Actual 100% real headline not from the Onion.

Catholic school reportedly removes Harry Potter books from library because they 'risk conjuring evil spirits'

 Megan Johnson,Yahoo Lifestyle Sun, Sep 1 3:35 PM EDT 

The Rev. Dan Reehil, a pastor at the St. Edward School, a pre-K through 8th grade Roman Catholic school in Nashville, explained to parents in an email why the extremely popular seven-book series by J.K. Rowling about a young wizard and his friends was taken out of the school’s collection.
"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. . ."

Wow, you're really jumping on this one right on time! The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997. And just now, 21 years later, you're noticing that that they're about spooky witches and magick and whatnot?

And in those 21 years, have you seen any sort of an uptick in wizardry-related casualties?
Seems like 21 years is a good enough sample size to determine that these books are pretty benign.

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. . .

Well, I'm not sure how clever that deception is, seeing as how the "deception" here is that being a wizard and casting spells is made up? And maybe some kids might be naive enough to think that they could actually somehow find a wizard school to teach them how to do magic? And then they would be disappointed when they eventually figure out that nonr of this is real?

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text," 

What????
The spells are real?
You, a grown man, think that magic spells are real. Seriously, this is a thing that you think. You think that there are actual, literal, magical spells that can actually be used to conjure up actual, literal evil spirits?





So you know how many people have read the Harry Potter books? Over half a BILLION of these books have been sold. And God knows how many people have checked them out from libraries. So, hundreds of millions of people have read these books and I promise you - I PROMISE you - none of these people have inadvertently or intentionally summoned any demons into our realm.  Zero evil spirits have been conjured up by the readers of the Harry Potter books. Zero. Which is, coincidentally, the number of evil demon spirits that actually exist.

I mean, you know J.K. Rowling just made these spells and incantations up, right? She didn't copy them from ancient scrolls she unearthed in a repository of forbidden knowledge. She made them up. Honestly, she didn't even put a lot of effort into them. She just used some high-school Latin words that approximate the description of the desired result. Like this:

Aqua Eructo  (Aqua Eructo Charm)

Type: Charm

Pronunciation: A-kwa ee-RUCK-toh

Description: This spell is used to create, and control, a jet of clear water from the tip of the wand.

Etymology: Aqua means, in Latin, water. Eructo is a verb meaning "I raise"; roughly translated, it means "I raise water".

The email also reportedly shared that Reehil had consulted with several exorcists who also advocated for removing the books from the school’s library.

Okay, this is a joke, right? This article is from the Onion, right?
Right?

No, this was actually reported in the Tennesseean, a part of the USA Today network, which isn't exactly LeMonde or Der Spiegel, but is a legitimate newspaper not known for playing pranks.

Why on Earth would you consult with exorcists? I didn't think the Catholic Church even did exorcisms anymore. Where would you even find exorcists with which to consult? Haiti? New Orleans? maybe some hidden pocket of Appalachia? What century is this? How long was I asleep?

Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, confirmed to the Tennesseean that Reehil removed the books. 
As for whether students should be allowed to read the Harry Potter series on their own time, Hammel told the Tennesseean that it’s up to each child’s parents to make that decision.

"Should parents deem that this or any other media to be appropriate we would hope that they would just guide their sons and daughters to understand the content through the lens of our faith," Hammel said. "We really don't get into censorship in such selections other than making sure that what we put in our school libraries is age-appropriate materials for our classrooms."

Wait, what?

Age appropriate?
I'm sorry, what is the appropriate age for conjuring evil spirits?
Is that the objection? That these children are too young to be conjuring evil spirits? Like, in Catholic high schools, sure. Summon all the demons you want, you're old enough to handle them. But in elementery school it's just irresponsible to have these kids  communing with the underworld. That's just child psychology 101.

Age appropriate!

What is going on in this country?

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.

What are conservatives scared of today?

Fear is conservatives' drug of choice.

Conservatives always need to be afraid of something. They neeeeed that fear. It's the only thing that makes them feel alive. Whether they're scared of the Communists or the feminists or the environmentalists or the secular humanists, they have to be terrified of something.

 

Look out, an immigrant!

So what is the number one fear of conservatives at this moment?

If you guessed MS-13, we have some lovely parting gifts for you. See, MS-136 is actually pretty scary. I mean, they would be if you ever encountered them. Most of us will never encounter MS-13, much less run afoul of them, but they're scary in the same way that tigers are scary. There';s no need for any Americans to sit up at night worrying about tigers, but if you ever did see one, do not , and I can not emphasize this enough, do NOT fuck with it.

Anyway, the answer we were looking for was "transgendered people."  

.

Why are conservatives so pants-wettingly afraid of trans folk'? It's hard to say. I mean, they seem pretty harmless.

Pretty easy on the eyes




Pretty cool, really.



And yet. . .

Mike Huckabee identifies 'biggest threat' to moral fiber of US
ANAHEIM, California — Redefining gender and sexual identity is the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America, said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee

Oh, do explain, Governor!

“The biggest threat to biblical principles today is the failure to apply a biblical standard of maleness and femaleness,” Huckabee told The Christian Post during a sit-down interview last week in Anaheim, California. “We are creating this illusion that there is no gender, there is no identity."

Ah. I see. Because that is one thing that the Bible is completely unambiguous about. There must at all times and in all places be a bright line of demarcation between the male and the female.
Why, just look at this categorical statement to that effect from St Paul's letter to the Galatians:

28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Oooh. Sorry, Mike. Looks like maybe St Paul would disagree with you on that "biblical principle."  But what does Paul know about it, he's only IN the Bible!

The 2008 and 2016 Republican presidential candidate explained that California’s introduction of “no-fault divorce” in 1970 created the mindset that marriage “wasn’t really that important” and that one “could go in and out of it without a second thought.” 

Which of course has everything to do with gender-non-conforming people.

“That’s when we first started losing that sense of sacredness of what marriage meant,” he argued. 

Sure, 1970. I mean, by 1970, Elizabeth Taylor had been married five times and divorced four.
And Mickey Rooney was already on wife number seven.Jerry Lee Lewis was twice-divorced and married to his THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD cousin. But yeah, up until then, marriage was seen as a sacred unbreakable vow.

“So I'm not really that surprised that same sex-marriage has become in vogue because the Christian Church were the ones who essentially abdicated a strict responsibility about what biblical marriage should look like.”

Um. . . the state of California and the Christian Church are two very different entities. California adopting no-fault divorce had no effect on the various Christian denominations' stance on marriage and divorce. I mean, you can't possibly think that churches around the country saw California's new law and threw in the towel on the culture wars. "Well, if California says you can get divorced without showing fault, then I guess we'll just have to change our entire moral worldview!"

“Once you've destroyed that, why can't you have any and everything?” he continued. “The gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’”

Why can't you have. . . what the hell are you talking about? NO-fault divorce became a thing in 1970. Did that throw open some floodgates to every alternative lifestyle or. . . I don't even know what point you think you're making. Hell, it took over 30 years for same-sex couples to be able to marry.

Also, if you're going to say that because the first two people were one male and one female, which would have been pretty necessary for reproduction, that that means that there can now only be males and females and you're stuck with whatever you get? Oh, and also, the Bible does say that God created them male and female. But it also says that God did not "create" Adam, but formed him from clay and then had to go back later and take a rib out out of him because he had completely forgotten to create woman, so maybe Genesis isn't the most sound basis for gender policy?

Huckabee pointed out that society today celebrates single parenting and posits the idea that fathers “really aren’t necessary” when it comes to raising children.
“There are some people who are in single parenthood, not because they want to be, but because they were forced to be. And we ought to give [them] all the support,” he clarified. “But we should never pretend that it is as good as a loving mother and father in a home where a child sees both genders play out their norms because that's the modeling of behavior that would be ideal for a child to grow up in.”

Yeah, like in the Huckabee household, where a male father and female mother managed to raise one child who tortures and kills digs and another who is a professional liar in the service of a pussy-grabbing cretin who takes children away from their parents.



Okay, we all know Huckabee is a moron. Let's let someone else have a try. What's so scary about trans people?

• MEDIA

MARCH 28, 2019

A Guest on Laura Ingraham’s Show Just Said Trans People Will Create a New Species That Is Part Machine

“They are truly taking our children from us. This is child abuse.”

 

Um, what?

Seriously?

That can't really be what they said. Could it?

*sight* Now I guess I have to look.

“I think that the trans people have taken it one step further because by abandoning gender altogether, not simply rewriting it,” Nathanson said, “they’re basically trying to use social engineering to create a new species.”

A new. . . species? Do you. . . do you know what a species is? I mean, whether someone is male, female, neither, both, or whatever option you can think of, they would still be the same species. A person wouldn't become a cat. Believe me, I've tried. 

A mare, a stallion and a gelding are all members of the same species. If you took the parts you had removed from the gelding and surgically attached them to the mare, that new type of horse would still be a horse. A new species? Who the hell is this Nathanson imbecile?

Her guest, Dr. Paul Nathanson of McGill University 

Dr. Paul Nathanson, a gender relations professor and author of books including Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture

Oh for God's sake. Looks like I'm going to have to re-evaluate my opinion of McGill University.

Unlesssss. . . It's not Jimmy McGill University is it?

Still inexcusable!

Nathanson then explained that he questioned his gender identity when he was a child but grew up to be a cisgender gay man. “I don’t look down on people who are confused about who they are,” he said. “I just think that the solution that many are choosing, to either mutilate their bodies in one way or another in order to effect a cosmetic change—because you can’t change your chromosomes, you can only change outward appearance—I think that solution is a misguided one.”

It wasn't the right solution for me and my specific life experience, therefore it is the wrong solution for everyone! I teach at McCill!

Ingraham then derided parents who allowed their children to undergo hormone therapy, referencing a “horrifying” situation in Washington state in which a child was allegedly taken from her mother because the mother had not consented for the child to receive hormone treatment.
“They are truly taking our children from us,” Ingraham said. “This is child abuse.”

I'm just going to go ahead and assume this "alleged" incident didn't actually happen. Although, even if it did, one child being removed from one home hardly constitutes "our children being taken from us." Although, to be fair, it does sound a lot scarier this way.
And I googled this story and I can't find it anywhere, not even in the fear-mongering stories about trans kids in outlets like the Federalist and The New American dot com.

During the episode, Ingraham and Nathanson discussed the “attack on masculinity” and some of the apparent hoaxes behind it.

Oh! That's surprising. I'm pleasantly surprised that they would admit that the "attack on masculinity" is a hoax. Or should I maybe read the next sentence?

The hoax that somehow sexes are all the same or capable of being bed into one continuum, that masculinity itself is toxic, terrible and poisonous, all of those things, and in fact has to be discouraged in many ways,” Ingraham said before introducing Nathanson.

Okay, yeah. That makes more sense.

Nathanson told Ingraham that trans and non-binary movements have sprung up because “feminists challenge the notion of gender” and this has evolved into the development of feminist ideology.

Uh, feminists have challenged the notion of traditional gender roles. I don't think any feminists have ever challenged the idea of the existence of gender. If there were no gender, how would there be feminists?

“If masculinity is bad and men are inherently going to be patriarchal unless somehow we can train them, and beat this out of them—to be protectors and to be courageous, all these things that we impugn upon men—well if you get rid of all that, then the traditional family itself collapses and that's one last bastion of Western Biblically-centered morality that enveloping our, and has helped us prosper, frankly, for millennia and advance in millennia,” Ingraham said, as transcribed by Media Matters.

Mmm, that's good gibberish!

She does have a good point, though. Western Christian principles have led to so many great advancements in civilization. Why, just ask Galileo! Or Alan Turing!

“So the goal is really quite radical,” he added. “We're not talking about people who want to simply do a bit of reform here and there, add a new category. They want, they must, in fact, destroy whatever is in order to replace it with what they think should be. We're talking about revolution, not reform.”
Ingraham asks: "And the new species will be looking like what? Will be part human part animal?

Part animal? Where the hell do you come up with "part animal?" You think that the "radicals" who are suggesting that maybe not everyone fits into a nice neat male/female binary want to a: destroy the existing genders, and b: transform America into the Island of Dr. Moreau?

That's furries. You're thinking of furries.

Nathanson said, "I think human and part machine," to which Ingraham replies "part machine, hmm."

"Hmm. . . Yes, doctor. You've given me much to ponder," replied Laura Ingraham, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "I had assumed we'd be looking at a Dr. Moreau scenario, but perhaps a Terminator situation is more likely."


Okay, we've just got a couple minutes left. Anyone else want to chime in? Anyone want to put zero effort into their half-assed objection to recognizing gender-non-conforming people?

Trump could become ‘first female president’ under new legislation, GOP lawmaker says

Jeezus, Gaetz, I thought you'd at least try a little!

Rep. Matt Gaetz R-Fla., said Tuesday he will not support The Equality Act in part because its provisions that seek to prohibit discrimination of transgender individuals could hypothetically lead to President Trump declaring himself the first female president.
“[I]f President Trump were to say, ‘I’m am now the first female president,’ who would celebrate that?” said Gaetz in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the legislation. 

Honestly, so what if he did? Who would that hurt? It's not like there's prize money for being the first female president that should rightly be going to Elizabeth Warren. If you're going to try to be scary, you have to pretend that there's the possibility of something bad happening.

The bill being pushed by Democratic lawmakers would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Gaetz said he would not support the legislation because of the possibility of people abusing the new protections in the bill.

How? How could people possibly abuse that provision?

I guess you're maybe thinking that cis people are going to pretend to be trans so that they can, what exactly, just act with impunity? You know, just like how in the sixties, after the original Civil Rights bill was passed, all these white guys pretended to be black so they could flout society's rules and get away with it? Is that what you think might happen?

“I strongly support the rights of transgender individuals,” Gaetz said. 

**Ron Howard voice** "He did not support the rights of transgendered individuals."

 “But I am concerned about the potential bad actors who would exploit the provisions for their own gain.”

**Ron Howard voice** "He was not concerned about that potentiality."

So, what have we learned today? Well, one thing really. If you want to terrify your FOX-watching relatives or co-workers, just show them a trans person!

BOO!

Works every time!

The 2019 Conservative Olympics.

It's that time of year again. Time for CPAC, the right-wing Olympics, in which conservative shitheads compete in events like Who Can Tell The Stupidest Lie and Who Can Be The Most Offensive.


In the normal person Olympics, there are categories like Track and Field, Aquatics, or Cycling. In the shitlympics of CPAC, most events are organized into 4 major categories: Dishonesty, Insanity, Stupidity, and Shamelessness.


It's early in the competition yet, but let's check in with some of our contestants.

One of the first notable participants was the "My Pillow" guy, Mike Lindell.



Until recently, Lindell was known only for making a pillow that is pretty much the same a s any standard pillow you'd find in any Target or Wal-Mart and somehow convincing people to pay 50 bucks for them. So he's definitely got shamelessness going for him. Let's see his floor routine.

Mike Lindell, a conservative Christian and owner of My Pillow, asserted on Thursday that President Donald Trump has been “chosen by God.”

Now ordinarily, a move like this would be considered to have a high degree of difficulty, but this is CPAC, where everyone ptetty much already believes that, so he's going to have to add a new wrinkle if he wants to pull down a high score.

During Thursday’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Lindell told the audience that Jesus had saved him from alcoholism and crack addiction.

Ooh, and he's veering a bit off-topic, this might not play well with the judges. They do love a good Jesus story, but acknowledging that white people get hooked on crack? They may deduct a full point for that. We'll have to wait and see.

“I woke up from years of addiction, and I was oblivious as to what was going on in our country,” he explained. “What I saw before me were friends unemployed, terrible political correctness, people saying happy holidays instead of merry Christmas

Oh, wow! Nicely played! The very thought that the biggest problems our country faced were unemployment and the fact that it wasn't really cool to say racist shit? They're gonna love that at CPAC. And the cherry on top: the fantasy of people afraid to say the words "merry" and "Christmas" even though everyone says those words all the time the entire month of December, that's a sure crowd-pleaser!

“Donald Trump invited me to the meet him at Trump Tower in New York City,” Lindell said. “I walked into his office with high hopes on August 15th, 2016. I walked out of that office after meeting with him and I knew God had chosen him for such a time as this.”

And he sticks the landing!

But, as we said earlier, the low degree of difficulty may cost him here. It's been widely accepted on the right for years that the President of the United States is chosen specifically by God himself to lead the free world unless he's a Democrat. He's really not pulling out anything the judges haven't seen a thousand times before.

Lindell added: “God answered our prayers, our millions of prayers and gave us grace, and a miracle happened on November 8th, 2016. We were given a second chance and time granted to get our country back on track with our conservative values and getting people saved in Jesus name.”

I would say he's beating a dead horse at this point, but to be fair, this is CPAC, where dead horses are beaten like rented mules and these folks eat that shit up.


Now let's head over to the main stage where former governor Scott Walker is preparing to compete in Most oOtrageous Lie:

Holy shit -- here's @ScottWalker suggesting some people "take the baby home and kill the baby at home."

"By the way, it's not live-birth abortion. It's not infanticide. It is murder if you take the baby home and kill the baby at home, it's murder."

Nobody disagrees with that! pic.twitter.com/w6Q8B6wDrA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2019

Wow! A very strong opening round from Walker! That lie is going to be hard to beat. The combination of the audacity, the brazen untruthfulness, and the repulsive quality - - well, that's just not something you see every day.

Now our forst international competitor, Sebastion Gorka from God knows what country - FakeAccentistan? Gorka is an experienced veteran in the sport of outrageous lying and is also a Nazi.

Former Trump White House official Sebastian Gorka: "They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved."

😂😭😂😭🤦‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/t5amL02ABm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2019

Oooh. That came up a bit short. I mean, it's completely absurd of course, absurdity has always been Gorka's strong suit, but I don't think we're really seeing the offensiveness that it would take to hang in there with Walker. Gorka's lie is laughable, but not in a way that you would feel guilty about laughing. No mention of dead babies, no accusations of infanticide. . . just not his best work. And the judges agree.

It's going to be tough for Gorka to medal this year.

And I'm getting word now that another former governor, Maine's Paul LePage, has entered the competition offsite.

That's right, Perfessor. LePage is not even at CPAC, but this entry could earn him at least a silver in Blatant Racism.

Speaking to the hosts of the WVOM morning show this week, former Governor Paul LePage lambasted a bill being considered by Maine’s legislature to join with other states to essentially bypass the Electoral College and ensure that the President is elected by the national popular vote.
“Actually what would happen if they do what they say they’re gonna do is white people will not have anything to say. It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida,” said LePage.

Oh, and that's a stunningly racist statement from LePage! Very few contestants are able to avoid the "sugarcoating" trap and just pour out straight 100-proof vintage racism like that. We haven't seen a racist this strong since the days of Strom Thurmond and Lester Maddox! I gotta say, this makes him the man to beat in this event.


Well, that's all the time we have tonight. Tune in tomorrow for more coverage of the 2019 Shitllympics. Brought to you by overpriced mediocre pillows!

There are monsters among us.

Evangelical group wants gays removed from anti-lynching bill

O my God.

You know, you come to expect a certain amount of fuckery from these anti-LGBT bigots.

You expect a lot of assholishness, a good bit of prickishness, more than their fair share of just general stupidity and shittiness, but this? Holy fuck, this is monstrous!

The Senate passed a bill to make it a federal crime to lynch people, and your reaction is not to say "about god damn time, shoulda done this 150 years ago," but to say "yeah, but it's okay to murder someone if they're gay, though, right?" And you're just going to put this out there in public as if saying this didn't qualify you for tar, feathers and a free rail-ride out of town.



What is even the rationalization for this grotesque and obscene stance?

The U.S. Senate last month unanimously passed a bill that would explicitly make lynching a federal crime. Not everyone, however, is pleased with passage of the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act.
Liberty Counsel, an evangelical nonprofit that opposes gay rights, and its chairman, Mat Staver, are taking issue with the bill’s inclusion of LGBTQ people.
"The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can't stop them from coming the rest of the way in," Staver said

Huh?

The camel's nose? I'm trying to figure out how this analogy even would work. I assume that in this analogy, the camel is the gay people.  The tent is. . . I don't know, NOT being murdered, I guess? So if the gay people get a little taste of not being murdered, they're just gonna want to not be murdered ALL the time? And they'll just push their way into the "it's not okay to murder this person" zone? And this is bad? Somehow? 

Maybe if I let him continue it will make more sense.

"The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can't stop them from coming the rest of the way in," Staver said in an interview with conservative Christian news outlet OneNewsNow. “This is a way to slip it in under a so-called anti-lynching bill, and to then to sort of circle the wagon and then go for the juggler [sic] at some time in the future."

Ah, for one brief, beautiful moment, I forgot that Louis CK is a huge asshole.

It might make even less sense now.

Let's start with the phrase "a so-called anti-lynching bill."  This is a bill that makes lynching a federal crime. It is pretty much the dictionary definition of an anti-lynching bill. It's like calling LeBron James a "so-called basketball player,"  or calling Donald Trump the "so-called disgrace to the nation."

Then there's "circle the wagon." First of all, you can not circle A wagon. You need several wagons. Circling the wagons means taking all your wagons and forming a circle out of them, which is, as anyone who has ever seen a western movie or a television show or has the sense God gave a mule knows, is a DEFENSIVE maneuver.

You don't circle your wagons in preparation for going for the "juggler."

Also, what is it that they're "slipping in" to this bill? The idea that, even if you don't approve of someone's love life you still don't get to murder them? Because it seems like they're being pretty up-front about that. Nothing really sneaky there.

Maybe the original source has more context. Let's see, where was this interview? Some site called "One News Now?" Let me just click on over and . . .

Oh, dear God.

Staver: LGBT 'rights' sneakily added to anti-lynching bill
A constitutional law expert is asking Congress to block the latest attempt to force the LGBT agenda on the country.

Hmm. I'm not all that familiar with Mat "One T" Staver. Is he a "constitutional law expert?" If I were a betting man, I'd say no. He is not. And I sure don't feel like doing the research to find out.

The Justice for Victims of Lynching Act passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate but Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver says it passed without some senators realizing an amendment was added providing special rights for homosexuals and transgenders.

Oh, of course. "Special Rights." We've been hearing about "special rights" since the first day someone suggested that maybe the gay people should be treated as equal citizens and human beings. It's one more example of rule number one for conservatives. No conservative will ever argue anything honestly. No conservative will just say "I don't like those people, so I want them to not have rights." They will always come up with some sort of bullshit like "well why should they get 'special rights?'" or "if we let those people get married, it will damage our hetero marriages." or "look, I'd love to have equal rights for everyone, but I'm just worried that God might smite us."


So what "special rights" were snuck into the bill? Well, it may surprise you to learn that he doesn't say. I guess it's just so obvious that there's no need to waste time enumerating all the special rights that were secreted into this bill. Like um. . .  well there's. . .  uhhhh. . . hmm! You know what, I can't come up with anything. Weird!

"The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can't stop them from coming the rest of the way in," he explains. "And this would be the first time that you would have in federal law mentioning gender identity and sexual orientation as part of this anti-lynching bill."

Well, yeah. Good point. This bill would be the first time that gender identity and sexual orientation are mentioned as part of this bill. Can't argue with that.

No one can or should oppose a bill that bans lynching, says the Liberty Counsel attorney, and thus it's being used as back door approach 

Seriously, dude? A "back door" approach?

No one can or should oppose a bill that bans lynching, says the Liberty Counsel attorney, and thus it's being used as back door approach to pass legislation such as the controversial Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Okay, first of all, no it isn't. There is no parliamentary trick that would allow the Senate to pass one bill and then go "aha! You fools! You passed one bill that prohibits people from being total pigfuckers towards LGBT people, that means that ALL the bills about not being total pigfuckers to LGBTs also pass!"
Also, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is not controversial in the real world. Only in your stupid shitty evangelical hate-bubble. In the real world, if you ask someone "should your boss be able to fire you if he doesn't like who you date?" about 99% of people will respond "hell, no!"  It's controversial to you the same way that the RICO laws are controversial to La Costa Nostra.

"So far they've been unsuccessful over the many years in the past," Staver observes, "but this is a way to slip it in under a so-called anti-lynching bill, and to then to sort of circle the wagon and then go for the jugular at some time in the future."

Okay, we've already been over this part, but fucking hell! Who doesn't understand the expression "circle the wagons?"

Staver tells OneNewsNow that Liberty Counsel is talking to lawmakers in the House in an effort to convince them to strip the bill of the amendment before taking a vote.

You know, I'd like to think "you're too late, Staver, the Democrats have retaken the House and Nacy Pelosi has the gavel!" but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that trusting the Democrats to do the right thing is a recipe for heartbreak.

The federalist is a never-ending supply of weirdos.

Is there a bigger collection of weirdos than the Federalist?

Spoiler alert: There is not.

Check this out:

Why Even Non-Christians Lose From Growing Ignorance About The Bible

This is a loss not only of the Bible or Christian faith but a severing of his connection to all the other aspects of a culture that ought to have been ours.

By Colin Chan Redemer

DECEMBER 26, 2018

Okay, I normally like to begin at the beginning of these things, but I want to jump ahead to a section that is, in my opinion emblematic of the kind of work they do over at the Federalist:

Where in the past we could hope that the general population would pick up a good bit of biblical teaching from a book, film, or at least a department store, we now live in a world where that’s all in the past. Google willgladly doodle out about Hannah Glasse’s 310th birthday or the 30th anniversary of Pi day but, come Christmas time, it will merely say “Holidays 2018.” Come Easter, and it will celebrate nothing at all.

Now you might think that surely this guy has studied the Google Doodle archives before making such a claim, but you would be wrong. And why were you even thinking that? Did you think that little quote was going to turn out to be true? Then there'd be no blog post!  How would I get to be all sarcastic and snotty about a true statement? Come on, people. Think!

Anyway, I Googled Google Doodles and it took me about ten seconds to come up with these:
.

Google Doodle has churned out another festive design for Christmas with a decorated Google logo including Christmas ornaments. Check out important facts about the festival and the other doodles of he season.

Now you could certainly complain that Google's holiday doodles are all secular in nature, but that's not what he claims. He says " come Christmas time, it will merely say “Holidays 2018.” Come Easter, and it will celebrate nothing at all."


This, of course, illustrates the first law of conservatives: No conservative will ever argue anything honestly.

Okay. So now let's go back to the beginning.

One short conversation from graduate school stands out above all the others. It was during a cigarette break. (This was back when Californians could still have a cigarette break, having not yet been legally turned into the less-social smartphone break.)

And there it is again. You can still smoke cigarettes in California. You can't smoke in an office or a classroom or other enclosed area where other people have to breathe the air into which you are blowing smoke, but smoking has not been made illegal in the state of California.

The class had been discussing a modern novel and I had perked up with a comment about how the author had put an unattributed quote from the Psalms in a character’s mouth. It wasn’t the first time I had offered this sort of insight in class, but I tended to keep these observations casual so as not to draw too much attention.

During the break, my oh-so-hip San Francisco-dwelling classmate turned to me and asked, “How did you know that about the Psalms?” I explained that I was a Christian and sheepishly confessed that I read the Bible pretty regularly. He looked at me with longing and confessed in turn, “I wish I knew the Bible.”

Mm hmm. Yes, I'm sure that is exactly the conversation that occurred. This San Francisco hipster who had managed to graduate college and was working on a post-graduate degree had always wanted to know more about the Bible but had never been able to conceive of a way to learn about it. He never figured out that he could walk into any bookstore, purchase a copy of the Bible and, you know, read it. Oh how he envied you and your knowledge of how to avail oneself of book learning!

I didn’t know how to respond. I had spent most of my young life avoiding letting people know just how well I knew the Bible. In thousands of veiled and unveiled ways, it had been clear to me that having spent evenings and weekends reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible made me odd. 

Not exactly. Being odd made you spend your nights and weekends memorizing the Bible.

The lack of biblical literacy has been catalogued by various polling firms and lamentedfrom countless pulpits (or at least at pastor support groups), but no one is cataloguing the emptiness of a culture without a sacred rock at its foundation. It isn’t catalogued because it isn’t quantifiable.

It isn't cataloged because it doesn't exist.

I’m not talking here about the value of religious belief, although I’d be interested in discussing that on wholly other grounds. I’m talking solely about about education and culture. My graduate school friend desired a particular educational experience of being formed as a child by a tradition that included the biblical authors, plus Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Fielding, Dostoevsky, Melville, Faulkner, and so many more. My friend was sad that he, being now older and done with his education, couldn’t go back and be formed the way these and countless other authors and artists were formed.

Oh, God! Are we doing this again? Is it 1992 again? Are we seriously going to trot out the old "Boo hoo, kids aren't reading enough dead white men anymore" bullshit?

Good heavens, the Canon! Why, if children aren't required to read every bit of the sacred Canon, society will disintegrate! What if they read James Baldwin or Alice Walker or Isabelle Allende? Think of the consequences for society!

This formation is a tradition that he, not possessing, cannot pass on. This is a loss not only of the Bible or Christian faith but a severing of his connection to all the other aspects of a culture that ought to have been his. Studying the liberal arts without any knowledge of the Bible is to dine without salt. 

So. . .  it's good for your blood pressure?

Yeah, that checks out.




Then he goes through the part where the Google doodles aren't doing enough to educate the young about the cultural and social implications of the Hebrew scriptures. Then on to his next silly point.

Thankfully, however, with just a little bit of intentionality, most people can enter into this tradition of learning. My kids, for example, really get a kick out of the “What’s in the Bible” DVDs, which are instructive and entertaining, even for adults. But the real McCoy is to dig into the Good Book itself.
For that I recommend finding a local organization that runs Bible-reading groups like Bible Study Fellowship or Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. These groups tend to have plenty of non-Christians in attendance

No they don't. No they fucking don't. What non-Christians are attending Bible-reading groups? It's like saying there are a lot of heterosexual men in attendance most nights at the Nob Hill Male Theater.





These groups tend to have plenty of non-Christians in attendance and are often led by enthusiasts who make for better teachers than your average theology professor. The Good Book is also a pretty good book.

Oh, yes. It's riveting!

5 The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, and Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.

6 Forsooth the sons of Gomer were Ashchenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

7 And the sons of Javan were Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

8 The sons of Ham were Cush, and Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.

9 And the sons of Cush were Seba, and Havilah, Sabta, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. And the sons of Raamah were Sheba, and Dedan.

10 And Cush begat Nimrod; this Nimrod began to be mighty in [the] earth.

11 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,

Can't wait for the movie!

For me, the paradigm has shifted. I’m glad for all the sword drills I did as a youth and for all the Scripture I was forced to memorize.

Wait.

SWORD DRILLS?





What are SWORD DRILLS? Please tell me they are what they sound like!

sword drill n. [*sword ‘metaphor for the Bible’ + drill ‘an exercise, practice’] A competitive game for children in which the first person to locate and correctly recite a given verse in the Bible wins.

The format of the sword drill varies widely. Generally, the person leading the drill begins by saying, “Attention” and the players hold their Bible down at their side or tucked under one arm—as if the Bible is “sheathed.” Then the leader says, “Draw swords” or “Present arms” and the players hold their Bibles up in the air or straight out in front of them, as if the Bible were an unsheathed sword. Then the leader calls out a book, chapter, and verse of the Bible, and the players immediately search in their Bibles to find it. The first player to find the verse and read it aloud correctly wins.

Ugh. I should have known.

I am glad not only because I’m a Christian and because in Jesus’ death and resurrection I live, move, and have my being. I am also glad because as I continue to study and teach literature, art, philosophy, music, and history, I do not have to do so as a stranger in a strange land. Rather, I am an insider to a conversation that’s been taking place for thousands of years.

Yes.
Imagine if you will, someone who has never studied Christian theology, who has never memorized large chunks of the Scriptures. Someone who has never done a sword drill. Imagine that person trying to understand a work of art like this



Why, that poor fellow would be baffled!
"Who is that unfortunate man suspended from the wooden T?" he might ask. "And why are none of those people helping him? And why do some of the people have wings?" Oh, he'd just be lost. There is no way to appreciate the work of El Greco without a firm understanding of the New Testament!

I look at my college students now and think about that cigarette break. If you want your kids to thrive in graduate school, send them to Bible study.

And there you have it. The worst possible reason to send your kids to Bible study. Because this nitwit seems really to think that a grounding in Jueo-Christian mythology is essential for success in graduate school!