We Don't Need You and We Don't Care What You Think.

They're so predictable. You could set your watch by them.
Every election year, all the very serious conservatives come out of the woodwork to sincerely offer their good-faith advice to the Democratic candidates.





Here's Tom Nichols in the pages of USA Today:

OPINION

Never Trumper: I'll vote for almost any Democrat, but lurching left won't beat Trump

This election is a referendum on Trump, and nothing else should come close as the central issue. His name alone should be enough to drive up turnout.

TOM NICHOLS | OPINION COLUMNIST

Oh, a "Never Trumper!" Oh, you're a member of that important demographic? Oh, well, by all means, you just go right ahead and dictate terms to the Democratic Party! You're such a valuable voting block! All half-dozen of you! The electoral importance of "Never Trumpers" ranks just above "Babies" and just below "Cryptozoology Moms" Of course you should be in a position to make demands about what kind of candidate you will accept from the opposing party.

Never Trumpers, of whom I am a charter member, fear that the Democrats and their unruly coalition are going to lurch to the left, lose the Electoral College again, and hand Trump a second term while the Democratic nominee claims another victory as the imperial regent of the Pacific Coast Empire.

Oh. Okay. Well why don't we nominate a bland, inoffensive middling moderate then? Someone with a lot of experience who won't go too far on any issue. Someone who likes Obamacare but assures us that single payer will never happen. Someone who talks about the environment but likes fracking and oil pipelines. Someone who thinks it might be okay to raise the minimum wage, but raising it to a livable level is just unreasonable! Someone like, oh, I don't know, Hillary Clinton?

Look, Tom. We don't need your vote. We don't need any of you "never Trump" Republicans' votes. You are not relevant. Trump got fewer votes in 2016 than Mitt Romney got in 2012. If the Clinton campaign had been able to energize the Democratic base the way Obama had in 2008 and 2012, she would have won. And it ain't like there's going to be any new Trump voters this time around. I don't think he's won over any skeptics with three years of buffoonery, graft and racist sadism. All the Democrats will need to do is generate some excitement among their voters. And you know how you don't do that? By nominating someone who is acceptable to a Never Trump Republican. If you people were at all sincere about your "never Trump" stand, you'd have voted for Hillary Clinton. And if you had any electoral power, you would have put her over the top. You didn't and you don't. We don't need your votes and we don't care what you think.


And of course David Brooks had to weigh in.

Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

Oh, yeah. We'd sure hate to lose David Brooks and the tens of readers over whom he has influence. Why, there must be at least a score of Times Readers who don't hate-read read David Brooks' column, but honestly look to Brooks for his insight and wisdom!

I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump. So my question to Democrats is: Will there be a candidate I can vote for?

This is a hell of a premise, and Brooks isn't the first to use it. "I could never vote for Trump, he's a racist, misogynist clown who is dangerously unqualified and too unstable to be trusted with the nuclear codes. I would never vote to put such a monstrous fool back into the most powerful office in the land. Unless the Dems nominate someone I don't like!" If you honestly understand the threat of another Trump term, you would vote for anyone the Dems put up. But by saying that you won't, you show that you really aren't serious.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 35 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, 35 percent call themselves moderate and 26 percent call themselves liberal. The candidates at the debates this week fall mostly within the 26 percent. The party seems to think it can win without any of the 35 percent of us in the moderate camp, the ones who actually delivered the 2018 midterm win.

Oh my God, where to begin?
How about since when are you a "moderate?" Just being a bit to the left of the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer hardly makes you a moderate.
Also, when you say "liberal," I assume you are using that term interchangably with "progressive" or "leftist," since you only allow for three categories. And if you think that candidates like Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gilibrand, John Hickenlooper, Pete Butiegieg, and Beto O'Rourke are on the Left, that just goes to show how far to the right you actually are.
Ans what eveidence do you have that "moderates" delivered the 2018 midterm wins? This would be the electoral wave that brought Ayanna Presley, Lucy McBath, Chuy Garcia, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Debra Haaland and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to DC? Is that the electoral victory for which you think "moderates" deserve credit?

Oh, and one more thing. Does it occur to you that a lot of people don't identify themselves as "liberal" because that word has been poisoned for the last 30-some-odd years by Republicans hurling it as invective and Democrats trying to duck it? Does it occur to you that, no matter how many people identify themselves as "moderate" or "liberal" or whatever, progressive policies like Medicare for All and a $15/hr minimum wage are actually quite popular? That maybe people who support these progressive/liberal policies call themselves "moderates" because these things just seem like common-sense ideas?

The party is moving toward all sorts of positions that drive away moderates and make it more likely the nominee will be unelectable. A

You say "unelectable" but the polling shows that the two leftiest candidates in the Dem primary would both beat Trump in the general election.So there's no need to settle for a dull centrist like Biden, whose polling numbers v Trump aren't much better and he has yet to unleash the gaffe machine.

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	MoE	Warren (D)	Trump (R)	Spread
RCP Average	3/27 - 6/24	--	--	48.3	44.7	Warren +3.6
Emerson	6/21 - 6/24	1096 RV	2.9	53	47	Warren +6
FOX News	6/9 - 6/12	1001 RV	3.0	43	41	Warren +2
Quinnipiac	6/6 - 6/10	1214 RV	3.5	49	42	Warren +7
Rasmussen Reports	5/12 - 5/23	5000 LV	1.5	46	44	Warren +2
Emerson	5/10 - 5/13	1006 RV	3.0	52	49	Warren +3
CNN	4/25 - 4/29	452 RV	5.6	47	48	Trump +1
PPP (D)	3/27 - 3/28	846 RV	3.4	48	42	Warren +6

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	MoE	Sanders (D)	Trump (R)	Spread
RCP Average	3/27 - 6/24	--	--	49.7	43.2	Sanders +6.5
Emerson	6/21 - 6/24	1096 RV	2.9	55	45	Sanders +10
FOX News	6/9 - 6/12	1001 RV	3.0	49	40	Sanders +9
Quinnipiac	6/6 - 6/10	1214 RV	3.5	51	42	Sanders +9
CNN	4/25 - 4/29	456 RV	5.6	50	44	Sanders +6
Rasmussen Reports	3/31 - 4/11	5000 LV	1.5	44	47	Trump +3
PPP (D)	3/27 - 3/28	846 RV	3.4	49	41	Sanders +8

All General Election: Trump vs. Sanders Polling Data

There are others, of course. Plenty of other conservatives who just want to be helpful and offer some solid advice to the Democrats. Ross Douthat phoned it in, kind of giving the game away.

I'm off this weekend but this earlier column can serve as my contribution to the great Twitter debate over whether alienating @BretStephensNYT and @nytdavidbrooks is bad news for the Democrats:https://t.co/kllrlQQTJM

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) June 29, 2019

Yes, it is the same bullshit Every. Damn. Time. Thank you for copping to it, Douche Hat.

Look, here's the thing. There are more of us (Dems/Libs/Progs) than there are of you (Republicans/Conservatives/Right-wingers). And there are a HELL of a lot more of us than there are "Never Trumpers." We Don't Need You. We don't care what you think. You people have been on the wrong side of every issue ever.

Also, we already tried it your way. Remember Chuck Schumer's strategy for 2016?

 “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

I think we all remember how that turned out.

So, here's the deal. We will decide on our own nominee. If we want to nominate a centrist like Biden or Beto or Butiegieg, we will nominate a centrist. If we decide to nominate the ghost of Che Guevarra, we will nominate the ghost of Che Guevarra. And if that results in a smattering of  "Never Trump"conservative Republicans voting for Trump as if they weren't already going to do that, it won't matter one bit. WE DON"T NEED YOU> AND WE DON"T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

Bullshit Headline Of The Day

Politics

Republicans demand Trump face rape investigation

Well that can't be true. They haven't demanded that he face any investigation for the other two dozen credible claims of sexual assault. Even the ones he bragged about on tape. Nor his daily violations of the emoluments clause. Nor his crimes against humanity being carried out on the border. So, let's have a look at this article.

Two Republican senators have split from their colleagues in calling for Donald Trump’s alleged rape of the author E. Jean Carroll to be investigated.

Oh, an entire TWO? Of the entire Republican Party there are actually TWO people that are bothered by their president being a rapist? I mean, it's two more than I would have expected, but still. . .

Republican senator Mitt Romney called for an “evaluation” into the claims, though he failed to make clear who should conduct it.
"Whether it's Congress or whether it's another setting, I'm not sure,” he told CNN on Wednesday. "It's a very serious allegation. I hope that it is fully evaluated. The president said it didn't happen and I certainly hope that's the case."

Ooh, what a forceful condemnation of the sexual predator-in-chief! Dropping a tea bag into Lake Michigan wouldn't produce such weak tea. The accusation should be "evaluated?" What does that even mean? Oh, it doesn't matter what it means, because the president said he didn't do it so ya gotta assume that he didn't!

Joni Ernst, a Republican colleague of Mr Romney's said Carrol was right to come forward with the allegation.
"But obviously, there has to be some additional information. They need to interview her. They need to visit with him” she told CNN.

Yes. There needs to be additional information. And they definitely need to hear the rapist's side of the story. Jesus Christ!
Listen, Mr Headline Writer, neither of these Republicans is demanding anything. You have two Republicans saying that maybe it might be a good idea to sorta half-assed look into the allegation. They certainly aren't demanding that "Trump face rape investigation." For God's sake, have some fucking pride in your work! That headline is just flat dishonest, especially when the story continues with Many other Republicans, however, dismissed the allegation or claimed they were not even aware of it.

“He's denied it, and that's enough for me. Until somebody comes up with something new,” said Lindsey Graham

and

Despite press coverage in print and on the airwaves, senator Marco Rubio told a reporter they were asking him “about a story that I’ve never even read”

Rubio and Graham are about a million times more representative of the Republican attitude towards Trump and the myriad of allegations against him.  I assume you're counting on no one reading past the headline to put out a false impression of a Republican Party with some shred of integrity.

The Weirdest Thing I Saw Today.

So I saw this on Twitter today:

One of the anti #LGBTQ folks gathering in front of the U.S. Supreme Court for a press conference calling for the Court to overturn its marriage equality decision pic.twitter.com/sA8ttWue3U

— Peter Montgomery (@petemont) June 26, 2019

And, holy Hell, where to begin?
First of all, that's not how the Supreme Court works.
Or it isn't how it's supposed to work, anyway.
The Supreme Court isn't supposed to respond to public pressure the way that elected officials are supposed to. They aren't supposed to look at a law and say "Hmm, this law clearly violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution, but on the other hand, some people really like it, so. . . "
Also, the Supreme Court can't just decide to reverse a prior decision. Someone has to bring a case before them. Someone would have to have standing. And no one is ever going to have standing to bring a case against Obergfell because how could anyone claim to have been harmed by that decision? (And having your little feelings hurt doesn't count.)


But then I saw the web address on his shirt. WWW -dot-ThirdGender666-dot-com. And my curiosity got the better of me.

So I went there.

Hoo boy!

Welcome to the house of weird!

First of all, there's the "In the News" section which contains precisely Two entries:

1:

In the news! Jan. 2007 - Elementary school kids being taught to embrace gay and lesbian lifestyles as a healthy alternative

2:
1959 - The Third Sex, a lesbian pulp novel from 1959 opened the minds of Americans to this secret society




Ah, yes. I remember how in 1969 everyone was reading this particular potboiler and how it opened up the minds of America to. . .how many people actually read this book? 
Also, what secret society? I've never heard of any secret societ. . . oh, right. Cuz it's a secret. Duh!
Anyway, I did a bit of online research about the genre and there were several more influential lesbian pulp novels published prior to The Third Sex, notably 1952's Spring Fire,





 1950's Women's Barracks

and 1953's The Price of Salt (which was made intro the 2015 movie Carol with Kate Blanchett and Rooney Mara)

So why place so mush import on this one particular pulp novel?

What are they, chopped liver?

Probably because whatever weirdo writes this website seems kind of obsessed with the term "third gender" (hence the site's name.)

To say "I was born the Third Gender" is to curse the name of the Lord, meaning evil speaking or slander attributing some evil to God. But God is holy and can do no evil. The concept of a Third Gender is an attempt to demean the plan, throne, sovereignty, and supreme power of the Creator. To dehumanize yourself and deprive yourself of human qualities, personality or spirit is inhuman and inhumane.

Wow, that's quite a leap! I don't know how one gets from "I was born 3rd gender" to "I curse thee, Jehovah, I curse thy holy name!" Also, I don't think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think most LGBT people refer to themselves as being "Third gender." Am I wrong, LGBT readers? The gay men I know refer to themselves as men. The lesbians I know refer to themselves as women. Also, I don't really get how it demeans the power of the creator to imply that he is capable of creating more than two genders. I mean, I make a pretty good chicken cacciatore and a decent pork lo mein, but if someone said "you also make chicken parm," I don't think I would feel demeaned by that. But, maybe that's why he's God and I'm not.

. . .Yet!

Then there is a section entitled "FACTS."

It begins like this:

Let's keep it simple. God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 

Okay. I mean there are certainly a lot of people who would dispute that - Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, atheists, agnostics, Unitarians, Scientologists. . . but that is a statement that would be assumed to be a solid fact by most Christians who, I assume, are the intended audience. So nothing too crazy yet.

. . .Yet!

 Consider the Tree of life: oxygen, water, and food. Oxygen is a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas in the atmosphere that comes from plant life. The odorless gas mixes with the clouds to produce rain water. 

Yeahhhhh, that is NOT how rain works.
At all.
I mean, you got the "clouds are involved" part, but other than that. . .

The rain comes down from the sky to insert life into mother earth, from God the Father. This God created process reveals the nature of how God designs and implements extremely complex methods that accomplish His intentions. He performs the impossible, then steps back for creation to enjoy. God's handiwork, his fingerprint, is recognizable and can be seen over and over. The Tree of life is a reproductive process, a spiritual sex, if you will, which yields the fruit of the earth. It's the seed from our spiritual Father.

Oh dear GOD! Are you saying that rain is. . . EWWWWWW!!!!
I mean, that seems like blasphemy to me. And also Ewwwwww!!!!
I will never look at rain the same way again.

Human sex from the womb is called holy by the Lord 

No. That is not where sex happens. It happens a bit South of the "womb." (Or sometimes South and around the corner, but that's none of my business.)

Also, when did God call sex "holy?" I went through 12 years of Lutheran schooling, I've read most of the Bible, and I don't remember anything positive in there about sex. You really need to cite a particular chapter and verse if you're going to make a claim like that!

A man inserts his penis into his wife's vagina, the genital canal, and a baby is born. 

I think there's a few steps in between. That's why the process generally takes several months.
Also, the term is "birth canal." Not "genital canal."

In the cycle of life, the man becomes the father, the wife becomes the mother and the cycle continues. The reproductive system to create a living being's sexual genitalia is clearly produced in the fruit of the womb. The baby is a boy or a girl.

A: that's gibberish.
B: you do know about hermaphroditism, right? (Is that a real word?) Somethimes babies are born with both male and female parts or sometimes with what is referred to as "ambiguous genitalia." Which is sort of a what you might call a "thied gender" sort of situation.

What is sexism or what is a sexist? Sex is only between the male and female. To convert good (God's design) to evil (your own perversion of sex) is satanistic. To speak or act as oral or anal intercourse is sex is blasphemous and profane.

Mp. That's not what sexism is. That's not what a sexist is. Also, sign me up for a little profane blasphemy this weekend, eh?

Why did God give them brimstone and fire in Sodom and Gomorrah? Because he knew that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sinners would degenerate God's original intent for sex.

Okay, now that is just patently false. There is no ambiguity on this point. It is stated quite clearly what the "sin of Sodom" was:

Ezekiel 16:49-50 New International Version (NIV)49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Eh, I bet it was probably the gays!

Defend the planet or destroy the planet. Let's start with protecting defenseless children from satan. 

Honestly, I think we should concentrate on protecting defenseless children from I.C.E.

Let's start with protecting defenseless children from satan. Adam Adam, Eve and Eve. The power of love is to tell the truth. The power of hate is to stop the truth. Let us get high on love, not getting high on hate. 

So. . . is it Adam and Adam, then? I thought it was supposed to be Adam and Steve?  Or is it Eve and Eve? So many possibilities!

 

In conclusion, this question is posed, which you can answer by clicking on the provided link:

Do homosexuals strengthen the planet, or weaken the planet?

Write me so we can talk about it.

- Minister Leroy

Go ahead. I'm sure he'd love to know your thoughts on the subject.

Anti-Christian Baptists?

In Last-Minute Move, Southern Baptist Convention Supports Anti-Christian Racial Identity Politics

Okay, I'll bite. How are "racial identity politics" anti-Christian?

The largest Protestant denomination in North America, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), officially adopted “critical race theory” and “intersectionality” as “analytical tools” to be used in fostering racial reconciliation in the church. These key drivers of identity politics, however, are more likely to produce racial discord and strike at Christianity itself.

Oh, well, if they're fostering racial reconciliation, I can see why that. . . wait. No, that doesn't seem very anti-Christ-like at all.

Before we get to why, let’s look at how it happened. The convention adopted “Resolution Nine

“Resolution Nine—On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality” during its annual meeting last week. The resolution instructs Southern Baptists that while these “tools of analysis” can be employed, it must be done in subordination to the Bible.

Oh, subordination to the Bible? Now THAT sounds anti-Christia. . . no. Still not getting it.

During debate, Pastor Tom Ascol offered a friendly amendment that stated that critical race theory and intersectionality are incompatible and indeed antithetical to Christianity. The amendment was rejected as “friendly” by Woods and defeated soundly when put to a vote on the floor. As he rejected the motion, Woods stated, “critical race theory and intersectionality are simply analytical tools…they are to be used as a tool, not as a worldview.”

You know, it's kinda cute. The Southern Baptist Convention trying to get "woke!"

But that’s simply not true. Critical race theory is essentially literary deconstruction applied to culture, politics, and economics. 

And then we get a synopsis of Derrida that one could get in any freshman dorm room in any liberal arts college, so we'll just skip that part.

The most obvious example of this applied to politics and culture currently is critical feminist theory. The transsexual movement is the perfect example of the final step in the deconstruction of the terms “male” and “female.” Here these terms only mean what any given individual wants them to mean. They have absolutely no objective meaning.

Yeah, I think you may be crediting the wrong philosopher. This concept came about well before Derrida was even born. Who was the radical social deconstructionist thinker, oh it's on the tip of my tongue. . .  Oh, yeah. St Paul.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.--Galatians 3:28

And I think we all know how anti-Christian St Paul was! Sort of the ancient world's Anton LaVey,.

If traditional Christianity is anything, however, it is utterly dependent on objective truth claims. 

     

I don't think you know what the word "objective" or "truth" mean. I mean, the whole point of Christianity is that you're supposed to just accept by faith various claims for which there is no evidence and are extremely improbable. Certainly there is no "objective truth" in Christianity. if there were, there wouldn't be other religions.

If traditional Christianity is anything, however, it is utterly dependent on objective truth claims. It cannot survive if truth becomes merely based on one’s lived experience, or relativism. For critical theorists, the notion of truth doesn’t exist. What is true is what subverts.

Okay, either they don't believe in truth OR they believe that whatever subverts is true. You kinda gotta pick one.
Actually, on second thought, no you don't, because they're both incorrect.

If a certain way of looking at the world disrupts the status quo, then that viewpoint is true for the critical theorist. Despite that, we have the SBC, normally known for its strict adherence to the objective truth claims of the Bible, endorsing this approach as legitimate.

Okay, you like objective truth? Here's an objective truth: The Southern Baptists have been on the wrong side of every social issue, including race relations, since their founding and any attempt they make at trying to change that should be viewed as a positive and is probably the MOST Christian thing they've ever done.

In his latest edition of “The Briefing,” the influential Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Theological Seminary, said of the resolution:

Ideas, as we know, do have consequences…the main consequence of Critical Race Theory is Identity Politics. And Identity Politics can only rightly be described as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to see Identity Politics…as nothing less that devastating to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Identity politics is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ for. . . reasons. . . now, RACISM - that's totally fine with Jesus! Jesus has no problem with white supremacists mistreating minorities, it's just the part where the minorities try to stand up for themselves that is, um. . . devastating. . . in some way. . . to the Church? Of the Lord? Jesus Christ? I mean, you get it, right? It's all there in the Bible in the Book of *cough cough** mumble mumble, verse mutter mutter. Read your New Testament, people!

According to Pastor Tom Buck (who spoke against the resolution during debate), Mohler was breaking what Southern Baptists refer to as the 11th Commandment. It goes something like, “Thou shalt not publicly criticize a fellow Southern Baptist brother in good standing with the convention.” According to Buck, for Mohler to openly criticize one of his own faculty members should cause all members of the SBC to sit up and take notice.

Yes, as the Good Book says: if one of they brethren is in the wrong, then shalt though keep thy fat yap shut, for verily, 'tis better to be a racist than to be the person who calls someone out on their racism.
And further, he said unto them: Correct not they brethren when they shall be found to be on the wrong side of history, for it is better that thy brother continue in his error than that thou wouldst call him out and make an ass of thyself. For I tell you the truth, it is better that a thousand racists go uncorrected than for a single racist to be embarrassed in front of his brethren.

critical race theory and intersectionality are founded upon unbiblical presuppositions descended from Marxist theories and categories, and therefore are inherently opposed to the Scriptures as the true center of Christian union…both critical race theory and intersectionality as ideologies have infiltrated some Southern Baptist churches and institutions—institutions funded by the Cooperative Program…critical race theory upholds postmodern relativistic understandings of truth and…divides humanity into groups of oppressors and oppressed, and is used to encourage biblical, transcendental truth claims to be considered suspect when communicated from groups labeled as oppressors.

Remember, the problem is NOT being a member of a group that oppresses others. The problem is pointing out that such groups exist. Because that's the sort of thing Marx would have done. Just like if we ever found out that Marx ate a hot dog, it would be anti-Christian to eat a hot dog. I mean, this is all just common sense, right?

The one thing that Jesus wants is for us to put aside our differences and all be one big happy family that never once acknowledges the atrocities that some of us may have committed against others of us. Jesus is super uncomfortable with that kind of drama, he's always been really conflict-averse. Can't we all just go along to get along and not upset Jesus?

Given all of this, there are several possibilities. First, the majority of the meeting might simply be ignorant of the implications of the philosophies grounding critical race theory and intersectionality. Secondly, it could be that while the messengers are ignorant, they are being taken advantage of by a small (but vocal) minority in the convention. Third, the SBC, like so many denominations in North America, could be simply succumbing to the cultural zeitgeist.

Yes, that damn cultural zeitgeist of . . . checks notes. . . acknowledging that racism exists and trying to do less of it.

In my opinion, Southern Baptists should focus on this second possible explanation. As I’ve maintained in previous articles on this subject, an essential strategy of critical theory is deception. It is the proverb of the “frog in the kettle” applied practically to affect change.

What??? What the hell does the frog in the pan have to do with. . . and what deception. . . you know, I'm tempted to click on the link, but I'm afraid my skull would collapse after my brain crawled out of my ear and dragged itself across the floor to the liquor cabinet.

Let me hasten to add that there is no way a person can know with certitude that such a deception is happening in the SBC. However, all Southern Baptists should at least be aware that this is a stratagem of the philosophy of critical theory. Essentially, you woo the masses with a message of “compassion for the oppressed” all while using “the oppressed” to forward your political agenda

Oh, yeah. That damn political agenda of . . . checks notes. . . having less oppression. Yeah, they really sneak that nefarious agenda in there, hoo boy!

Pastor Buck put it well in my interview with him following the SBC meeting:

We’re already employing the concepts of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality…people are not aware of it…and now we voted in a resolution that says it’s okay. I think they [members of the SBC] need to wake up. I think they need to educate themselves on what critical race theory and intersectionality is…they need to realize that the messengers voted for something that we likely don’t understand and we need to understand the gravity of it.

". . . something that we likely don't understand." Yeah, that's a pretty safe bet.

The Southern Baptist Convention is being infiltrated by an ideology that is antithetical to the Christian religion. Sadly, that infiltration is happening right under the noses of SBC members. If they care about their part of the church and want it to continue, Southern Baptists need to investigate these matters for themselves, understand the implications, then work to mount an informed opposition to this activism in their church body.

So that's the end of the article and I still don't understand what is supposed to be "anti-Christian" about any of this. Maybe you should go ahead and just say that you like being racist and you don't want to stop being racist. Maybe don't blame your shit on Jesus.

I can't think of a good title

I know. I've been away for a while. Work got a little crazy and I ended up putting in a lot of overtime last week and I just felt too exhausted to dick around on the internet looking for targets of mockery. But I do feel like I might have let down the people who look forward to reading my silly little jokes and whatnot, and I apologize to both of them.
Anyway, today Twitter handed me this on a silver platter:

How Trump Turned Liberal Comedians Conservative

Oh, you just KNOW this is going to be stupid. Just thuddingly, head-hurtingly stupid.

Once, wry satire ruled. Today it’s all outrage and punching up—and it’s not always clear where the joke is.

Okay, punching UP is good. That's what a comic SHOULD do. It's one of the reasons copnservative comics are never funny, they always pinch down. "Liberal" or "progressive" or "lefty" comedians have ALWAYS punched up. The good ones, anyway. This is not some new development in the age of Cheeto Mussolini.

President Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator, but at heart, he’s one thing: an insult comic. Every day in D.C. is a roast, the insults and belittling nicknames wielded like tiny comedy bullets. 

Okay, that's true. To some extent. Only, his insults and nicknames aren't funny. There's no imagination or creativity to them. Calling people you don't like "Crazy Nancy" or "Crazy Bernie,"  "Lyin' Ted" or "Lyin' Hillary" takes no effort. There's no thought put into that. And they're not funny. When he does try to put some effort into it, he can't even get insulting nicknames right. Back before he fell in love with Kim Jong Un, he dubbed him "Rocket Man." Then someone must've pointed out to him that "Rocket Man" is actually a pretty cool nickname, so he started calling him "Little Rocket Man." Don Rickles he ain't.

The 45th president is undeniably funny—innately entertaining, whether he intends to be or not. 

No. No he isn't. He isn't funny. Even if he weren't the President, even if he didn't have access to the nuclear codes, even if he wasn't in a position where a serious person should have been, he wouldn't be funny. Because he's not clever. He's not smart. He doesn't understand humor, because he doesn't have normal human emotions. He's a sociopath. He presumably finds humor in other people getting hurt. But to actually craft amusing wordplay or wry observations is beyond him. He doesn't understand how normal people think and feel. He can't understand what would bring a normal person joy or laughter. He isn't funny and he will never be funny. It just isn't in him.

he drew chuckles at the United Nations last September, when he said his administration “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” but he got a big, fully appreciative laugh with his ad-libbed follow-up: “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK.”

Oh, sure. People laugh AT him. Because he's a buffoon. But it isn't because of any actual humor on his part. When he said "Didn't expect that reaction. . ." that wasn't a clever ad-lib. That wasn't a witty rejoinder. That was him being genuinely surprised by not getting the adulation he had expected. They laughed the first time because he said something stupid, then they laughed the second time because he said something else really stupid. That doesn't make him a comedian.

Anyway, how did Hair Furor turn "liberal" comedians conservative?

from 1999 through roughly the start of the Trump administration, the prevailing comedy tone was a kind of ironic detachment, perfected by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” Odds are, even if you barely watched the show, you can still picture the Jon Stewart repertoire: the knowing pop culture references, the sharp satire, the wry take on America at large. His go-to move was perplexity at the absurdity of it all, and the message was detached and a little self-deprecating: If politics was absurd, well, so were we. “You have to remember one thing about the will of the people,” he once said. “It wasn’t that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.”

Stewart did make fun of both parties, but his style was fundamentally liberal, says University of Delaware communications professor Dannagal Young: playful, subversive, at once cynical and weirdly optimistic. 

Okay, but he could get angry, too. I mean, even when he was coming across as glib and detached, there was a lot of righteous anger under the surface, but other times, he could get just straight-up angry.

 

There’s no greater threat to the liberal establishment than Donald Trump. And in the past three years, something about comedy has shifted. In class, Young has her college students diagram late-night jokes and label the incongruities—the hidden arguments that aren’t actually stated in the text. When they come to the May 2018 moment when Samantha Bee, in a rant about immigration on her TBS show “Full Frontal,” called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c---,” the exercise breaks down. The line drew a laugh, but there was nothing to puzzle out. No irony, no distance. She just meant it.

Yeah, not every word out of Sam Bee's mouth is a joke. She talks about a lot of serious topics, as do all the political comedians. So sometimes, she's going to say things that aren't actually funny, they're just things that she feels need to be said.

“There was no incongruity in what she did,” says Young, whose upcoming book, Irony and Outrage, examines the psychological underpinnings of political entertainment. “I don’t care she’s used the c-word a bunch. I care that she, like, didn’t make a joke.”

Yes. She didn't make a joke. So I'm not sure how illustrative this line is of Trump's supposed effect on political comedy.

Or maybe Bee had made a joke, but a joke for the era of Trump.

No, we've already established that she didn't. We've been over this. The expert that you cited says that she did NOT make a joke.

Like the red meat at Trump’s rallies, it was pitched to the base, satisfying in the way that calling someone a “libtard” feels for people on the right; less a wry observation than a hard push back against a persistent enemy or a looming threat. If Trump has changed the tone of the presidency, he’s done the same for TV humor, creating a kind of insult comedy for the Resistance: less subtle, less civil—and, strangely, more conservative.

No, the Daily Show crew has always been insulting to people who deserve it - your Santorums, your Gingriches, Your O'Reilly's, your Hannitys. . .

 

Donald Trump did not invent making decent people angry. Donald Trump was not the first conservative to be so outrageously offensive that the only possible response is shouted vulgarities. They have always been with us.

Then along came Trump, who wasn’t part of the system at all, and thus didn’t fit into Stewart’s man-versus-the-machine framework. The day Trump descended a Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy, in June 2015, Stewart was ecstatic. He treated the real-estate-mogul-turned-reality-star not as a viable player, but a professional clown.

As did everyone. No one had such a low opinion of the American electorate as to think he had any chance of winning. Also, Trump is absolutely part of the "system." As he has stated publicly, he made a habit of bribing politicians on both sides of the aisle. And he had spent the last several years as the de facto head of the racist idiot "birther" movement. Plus, who could be more a part of the corrupt "system" that runs this country than a (alleged) billionaire real estate tycoon with his own television show and a standing invitation to call in to FOX and discuss politics whenever he wants?

At the start of his administration, many speculated that Trump would turn more measured and sober once he felt the gravitas of the office. But his insult-comic persona isn’t artifice; he can’t be shamed or cajoled into being anyone but himself.

That’s great for his base. Most conservatives, love him or not, have found ways to brush off his rhetoric as Trump being Trump. But liberals see the language as not just authentic, but dangerous—they draw a straight line from the speeches and tweets to the murderous white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville, the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, caged kids on the Mexican border, and nuclear retaliation threats directed toward Kim Jong Un.

Okay, it's not just "liberals" who draw the obvious line between Trump's rhetoric and incidents of racist violence. Anyone with functioning eyesight and the correct number of chromosomes can see the connection between Trump and the violent white supremacists whom he inspires. This is not a "liberal vs conservative" breakdown. This is a sane vs insane issue.
Also, whom else could you possibly blame for caged kids at the border? It's not as if Trump made some "joke" about caging kids and then coincidentally, a bunch of kids ended up in cages somehow. This is his doing. This is his policy. He makes no secret of this.
Also, too, you're a little behind on the Trump-Kim timeline. He no longer makes threats of retaliation towards Kim. Kim is his best friend now. Try to keep up.

So the chorus of left-leaning comedians who evaluate Trump every night has switched from detached amusement to sounding the warning bells.

How could they not?
These are very dangerous times.
I don't watch any of the late night talk shows anymore because who has the time, and because I'm sick of trying to pretend that Trevor Noah is an acceptable substitute for Jon Stewart. But, if it is as you say, if they are no longer being humorous about Trump but "sounding the warning bells," that is not a change in comedic style. That is abandoning comedy because the dangers of this administration are too pressing, too urgent to sit back and crack jokes about them. Also, sounding alarm bells over Trump's abuses hardly seems like a byproduct of becoming conservative. If your premise was that Trump has caused "liberal" comics to stop doing comedy and instead give serious warnings about him, you might be on to something. But your assertion was that these comics were "becoming conservative" and you haven't presented any evidence to support that thesis other than Sam Bee using the "C-word."

That change might be personified, these days, by “Daily Show” veteran Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” was a masterpiece of cynical-age satire: a sustained, high-energy, high-wire parody of Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, in which the comedian played a blowhard conservative host named “Stephen Colbert.” 

But these days, when he talks about Trump, Colbert isn’t so easygoing; his jokes are more vicious and often less surprising. In a mid-May “Late Show” monologue, Colbert described a recent Trumpian insult: comparing 2020 Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg to the MAD Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman. “I see the similarity,” Colbert said, “in that they both are more qualified to be president than Donald Trump.”

Um, do you even know what the word "vicious" means? Because that was pretty dang mild.

Colbert has changed less than Bee, his fellow “Daily Show” alum. In 2015, Bee was part of the “Daily Show” sketch that mocked Joe Biden for groping. She played a star-struck, self-deluded reporter who had just come from a one-on-one interview with Biden, and now had brightly-colored hand marks on her chest and rear end. (She cheerfully explained that the then-vice president had just been touching chalk, strawberry preserves, motor oil and Cheetos.) The joke lay, again, in the disconnect: The audience knew Biden’s behavior was wrong, but the establishment, represented by Bee, pretended it was perfectly normal.

Today, Bee’s faux innocence is gone; her “Full Frontal” persona understands everything that’s happening. Her fury is directed not just at Trump, but at everyone on the right; she apologized for the c-word episode, but her anger hasn’t faded.

So. . . if she's angry at the right, that makes her more conservative. Am I getting that right?
Only conservatives get angry?
Also, she was playing a character on the Daily Show. On Full Frontal, she's herself. Of course it's going to seem different.

 A recent segment on the Alabama’s stringent new abortion law, “Sex Ed for Senators,” explained that when a woman is designated six weeks pregnant, it actually measures the number of weeks from her last period, not from the moment of conception. “Bet you didn’t know uteruses were also time travelers,” Bee said. “That’s science, bitch!”

That's it? That's your best example of Sam Bee's unrelenting anger?
Okay, I haven't seen the bit because I don't get that channel anymore, so I googled it.




Honestly, I don't see what you're talking about. She is a whole lot less angry than I would be were someone legislating my rights away. I mean, I'm sure she's furious, but she doesn't come across that way. The bit is funny. It's informative. and the line "that's science, bitch!" is delivered playfully, maybe sarcastically would be a better word? but not angrily. There is nothing in that entire segment that anyone would describe as, how did you put it, "didactic?" Or "comedy, in the sense that it contains setups and punch lines. But it isn’t necessarily fun."


This was fun. I mean, as fun as one could be while discussing such a serious and depressing topic.
There is nothing "conservative" about her style. For future reference, here's how you can tell. Conservatives are NEVER funny. They punch down and their "jokes" are based on false premises (like Obama being born in Kenya, or Nancy Pelosi coming for your guns). What Sam Bee did here was punch upwards, at government officials with much more power than she, and she based the jokes on the things that they literally have said and done on video. That's why her stuff works.