RFK Jr. is Stupid as Hell

 

RFK Jr on measles: "The MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris." pic.twitter.com/wq7S3xssl7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2025

No, it does the fuck not.  Not a lot. Not any. 

Literally none.

He could look this shit up, you know. He could ask somebody competent who works with viruses. He could realize there's just some stuff he doesn't know, leave it the hell be, and call it a day. There's a lot of things I don't understand. I can't split the fucking atom, okay? 

But then there's Bobby Big Britches, with a big dumb crazy-eyed straight face:

"Don't take the vaccines! They're full of DEAD BABY!" (PS--it's very QAnon-friendly.)

This is the kind of fear-and horror-invoking nonsense you get from the kind of pud-whittling midwit who truly believes there's a grand conspiracy to make planes shit health-altering chemicals out of their backends because he can't comprehend a simple concept like "Planes high, air cold." 

Honest to God we're in the fucking ENDARKENMENT over here. And what's worse is--I don't know that he's that stupid because there are just rotten-souled propagandists who will say ANYTHING no matter how screwed up for attention and political influence. 

What do we do with the dark folks?  Grab a goddamn torch. 

Kash Patel Is Incredibly Disqualified

 

Antisemitic far-right broadcaster Stew Peters responds to Kash Patel claiming that he is not familiar with Peters, despite appearing on his show multiple times: "Clearly, Kash Patel is lying. He absolutely does know who I am." https://t.co/gc5MlT7NVs pic.twitter.com/UqX9mAFFlE

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) January 30, 2025

He straight up lied. There's no beating around that point--he also lied about the 1/6 choir--he bragged about producing their single and now wants to pretend he doesn't know much about that "community".  He pretends he disagrees with Trump's clemency for the violent offenders sentenced for their 1/6 activities, but that doesn't square with his broad, conspiracy-theory based defense that the FBI (the agency he wants to lead) was behind it--

When what was behind it was Trump inviting these people to "Stop the Steal", a slogan based on a whole-ass lie, and Patel himself can't even admit Trump lost the 2020 election. 

Trump Pardons Domestic Terrorists

 

Trump and his confederates (word choice definitely intentional) like to play off what happened in 1/6 as, variously, a love-in, a prayer circle, a tourist group, but many of these people were violent, were previous offenders and some have already started being violent-minded assholes again. Take Stewart Roades of the Oath Keepers, seditious conspirator, whose sentence was actually only commuted because he really is an admitted piece of work. He was just seen at the Capitol Complex with some GOP Reps, because I guess they are some kinds of piece of work, too.

He's got family who are nervous about him being out and about, and he's not the only one.

TWGB: Fall of the House of Trump?

 

Trump, looking mad as a coot and wheezing faintly, made up for the lack of public appearances he has made lately by offering an hour of his time to reporters at Mar-A-Lago. It was awkward. Usually, Trump is one burnt-ochre joker, projecting bravado and landing insults--even if he's vague on policy or leery of answering questions directly. Here, he seemed pale, tired, sandbagged by recent events. 

Among weird damn things he said: he might have confused Jerry Brown and Willie Brown in a story about a helicopter ride. Both gentlemen have the same last name and are longstanding figures in California politics but there are some differences. Trump never told Willie Brown to rake the damn forest to prevent fires, for example. (I know Trump alleges he has survivor's guilt over a tragic helicopter ride from like 30 years ago or so, but that's about another coast entirely.) 

He sadly whinged on about how President Joe Biden must be feeling--with his "presidency stollen" (I swear!) from him. Shades of this post on his FAILING! Truth Social:

Heeeeere's Donny!

 

Trump: “Silence of the lamb! The late great Hannibal Lecter. It is a wonderful man.”
pic.twitter.com/59eH6Wd6vQ

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 12, 2024

Sometimes, I wonder if I try to diagnose Trump from afar just a little too much, you know? What do we make of a segue to praise a (deceased?) fictional serial killer? Is it an awkward joke--or are we just being softened up to find out Trump has eaten a man? (Suddenly the last puzzle piece of the "Q" op slides into place as the uttermost human taboo has been broken.)

Is it really any better that this is probably more evidence that his brain has finally rendered into burger fat and sleaze? Not that Trump's fans in Wildwood or anywhere else seem to care, as of yet. Actually, they seem to be devolving right along with Trump.

(Uh, yes--this is real.  Diapers today, and there will probably be lobotomy stalls coming to Trump rallies in the near future.)

Do you want to know what's sad? My next damn post I'm working on involves this Trump clown, too. He should have been laughed out of political life over birtherism back in 2011--permanently. And yet, here we are.

The Terror by Night

I think about the Bible sometimes. When the Internet was cut off in Gaza, and the electricity, I thought about the "terror by night"--the nameless and wordless horrors of the obscured, when the beasts come out after sundown, and you can barely make out the face of friend from foe. The thieves and knives come out at night. 

That terror is called "pachad". It is the terror for one's life. What is also to be feared? The arrow by day. 

That arrow pierces to the quick, because the target is seen. There is nothing done under cover of night that doesn't come out in the daylight.

I worry about people who want to use the Bible about this conflict. A lot of the ancient of days stuff is just outdated, and I don't think it's right that we hear a chant of "Khaybar, Khaybar" in pro-Palestine marches, or references to Simon of Trent. 

No Heroes, As Far as I Know

 There's this "stan" culture thing I don't really get. When the actual Eminem video for his song, "Stan" came out, he didn't mean it to be a good thing to be a "stan"--it was scary and dangerous and terrible. Idealizing, forming a parasocial relationship with, and inappropriately engaging with and revolving one's life around some other person is self-destructive. 

Social media made it easy to get to know people and feel like you really know them.  I follow Mark Hamill, Lynda Carter, Henry Winkler, and Jon Bowman on Twitter. I can tell my 6-7 year old self I follow Luke Skywalker, Wonder Woman, the Fonz, and Bowzer from Sha Na Na on the futuristic thing called the internet and she would be really impressed. These are her heroes. The human beings are far more complex and actually, they are or seem to be pretty good folks. Their good opinions and decency IRL make me pretty happy with my early appreciation.

But I don't do heroes now that I'm grown. People in the real world are real, and they can disappoint. You can't invest in people you don't even know with ride or die fervor. That isn't being real--that's being in a whole fucking cult. (See also: Biden fans don't need flags and swag and what not.) 

I did a little thing not too long ago about Jim Caviezel and RFK, Jr. Conspiracy theories are sometimes about filling in the difference between your own worldview and the differing worldview of many others as you confront them. It's hard to incorporate different points of view. Making up neo-narratives is one way of handling the difference. 

But you have to understand it is "made-up". A lot of conspiracy theories are just a "cope"--a way of dealing with the difference between the world in your head and what's actually happening. 

Kennedy, Caviezel, and the Conspiracy Theories

 

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

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

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

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

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

Flailing in the Scandal Mines

 

I just wanted to highlight this slightly missed major story from the halls of Congress that commenter Dan Kleiner pointed out--Jamie Raskin entered into the record a document that everyone should have already known about from the first impeachment with respects to Joe Biden and Burisma, which was: the supposed bribery is very heavily denied. The response of Jim Comer about this is "yeah, but our very respected tipster Rudy Giuliani never mentioned anything about that." That doesn't feel really probative to me, you guys. I mean, I might be tempted to do foolish things but having my whole investigation rest on the word of Four Seasons Total landscaping guy is a stretch. 

For what it's worth, Rudy Giuliani is about as fallen a human as humans ever get. He defamed election workers, He's liable to get disbarred in DC. He's under a civil lawsuit for some eye-wateringly disgusting sexist shit. I would not, myself, trust the word of perpetually drunken and disheveled former America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani if it came to the goddamn rain without checking out a window. He's a joke, but here's the kind of joke he is:

This man wants to tell everyone they are dumb as hell if they don't think the little baggie of cocaine is Hunter's. Again, like no one else in the world uses cocaine, when My God! They sure do. And also so what if it was his? An addict relapses, news at eleven. It's just a story about a tragedy of how using has a grip on a human's life, it isn't a failure of the Biden Administration. 

What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Iowa?

 

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

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

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

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

Things You See on Twitter About Foreign Policy

 

I just screen capped a thing you can click to embiggen, which is pretty much the state of the stupid horseshoe fringe--Ann Coulter re-tweeting Max Blumenthal fluffing RFK Jr. because he's excoriating US policy supporting Ukraine's self-defense against the Russian invasion, because of course Kennedy is wrong because he's full of himself and of course Blumenthal is a useful idiot who spouts Russian propaganda anymore and Ann Coulter is, and always has been, an utter bitch. 

I used to wonder what happened to Max Blumenthal. Did he experience a conversion experience because he wanted in Rania Khalek's pants or WTF? I used to speculate. How do you hate Israel apartheid and also think maybe Bashar Al-Assad is misunderstood? He was a good journalist for a whole minute. But look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He used to be a credible-ish environmentalist. Now he's an anti-science crackpot who sucks up to the dictators of petrostates and basically has the worst opinions in existence. 

RFK Jr. talks in front of cultists who think maybe his cousin JFK Jr, is a five o'clock shadow dipshit with a porkpie hat who has no resemblance other than white and brown haired. This does not seem to faze him. 

I have never wondered what happened to Ann Coulter. Oh, no. I never, ever, ever have. She's her own thing, all daddy issues and GOP manly hero-worship aside. If she has a Putin fetish I would not wonder at it for a second. 

Anyway, Ann Coulter, Max Blumenthal, and RFK, Jr, and for what it's worth Dennis Kucinich, can all go autocopulate until they are desperately chafed. Their weird fringe "bold" controversial, contrarian opinions are only relevant to their wankery, not to anything happening in the actual world we live in, where Russia is trying to commit genocide and Ukraine is fighting against that because of course they are, and being a democratic nation that has some kind of morals, the US should oppose that. 

People who don't understand that basic calculus flunk my tolerance right now. If you don't know Russia is the bad guy and more than diplomacy is required (like making Russia bleed because bullies only know that language) you are wasting our time with wishful thinking. There is no negotiation that is not some degree of surrender, and a pass for future violence.  Fuck off Tinkerbells. Ask not for who I clap, it is not the entire fuck for you. Who have shitty opinions with no stake at all, at all. 

TWGB: Look Who's Coming to the Doral

 

Stories about the Trump organization being fined $1.6 million for 17 felonies (overhead! practically a turnpike toll!) or Trump and his lawyers being sanctioned nearly a million dollars for a frivolous LOLsuit against Hillary Clinton and a whole cast of characters based on Trump's long-established grievances (as if the body of his one-time Twitter feed had coalesced itself into a legal document) are heart-warming, sure, but they leave me cold. 

It only follows, as the night the day, that some degree of fucking around will get some finding out on the morrow. Do I find Trump's balance of FA to FO satisfactory?

I do not. He still gets around and has got some coming around.

This is why I am watching his re-election campaign such as it is find its footing with interest, because as he typed out on Truth Social, he has something wild planned at the Doral. Funny evocative world--wild. I remember when things were wild at the Willard and proceeded to get wilder at the Capitol. Surely, there's nothing intentional there?

But look who is coming to Doral! It's former General and Trump NSA Michael Flynn and the ReAwaken America circus!  It's a person some consider to be a traitor who has gathered election-deniers, Christian Nationalists, Qanon, and the Apocalyptic viewpoint of a showdown between good and evil, happening right here in the good old US of A. 

Skepticism and Scumbags

 

There is a flaw in the construction of "just asking questions" speculations--not all questions are created equally, have equal merit, or come from a place of good faith. When right-wing pundits, gadfly social media owners and even elected officials speculated that there was something "more than met the eye" regarding the break-in at the Pelosi residence and vicious hammer attack on the husband of the Speaker of the House, it's not hard to see what the point of that was--to deflect from the violence in current RW rhetoric and to imply that the Pelosis deserved violence. 

Police reports and court filings have now filled in the picture: the break-in appeared on a security camera that hadn't been manned. The assailant had broken in with a hammer. It's been verified, from DePape himself, that he went there with the intent of kidnapping and breaking the kneecaps of Nancy Pelosi if she did not tell the truth, because he believed that the Democratic party, of which she was the leader, was full of lies.

Think about that--what it means to "tell the truth" to a person who believes weird anti-vax, Qanon. and election denier conspiracies. Imagine what having to please a violent, demanding lunatic and say only what pleased him would be like. 

If that sounds a little like a metaphor for the bigger picture of how people are coping with the reality of heightened threats of political violence where a media ecosystem exists (Fox News, Newsmax, freaking Mike Lindell TV, whatever that is) that promote unhinged lies and poor mental hygiene--well, bingo. 

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack:

"Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary." pic.twitter.com/4ClCuPMnVb

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 2, 2022

When an argument is made to dismiss the actual conspiracy theory (that the altercation was not political at all, but that Mr. Pelosi was assaulted by a much younger gay lover/prostitute) by claiming that people were "just asking questions" like responsible skeptics, I smell a rat.  

It might be reasonable to hold an open space for the possibility that the assault was committed by someone who was non-political, although the threats against the Speaker are well-known and that it was likely to be political would be irresponsible to dismiss. It is unreasonable to play a game of connect the dots with dots that don't even exist. 

(Which also hilariously highlight stereotypical conservative biases--it's San Francisco; what makes more sense than a squalid tussle between an elderly queer sugar-daddy and a hippie hustler? I mean. who the hell else lives in SF?)

But even if the insinuations weren't unnecessary in themselves, the use of an 82-year-old man's fractured skull as a punchline tells be what kind of people we are dealing with--see the title of the post?

It isn't skeptics. 

An Assassination Attempt Doesn't Stop Them

 

A black-pilled 42-year-old conspiracy theorist assaulted the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in an attempt to get to the Speaker herself, who was not at home. He reported shouted "Where's Nancy?", echoing the eerie calls that echoed down the hallways of the Capitol on 1/6.  The backdoor had been broken into. A 911 call made by Paul Pelosi alerted law enforcement to his home, where they were able to witness a part of the assault, which included an attempt to tie Mr. Pelosi up until his wife came back.

And the right-wing world didn't blink. Fox News blamed Democrats for being soft on crime, the Pelosis for not having better security, and vaguely waved away the anti-vax and other bizarre conspiracies shared by the assailant--because their viewers share those sentiments, too, and because they are the cause of that.  Republican politicos on the campaign trail didn't take one respectful beat to keep the name of Nancy Pelosi out of their mouths. And the conspiracy theorists just kept making more conspiracy theories, because what was going to stop them? Reality? Basic common decency? 

As I found myself on Twitter yesterday, I liked and re-tweeted a sentiment that "They won't stop until someone gets killed," but even that doesn't sound right. We're four years from the anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue slaying. We've seen death in El Paso and Buffalo. This week, three "Wolverine Watchmen" were found guilty of a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A PA man pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell and his staffers. 

It's almost a sick joke to ask where someone like David DePape becomes radicalized. Really? After Speaker Pelosi has been demonized by the RW press for so many years? When social media like Facebook has made a journey through a rabbit hole leading to a cesspit of lies and violence so accessible? 

If the hate train slowed down, even took a pause to acknowledge that they enabled this would the shock of it after so much acceleration in recent years derail it?   

I don't even know. I only know this time they never slowed down so the passengers could take a look.

TWGB: Everything Looks Worse in Black and White

 

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

Threaten mass violence in case of indictments. 

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

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

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

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

TWGB: The Picture Worth a Thousand Takes

 

The rebuttal to the Trump filing I referred to as the "Clown Suit" from DOJ made some of the points I expected it to make, to wit--the former guy and his lawyers were lying about turning over all of the documents and they were already gone over so there was no need for a special master. It also included a picture of the kind of documents that had been found during the search, just to hammer home how clearly the top secret/classified docs were marked.  The white space is redacted. You aren't being exposed to anything other than what should be obvious to you by now--these were sensitive materials that should not have been in desk drawers or closets or boxes in a basement. They should have been in NARA's hands. 

Trump and his defenders are in denial. How dare anyone show these documents on the floor as if to suggest that was where he would carelessly leave them? Why would they take a picture of them if they were so secret? Is this how the FBI handles these docs?

Oh, for fuck's sake. This kind of picture is the story of many a bust. Cops love to pile up the evidence so people can get a tangible picture of what they were doing in a search:

In this case, the point is that you can see the clear markings on the docs, which were mixed in with random other shit and in boxes and in different rooms, because it's Trump who didn't care. The docs were on the floor (and they never did imply it was Trump who put them there) only to show the extent of what they were finding. And then those docs were put into containers and taken to where they were actually secure. The FBI didn't mishandle them--they were documenting what they saw.

They Couldn't Spoil It--Almost

 

I think I could take a moment to acknowledge something really good and historic happened yesterday and really leave it at that...

But I would be a whole other person if I did not take note of the churlish, contemptuous behavior of the GOP jackaloons that still wanted to be sullen and snitty about the smears that they actually made up. The reason I can't leave it alone is that it was unnecessary for them to try and damage someone's reputation with that kind of calumny, but also the nature of it ("She's a friend tto sex fiends!") is a conspiracy theory classic from the same text as blood libel--a kissing cousin, so to speak, of QAnon.

You can't get a whole bunch of people to believe a cabal of baby-eaters is running the world--but depicting a group as deviant is not as hard a lift and can be just as dangerous. They did this to make her unpalatable by pre-smearing the people who would vote for her confirmation with a kind of guilt by association, vide MTG's despicable Tweet:

She says "Any Senator voting to confirm #KJB (sic) is pro-pedophile just like she is." Right out there for the kids who are slow on the uptake and need it spelled all the way out for them. And of course, Marginal Traitor Greed is a vicious lying extremist, but...no. I guess that really is all I have to say about that. But she has definitely articulated, baldly, what Senator Hawley tried to set in motion/ 

In any case, I'd like to think that only the far-right, already Q-enmired types would think this plausible, but I can't help but notice how neatly it folds into the new claim that people opposing the dangerous and dumb "Don't Say Gay" bills are "groomers". This tactic isn't pure politics--it's eliminationist. It uses fear to silence people and wage terror on those who don't stay silent. 

So while I want to embrace this history-making moment, I am disgusted by the antics of those who decided now was a great time to play a dangerous and stupid game with the process. 

TWGB: He Doesn't Always Hide It

 

Sometimes, as with the over seven hours of missing calls in the White House phone logs on 1/6, during which it is very possible that Trump used a burner phone (which he does so know about) it seems likely that Trump is capable of being aware of wrong-doing and while it doesn't actually stop him from doing something wrong, it does lead him to try to obstruct justice or destroy evidence. 

But then there are times that Trump just does things wildly out loud and in public. His December Tweet, that I mentioned in the last post, was like that. "Will be wild!" Some of The Donald's followers, like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and Qanon folks, had a very specific idea about what "wild" meant. It was either "1776" or "The Storm". From what I can glean, I think it's possible that Trump's farkakteh lolsuit against Hillary Clinton and, well, everyone, is part of his attempt to try and link the 2016 election with the Deep State. (And helps him establish the narrative that the "rigging" of 2020 was the Deep State, once again. Just because it makes no sense doesn't mean he wouldn't try to legitimize it.)

So, how's this for really out loud and in public: he asked Putin just now (in the middle of a genocidal war against Ukraine) to please release anything he has on Hunter Biden because after all, Putin is pretty mad at the US right now and doesn't he want his old friend Trump back? Not because it's in America's best interests or because Trump cares about the fate of Ukraine (which is just terrible for not complying with what he thinks is a reasonable request via a perfect call in the first place) or obviously the free world--

It's in Trump's interest. He ghoulishly is going to capitalize on Putin being mad at the US to try and undermine the Biden Administration, the fallout be damned; the damage to democracy here and anywhere else be damned. And his little friends, like Liz Harrington and John Solomon, think this is a great look for him! By all means, why not undermine our relationships with our European allies? I mean, what does America Trump First mean?  And what about those efforts to Save America Trump?

And as for the Putin pals, they have already put forth a disgusting lie about whether Hunter Biden is connected to those infamous biolabs (which is obviously bullshit) which (of course) mentions George Soros too and has been picked up by totally not unreliable smear merchants like Tucker Carlson. And of course, the state media in Russia is on board with this being about US regime change, and getting their buddy Trump back. 

And I mean, why not? They even think Russia could get Yanukovych back in Ukraine. (But really? I mean, he wasn't getting the "best people"!)

After all this time, after decrying the "Russia, Russia, Russia" thing as hoax, after all the various proofs that yes, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, etc., Russia really did try to interfere with 2016, and that whole Hunter Biden thing feels like a put up distraction to smear Joe Biden, here's Trump, still looking for Daddy Vladdy to come fix something for him. 

He's not a patriot. He's a parasite. He cannot be a 2024 contender. He is treasonous. 

If the GOP can't see that, they are the same. If Democrats can't use this, they are hopeless. 

The Country is Held Hostage By the Fifth Dentist

 

Whenever I think about the 27% crazification factor (as an old-head blogger), I think about the vintage commercials about "four out of five dentists" thing when I was a kid. You don't know that fifth dentist in the survey. Maybe he just doesn't endorse products. Maybe he thinks chewing gum at all is a disgusting habit. Survey questions don't actually tell the whole tale of what the respondents believe, and that's a large part of why I feel like making a big deal out of polling can be kind of stupid. 

You can get poll numbers for people who blame Obama for the Katrina response. You aren't getting a snapshot of what people know. You are getting a snapshot of what they don't know but definitely feel. You are learning where the public messaging needs to concentrate and do better at factual/useful information. This is why polling about whether Biden could do more about fuel prices is stupid. You aren't gauging a fact--but the degree to which people understand the facts that we are not a socialist economy, and Biden doesn't control fuel prices. 

It would be great, I think, if actual journalists who cared whether they were doing a good job or not, actually used these polls as a yardstick to whether they were doing a great job of getting facts out there. Maybe poll numbers that deviate from reality aren't a partisan problem, so much as a failure to break out of "both-sidesing" stories to play pretend impartiality as opposed to the real thing of exposing absolute partisan shitbaggery. Maybe truth is the job of journalists to promote, not the job of partisans to correct the record. 

And yeah, I'd like it if Democrats could message better to overcome this shit, But I get why they haven't. It's so pervasive.

Soup to Nuts

 

Just to clear things up, @RepMTG

Gazpacho: a vegetable-based Spanish cold soup
Gestapo: Nazi Germany's secret police pic.twitter.com/T9q76r706G

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 9, 2022

Surely, there are more important things in the world than Rep. Greene (R. Crossfit) confusing the Nazi secret police for a cold tomato-based soup, but before you send me off to the goulash, maybe we should just admit it's weird as hell that this elected official keeps making weird statements about the Holocaust, or the Rothschilds, or comparing things to Nazis, or talking about the oxymoronic "corporate communism" in a way that demonstrates she is profoundly unconcerned about whether she is making any sense at all, or is just using scary words to scare other underinformed people.

She's a conspiracy theorist by nature, a lovechild of Dunning-Kruger and Robert Welch, Jr. She plays a long game of connect the dots where some of the dots aren't even on the same page. Conspiracy theories are like a choose-your-own adventure book that exceeds even the imagination and arcana of a Dan Brown novel. What she chooses to believe is that the people who disagree with her, all of them, are somehow associated with the actual worst people of history, whoever she at the moment thinks those people must be. 

So, she violates mask rules because the people who told her to do a very basic and sanitary thing that does work offends her. Oh, and let's not even pay notice to whether the fines she has racked up are ones she can easily ignore as a person of personal wealth, when people with far more exposure than she has, like retail workers, don't even make what she has raked up in fines in their yearly salary and have ample reason to want protection. How dare peons tell her what to do though! So they must be the oppressors, and she the victim. (The people who study abusers call the technique she uses quite automatically "DARVO.")

Of course! And no doubt, pointing out that she is a bear of very little brain is only another of the oppressions she faces from the elitists in the Vichyssoise government she finds herself somehow a somewhat participating member of.  

It's a little too pat to say that this sort of thing makes her a propagandist, only really capable of effectively communicating to the like-minded. It's a little raw to say that pointing out her obvious shortcomings only adds to her victim-mentality and feels like a pile-on by "elitists" to people sympathetic to her. Both are a little bit true. But I still think it's valid to point out this damn dumbass doesn't know what the fuckall she's talking about and is a danger to herself and others.  And people who are sympathetic to her are also damn dumbassses and if they want more abuse, my word, it is made fresh daily.  Sign up for the full subscription. 

Or stop being dumbasses, totally your call.