Ruination Day

Just change the date from April 14 to Jan 20, 2017.

A new record

This has to be the fastest that any ever re-written history.

 

Reince Priebus on John Lewis: You didn’t see Republicans questioning the legitimacy of Obama’s victory in 2008

“We need folks like John Lewis and others who I think have been champions of voter rights to actually recognize the fact that Donald Trump was duly elected.”
He called it “incredibly disappointing” and “irresponsible” for someone of Lewis’ stature to question Trump’s legitimacy as president.
“I think in fact President Obama could step up,” Priebus said, suggesting that the White House should come out in Trump’s favor.

And Priebus wasn't the only one to get all Orwellian with the recent past.

During an interview on CNN's "Newsroom" with Poppy Harlow on Saturday, conservative radio host Ben Ferguson criticized Lewis for his comments and said he couldn't believe a congressman of Lewis' stature could question the President-elect's legitimacy.

"It is unprecedented," Ferguson said. "I cannot imagine the fallout, the backfire that you would have if a Republican would have ever implied that about Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or JFK, or anyone else for that matter."

 

You know, I know that re-writing history is one of the GOP's specialties. I'm sure they're proud of how good they are at it, so I could see where they'd want to show off their talent for mendacity. But for fuck sake, you usually at least wait a few years before you start trotting out alternative versions of previous events like "the Iraq war was a failure of intelligence" or "The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression" or "Ronald Reagan personally kicked over the Berlin Wall." This time, they're not even waiting for it to be the past. They're re-writing the present.


 

 They really think that people have already somehow forgotten that conservatives have spent the last 8 years pretending to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and thus ineligible to serve as President?

 


 And it wasn't just the nuts in the tri-corner hats waving racist signs and threatening insurrection who questioned the Presiden'ts birth certificate.  You had actual members of Congress like Steve Stockman, Ted Yoho, and Steve King proposing investigations into the legitimacy of President Obama.



 John McCain, to his credit, did not indulge in birtherism. He did, however,  make the absurd claim that ACORN was committing massive vote fraud on behalf of candidate Obama which, if it had been true, would have made his election illegitimate.

And I guess we're supposed to have somehow already forgotten that the leader of the birther movement was none other than Il Douche himself, Orange Julius Caesar, Donald Trump?


 

 

 

 I mean, my God! The level of shamelessness, the audacity, the sheer gall it takes to go on national TV and say something like that! It's astounding! Even by Republican standards.

Every time you think they've hit rock-bottom in human decency, they find rock-bottom's subbasement.

Sickening Tweets

 



First sickening Tweet comes from "Men's Rights Activist" Paul Elam:








This from a "man" who thinks he's owed an apology every time a rapist gets arrested.

Oh, but I left out the context.  The Anne Frank Center sent out a tweet pointing out that Donald Trump comparing his tribulation of being mocked on social media with the actual, literal slaughter of millions of Jews was, to say the least, in bad taste.



And this sniveling little manbaby saw their tweet and. . . was offended? I guess? Because it's been like 50 years or whatever and Jews still haven't gotten over it?
Which is ironic since Elam still hasn't gotten over the trauma of being made to take medicine when he was sick.
Seriously

Men’s rights activists often cite the first time they realized it’s a woman’s world. They call these “red pill” moments, after the scene in The Matrix when the main character is faced with the decision to swallow a red pill and recognize the true nature of the world or take a blue pill and continue living a lie. For Elam, that revelation came at age 13, when his mother tried to force him to take his diarrhea medicine.
Elam’s brothers held him down on the kitchen floor while his mother screamed and hit him with a wooden spoon until a concerned neighbor knocked on the door. “I felt like I was engaged in the battle of my life,” Elam said. “I was a rebel from that moment on … I’m still that 13-year-old kid on the floor that won’t take the medicine.”
: https://www.buzzfeed.com/adamserwer/how-mens-rights-leader-paul-elam-turned-being-a-deadbeat-dad?utm_term=.gm8llv2Mq#.dc7XXLo5e

Thirteen? You were thirteen? Who has to be forced to take medicine at thirteen? By thirteen years old, most people have a rudimentary understanding of the relationship between the taking of medicine and no longer being sick. Why would you refuse to take medicine? Was it the unpleasant taste, or did you just hate the idea of no longer shitting yourself?

Several years ago, we were at our friends' for some occasion when they had to give their 4-year-old daughter some medication. This small child stated for the record "medicine yucky," then opened her little mouth and swallowed the medicine because that tiny pre-school-aged child understood that she would be sicker without it. Now I know that girls mature a bit more quickly than boys (sorry, misandry alert!) but how the fuck do you not make that connection at thirteen?

This is not a story you should tell. This is more like a story that your mom should tell when she's saying "Jesus, I tried to make him into a normal fucking person!"


Second sickening tweet comes from Congressman Randy Weber

The CNN reporter who was disruptive to the press briefing, & disrespectful to Trump-should be fired & prohibited from any press briefings.

— Randy Weber (@TXRandy14) January 12, 2017

Holy shit, that is really alarming. This is how it starts. When someone who is not just some idiot with a Twitter account, but an actual member of the federal government, believes that a member of the fourth estate should be punished for daring to disrespect the dear leader, that is a big step down a very dark road.

And forget about the rank hypocrisy of a member of a party that spent 8 years disrespecting, insulting and obstructing the current President, this is disquieting in and of itself. No authority figure, including the President, ESPECIALLY the president, is above criticism. That is one of the core American principles, that you are allowed to criticize, condemn, or denounce the President or the mayor, or the governor, or anyone. And there can be no consequences, other than being criticized, condemned or or denounced oneself.

I had more, but the computer keeps freezing up, so I'm taking that as a sign to go to bed.

Idiot has too much time on his hands

So this showed up on my Twitter feed the other day:

No, Wonder Woman is not queer. You’re just a post-modern moron


By: Steve Deace |

And you know, if you want people to read your column, start out with a juvenile insult. Oh, no wait. It's a joke. Start with a joke. Anyway. . .

The cost of being a superhero has been reflected upon in many of the recent DC and Marvel movie franchises. The mighty responsibility of being able to avoid bad things happening to good people, but minus the transcendence of knowing whether you always should and what the collateral damage will be if you do.

"Being able to avoid bad things happening to good people?" That's a superpower now? Look! Up in the sky! It's Captain Avoidance!

Turns out no matter how cool these movies are visually, their true depth relies on something that isn’t remotely futuristic or cutting edge. These are profoundly human stories. These are stories filled with soul. 

Soul? These are silly, escapist fantasies aimed at 12-year-olds for the sole purpose of making money. You may be reading a bit much into them if you think they are "stories filled with soul."

The butler Alfred tells Bruce Wayne that the duty of Batman is to “endure” what others cannot. That’s a Christ-like sacrifice.

Well, the butler was wrong. There's nothing Christ-like about Batman. He kicks the bad guys' asses. He doesn't let them kill him.

Take THAT. Pontious Pilate!

Kal-El/Clark Kent is a Mosaic exile from a doomed culture sent upstream to inspire humanity with his messianic altruism.

I'm no superhero expert, but wasn't Clark sent to Earth to save his own life because his home planet was about to blow up? Maybe he did end up inspiring humanity, but he was sent here by his father to have a chance to survive the coming apocalypse on Krypton.

All of these characters must bear their cross and suffer a Christ-like descent into hell to perform their service to humanity. That’s why their characters, even with their flaws, are cornerstones of the pop culture zeitgeist. They mirror both our Adamic frailty/sinfulness as well as the imago dei each of us possesses, which inspires us to be something more than a fallen son of Adam and a daughter of Eve.

But mostly, they're just super-neato!

Unfortunately, that may be about to change. Because, you see, progressives can’t help themselves, especially once infested with the contagion known as post-modernism. Like a swarm of locusts, they cannot stop tearing down everything that is right and just until the entire harvest of good crops has been devoured, leaving only a barren wasteland of nihilism behind.

Damn it! He's on to us!

A recent Time magazine article delved into this ever-so-shallow pool of philosophical larceny, when comic book author Greg Rucka considered the nature of Diana Prince’s/Wonder Woman’s Amazonian heritage.

“When you start to think about giving the concept of [her female-only homeland] its due, the answer is, ‘How can they not all be in same-sex relationships?’ Right? It makes no logical sense otherwise. It’s supposed to be paradise. You’re supposed to be able to live happily. You’re supposed to be able … to have a fulfilling, romantic and sexual relationship. And the only options are women.
Now, are we saying Diana has been in love and had relationships with other women? As Nicole and I approach it, the answer is obviously yes.”

Pictures don't lie!

Now this seems pretty hard to dispute. If Wonder Woman comes from a placed where only women exist (which I did not know, but apparently she does) it stands to reason that she would have had same-sex relations. I don't know how you could argue that.

So, how much question-begging do you have time for? Because that is rubbish.
Only a hell-hole mistaken for a paradise— whose real-life source material insists that men in dresses pee in women’s bathrooms — could arrive at such a conclusion. That’s just another way of saying that this author’s definition of paradise may be partaking in one of the classic blunders: paving the road to hell with fake good intentions.

Holy shit, that's some serious gibberish!

First of all, what the hell does question-begging have to do with it? In what way did Greg Rucka use the conclusion of his argument as one of the premises?

Also, how could a hell-hole arrive at a conclusion? Because if you had ever taken a high school English class, you'd be able to see that that is what your third sentence is claiming. "Only a hell-hole. . .could arrive at such a conclusion."

And trans women using women's restrooms is the source material for what? For the hell-hole?

And I'm not sure that a definition of Paradise, not being a sentient entity with any sort of agency,  is capable of partaking in anything, let alone a "classic blunder" that sounds more like intentional dissembling than a blunder of any kind and NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE!

First, the upcoming Wonder Woman movie makes clear that far from being without male influence, her very life and culture is owed to the male god Zeus. Might that not be the plumb line we should operate from in deciphering not only sexual relations but all morality within this universe? I don’t seem to recall any discussion in the Greek pantheon where Zeus must first check in with Bruce Jenner before making a ruling on matters of state from Mount Olympus.

Okay. . . in the Judeo-Christian worldview, all men owe their existence to Jaweh (aka God the Father) so by your logic, all Christian men must be attracted to other men, since being created by Zeus requires Wonder Woman to be hetero and also WONDER WOMAN IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER AND WHOEVER WRITES THE COMIC BOOKS CAN HAVE HER LOVE FICTIONAL DICK OR FICTIONAL PUSSY AND WHO GIVES A SHIT?

Also, what the Hell does Bruce Jenner have to do with anything?

Is it Diana’s true identity to be freaky as she wants to be or not? Don’t shackle those poor Amazonians with all your self-important man-splaining. If an American kindergartener and his parents can insist, for any reason they want, that the boy is a girl, and the rest of us simply have to deal with it, then those Amazonians don’t have to fit into your obtuse categories, either. Just add another letter onto the end of the LGBTXYZ train and be done with it, you troglodyte

Freaky? What's freaky? A same-sex relationship? Pretty sure same-sex couples don't get any freakier than us heteros.

Oooohhh. . . kinky!

Also, "If an American kindergartener and his parents can insist, for any reason they want, that the boy is a girl, and the rest of us simply have to deal with it?"

Do you think that's what happens in the real world?
That just for no reason at all, just on a lark, some little boy and his parents will decide to pretend to be a girl? That they will just for no reason decide that they want to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous bigotry and hatred just for a laugh? Is that how you think this sort of thing works?
Also, the rest of us don't "simply have to deal with it," because it doesn't affect us. At all. If a small child is transgendered, it affects that small child. It's no one else's concern. Well, except for Pat McCrory.

Third, Rucka says Wonder Woman’s relationship with this world’s war hero, Steve Trevor, couldn’t possibly be uniquely characteristic of her sexuality. Why? Because if she was “only interested in men, then fans could interpret her departure from (her home world) as an attempt to pursue (that relationship).” That interpretation, he says, would undermine “both the sacrifice she makes leaving her home and her heroism.”
So if she’s straight, she’s a hypocrite. But if she’s gay, she’s Joan of Arc? Totally get it now. Wait, no I don’t. I thought love is love. Why won’t you jerks just let poor Diana be happy in her multi-world bi-curiousness? How is her not-totally gay, maybe-someday fictional marriage affecting you anyway?

Um, you're the one writing a big old screed about this fictional character's fictional love life.
And I know you're trying to be sarcastic here, but you actually seem to have inadvertently gotten this right. You're right that love is love. And if she comes from the land of the Amazons and is now dating a man, she may well be bisexual.  And you're right that her fictional relationships don't affect you anyway, so why don't you just shut the fuck up about it already?

And lastly, why cast the drop-dead gorgeous Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman if the essence of being Amazonian is more connected to homosexuality than classical notions of femininity? Why not go full Ghostbusters? Cast Melissa McCarthy, put her in a baggy t-shirt and some sweatpants instead of a form-fitting suit of armor, and have her protest us to death? -

Okay, first of all, fuck you.
Second, Gal Gadot is a real person? Because damn if that doesn't sound exactly like a comic book character name!

Third, you know Melissa McCarthy isn't the lesbian in the Ghostbusters cast, right?

It's Kate McKinnon.



Kate McKinnon, who, besides being possibly the funniest person on planet Earth, is also pretty much the dictionary definition of "drop-dead gorgeous."

Does Kate McKinnon not fit into your "classical notions of femininity?"



 Does Portia DeRossi?





 Does Ellen Page?





 Michelle Rodriguez?




It may surprise you to learn that out here in the real world, LGBT people don't always conform to your tired stereotypes. Some do, and that's fine, more power to the fashion-conscious gay men and Birckenstock-wearing lesbians out there. But I can't imagine what a cloisterd life you must have lived up to this point if you think that a woman who loves women must necessarily be heavy-set and wearing sweat pants and whatever else you picture in your sad stupid little mind when you picture gay people.

I also can't imagine what in your life could have led you to the point where you're upset about the love life of a fictional, made-up, non-existent character in a comic book.

Credit where credit is not due

So the new Congress met for the first time and the first thing they decided to do was to gut the office of Congressional Ethics, because it might tend to interfere a little bit with their grift 'n' graft approach to governing. When the news broke, thousands of angry citizens flooded the Congressional switchboard demanding that their representatives not make such a blatantly pro-corruption move. And the GOP backed down. So, yea! Democracy in action! The system works! The representatives of the people actually responded to the people they represent. Everyone's a winner and drinks are on the house!

But, little noticed among the hailstorm of angry phone calls and e-mails from the citizenry was a pair of Tweets from Il Douche criticizing (sorta) the move against oversight. Little noticed by everyone, it seems, except the Washington press corps who rushed to credit Putin's pet orangutan with having forced this Congressional change of course.

House Republicans pull plan to gut independent ethics committee after Trump tweets

CNN - ‎Jan 3, 2017‎

House Republicans back off gutting ethics watchdog after backlash from Trump

Washington Post - ‎Jan 3, 201

House GOP reverses course on gutting ethics office after Trump takes a whack at them

Business Insider - ‎Jan 3, 2017‎

 

 Here's an especially egregious example from the once-respected Washington Post:

Even when Trump shows backbone, his haters refuse to give him any credit

By James Hohmann January 4 at 10:06 A

THE BIG IDEA: It took grit and gumption for Donald Trump to call out House Republicans yesterday.

Grit and gumption. Really. Grit and gumption to "call out" House Republicans? First of all, these were  the Tweets:

With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

........may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

He's not exactly "calling them out." He's not even asking or suggesting that they reverse course on this. He certainly isn't saying it's a bad idea. He's just saying that maybe some other terrible destructive ideas might be a little more urgent?

And secondly, how much "grit and gumption" would it take for Trump to call out these cowards? 99% of them couldn't even bring themselves to criticize him during the campaign. How many of these craven, spineless weaklings even withheld their endorsements? For Fuck sake, Paul Ryan, the leader of the Hose Repubs tried to have it both ways, saying that "sure, obviously Trump is a horrible racist, but that doesn't mean I don't endorse him! Maybe I do, maybe I don't! Oh, he won? Yes, then I heartily endorse this wonderful man."

Maybe he did not fully comprehend the risks of criticizing the very lawmakers whom he needs most to advance his agenda, but two tweets from the president-elect were pivotal to saving the Office of Congressional Ethics from being declawed and neutered.

Oh my God, where to even begin with this sentence?
"Maybe he did not fully comprehend?" The list of things that President Cartman doesn't fully comprehend would fill a dictionary.

And "the very lawmakers whom he needs most to advance his agenda?" What agenda? He has no agenda! "Making America great again" is not an agenda. What agenda items do you think he has in his day planner that Congressional Republicans would have to be cajoled into supporting? Deporting all the Mexicans? They've all campaigned on that plan for years now. And it's not going to happen. Build a wall? Not going to happen. Muslim registry? Might happen, but the House GOP won't exactly need to have their arms twisted to go along with that program.

 Other than that, what grand plans does he have that he will need Congress for? "bomb the shit out of them" and "start targeting their families" are both foreign policy atrocities that he could enact on his own. He has no agenda because he has no interest in governing. The Republican House and Senate will be sending him legislation copied from David Koch's vision board onto ALEC stationery, and he's going to shrug, say "sure, what the hell," and sign it. (probably after having Omarossa skim through it to be sure there aren't any cracks about his tiny hands hidden in there.)


Oh, and his two Tweets were "pivotal to saving the office?" Says who? You have any evidence of that? Has any member of Congress come out and said "I was totally going to go along with gutting the ethics office until I saw those two Tweets?"

A few Republicans claimed that Trump had nothing to do with the decision to scuttle the change. Liberal writers cited them as evidence. But of course they would say this. Who wants to publicly acknowledge that they just kowtowed to Trump?

via GIPHY

OhmyGOD!
So not only do you not have any evidence that Trump's Tweets had any effect, you actually have some evidence that they did not, but that evidence can be dismissed because. . . um . . . why? Because it contradicts your narrative?And why would a GOP congressman have any problem admitting that he had deferred to the president-elect and putative leader of his party? Seems like that would be kinda standard practice.

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told CNN in an interview that aired last night, “The only way we're going to work with him is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues.”
Think about how Schumer would have responded if Mitch McConnell made that statement about a President-elect Hillary Clinton

Well, we don't really have to imagine, do we? Because Mitch McConnell is on record as saying that his main objective was to so obstruct President Obama that he would be a one-term President. And as having said that the proudest moment of his career was flat-out refusing to even consider anyone that President Obama nominated to the Supreme Court. I don't recall Chuck Schumer throwing a fit over either of these statements, much to his eternal shame.

-- There really is something to the idea of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He operates so far outside the norms of how business has always been done in Washington, and his manner seems so gauche, that he provokes a visceral, occasionally irrational, reaction in serious, normally sober-minded people.

No, there really isn't. I mean the level of projection here. . . You want to see "derangement syndrome?" Take a look back at the reaction to a black man being elected President.




Obama hadn't even had time to do anything before these asses were dressing up like Paul revere and demanding "their" country back. That's what derangement looks like.

People are opposed to Donald Trump? Good. What's so deranged about that? Because I tell you what, people's opposition to Orange Julius Caesar has nothing to do with his gauchity or his acting "outside the norms." It has to do with the fact that he demonizes Mexicans as criminals and rapists. And that he wants to identify, register, and monitor those Americans of the Muslim faith. And that he brags about getting away with sexual assault. And that he has no idea what is involved in governence. And that he seems intent on using the Presidency to enrich himself and get revenge on his enemies. And that he is completely unsuited in every way to hold any position of responsibility, especially the highest office in the land.

Oh, and also the fact that he was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, the American Nazi Party, and every other white supremacist organization in the country and never refused their endorsements or denounced them or even really tried to distance himself from them. Hell, he made one of them his chief of staff. But sure, opposition to Trump is obviously "visceral" and "irrational." Just like opposition to an illegal war in Iraq was evidence of "Bush derangement syndrome."

Look at all this Hitler Derangement Syndrome!