Category Archives: awful people

better than trump

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11

There are days when I’ll do almost anything to avoid doing the stuff I know I should be doing. I’m telling you this to explain why I decided to once again visit the fever swamps of FreeRepublic. I used to do this once a week in order to have some idea what current topic had enraged extreme right-wing nutjobs. Over time, however, I found it increasingly difficult to stomach the irrational hate. Now I peek in on FreeRepublic many once a month. Maybe.

This morning there was a lot of…oh, let’s call it ‘discussion’ about an editorial in the NY Post. The editorial (and no, I’m not going to provide a link to it) was entitled:

Biden is a disaster — which is why we need someone better than Trump to beat him.

I figured that whole ‘someone better than Trump’ bit would get a lot of Freep readers up on their hind legs. And I was right. Here’s a representative sample of comments:

  • Trump or no one.
    by kenmcg
  • If Trump isn’t the nominee, there is no GOP.
    by anton
  • “January 6 was a national travesty…”
    No, it wasn’t. It was just a start on righting the egregious theft of an election.
    by Fester Chugabrew
  • I’ll write in Trump if I have to. No one else.
    by ClearCase_guy
  • Trump neither tried to overturn the stolen election nor did he take any classified documents.
    by escapefromboston
  • January 6 was a national travesty, and [Trump] is to blame for it.
    What happened at the capitol on Jan 6 was orchestrated and executed by the leftist deep-state FBI. The only thing Trump has to do with it is that deep state idiots like you are trying to blame him.
    by nagant
  • I am not voting Republican.
    I am voting Trump.
    by aMorePerfectUnion
  • “Trump tried to overturn an election” – what BS. The election was STOLEN from him…Biden overturned an election and got away with it with help from people like Murdoch,
    “He took classified documents”. Do they really think we’re so uneducated that we don’t know about the Presidential Records Act and the fact that Trump along with previous POTUS as well as FJB, and apparently even Pence kept records – the last 2 who weren’t even POTUS?
    What a bunch of CRAP!
    by Aria
  • Such ignorance. If there were one better than Trump, Trump would not be leading the field.
    by Lou Foxwell
  • EVIL women will vote to KILL MORE BABIES BEFORE they would vote for someone who will make it cheaper to feed the ones they don’t kill!
    by Ann Archy
  • Other than DJT Repubs want to act nice and follow the rules. We need to Annihilate the dems. The are worthy of the death they want to impose on others.
    by Singermom
  • I’ll just write Trump in, go Independent or just stay home.
    I long since have had it these lying phony Republicans and their fraudulent charade. They’ve hoodwinked millions.
    And whatever happens, when the Trump era comes to an end, so will the Republican party.
    by dragnet2
(Illustration by Émile-Antoine Bayard)

These people have drunk deep from the Trump potion; they’ve become spider-brained. They are somehow convinced–absolutely certain–that everybody but Trump is corrupt. They are completely confident that the only thing keeping Trump from being a phenomenally successful president is a global conspiracy involving every national and international security agency, all of whom are coordinating to…do something…in order to prevent Trump from…also something.

But I’m inclined to agree with dragnet2. When the Trump era ends, so will the Republican Party. In fact, I’m inclined to argue there IS NO Republican Party anymore, and hasn’t been since Trump was first nominated to run for president. There is no general ideological center; no commonly agreed-upon political principle, no unifying doctrine. There is only Trump.

Editorial Note: A reminder that we need to destroy the patriarchy. Smash it into a thousand pieces, then gather those pieces and set them on fire. Sweep up the ashes, dump them in a pit, piss on them, then bury it all. Cover the pit with asphalt, cover the asphalt with concrete, on which we should build a library. A privately-owned library that’s open to the entire public, so nobody can ban any books. A library with a coffee shop.

freedom to think for…themselves?

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2

Here, listen to this:

“When children are told what and how to believe whether in verbal, in writing or through visual symbols, they miss out on the freedom to think for themselves and use the skills they are learning in the classroom.”

That sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it. Obviously, we DO NOT want to tell our children what and how to believe. We DO NOT want to limit their freedom to think for themselves. Right?

Except the woman who said that, Melissa Dungan, a trustee of the Conroe, Texas Independent School Board, totally wants to tell children what and how to believe AND limit their freedom to think for themselves. In a recent meeting of the school board, Dungan brought up an ‘incident’ in which a child in the first grade was so traumatized by seeing a poster of people of different races holding hands they had to change classrooms. I am NOT MAKING THIS UP.

Who the hell is Melissa Dungan? This is how she introduced herself when running for the position of school board trustee:

“I am first and foremost a Christian. My faith guides every aspect of my life including my roles as wife and mother – and will also influence my decisions as a school board trustee.”

As we all know, Jesus didn’t want little kids of different races holding hands with each other. Dungan’s Christian values also means she wants to ‘keep personal ideologies out of classrooms‘ and limit flags in schools to ‘the American flag, Texas flag, school flags and college pendants.’ Pride flag? Nope. Environmental justice flag? Nope. Because those flags inject a personal ideology, unlike the flags of the US and Texas, which, of course, are ideologically neutral. Not only can classrooms display those flags, they’re actually required to display them. Because those visual symbols surely don’t tell children ‘what and how to believe.‘

Does Melissa Dungan actually represent the community of Conroe, Texas? Well, consider that in 1922, when a 20-year-old Black man, Joe Winters, was accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old white girl, the citizens of Conroe chained him to a post in the courthouse square and burned him alive. And in 1941, when African-American Bob White was accused of having a sexual relationship with a white woman, he was not allowed to have a lawyer and was tortured into giving a confession, and the all-white jury convicted him. He actually won an appeal based on the lack of legal counsel, but was convicted again. That conviction was overturned because the confession was a result of torture. During his third trial, White was killed by the alleged victim’s husband–shot in the back of the head IN THE COURTROOM in front of the judge, jury, courtroom personnel, and witnesses. The husband was arrested and tried the following week, and was acquitted.

So yes, maybe Melissa Dungan does, in fact, represent Conroe, Texas. The people of Conroe who elected her are apparently terrified by the notion that their children might be told that it’s okay for people of different races to be friendly with each other. That’s certainly an improvement over those earlier Conrovians who felt racial relations were best handled by non-judicial immolation.

Baby steps.

asshole alert at the farmers’ market

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16

It’s really really really hard to pick the worst thing about Trumpism, but certainly one of the top five worst things is Entitled Aggressive Assholism.

Yesterday morning at the farmers’ market…wait. First, let me say that one of the many things I love about both my small local farmers’ market and the larger Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market is that they bring so many different communities together. There are Amish farmers selling rye bread next to some Salvadoran immigrants selling pupusas and some second generation Laotian-Americans selling sien savanh. There’s a young Black man with orange hair playing an acoustic guitar and singing old Beatles songs and just down the street is an old white guy with a ridiculously small electric organ playing Muzak versions of Bob Marley tunes. There are young couples with kids, old folks with walkers, dozens of breeds of dogs (and by the way, I’m always worried about the small dogs; I’m afraid they’re going to get stepped on in the crowds), gay couples holding hands, teens wearing Future Farmers of America t-shirts, cyclists in their helmets and spandex, suburban goth eye-shadow junkie kids, folks handing out flyers letting us know Jesus forgives us or that pollinators are at risk because of chemicals or reminding us that one of the voice actors from Pokemon will be signing autographs at the event center where the comic-con is taking place.

What I’m saying is that the farmers market is all about different folks coming together and getting along. And then there’s the guy wearing a t-shirt that says Transgenderism is a Mental Disorder. My phone was in my pocket, so I didn’t have time to get a photograph of him. But he was a classic Entitled Aggressive Asshole, a prime example of asshole culture.

The ONLY reason to wear a t-shirt like that in public is to provoke a reaction. This asshole deliberately set out to offend others, knowing he was unlikely to be seriously challenged about it. Unlikely to be challenged because those of us who are offended also believe in the right to free speech, and the right to believe in things others find objectionable, and the right to move around freely in public without somebody knocking you flat on your ass for being a colossal dick.

One of the worst things Trump released on the world is the fierce joy bullies and cowards find in the freedom to punch down without consequence. Right now, trans folks and drag artists have become primary targets of that twisted joy. I see articles complaining that Link (from the Legend of Zelda games) is trans-friendly, I see drag shows under attack by asshole politicians, I see concentrated efforts to prevent trans kids from getting the medical care they need. A year or two ago, none of this was much of an issue. Trans-hate has been largely manufactured for political purposes (and, of course, as another conservative grift).

My guess (and I have no actual evidence of this) is that a year ago, that asshole at the farmers’ market probably didn’t give a moment of thought to trans folks. But now that they’ve become a popular MAGA-target, he 1) found a vendor who was happy to make and sell the objectionable t-shirt, 2) spent his money to buy one so that he could 3) wear it in public in a place that encourages diversity in order to 4) offend the fuck out of people who are 5) too decent to knock him on his ass.

To be clear, I’m NOT an advocate of knocking people on their ass simply because they’re assholes (even if they deserve it–although I’d consider buying a t-shirt that says Vertical assholes deserve to be horizontal). And I’m not suggesting folks accept that asshole’s challenge and confront him in public. I mean, these assholes LIKE pretending they’re victims.

What I am saying is that it’s no longer enough for us to be silent allies. I suspect most of the folks who’ll read this have taken a relatively laissez faire approach to trans folks. Trans folks exist, not a big deal, end of story. But the movement to prevent trans folks from existing, that IS a big deal. Trans folks can’t afford for us to maintain a laissez faire approach. We need to stand up, speak up, and keep it up. We can do that without being assholes ourselves.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We really need to burn the patriarchy. Burn it from stalk to stem, then gather the ashes, grind them into dust, dig a hole and chuck in the dust, piss on the dust, cover the hole, and salt the earth over the hole. Then have tea and some nice cookies.

the names don’t even seem real

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Yeah, I don’t quite know why I subject myself to this. I like to think it serves a purpose, but that might just be wishful thinking. Regardless, every so often, after a mass murder event, I’ll stick my beak into FreeRepublic to see what the ‘patriots’ there have to say about it.

Their first priority, of course, is to assure themselves that the person who committed the mass murder is not/was not/never had been a MAGA conservative. Because MAGA conservatives are responsible gun owners who only use their weapons for 1) target practice, 2) maybe hunting, or 3) self defense against a) thugs, b) crazy people, and/or c) a tyrannical government bent on depriving them of their freedoms. Also? MAGA Freepers are keenly aware of the overwhelming difficulties facing White Hetero Christian Men these days. BUT they don’t have a single racist thought, because they understand they occupy their place in society because they’ve earned it.

Why would anybody think this guy was a white supremacist?

Once the innocence of MAGA conservatives has been established to their satisfaction, Freepers always, without fail, tend toward two broad general theories about just what the fuck happened. Either the shooting was a result of drugs/mental illness OR it was a federal false flag operation. These false flag ops are designed to destroy the republic, usually by creating a situation that would allow the government to implement a firearm seizure plan.

Here are some examples from one thread, which indicated the shooter MAY have expressed an extreme white supremacist ideology (which, by the way, suggests there’s a white supremacists ideology that ISN’T extreme) on a Russian social media site:

I wonder which F_I dweeb was role-playing online as this nut? I don’t believe a word of this.
by Major Matt Mason

I looked.. the names don’t even seem real.
by momincombatboots

Now, Russia? This is sounding all too neat, all too programmed. He has touched EVERY ONE of the left’s talking points. Call me paranoid, but I wonder if the Deep State is somehow controlling these people. Experts say that mind control is now a possibility. Stopping short of that, who knows who was influencing his views online? The FBI has a history of manipulating unstable people into crime.
by Steve_Seattle

Who was his FBI handler?
by Jim Noble

Heh, that’s hilarious
Too bad it is so close to the lies and spin from the government / Media.
by LegendHasIt

This story is an FBI fabrication and spread widely by the MSM. These are the same people who said that Trump colluded with the Russians, the events of January 6th were on a scale with Pearl Harbor, COVID was the new Black Plague and required crippling business, the George Floyd riots were “mostly peaceful”. Meanwhile, not a word from the FBI about the rantings of the shooter who.killed six people at a Christian school in Nashville.
by Wallace T.

Rumor was going around that the Buffalo shooter and the Uvalde shooter were, both, talking to “Armand”, a “retired” member of a three letter agency.
by Eagles6

It has been reported that a particular FBI agent had been in contact with several these kill-crazy mental cases each in the month before the shooting. For someone who is already depressed and paranoid subtle and not so subtle suggestion can channel the insanity into desired directions.
PM by arthurus

The Buffalo shooter used very unusual language to describe what he was doing. It seemed like he was replaying a plan given to him from someone else.
by freeandfreezing

It is my FIRM BELIEF the the FBI is on line chatting up these unstable people in some damn chat rooms PUSHING THEM into these dastardly deeds so OUR firearms are removed from us!! They have NO WAY to control the masses as long as we are armed!! SOME unstable people seem to become MORE paranoid with psychotropic medications!!! If someone online is chatting them up consistently the paranoia could become much worse!!!
by Trump Girl Kit Cat

Why that ‘deep state’ plan to seize all the guns has never been implemented is a mystery. I mean, consider how many mass murders have been committed since the Columbine High School murders in 1999. We’re talking about almost a quarter of a century of high quality false flag operations. Yet when it comes to actually seizing the guns, the ‘deep state’ refuses to pull the trigger. So to speak.

It’s easy to write these people off as harmless cranks…because, for the most part, they really are harmless cranks. As individuals, they’re harmless. But as a collective, they propagate a culture that undermines the notion of verifiable fact. I’m going to quote Maria Ressa here:

“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t solve any problems. We have no democracy.”

It’s wise, I believe, to question authority–to be cautious when it comes to accepting the claims made by the people in power, regardless of their political persuasion. It’s wise to ask for–and even demand–evidence. But it’s also important to accept verifiable evidence, even when it contradicts your beliefs or preferences. It’s their insistence that belief is as valid as evidence that prevents Freepers from being simple harmless cranks.

fox news bullshit

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15

I’m something of a news junkie. Every morning, first thing, I read the news (well, among the first things–I mean, there’s coffee to be made and all that). I want to know what’s happening in the world. And that brings me to Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who said this:

“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t solve any problems. We have no democracy.”

This is pretty basic stuff. A society ought to be able to trust news journalists to present reliable facts. Beyond that, we ought to be able to trust news commentators to present opinions they actually hold. We should be able to assume that any person employed to present facts or opinions are NOT LYING.

And that brings me to this: tomorrow is the first day of the trial in the defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox News for allowing its commentators to tell lies about them. This is a big deal.

Look, we all know Fox News is bullshit. We all know the evening commentators act as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. We all know Fox News ‘personalities’ like Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Piro, and Sean Hannity aren’t journalists; Fox lawyers have admitted as much in court. But this case isn’t really about journalism. It’s about defamation.

Defamation is false information that harms the reputation of a person, business, or organization. Fox News commentators spent a big chunk of time after the 2020 election claiming that Dominion Voting Systems 1) was deeply involved in election fraud, 2) had developed an algorithm that somehow rigged vote counts, 3) was owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections (for socialist dictator Hugo Chávez–seriously, I’m NOT making that up), and also 4) paid kickbacks to government officials.

Guess what? That was all bullshit. Also guess what? The people spreading that bullshit KNEW it was bullshit when they spread it. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, in pre-trial hearings, has already stated that those claims were all total bullshit (although, to be fair, he didn’t actually use the term ‘bullshit’). He wrote that it was “crystal clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”

But wait, there’s more. Because it’s all bullshit, Judge Davis has also ruled that Fox News can’t argue their ‘contributors’ were simply covering the news (because bullshit ain’t legit news). He further ruled that Fox can’t argue the bullshit could be considered the First Amendment-protected opinions, because there’s plenty of pre-trial evidence demonstrating the hosts KNEW it was bullshit and they didn’t believe it themselves.

So cased closed, right? Fox News loses, right? Dominion wins, right?

Well, yes and no. The jury will have to listen to all the dreary facts; they’ll have to listen to the Fox News commentators testify under oath that they knew they were lying to their viewers (and reader, that testimony is going to be as sweet as Tupelo honey). And THEN the real meat of the case will be presented.

Just to be clear, let me say this again: there’s NO QUESTION that the Fox News commentators were lying sacks of shit. That’s not even at issue. What’s at issue is this: Damages. The jury has to decide if Fox News, by lying and spreading bullshit about Dominion Voting Systems, caused severe damage to the company’s reputation. IF they find Dominion was damaged, then the jury has to decide whether the damage was the result of actual malice.

Actual malice is a legal term of art. Back in 1964, in the case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, SCOTUS defined actual malice as a statement made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” That matters because this is where it all comes down to money.

There are two types of civil damages: compensatory and punitive. Compensatory damages are intended to help the victim; punitive damages, obviously, are intended to punish the offender.

Assuming the jury finds Fox News liable (which ought to be a safe assumption, but you never know when a jury is involved), they’ll first have to decide how much Fox should pay Dominion to compensate for the damage to their business. Then they’ll have to decide if Fox News should be punished financially for deliberately spreading bullshit to the public, and if so, how much.

And that brings us back once again to Maria Ressa. Because Fox News wasn’t just harming Dominion Voting Systems; they were–and still are–harming representative democracy. They’re harming this entire nation. If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. If you lack trust and truth and facts, you can’t solve society’s problems and you can’t have representative democracy. If you allow a major media platform to deliberately and knowingly spread lies and bullshit to a wide audience, you shred the fabric of society.

And that’s really hard to mend. Compensation for the damage done isn’t enough; punishment is necessary.

club-headed

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A statistically significant number of US citizens have completely lost their fucking minds. It’s perfectly reasonable to think of them as victims of Cordyseps MAGA. For the few remaining people who haven’t either played the game or watched the HBO series The Last of Us, cordyseps is the mutated endoparasitoid fungus that turns humans into hideous zombies (which, now I think of it, is redundant; there are no attractive zombies, are there).

Although it’s just a plot device in The Last of Us, cordyceps is real. In fact, there are several hundred different cordyseps species. A small number of them are parasitoids actually capable of affecting the host insect’s (yeah, it’s limited to insects) decision-making and behavior control mechanisms. Making them zombies, in other words. One of the behavioral changes caused by that form of cordyceps they become increasingly careless, which makes the host insect vulnerable to predators. When the parasite-ridden victim is consumed by a predator, the cordyceps fungus starts feeding on the new host, allowing the fungus to spread even wider.

Post-mortem cordyseps-infested fruit fly (photo by faiz b.)

Cordyceps is a useful analogy for explaining the club-headed MAGA fuckwits who…wait. Damn it. Tangent Alert! Cordyseps comes from the Greek term kordýlē, meaning ‘club’ and the Latin suffix -ceps, meaning ‘–headed’. So basically, cordyceps means ‘club-headed.’

Right, back to the analogy. This is similar to what happened with the sort of club-headed MAGA fuckwits who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Hell, it’s what is STILL happening. The ‘entertainment’ hosts on FOX News are effectively feeding viewers Cordyceps MAGA spores, which remodels their decision-making and behavior control mechanisms, making them easier prey for predatory fascist and authoritarian ideologies, which in turn allows the fungus to spread even more widely. The only meaningful difference is that the fungal parasitic FOX News hosts themselves are apparently NOT under the influence of Cordyseps MAGA. They’re deliberately and willfully spreading the fungus because it gives them power and a big paycheck.

Here’s an example. Tucker Carlson recently made these claims about the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, assaulted police officers, defaced and desecrated the building itself, and attempted to disrupt the historically peaceful transfer of presidential power.

“They were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers. Footage from inside the Capitol overturns the story you’ve heard about January 6. Protesters queue up in neat little lines. They give each other tours outside the speaker’s office. They take cheerful selfies and they smile. They’re not destroying the Capitol, they obviously revere the Capitol. They’re there because they believe the election was stolen from them. They believe in the system.” — Tucker Carlson.

Nine sentences, eight of which are direct, intentional lies. The ONLY true statement is that the insurrectionists believe the election was stolen. But club-headed MAGA assholes only believe that bullshit because predatory pricks like Tucker Carlson have been feeding them spore-lies for a couple of decades. That’s how parasitic fungi work.

Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Representatives

The larger problem is that parasitic fungi benefit and thrive to the detriment (and sometimes death) of their host. When FOX News deliberately spreads lies and misinformation, they pose a serious, no-shit risk to the host, which is representative democracy in the US. Even though it sounds far-fetched, they could end up destroying democracy in the United States.

As it is, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives shows very clear symptoms of being zombiefied. Just yesterday, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy appointed Marjorie Taylor Greene as Speaker Pro-tempore. The GOP decision-making and behavior control mechanisms have been severely diminished. This is zombie behavior. This makes them easier prey for predatory fascists. This makes the entire US vulnerable.

Far-fetched? Yes. But not far enough. This could be the last of us.

wait…the national what?

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A couple of weeks ago, during National Gun Violence Survivors Week, in an act of singular tastelessness, Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde handed out lapel pins in the shape of an AR-15. The fact that the US even has a National Gun Violence Survivors Week is horrific enough without this loathsome, pus-brained fuckwit compounding the horror.

Representative Andrew Clyde (R, Mordor)

Who the fuck is this guy? He’s a millionaire gun store owner who was elected in Georgia’s 9th Congressional district, one of the most MAGA-centric districts in the entire nation. Clyde assumed office three days before the January 6th insurrection. Of course, his first real action in Congress was to vote against certifying the 2020 election results. He was one of twelve House Republicans to vote against honoring the US Capitol Police for their actions during the insurrection. He refused to shake the hand of Officer Michael Fanone (who was dragged out of the Capitol building, beaten and tased by the mob, and suffered both a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury as a result). He described the insurrection as a “normal tourist visit” despite the fact that there are photos of him helping barricade the House chamber door to keep the insurrectionists our and hiding behind an armed security officer. Clyde was one of fourteen Republicans who voted against making Juneteenth a federal holiday and one of only three to vote against the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act.

Andrew Clyde during a normal tourist visit.

In other words, Andrew Clyde is a lying racist asshole.

Of course, he’s not the only one. Barry Moore, the Republican Congressman from Alabama, comes from the same revolting mold. He also took office just before the January 6th insurrection, he also voted against certifying the 2020 election results, he says he has ‘questions’ about the death of Ashlii Babbitt (the MAGA drama queen killed while climbing through a smashed window into the House chamber where members of Congress were escaping the mob), and voted against honoring the Capitol Police officers.

Not to be outMAGAed by Clyde, Moore decided to (and I swear I am NOT MAKING THIS UP) introduce the AR-15 National Gun Act. This bill would make the AR-15 (and Jesus suffering fuck, I can’t believe I’m even writing this) the ‘National Gun of America’.

“If a specific firearm is synonymous to Americana then it would be the AR-15. My bill, the ‘AR-15 National Gun Act,’ would simply write that into law designating that AR-15 style rifles chamber in .556 or .223 as the national gun of the United States. The AR-15 has been a quintessential piece of Americana for over six decades and this bill would recognize its most common configuration as our country’s national gun.”

A a quintessential piece of Americana.

Rep. Barry Moore (R, Bottomless Pit) posing with quintessential pieces of Americana.

You may be wondering, Am I having a stroke? Why do we need a National Gun? And even if there was, in some alternate universe, some rational reason for having a National Gun, why in the popcorn fuck would it be an AR-15, the prom queen rifle of mass murderers everywhere, what what what?. Good question. Here’s Moore’s answer:

“Some pro-second amendment folks, who might not own an AR-15, might think that banning them is no big deal, but just like a camel sticking its nose under a tent, any watering down of rights already guaranteed will enable the anti-second amendment crowd to take away even more rights.”

Surely, any fool can see it’s just like a camel sticking its nose under a tent to water down rights. It’s hard to argue against logic like that. Hell, it’s hard to find logic like that.

This has absolutely no chance to become law, that goes without saying (at least it should go without saying–but the fact that I’m saying it is evidence that we’re living in a massively fucked up society). A few years ago, I’d have dismissed this as just more GOP performative bullshit to ‘own the libs’ but now I’m starting to think some of these rabid fuckwits might actually believe their own bullshit.

I don’t know which is more awful. I’m not sure it matters, because both options are awful down at the cellular level.

This is what the Republican Party has become.

workin’ in the house of maga

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It’s the fourth day of the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and it’s astonishing to witness just how much stupid, horrific shit they’ve managed to spread in that short time. There’s the big, obvious stupid, horrific shit–like the stupid, horrific new House Committee on the Weaponization of Government, or the stupid, horrific way they’ve gutted the Office of Congressional Ethics just as they’re examining the Members of Congress who refused to honor the subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 committee. But the House of MAGA has also given some attention to smaller and less obvious stupid, horrific shit.

For example, they went to the bother of changing the name of the House Committee on Education and Labor. It’s now called the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Why, you ask, would they change ‘labor’ to ‘workforce’? Because changing the name complies with the House of MAGA’s prime directive: piss off the libs.

“Hey, good news! We’re no longer laborers! Now we’re part of a workforce!”

The Chair of the new House Committee on Education & the Workforce is Virginia Foxx of North Carolina. Rep. Foxx has a long Congressional history of being stupid and horrific. Back in 2005, she voted against the aid package for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. She claimed the murder of Matthew Shepard was “a very unfortunate incident” but not a hate crime (“We know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay“). She opposed Obamacare, saying “We have more to fear from the potential of the Affordable Health Care Act passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.” She voted against Comrade Trump’s impeachment twice. She was one of the Members of Congress who opposed the certification of the 2020 vote. And she opposes all abortion, even in the case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother.

The House of MAGA; The Intersection of Stupid and Horrific.

Rep. Foxx, in her role as Chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, offered an explanation for the change in name.

“‘Labor’ is an antiquated term that excludes individuals who contribute to the American workforce but aren’t classified as conventional employees. ‘Labor’ also carries a negative connotation that ignores the dignity of work; the term is something out of a Marxist textbook…. The Left prefers the term labor because it creates a sense of enmity between employees and employers which union bosses and left-wing activists seek to stoke for political gain…. Though the Left likes to treat employers like predators, we know that most job creators have their employees’ best interests in mind”

See, the ‘Left’ is only interested in workers the workforce for political gain, which is unAmerican and unpatriotic and therefore wrong. Employers, on the other hand, are only interested in financial gain, which is very American and patriotic and therefore right. Okay, maybe worker productivity rose more than 60% over the last forty years while worker workforce pay rose less than 18% (after adjusting for inflation). But hey, they’ve still got plenty of that ‘dignity of work’ to keep them happy, right? Where’s the dignity in ‘labor‘?

Also? Workforce sounds like they could be a team of Marvel superheroes. Isn’t that as good as money? Would Workforce America! ™ ask for safe working conditions? Hah!

Over the next two years we can expect to see much more stupid, horrific stuff across every scale of government. They hope we will be numbed by the barrage of stupid, horrific stuff. There’s a danger they could be right.