebration the LA team held are so dumb. 

Satan's Day Off

 

Misogynistic Christian fascist incel Nick Fuentes says that once he turns 30, he'll probably find himself a 16-year-old child bride: "Right when the milk is good, I want to start drinking the milk." pic.twitter.com/uM99D1YC07

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 17, 2023

I'm not sure how I want to go about this, but the idea that the right is incensed, just pure livid, about child abuse feels like ashes in the mouth.  I mean Matt Walsh is someone who doesn't care that the Catholic Church has priests who screw underage people:

It's only weird when it's gay, you guys. Adult males fucking underage females is not something he has a problem with. He's got issues with the idea of consent. That's a cockblock. 

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. 

Nothing New Under the Sun

There has been some discussion about whether there is a post-Rittenhouse embrace of violence on the right, as evidenced by the folks who want to now claim that Club Q patrons got something they deserved. I note that Trump attorney and sometime fart-snuffer, Jenna Ellis, wants to let us know that the real tragedy isn't so much that they were murdered, but that they probably died without the grace of Jesus entering into their hearts. They are just burning away in hell, and you know what?

Jenna Ellis does not mind that. She is sure enough of her own salvation that she doesn't think judging is a bad look for her--even if she has born false witness regarding an election. She wouldn't know how to start the day if she didn't know who she wanted to watch burn if she was given an all-access seat up yonder, to you know. Watch folks burn.

What other reward is there? 

Tim Pool was accusing everyone at Club Q as being "groomers" because that word is nearly as beat to hell as "woke". Instead of meaning a single individual who courts and isolates victims for their own gratification, it in his usage is "anybody who lets kids know queer people exist" which is really weird, because queer people do exist and knowing that isn't harmful. 

Sure--why don't you go storm a Southern Baptist church, tough guy Tim?  Go talk to some folks at the Vatican. Speak out about why the words "GOP politico" and "child porn" go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. (Look, you go search some links yourself and get as sick as you need to be. But let me suggest Ruben Verastegui, Ralph Shorty, Charles Young, and Dennis Hastert for a start.) 

What if the Worst Case Was Real?

 

On Monday evening, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested on his show that the case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was forced to travel to Indiana to get an abortion after she was raped was fabricated.

On Wednesday, that girl’s alleged rapist was arrested. https://t.co/ptdToY5L4Z

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 13, 2022

Jesse Watters is proof that FOX News basically vets their on-screen talent for major personality disorders and if they haven't any, dismisses them. He is following in the footsteps of mentor Bill O'Reilly, whose litany of "George Tiller, baby killer" led to the murder of a church-going man who assisted pregnant people in terminating pregnancies that for many reasons they could not complete. And while fact-checkers don't hold O'Reilly responsible, on my word, I will. He gave a name. He tried to rile up people against him on purpose. He put a target on a person, and even if the dots can't be directly connected, it's not hard to see what he was doing.

Watters and the AG of Indiana are now wanting to go after the doctor. Let me just say this: do you all not get that being pregnant is time sensitive, while a rape conviction takes all the time in the damn world?  That a 10 year old presenting with pregnancy is obviously raped whether we have a suspect or not, and a 10-year old is not the best advocate for herself? That a ten year old child, of all people, cannot wait until we have an accused and convicted rapist, and that is why no pregnant person should have to submit themselves to the entirety of the criminal justice system before they can get their immediate physical condition administered to? 

They Don't Care About Kids or Women

 

The sinister thing about the anti-abortion, anti-LGBT right is that they frame things in the most self-righteous way: It's for the safety of women! It's for the children! We're saving the unborn babies! The most vulnerable people of all!

And it's horseshit. I asked in a blog post recently, "What do you see?' regarding Proud Boys terrorizing a drag story hour and the types of laws that would mandate anatomical inspections for children's sports. Who is actually causing the harm? 

Now that Roe is overturned, we're seeing GOP lawmakers increasingly talking about passing laws that would remove any exceptions for abortion in the case of rape or incest, regardless of age.  They might, as AR Gov. Asa Hutchinson put it, prefer a different outcome than a minor child giving birth, but don't see it as something they have any desire to help prevent. 

So that is the sort of thing that absolutely will happen. Even in the case of a 10 year old, that might be prevented from even being taken to a state where such an abortion is legal. A 10 year old. A little kid.

Now, I know Republicans don't care about little kids--we've seen how they respond to even the mass shootings of little kids at Sandy Hook or Uvalde. They can talk about "grooming" with respects to simply learning LGBT people exist, but they are a little leery of talking about age of consent laws or ending child marriage, which is one way to put a fig leaf over child rape. And I don't hear a peep about parental rights for rapists out of them. 

They are fine with rapists becoming fathers, and being able to continue to victimize, even unto a second generation. 

That self-righteous "It's to make stronger families and save the children" bullshit should be punctured for the politically self-serving cruelty it is. We know it will cause harm because it already has been--that's why people fought for the right to reproductive care in the first place! 

They don't get to make noises about women and children when these are the results. It isn't about morality--it has always been control. 

UPDATE: So, apparently, Phillip Gunn, MS Speaker of the House, who as above noted, is fine with with 12 year-old incest victims giving birth, helped cover up the Southern Baptist sex abuse scandal because sometimes terrible things do happen to children, but wouldn't it be really terrible if something happened to the church that perpetuated their abuse?  Self-righteous piety--not protection of children. That's what we're looking at. 

MTG and Entropy

 

The funny thing with the recent Tweet I want to highlight from perpetually aggrieved Rep. MTG is that she right off the bat starts with the most obviously offensive thing that liberals actually don't defend. She writes:

"If you are defending pedophile priests and those that protect them, groomer teachers & Disney LGBTQ propaganda, Drag Queen story time, saying it's not Satan convincing women to abort their unplanned child, and that children can be mutilated to change their gender, you're wrong."

While I'm in favor of freedom of religion, I've long deplored the Catholic Church's cover-up of pedophilia in the clergy and would not ever defend it, and many people would tend to agree with that--particularly former Catholics and people who define themselves as atheist, agnostic or "none of the above" religiously. If anything, the Church's protection of perhaps 2-5% of clergy in those hopes of preserving its worldly reputation and self-defense against outside criticism has displayed the rot of an organization closed to debate. 

Where she goes from there is a peculiarly tightening circle of pronouncements of less certainty--groomer teachers? Sure, I think teachers like Mary Kay Letourneau or Pamela Joan Rogers or Debra Lefave are deeply troubling, but it seems to me that this is not exactly what Greene is referring to. She appears to be considering simply being LGBTQ-affirming with being a groomer, and with being Disney "propaganda".  

The common understandings of words like "groomer" and "propaganda" have negative connotations and she is employing those negative connotations to distort the impression of the actual things many teachers (like a teacher recently censured for putting up rainbow stickers in her classroom) might do without any malicious or nefarious intent or what Disney had done (mildly support LGBT people).

To put it bluntly, she's trying to make people agree with her wildly false interpretations of the world. And no, Marge--I know a lie when I see one. Sorry. 

She also throws in Drag Queen story time which is a thing that amuses me--wearing women's clothing isn't a problem when I (cis-gender female) do it, but suddenly becomes a problem when men do it? So weird! And yet, I imagine there's considerable overlap between the people who would consider a man wearing women's clothing wrong and who would definitely ask a woman "What were you wearing?" if she were sexually assaulted, so I guess there's that. But there's nothing really disturbing about reading by a drag performer in a well-attended public setting vs what quite normally-attired, heteronormative persons have gotten up to when quite out of sight.

Maybe her real problem is people being exposed to books in the first place. There is a GOP war against schools and libraries, after all. 

The Satan part is entirely "creation by Marge" in that she recently said women were consorting with Satan in hopes of entrapping a man with their foul ensnarements and chemical conjurings...which is some wild Malleus Maleficarum throwback which I find fairly extraordinarily on-the-nose. And last of all, her comments regarding surgery or mutilation don't display that she understands anything about the subject at all. 

But of course, people who disagree with her POV, however uninformed it might be, are the ones who are wrong. This is how a person ends up spouting weird things about Jewish space lasers--a closed system choking on its own decay. It's a fascinating thing to see so concisely within one Tweet the range from epistemic closure to entropy rapidly increasing in a thick skull.

Being Cringingly Racist To Trigger The Libs and Other BS

NEW: In upcoming book, Michael Cohen writes Donald Trump's disdain for Obama was so extreme he hired a "Faux-Bama" to participate in a video in which he "ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him." He includes this photo: https://t.co/LGrqsUUrY2 pic.twitter.com/otwYW8VSmQ

— Pervaiz Shallwani (@Pervaizistan) September 6, 2020

Trump's overt racism hardly needs pictures to be verified, but it does help--of course Trump wanted to do a bit where he berated a Fauxbama and told him he was fired. Just think, at the 2012 RNC, celebrity guest Clint Eastwood did a similar act with an empty chair. Wanting to degrade Obama in effigy but being too afraid of letting down "the team" to actually have him be there to whip one's ass seems to be a signifier of Republican males of the Obama age. And let's face it, Obama did whip Trump's ass over birtherism at the 2011 WHCD and like mopey children, a certain group of GOPers have simply never let it go. They blame Obama for sleeping on Katrina, for crying out loud.

Of course some will still say, after all was ludicrously said and done, that Obama is either a Muslim or not born here, because saying things and believing them aren't the same thing. I am reminded of the birthers who managed to believe that somehow, Obama was foreign even if both of his parents were born in the US regardless if Stanley Dunham even visited Kenya or not. The point has nothing to do with reality. It's signifying.

I don't trust Republicans to validly answer poll questions like "Do you believe in Q Anon" for this reason. Even if the basic conspiracy theory is grotesquely stupid and derivative (I mean eating babies! Really!) and borrows from Satanic Panic and every stupid "gay culture is pedo" bit of mis-education in the evangelical hate culture, and even has roots in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the blood libel and its adherents bring up the Rothschilds at random, eh? To own the libs?

Roy Moore is a Scoundrel 2

These Alabama women weighed in on Roy Moore allegations: "It was common knowledge, you just steered away from him. ... You just knew that things took place," one said. https://t.co/Z95buNYJBx

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) November 14, 2017

After news of a fifth accuser came out today, we got to see and hear directly the statement of a woman who was clearly deeply affected by what she experienced and remains hurt to this day. I found the statement of Beverly Young Nelson to be credible and harrowing, but what strikes me is that she was told by him that she would not be believed because he was a DA and she was a child. The combination of abuse of his position and her vulnerability just sickens me. Well, she isn't a child anymore and I don't know what he is, but I will stick to the word "scoundrel". And I'm for every scoundrel getting their due.

The portrait that is being uncovered of Moore, as evidenced by the women speaking in the CNN clip, is not flattering to Moore, but it also shows that people knew. A recent story finds that Moore had been banned from cruising the local mall and YMCA. With this kind of information, it becomes a lot harder for him (or his backers) to sell the idea that he's being torn down by either leftists or the GOP establishment. I don't think it makes him look any better to blame anyone else for what's coming out now, and he might even do himself and his party a favor by stepping aside. Although I don't know where that takes the AL GOP from here--current Sen. Luther Strange has said he won't run a write-in campaign, and I can see where he has a couple points--for one thing, the voters had their say on him, and Moore is the guy they went with. And for another, an official Republican candidate and a write-in could just split the conservative vote based on the current poll numbers, leaving AL with a Democratic Senator anyway.

The recent revelations of a history of predation upon underage girls aside, Roy Moore's other history can't really be glossed over. The man was removed from a position as Chief Justice twice for not holding with current Supreme Court rulings on the display of the Decalogue on public property (which I've always held to be as poor an understanding of the First Amendment as it is of the First Commandment for several values of "no establishment" and "graven image") and for disrespecting the Windsor decision. He has shown himself to be indifferent to ethical concerns regarding his charity, paying himself from it without claiming the salary thereof, not filing returns, and paying a salary to his oft-jailed son, for reasons no one can quite understand.

This kind of thing makes me goggle at the letter signed by just over 50 pastors in favor of Moore's senate bid despite his infidelity to the law of the land and the Lord. I would like to think after all the recent newly revealed information, they might think better of what they signed their names to. And I will say I admire the position of GOP Senator Jeff Flake in that matter. He made it very clear that he would support a Democrat over Roy Moore:

Just to be clear. If the choice is between Roy Moore and a Democrat, I would run to the polling place to vote for the Democrat https://t.co/Ec96HRt228

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) November 13, 2017

And I think that has to be sticking point for a person of conscience--do you identify as a Republican first, or as a decent person? Would I call this a modern litmus test in politics? It literally makes me feel a little hurt and astonished that anyone even needs to do a moral calculation before deciding after all, they would not prefer to support a child predator. I feel like this one should be easy.

Judge Roy Moore Is Fixing to Sue

For some reason, Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore thinks he might like to sue the newspaper of record that broke a story about women who have accused him of pursuing a "romantic" relationship with them back in the bygone era of the 1970's while they were underage.  This newspaper followed several leads to find four separate women who did not know one another, and had 30 sources. There is no way at all that cases could come together swiftly enough for actual court decisions to play a part in the outcome of the AL Senate race. But you know what could?

More credibly-sourced stories about other young ladies who might have been propositioned. Which, based on at least some of what Moore has been saying, might be some number--see, he hasn't denied chatting up girls in their teens while he was an established adult. He's admitted he's gone around with them, kissed them, and asked their mammas if it was okay.  And if a girl is young enough that you have to ask her mamma if it's okay (not to mention daddies, because he seems to have been cruising family court to see which lil' ol' gals was daddy-free) maybe that girl is too young.  But what we know about predators of the young is that they keep trying. They usually have any number of contacts. "Not generally"--the phrase used by Moore regarding his "dates" with underage girls, means "occasionally". He might not be the best "judge" of how often he offended. 

I don't know if this is a good look. He thinks it is, though, which probably just adds to the argument against him. His reasoning leaves a lot to be desired.

Bye-lo!

So, apparently, if someone unearths easily-Googled video of a person saying something that is heinous after that person's having said and written lots of heinous things, in about 24 hours, this can result in that person losing a speaking opportunity at a hard-right political conference, have one's current employment under question, and lose a book deal. 

Note: it's not like he changed or something--that was who he already was.  It's just everyone knowing that's a problem. I also note with some interest Twitter comments calling this an example of a liberal double standard. Because he was invited and disinvited to CPAC? Because Simon and Shuster thought he had an interesting point of view until it became a financially uninteresting one? Because fellow Breitbart writers think he's a problem right now?

Okay, whatever.

Too Grotesque for Mere Schadenfruede

The revelation that former GOP Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert sexually abused at least four minors and then tried to pay to keep it silent is disturbing in and of itself. It certainly is troubling that he abused those kids before leading the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about a consensual affair after his predecessors were removed from that position for various things. It was probably really weird when he found out about Mark Foley and those pages. 

But what does it say about hypocrisy? What does it say about so-called "family values"?

I dunno.  What does it ever say? George Reker, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig. John G. Schmitz (father of Joseph E. Schmitz and Mary Kate Letourneau.) There's a lot of fucking about amongst yon pillars of rectitude. And hypocrisy is, verily, really awful.

But kid-touching is really worse than just hypocrisy. So I look at Hastert with something worse than just schadenfreude. And I am sure some foreign tongue has a name for it, even if I don't.