Videos

I was going to say that this was the worst campaign ad of 2017:




But then I saw this headline:

Congressman apologizes for recording video in Auschwitz gas chamber

In his defense, at least the video was anti-Holocaust. These days, it wouldn't surprise me either way especially from a Louisiana Republican.

"A great sense of dread comes over you in this place," Higgins, a former law enforcement officer who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, says in the video. "Man's inhumanity to man can be quite shocking."

Yes. Yes, it can be quite shocking how inhumane humans can be towards each other. Case in point:

'Kill them all,' Rep. Clay Higgins says of suspected Islamic extremists

Yes, it's the same fucking guy!

The free world... all of Christendom... is at war with Islamic horror. Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identify them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.
-Captain Clay Higgins

Flashback Friday -- Shonen Knife

Three perfectly harmless-looking young ladies from Japan, Shonen Knife has been churning out perfect garage-punk/power-pop records since the early 1980's.
We saw them at Slim's in San Francisco in the mid-90's. The main thing I remember was a man in the audience yelling out "I want to have your baby," and one of the Shonens replying, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say, "Oh, thank you very much," and launching into the next song without missing a beat.
Anyway, here they are, enjoy!

How to speak Conservative

FOX's Abby Huntsman and Morgan Ortagus just put on a master class in how to speak Conservative:

Fox’s Huntsman ‘Asks’ If Democrats’ Criticisms Of Trumpcare ‘Risk Inciting’ Violence

C'mon, guys. You heard those criticisms of Trumpcare! Let's get violent!

Huntsman kicked off the propaganda by saying, “Lawmakers promised to clean up the fiery rhetoric on Capitol Hill but it didn’t last very long.”
As the banner on the screen read, “DEMS RETURN TO INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC,” clips were played of various Democrats, plus independent Bernie Sanders, blasting the bill:

Oh, this should be good. If there's one group known for their fiery rhetoric, it's Congressional Democrats!

Woah, woah, dial it down a notch, fellas!

Sen. Sanders: This is a barbaric and immoral piece of legislation.

Rep. Steve Cohen: It’s kind of like a death part two.

Schumer: The Senate Republican Healthcare bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Warren: These cuts are blood money. People will die.

Huntsman gave a melodramatic “whooooo” to suggest an answer to her “question”: “But do Democrats, with their latest attacks on health care risk inciting further violence?”

Okay, you obviously have no idea how to do "inflamatory rhetoric" re: healthcare. Let's see how the experts do it:




See, there's no Trump as Hitler, or Trump as the Joker, or Trump as a racist caricature.

Also, if you want your rhetoric to incite violence, you're probably gonna want something like this:

So, that's lesson number one in how to speak Conservative. Always accuse your opponent of doing whatever your side has done and/or is still doing while never once acknowledging the fact that your side has done the thing in question. In this case, pretend that Democrats are engaging in dangerously violent rhetoric, AND act as if this is some new thing that they invented that has never been seen before, certainly not from conservatives anyway!

Huntsman turned to conservative Morgan Ortagus. .  . “What do you make of the most recent rhetoric coming from the left?” Huntsman asked.

“It’s actually quite disturbing… If you’re a child in the 4th grade and you’re watching the nightly news, you’re seeing Kathy Griffin hold a picture of the president’s severed head.

Lesson #2:

It's always about the children! The children's delicate ears and eyes must be protected while they're sitting in the living room watching the evening news because that's a thing that children do.
Whether it's a fear that they will hear about Bill Clinton getting a bj and be scarred for life, or see a report about Donald Trump boasting about grabbing women by the p**sy, the important thing is not that Bill Clinton should never have been impeached over his gross personal life or that the current President is an admitted sexual assaulter, the point is that children are being exposed to bad things and it's the Democrats' fault, or the liberal media's fault, or anyone's fault other than the sexual predator in the White House.

You’re seeing crazed liberals literally shoot congressmen at a baseball practice

Lesson # 3. Find an example, a single example. of something outrageous and pretend that the person doing the outrageous thing represents the left as a whole.

Back in the old days, before podcasts were invented, I used to sometimes catch bits of the Rush Limbaugh while flipping through the radio channels. I would usually listen for a few minutes for the same reason it's hard to look away from a car crash, and I remember one time he had a report about a professor of philosophy in some college in Florida, I think, who had postulated the exisrence of the "male lesbian." Well, every time I ran across Limbaugh for the next couple weeks at least, I would hear him referencing the "male lesbian" as if it was somehow emblematic of the foolishness of liberal academe or something, like it wasn't one guy in one school and not knowing the context, Hell, he might even be right.





In this case, there was ONE crazed person (liberal? Maybe) who shot a Congressman. So, to a Conservative, that one deranged person can be  made to represent the entire democratic party, and having seen one shooter morphs into "you're seeing crazed liberals literally shoot congressmen."

and you’re hearing major leaders of the Democrat Party  tell young children and tell the whole United States that Republicans want people do die. This is irresponsible!

Lesson #4:  Criticize vaguely.
 Your opponents warn that your healthcare bill will cause needless deaths? Complain that they are saying you want people to die. Don't attribute the statement to anyone in particular, just say "Major leaders" of the Party. Or "many on the left are saying. . ." That way, you can never be held accountable. If an actual leader of the Democratic Party, like Nancy Pelosi for instance, challenges you saying "I never said that Republicans want people to die!" You can simply smile and say "I never said that YOU said that, Congresswoman. But some of your party's leaders have!" Bingo, you're libel-suit-proof!

“The leaders of the Democrat Party need to stand up and criticize Hillary Clinton, criticize Johnny Depp and all these people that are calling for the death of our president

Lesson #5: The Lump-in

Did Johnny Depp call for the death of the president? Maybe. I know he said something along those lines, I don't care enough about what a wife-beater has to say about a p**sy-grabber to look it up. But Hillary Clinton certainly didn't. And technically, Ortagus never said she did, but by lumping her in with Depp and "all these people" calling for the President's death, it definitely sounds that way. And when your audience consists of people who think it's plausible that Hillary ran a child sex ring out of a DC pizzeria, that's going to register.

Watch the masters at work.

Things I saw om Twitter

As someone once said "oh, the things you see when you haven't got a gun!"


First up, Twenty-First Century Cotton Mathers and man who has never pooped without feeling guilty Vice President Mike Pence:

Before summer’s out, we'll repeal/replace Obamacare w/ system based on personal responsibility, free-market competition & state-based reform pic.twitter.com/JzCyxX9kJb

— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) June 24, 2017

"Personal responsibility." That's Republican talk for "if you're sick, it's your own damn fault. Shoulda been healthier!" Which is an argument you could, if you were fairly heartless, make about someone who has lung cancer from smoking, or cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much, or an std because they don't like the way condoms feel or whatever. But most folks don't get to choose their illnesses. Many are born with them. I know a couple whose son was born with MS. I guess that was pretty irresponsible of him.



Second: The guy who replied to this perfectly reasonable, factual tweet:

It seems fitting that, with the #TrumpCare debate raging, I got this bill in the mail today from Ethan's most recent open heart surgery. pic.twitter.com/pyUE2UxbWW

— Ali (@aliranger29) June 24, 2017

with this bullshit:

Funny thing about that is no hospital would turn you away with or without insurance. They will do the procedures either way. So he good.

— Ryan (@ryanmcd92) June 24, 2017

Okay, first of all, the only part of a hospital that is required to treat you whether or not you can pay is the Emergency Room. Now I'm no expert, and maybe it differs from hospital to hospital, but I don't think you can get open-heart surgery in the E.R. unless you're currently dying of a heat attack, and even then they would probably just stabilize you and then you'd go into the regular hospital procedure? I don't know, maybe you could try getting shot in the heart?


Second, let's say she had no insurance and she did take her son to the ER and they did do open-heart surgery on him even though she had no insurance so, ya know, "he good." Let's say she did that. Then what? Then she gets charged the entire $200,000 fee, and I'm guessing it would be more if it happened in the ER, but let's stay with 200k. If she can't afford insurance, you think she has $200,000 in her bank account? You think she has $200,000 equity in her home? If she did have that kind of money, she would probably already have spent it on her son's previous surgery/ies. So it's bankruptcy court and a life of poverty for her! But yeah, our healthcare system is the greatest in the world!




Third: Republican who used to be considered the far right of the party until the party went so far off the rails that he is sometimes considered a "moderate," and winner of the greater DC-area Jeff Sessions look-alike contest, Utah's Orrin Hatch:

The brief time when we were *not* accusing those we disagree with of murder was nice while it lasted. https://t.co/qr1rzon1cg

— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) June 23, 2017

Oh, and that was in response to this Tweet from Senator Bernie Sanders:

Let us be clear and this is not trying to be overly dramatic: Thousands of people will die if the Republican health care bill becomes law.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 23, 2017

So, I'm not really sure that ol' Orrin understands what an accusation of murder is. If I say, "hey, don't put the barbecue so close to the house, you could start a fire and kill us all!" That's not an accusation of murder. It's advice. It's how-to-not-kill-a-bunch-of-people advice. Same as saying "hey, don't pass this horrible healthcare bill, it will result in the deaths of thousands of people" isn't an accusation. It's a statement of hope that you are a decent and intelligent enough person to avoid doing something which will cause many many deaths. Is that confidence misplaced? Obviously. But Bernie is an eternal optimist and hope springs eternal. The rest of us know that you're a cold, soulless, un-dead entity that feeds upon the misery of innocents. Which is why you fit in so well with the rest of the GOP ghouls.

Also, where was your phony umbrage when your entire party was howling about "death panels?"


 


 Last up: Author of much of our nation's collapse into third-world status and anthropomorphized rodent dropping Grover Norquist:

How Republicans are born...
Daughter, 8, has been savings up to buy her first Guitar.
Found it for $35. She had 35 exact.
Then...sales tax

— Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) June 25, 2017

Well, to be fair, he's right in a way. This is how Republicans are born. They are born when their parents are too stupid, too ignorant, or just too plain shitty to explain to them the connection between taxes and government services. Any sane, rational parent would tell his daughter something along the lines of  "yeah, I know, it's no fun paying taxes, but you know how we had to drive on some roads to get to the guitar store? Well, it's our taxes that payed to build those roads and to fix them when there are potholes or broken pavement or whatever. And you know how we got here without your $35 being stolen from you? That's because we pay a little bit of tax and that allows the city to hire policemen and put the bad guys in jails and hire people to guard the jails so the bad guys don't get out! So maybe it's not so bad that your $35 guitar is going to cost about $39 instead, right? What do you think, sweetie?"

But no, someone with the infantile mindset of a Grover Norquist either can't make that connection himself, or is willingly leaving his daughter ignorant of the basic facts if how societies work so that she too can grow up to be another angry, ill-informed teabagger who thinks it's just totally unfair that the government gets to take some of her money.

I am reminded of an episode of Parks & Rec in which Ron Swanson somehow gets the assignment of teaching a child about how government works for some homework project she had. He illustrates this by taking a bite of her sandwich and saying that he represents the government. "that's not fair, it's my sandwich," says the girl,and Swanson says something about how that's just how government is, they just take some of your stuff as if they were the mafia or something.
Never does it occur to him that without the government there would be no sandwich.
Without government, there is no road to get to the grocery store.
With no government, as you're walking to the store, there's no reason to think you won't be robbed, because there are no cops, no courts, no jails, so criminals just roam free.
In fact, the grocery store is probably out of business because it was getting robbed every day.
And if there is no government, there is no money, no legal tender, so you're having to barter at the store, hopefully the grocer will want some of the apples from your tree enough to trade them for bread, meat, cheese, etc.
Without the FDA and the CDC, you have no reason to think that you won't get salmonella from the mayo, or E. coli from the lunchmeat or listeria from the lettuce.
You get the idea.
Because you're not a 61-year-old Libertarrian man-baby who doesn't understand how life works.

Horrors in the News

I don't know what's going on with the universe today, but there seem to be more horrors than usual in the news.



Horror #1:

Federal court rules Mississippi businesses can discriminate against LGBTQ people

Bil Browning · Thursday, June 22, 2017

A federal appeals court says Mississippi can start enforcing a law that will let merchants and government employees cite religious beliefs to deny services to same-sex couples.

Merchants and GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES!
Because, you know, equal protection under the law sounds nice om paper, but in real life. . .meh?

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves had ruled that the law unconstitutionally establishes preferred beliefs and creates unequal treatment for LGBT people.

Yeah, I think that's a feature, not a bug.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant and other supporters say the law protects beliefs that marriage can be between only a man and a woman, and that a person’s gender is determined at birth and cannot be changed.

A: No it doesn't. You are free to believe whatever you want. Having to issue a marriage license or bake a weeding cake for a same-sex couple doesn't prevent you from believing whatever awful shit you want to believe.

B: Those are false beliefs. The Supreme Court has ruled on what marriage is in the United States and marriage is NOT only for hetero couples.



Horror # 2:

Men Legally Allowed to Finish Sex Even If Woman Revokes Consent, NC Law States

• Kimberly Lawson

Jun 22 2017, 2:33pm

North Carolina is the one state where the law explicitly says you cannot revoke consent once it's given. A bill that would remove this "unacceptable loophole" has little traction.

I don't have any smart-alecky comments to make about this truly horrifying piece of news.

The state Supreme Court, however, disagreed with the lower court's interpretation of withdrawn consent. "If the actual penetration is accomplished with the woman's consent, the accused is not guilty of rape, although he may be guilty of another crime because of his subsequent actions," the High Court wrote.
As a result, for the past 38 years, women in North Carolina—like 19-year-old Aaliyah Palmer, who allegedly agreed to have sex with a man at a party but changed her mind when he got violent—have been unable to legally revoke consent after sexual intercourse begins. "It's really stupid," Palmer recently told the Fayetteville Observer. "If I tell you no and you kept going, that's rape."

Yeah, I got nothing. It's really just too horrible for words.


Horror # 3:

Using Birth Control or Getting an Abortion Could Disqualify You From Jobs in Missouri

Reproductive rights have been taking a hit left and right, and now folks living in Missouri may be facing another setback. Their state Senate has just voted to pass a bill this past Wednesday night after 10 hours of closed-door meetings that, if fully approved, could legally allow hiring managers to discriminate against those who have gotten abortions in the past, as well as applicants who use birth control.

The legislation. . . would repeal a St. Louis ordinance that bans employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion, use contraceptives or are pregnant.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article156309839.html?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB#storylink=cpy

You know, when I saw the movie The Handmaid's Tale back in the 90s and I read an interview with Margaret Atwood in which she warned that this could be the future, I thought she was a bit nutty. Obviously I owe Ms Atwood an apology. Also Susan Faludi, whom as a naive young college boy I thought was way off base about the Backlash..
Also, I owe an apology to the English language for the structure of that last sentence.


Horror # 4:

Stuff Christian Culture Likes

June 20 at 4:03pm ·

One of the fathers from this Slate article was arrested on charges of child molestation. (Link to arrest record in the comments.) http://www.slate.com/…/david_magnusson_purity_is_an_examina…

 

Striking Portraits of Fathers and the Daughters Whose Virginity They’ve Pledged to Protect

 


















 The shocking thing is that only one of them has been arrested for child molestation.

 

After all these horrors, I feel like we should close on some good news. And as an indication of how horrible everything is right now, the "good news" has to do with a man being stabbed by an alleged terrorist.

Reuters

2 hours ago

Suspect in Michigan airport stabbing attempted to buy gun before attack

The man charged with stabbing an airport police officer in Michigan unsuccessfully attempted to purchase a gun before the attack, which is being investigated as an act of terrorism, federal officials said on Thursday.

That's right. He attempted to purchase a gun, was unsuccessful, and instead turned to another handy murder weapon, a hunting knoife, which is what the NRA degenerates always say will happen if the bad people are not allowed to get guns. They'll just commit murders with knives and rocks and pointed sticks instead, right? Guns don't kill people etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Oh, that's not the good news. This is:

The suspect, Amor Ftouhi, 49, of Quebec, Canada, has been charged in federal court with violence at an international airport for stabbing Jeff Neville, an officer at the Bishop International Airport in Flint, in the neck on Wednesday. Neville underwent surgery and is expected to recover.

IS EXPECTED TO RECOVER! Hmm, how about that? The bad guy couldn't get a gun, used a knife instead, and the victim SURVIVED! This asshole's inability to get his hands on a gun saved a life today. Gun control works.