2nd Annual Halloween Dance Party

I know, I know, posting has been very infrequent lately. I've been spending a lot of my free time trying to help get Stacey Abrams elected governor of Georgia, if that's all right with you.

But there's always time for a Halloween Dance Party. Yes, a lot of these are the same songs as last year's party, but what can you do? There just aren't enough spooooooky songs out there.


Ready? Let's dance!

Spare a thought for the less fortunate

You may think you have it tough, but there is always someone who has it tougher.

Washington Post: Dave Brat tells inmates, 'You think you're having a hard time -- I've got $5 million in negative ads'

CNN)Virginia Republican Rep. Dave Brat drew parallels Wednesday between the campaign attack ads against him and the challenges faced by inmates at a Virginia prison, according to the Washington Post.

"You think you're having a hard time -- I got $5 million worth of negative ads going at me," Brat told Chesterfield County Jail inmates Wednesday, The Post reported.

"How do you think I'm feeling? Nothing's easy. For anybody. You think I'm a congressman. 'Oh, life's easy. This guy's off having steaks,'" Brat continued, in a recording published by The Post. "Baloney, I got a daughter, she's got to deal with that crap on TV every day. It's tough.' "

Yes, that's a sad story, indeed. But not nearly so heart-rending as this one:

Heidi Cruz Didn’t Plan for This
a whole new world—that is what Ted Cruz wanted to give her.

Yes, a world of tax breaks and deregulation and no gay marriage, - - Isn't it Romaaaantic!

It was the spring of 2001, and Heidi Nelson was planning her nuptials to the man she’d met just over a year earlier. On Christmas break from Harvard Business School, she’d encountered the cocky and cerebral Cruz in Austin, Texas, where they were both working on George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. He was “super-smart” and “really fun” and looked like a “1950s movie star.” “It was love at first sight,” she told me.

Okay, I'll give you "super smart." I can't prove that there wasn't some period of time when Ted Cruz was *ahem* "super fun."

But which 1950's movie star do you think this guy resembled?





Maybe a young Fuyvesh Finkel?

Peter Lorre?

Walter Brennan?

Imagine "love at first sight." The sight of this oily, slimy, mincing, preening little worm.

Which is how Heidi found herself planning a May wedding to a man who, for all his pretension, insisted they play “A Whole New World,” the popular Disney song, at the end of the ceremony. She didn’t understand: They had a band, she told him—a violinist, no less! Why on earth would they play a CD? “Because no one can do Aladdin,” he said.

Hey, the man loves his showtunes!

If some people look like their dogs, Heidi Cruz looks like her house: expensive, serene, draped in pretty fabrics. That Wednesday afternoon, she greeted me somewhat breathlessly—“This client call went much longer than I thought it would!”—wearing a light-blue silk dress, a slightly darker blue scarf, and a knotted strand of pearls (not the ones from Ted). As we sat down to eat, she said what I imagine all women who wear these things must say, her voice warm and conspiratorial: “We’re gonna have some champagne. Yes, we are.”

On march 22, 2015, Heidi was on a Southwest flight en route to Liberty University, where her husband would announce his bid for the White House the following day. She was journaling her calorie count. . .

Oh my God. Is that really a thing? Is that really a thing a human person does?

 She was journaling her calorie count when she accidentally flipped to entries from more than a decade before, in the midst of her depression.

So. . . the depression started when, exactly? If the "midst" of the depression was more than a decade before 2015, that would put the beginning around. . . .

Ted Cruz/Heidi Cruz/Marriage

May 27, 2001 

Yeah, right around then.

Also, who huge is that fucking journal?

I asked Heidi whether she was thinking about killing herself.  “We were early in our marriage … It’s a wonderful thing—like, in a great way, you amplify each other. You’re a couple now, you’re two together, stronger. But before that, you make all your own decisions,” she said. “And there’s an adjustment that takes place when you realize that life is now all about the two of you, and that’s fine, but there are trade-offs.
“I think it’s very natural to feel afraid, to feel like things are in your path, in your wake, that were not your decision,” she continued. “I think my spirit just fell to a low place.”

Gee, and here I thought it would be paradise being married to this thing:

The officer who arrived on the scene believed that Heidi was a “danger to herself,” according to his report. He drove her to the police station. Her husband came to pick her up. “Ted’s never mad,” Heidi remembered. “He just hugged me

Jeez, that is so Texas.
 You find a suicidal woman sitting by the freeway and you take her to the hospital the police station and call a psychiatrist her grotesque evil husband to come pick her up like he isn't the souirce of her misery.

“He just hugged me and said, ‘I just wanna make sure that you’re happy here, and that this is a successful chapter. We’re not always going to be here.’” She said the moment helped her realize how much he loved her.

“It was a challenging time. Because she was struggling with having given up a professional post that was very meaningful to her,” the senator told me recently about that night. “But we came through that process, and actually came closer together.” He said they never considered leaving Texas.  

So the moment that showed you how much Ted loved you. . . was a lie. He never considered leaving Texas.
Which might not seem like that big a deal, except the explanation Heidi gives for her breakdown is this:

“It was, like, all of this—like, ‘Why am I here? And by the way, I gave up living where my family is to come here, so that I could sit on [the] 290 freeway every week to go work for a company that’s actually headquartered in New York, and I could be in headquarters if I wasn’t here with you.’”

So. Yeah.

Shortly thereafter, on a friend’s suggestion, Heidi signed up for a Catholic spiritual retreat. Much of that weekend was cathartic.
Heidi remembers her counselor, an 80-year-old Haitian woman, well.
The counselor “sat me down, and she looked at me and she goes, ‘I can tell you have an amazing husband. And you both will have an impact on this country,’” Heidi recalled. “She said … ‘God is going to use you, not Ted—not just Ted. You’re part of this team for a reason. God’s gonna use you to do something beyond yourself. You just let God take you to Texas, you let him take you wherever. Because there’s something bigger than you now.’”

Jesus Christ!  So she has the same delusions of grandeur/Messiah complex as Ted? Where the hell do they get these "counselors?"

There were downs, of course. Days when being on just wasn’t all that fun, when even someone as intentional as Heidi would find herself asking: To what end? “You cannot prepare to run for president,” she told me. “You can’t prepare to be told on the flight, ‘Oh, sorry,’ last minute, ‘you’re gonna have a meeting with a bunch of pastors at the hot-dog stand in the Des Moines, Iowa, airport, and they’re gonna ask you about your husband’s spiritual life.’

Oh my God, you mean to tell me that people would ask you questions? About the candidate you're supporting? Who is also your husband? Yeah, there's just no way to prepare yourself for that!

“I mean, that’s the weirdest expletive I’ve ever heard!” she exclaimed. (She actually said the word expletive.)

No. NO! No she did not seriously use the word "expletive."

The Cruzes’ oldest daughter, Caroline, who was 7 when the campaign started, was skeptical about her decision to leave Goldman 

Which is totally what you'd expect from a small child who is totally a normal human person.

“I tried to articulate, you know, ‘It’s actually for the country, it’s a much bigger project than ourselves.’ And she wanted to know, if we won, was the first lady paid?”
When Cruz told her no, Caroline paused before answering. “That’s a bad deal for you,” Heidi recalled her saying. “We shouldn’t do this.”

I’m not sure whether this conversation happened word for word with her daughter. It may more accurately reflect one Heidi had with herself. 

But here's the part where it really gets sad:

Another term in the Senate means six more years her husband won’t live at home. It means more family conversations about why Dad can’t make it to school on Wednesday for the meet and greet with Caroline’s new teachers. It means Heidi is working 70-hour weeks not only because she wants to, but also because she has to.
“I really feel mission-driven on what he’s accomplishing,” she clarified. But “it does take some supportiveness, you know. Six to seven years in it, with me being the primary breadwinner—it’s like, ‘Uh, yeah, this is when people say thank you. I’ll now take that appreciation.’” She laughed. “Yeah, we’re seven years into this, and we’re not buying a second home anytime soon.”

Yeah, it's gotta be tough being the primary breadwinner when your loser husband is only pulling in. . . how much do senators make? **googles senate salary** On Hundred and Seventy-Four Thousand Dollars a year?  And Heidi does what for a living, again?

Oh, yeah. The  co-head of the Southwest region for private wealth management at Goldman Sachs. 

Honestly, it's surprising they can afford ONE home!

But lest you think that Heidi Cruz's troubles are all about her own misfortunes, let me assure you that she is also very concerend and bothered by the state of our nation.

. . . fewer and fewer Americans seemed to understand the Constitution. Free speech, religious liberty, gun rights—there just weren’t a ton of families “talking about that at the dinner table anymore.” 

Yes, I remember the good old days when we would gather around the dinner table and my dad would ask us how our days went at school and then we'd all discuss the 2nd Amendment and the limits of religious liberty.

So take a minute today to think of those less fortunate than yourselves. No matter how difficult your road may seem, at least you're not married to Ted Cruz.

A Scary Halloween Story

(h/t Chapo)

Nathan’s Story

By ROD DREHER • October 2, 2018, 1:46 PM

Okay, there is a lot of prologue  (ooh, scaaaaary prologue) before Nathan's story even begins. It begins with a news story about some cattle mutilations that almost certainly did not actually happen

A cow and a bull were both killed overnight. An ear cut off. A section of hide detached. The scrotum and penis carefully removed. The vaginal cavity gone. The blood drained. . . 

. . . The state inspector who is investigating this said this isn’t random:“The people who are doing this, I would say are professionals,” he said. “They know what they are doing.”

Professional cattle mutilators. Now THAT's scary!

Then Rod talks about "The mainstreaming of Satanism in pop culture," which I guess could be a thing? I'm a little old for keeping up with pop culture. 
But either way , you know what's really scary?

Then, finally, he launches into the true tale of horror!

<  >

Now, that’s a set-up for me to tell you about a strange telephone call I received yesterday. I’ve hesitated about whether or not to blog about it. The caller, an old friend from whom I hadn’t heard in a decade or so, gave me permission to blog about it as long as I kept names and identifying details out of the story. He said others may draw hope from it. He wasn’t exactly sure why he felt the urge to call me about the matter, but he did.

Okay. Sure. Some guy you haven't seen or heard from in a decade has a strange urge to call the one person he knows with a column to tell him about his horrible secret that he isn't really comfortable about sharing publicly. Yeah, that tracks.

“Nathan,” as I’ll call my friend, is a devout Catholic who lives in a major US city, and who works in a sophisticated professional milieu. He is in early middle age, and a husband and father. He and his family go to mass daily, and confession weekly.

"a sophisticated professional milieu?" So. . . he has a job? I guess this is so we know that "Nathan" isn't some sort of kook, or a person that Rod made up because he had column inches to fill.

Also. . . go to mass daily? Who goes to Mass DAILY? I got to think that the proest just groans every time Nathan and his wife walk in the door. "Ugh, this asshole again? If it wasn't for this freak, I could sleep in on weekdays."

Nathan started his story with a jaw-dropping line: “For the past year, my wife has been under the care of an exorcist.”

What???
So many questions.
I mean, for a year? Is demon possession one of those chronic conditions like tendonitis? Isn't the exorcist just supposed to cast out the demon and that's that? I think you've got a faulty exorcist there, buddy. Or your wife is just telling you that the man who's been spending so much time around your house the past year is an "exorcist."

Nathan told me the story of how things came to this point. I won’t give you too many details, out of an abundance of caution. It turns out that his wife had an eating disorder as a teenager, and tried to kill herself twice back then. 

What? What does an eating disorder have to do with unclean spirits from Hell invading your wife's body? You definitely need some details.

 Now, in the middle of her life, depression returned, but with certain strange characteristics that seemed … off.

Wait. A supernatural dark power has taken control of this woman's immortal soul and the result is. . . she's depressed? No head spinning? No pea soup? No levitating? She's depressed? Well, shit most of the people I know must be possessed then.

She began to despise religious things, in an inexplicable way. 

well, it might be explicable by the fact that you drag her to mass EVERY DAY. I mean, if you took me to see the Rolling Stones Every Single Day, I would probably eventually come to despise things that are Rolling Stones related.

When she went to a “healing mass,” there was a manifestation that indicated something dark and alien was at work in her.

Wait. A "manifestation?" You need to define you terms. A "manifestation" could be almost anything. I mean, the definition of "manifestation" is literally "an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something, especially a theory or an abstract idea." 
So it's a noun.

Catholic exorcists today work in a professional way, ruling out all other medical possibilities to explain the behavior before they start. 

Uh, no. No that can not be true. Because the first thing they would have done is send her to a psychiatrist. You tell the "professionals" that your wife is suffering from depression and doesn't seem her usual self, the first thing you'd do is prescribe her some Zoloft. You wouldn't say "i'm going to go ahead and put you down for a year's worth of exorcisms."

The exorcism of Nathan’s wife has not been a single event, but has required multiple sessions, which are still going on (Father Gabriele Amorth, the late chief exorcist of Rome, has explained in his books how this works.) Nathan has been part of the rituals.

Really? Because in the Bible, don't they just command the unclean spirit to leave in the name of God and the unclean spirit says "curses! Foiled again!" and slinks back to Hell with it's pointy tail between it's goaty legs?"

This sounds like a bad  chiropractor. You ever go to a bad chiropractor? You come in once a week or twice or three times a week, depending on how big a sucker you are

and how much your insurance will cover. They crack your back, crack your neck, and  you feel a lot better for a few hours. Then you have to keep coming back because your back never really gets any better. That's what this sounds like. Like once a week you have an exorcism, the demons come out, you feel better, then later that night they come back in and you feel all possessed again and the cycle continues. Are they charging you by the session?

He told me that eight different spirits have manifested themselves through his wife. He’s been at this long enough now to discern which one is which. They revealed through the rituals that they entered into his wife’s family through her grandfather;, who was involved with the occult in a ritualistic way.

Wait, What?

So it's contagious?
Or genetic?
Like even though you yourself have no connection to the occult, in fact you go to Mass Every Single Day, you still have the getting-possessed-by-demons gene passed down from your grandfather, so you're still gonna get possessed?  That seems unfair.

Nathan said that depending on which evil spirit manifests in a particular moment, his wife’s face contorts into expressions that he has never seen in her, despite their nearly two decades of marriage.

So. . . you've never seen her O face. Got it.

Mind you, Nathan is one of  the least woo-woo friends I have. Again, he works as what you might call a “symbolic analyst” in a very worldly occupation,

A "symbolic analyst?" He analyzes symbols?

So he's this guy:




Yeah, no way that guy would mistake mental illness for something supernatural and occultic!

“Once you’ve seen reality through the eyes of spiritual warfare,” he told me yesterday, “you can’t go back. It’s everywhere.”

Oh. So he's this guy:

He told me other detailed stories, including accounts of bizarre, poltergeisty things happening in their apartment, and his wife being unable to stand the presence of blessed objects (a classic sign of possession)

So, shouldn't attending mass in a Catholic Church Every Single Day have had that effect? Wouldn't the devil be unable to stand being in the presence of the crucifixes and eucharists and holy water and whatnot? Shouldn't that alone have driven him out? Shouldn't he have realized "shit, I picked the wrong lady to possess. I am not going to be sitting through the mass every single day for the rest of this chick's life. I'm outta here!":

;Again, readers: if you knew these people, Nathan and his wife, you would be even more shocked by all this than you are now. This is the kind of family that takes European vacations, and lives a sophisticated cosmopolitan life. And yet this horror has overtaken them. 

I don't really see what their vacation plans have to do with their likelihood to encounter dark forces? Are you implying that demonic possession is generally only a problem for the provincial?

The wife goes through periods in which she hears foul blasphemies, and feels compelled to commit suicide.

Oh my GOD, get this woman to a psychiatrist! This isn't about your religious beliefs. This woman needs help!

Or she would, if she existed.

In the exorcism sessions, Nathan says the demons, under compulsion from the exorcist, speak of these things — in particular, how they intend to destroy Nathan’s wife, and her family life.

So. . . the exorcist can compel the spirits to reveal their nefarious plans, but he can't compel them to leave?

0 Stars. Would Not Reccomend.

When will she be free of them? The exorcist can’t say. The fight continues, in regular sessions. In our long phone conversation yesterday, Nathan says that this ordeal has taught him about the power of prayer

WHAT????
It hasn't worked in over a year?
There doesn't even seem to have been any progress!
The Power of Prayer?
This is about the best argument AGAINST the power of prayer I've ever heard!

Nathan, the sort of man who would have been played by Jimmy Stewart or Jack Lemmon in a 1950s movie, told me that having entered into this world, he has learned that more and more ordinary people like him and his wife are turning to exorcists. He has come to see that the demonic attacks on marriage and family are increasing — and he wants people to know that there is hope.

No there isn't! There is no hope! Your professional exorcists have been at this for a year and your wife isn't getting any better! Where in this scenario are you seeing "hope?"

Also, Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemon were two very different actors. No way they would be up for the same role.
And why are you even talking about who would play Nathan in the movie? Is this a treatment for a screenplay you're working on?

Well now, now you just come on out of there you, you, you Demon!

I don’t know how I would do if I were in a situation in which I would be lying in bed at night, and my wife blurted out, “I hate you!” and then started growling in an otherworldly voice. That’s Nathan’s reality now. He is not afraid.

What?
He's not afraid?
He is lying in bed next to a woman who supposedly has at least eight different actual, literal demons inside her. And they are apparently contagious. And the professional exorcist has been unable to get rid of them. How could you possibly not be afraid?

Also, there is no way that your wife doiesn't blurt out "I hate you" every time you join her in bed. It's probably just under her breath.

More Fun With Headlines

All Shows Were Cancelled During 2018. Here's Why

.

Really? All of them? That's gonna suck.

Sponsored  Automaticcompanions

Royal Kingdom Confirms 'Unfortunate' News

Buckingham confirmed what everyone was saying about the Royal Family this week...

It's true. They are a bunch of inbred, overpriveleged, useless lunks.

Michelle Obama is getting heat for her friendship with 'wonderful man' George W. Bush: 'I love him to death'

Well, I guess we don't have to worry about her running for President now.

Mitch McConnell Is Going to Kill the United States Senate

So at least he will have done one positive thing in his life.

Trump 'surprised' by Rosenstein canceling meeting on Hill

 

He was also surprised to learn that there's a country called Turkey! What's next, the Democratic Republic of Chicken Fingers?

USA Today Publishes Fact Check Of 'Misleading' Trump Op-Ed

I mean, sure they could fact check things BEFORE they publish them, but who has time?


Kanye West Says He Was Misdiagnosed With Bipolar Disorder

Yeah, I'm actually just batshit insane.

Things that make me feel stabby

Thing # 1:

BREAKING: Former VP @joebiden will present this year’s #LibertyMedal award to former President George W. Bush and former First Lady @laurawbush for their commitment to veterans.

The ceremony will take place on #VeteransDay, November 11, in #Philadelphia: https://t.co/jnl1ouWrmk pic.twitter.com/KdcYhDHy31

— National Constitution Center (@ConstitutionCtr) October 10, 2018

Oh my god.
First of all, what the hell, Biden?
Bush 43, like every other Republican monster, has an entire cottage industry devoted to rewriting history to salvage his legacy. We don't need prominent Democrats helping to rehabilitate his reputation.

Oh, and Dubya is committed to veterans now? NOW? As a private citizen? Too bad he didn't spend eight years in charge of the Veterans' Administration. Too bad he was never in a position of  influence over our nation's budget. Too bad he was never in a position to steer more much-needed funds to veterans' services. Oh, and too bad he was never the "decider" as to whether or not the troops were sent in to war on the flimsiest of pretenses. It's really a shame, given his obvious love for the veterans, that he was never the guy who could have allowed the veterans to come home alive and in one piece.

Fuck this guy, he should be in the Hague. He should be getting shackles, not medals. And fuck you, Joe Biden for participating in this glorification and faux redemption of this nasty, stupid, vicious little man.



Thing #2:



This asshole:

GOP House nominee: We can stop rape by ‘educating females’

By

 Emily Crockett

 -

October 9, 2018

That can't really be what he said, right? Right?

During the fifth debate in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District between Riggleman and his Democratic opponent, veteran journalist Leslie Cockburn, an audience member asked both candidates how they proposed to reduce incidences of rape and sexual assault.
Riggleman replied with … this.
“As far as what’s going on on campus … I think a lot of it comes to educating females, specifically in the fraternities and sororities that they’re a part of,” Riggleman said.

I know it's not the point here, it's nowhere near the point, but does this guy think that women join both sororities AND fraternities?

But mainly, fuck this guy. What a scumbag. Although not as big a bag of scum as this guy:


Thing #3:

Pro-Kavanaugh Councilman: ‘Better Get Your Coat Hangers Ready’

I don't even know how to respond to this. Except to say that it's obvious these fuckers don't actually care about preventing abortions, they just want the women who have them to suffer. If you cared about the "sanctity of the unborn" or whatever, you wouldn't make jokes about back alley abortions. Also, if you were any kind of a halfway decent human being, you wouldn't joke about this.

And, as this son of a bitch is clearly not a halfway decent excuse for a human being, it may not surprise you to learn that he is virulently homophobic.



Yep, he's trotting out the old tried-and-absolutely-not-true "gay guys are pedophiles" line. In the 21st Century.

Voters first elected Barber in November 2016, when he ran as a Democrat. He left the party in 2017 and became an independent, accusing Wood County Democratic Party Chairman Daryl Cobranchi of “anti-Christian rhetoric” after Barber refused to a support a non-discrimination ordinance Cobranchi supported. The ordinance would’ve extended nondiscrimination protections to LGBT residents.

There are actually even more things making me feel stabby today, but I am told that I have dinner plans and I must go.

A Worse Ad. Much, Much Worse.

I know, I know, the Kavanaugh debacle is kind of yesterday's news, but I just saw this ad on Twitter.

Catholic moms created an ad in support of Kavanaugh in tribute to their sons who they fear can be attacked one day by lying women claiming sexual harrassment...
"if it could happen to him..." pic.twitter.com/dx5Gge16OV

— ᴿealfarmacist (@real_farmacist) October 7, 2018

It is just astounding to me that there are actual living, breathing women who could have watched Dr. Blasey-Ford's and Bret Kavanaugh's testimony and think, not "that could be my daughter." or "that could be me." or "That was me," but "oh, my God, that could be my son!"


And this video - My God! First of all, you're assuming that your sons are going to grow up to be "Men of Virtue, Integrity and Courage." That's a hell of a leap. Like no son raised by a Catholic mom has ever grown up to be a crook or a coward or oh, I don't know, a date rapist. All sons grow up to be athletes, scholars, firefighters and soldiers. And, as we all know, none of those professions have ever harbored any sexual predators!








And now there's a whole #HimToo thing.




Because, you know, this is a thing that totally happens. Women go around making false accusations of rape because they love getting death threats and being called a whore on Twitter.



Yeah, that's way more scared than the parents of daughters who will be dating the boys you are raising to think that women are a bunch of lying psychos who want to destroy their lives for some reason.

Like what is it these people think is going to happen? Like a boy is going to go on a date with a girl and then she'll say "Aha! You fell for my little trap! Now I shall go to the police with a false accusation and DESTROY YOUR LIFE!!!!  For, um . . . some reason. I guess, really, at the end of the day, I've just always wanted to destroy some random dude's life. That's just how we girls are, ya know?"

yeah. It's a really scary time for dudes right now.