Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label wingnuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wingnuts. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Joe's Alright

I've never been a Joe Biden fan. He's fucked up a fair number of times on some issues that his human instincts gave way to his political calculations. That said, I think he's a good and decent man, and he's been a really good POTUS so far.

And that said - Robert Hur is a complete dick, and a waste of otherwise perfectly good cytoplasm.



Opinion
The special counsel was unfair to Biden and his transcript proves it

Special counsel Robert K. Hur was even more unfair to President Biden than we originally knew.


When Hur released his report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents last month, his extensive characterization of the president as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” came in for sharp criticism as gratuitous and beyond the bounds of proper prosecutorial commentary.

We now have the transcript of the president’s interview with Hur, and, to my astonishment, it’s worse than that. It turns out that the special counsel mischaracterized and overstated Biden’s alleged memory lapses. He consistently adopted an interpretation that is as uncharitable and damaging to Biden as possible.

Gratuitous is bad enough. This was gratuitous and misleading.

This isn’t to say that Biden’s performance was perfect, or anywhere close. He’s always had a penchant for mangling facts, and I don’t doubt that has worsened with age. After the Hur report was released, Biden blasted the special counsel for having brought up the painful topic of his son Beau’s death. “How in the hell dare he raise that?” the president asked. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”

In fact, the transcript shows, Biden was the one who first mentioned the timing of Beau’s death.

“So what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30?”

Two aides chime in with the year, 2015.

Then, according to the transcript:

President Biden: Was it 2015 he had died?

Unidentified male speaker: It was May of 2015.

Contrast this with the damning account in Hur’s report: “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”

During his testimony on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, Hur defended his conduct. “My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair,” he said. “I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly.”

Well, that “even within several years” characterization seems unfair to me.

And it’s not the only example. Hur’s report also notes that Biden’s “memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Biden.”

But the totality of Biden’s references to Eikenberry, who was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan in 2009, when then-Vice President Biden was lobbying President Barack Obama not to send more troops to the country, presents a less definitive — and less damning — picture of Biden’s memory.

The first time Eikenberry comes up is during a discussion of the troop surge. Obama “knew I had a real difference with the key foreign policy types, particularly — whether it was Eikenberry or whether it was — anyway,” Biden said. Did Biden merely say Eikenberry when he was thinking of someone else — or was he misremembering the position of a key player in the Afghanistan debate?

Of relevance in determining that, Biden returned to the topic of Eikenberry’s position later in the deposition — and then he stated it correctly. He described telling the president, “You know, ‘I had a long conversation with Eikenberry, yes, I urge you to call him before you make a decision. Karl can speak for himself and he has eloquently in some of his cables, let me relay just a few things. Adding troops will not speed up the ability to train Afghans because …’ etc. So these are criticisms of the proposal that was being made to the president by, by others in the administration wanting him to double down.”

Somehow, this later, more flattering recollection, didn’t make it into Hur’s report.

It’s always hard to judge a witness from the words of a cold transcript. Hur was in the room, and he left with a clear impression of what he considered Biden’s “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

I read the transcript from the perspective of someone who’s watched Biden — and watched him stumble over his words — for decades now, and I came away with a different impression. Yes, there are numerous instances in which the president appears unnervingly clueless. “If it was 2013 — when did I stop being vice president?” he asked at one point. At another, “In 2009, am I still vice president?” To me, this is, at least in part, Biden being Biden — working through out loud what the rest of us do silently.

Hur is entitled to his own interpretation, and it’s relevant, as he explained on Tuesday, to his assessment of how a jury would assess Biden’s conduct. Hur said he needed to “show his work” in explaining his decision not to pursue charges.

But the special counsel well understood that his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland would be made public — and he understood, or should have, the political fallout that would result from his scorching assessment of Biden.

So, he had a dual responsibility here, and he failed twice. First, he went beyond, far beyond, what was necessary to outline his concerns about Biden’s memory, and how that would impact any case against him. Second, as we just learned, his recitation of the facts was one-sided.

“Necessary and accurate and fair,” Hur said. I’d say he was zero for three.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Today's Wingnut

It always amazes me to hear these boneheads saying their all-powerful god is such a pussy that he can't make his way past a few worthless congress critters, or a couple of office ladies at the local middle school.


Monday, February 26, 2024

Thursday, February 08, 2024

Today's Wingnut

Love your neighbor, and welcome the stranger - until we find it politically useful to make you feel afraid of them.

There's no hate greater than Christian love.


Sunday, February 04, 2024

Wednesday, January 03, 2024

Today's Wingnut

No matter what else, the god-knobbers always bring it down to, "That's what god told me, so that's what all of you have to go along with it."


It doesn't matter that the founders wanted to keep god and religion out of government. It doesn't matter that they wrote it down. The bible-thumpers are going to revise that history, in order to make the claim that this is a Christian nation, and therefor its government must be imbued with Christianity.


Monday, December 18, 2023

More Than Just A Wingnut

 


 

On August 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler’s mother’s birthday.

The German Reich needed a robust and growing population and encouraged couples to have large families. It started such encouragement early. Once members of the distaff wing of the Hitler Youth movement, the League of German Girls, turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity. And so each year, in honor of his beloved mother, Klara, and in memory of her birthday, a gold medal was awarded to women with seven children, a silver to women with six, and a bronze to women with five.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Today's Wingnut

Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

I can't confirm this one
(I also can't confirm there's a banjo playing in the background)

This one -
with the White Power hand sign -
is official

I imagine Marsha's C Street Family gang is quite proud


The Fellowship (incorporated as Fellowship Foundation and doing business as the International Foundation), also known as The Family, is a U.S.-based nonprofit religious and political organization founded in April 1935 by Abraham Vereide. The stated purpose of The Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum where decision makers can attend Bible studies, attend prayer meetings, worship God, experience spiritual affirmation and receive support.

The Fellowship has been described as one of the most politically well-connected and one of the most secretly funded ministries in the United States. It shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. The Fellowship's former leader, the late Douglas Coe, and others have justified the organization's desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting that they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.

The Fellowship holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast, which is in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during their term.[citation needed]

The group's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid organizations, and ambassadors and high-ranking politicians from across the world. Many United States senators and congressmen have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having worked together to pass or influence legislation.

Doug Burleigh is a key figure in the organization and has taken over organizing the National Prayer Breakfast since the death of his father-in-law, Doug Coe.[citation needed] The current president of the organization (starting in 2017) is Katherine Crane.

In Newsweek, Lisa Miller wrote that rather than calling themselves "Christians", as they describe themselves, they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable. In 2022, Netflix released a documentary called The Family which depicts the organization's influence on American politics throughout history.

History

The Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator, who organized a month of prayer meetings in 1934 in San Francisco. The Fellowship was founded in 1935 in opposition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. His work spread down the West Coast and eventually to Boston.[9][dead link]

The author Jeff Sharlet described the beginning of the Family as a reaction to union activities of Harry Bridges, "The Family really begins when the founder (Abraham Vereide) has this vision, which he thinks comes from God, that Harry Bridges, this Australian labour organiser who organised really the biggest strike in American history, a very successful strike, is a Satanic and Soviet agent."

- more -

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Today's Wingnut


It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense. Or rather, it's supposed to not make sense.

If an authoritarian keeps it all straight, he's not an authoritarian. So the point of the exercise is to maintain a consistency of being inconsistent. That way, the devotees must always come back and ask you what they should be thinking at any given moment about any given thing.


Daddy State Awareness


THE BASICS:

  • The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
  • The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
  • Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

The Turning Worms

Steve Deace is a star in the evangelical firmament, as is Bob Vander Plaats.

They're finally decided to admit they've been hornswoggled part of the whole fucking scam all along.

And when Vander Putz carps about how his support isn't for sale? Bullshit. He listed his price: 
  1. Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem
  2. Three SCOTUS seats that killed Roe v Wade
Trump did what they paid him to do - what they traded their integrity for - and now suddenly they've discovered what a fuckin' dirt bag the guy is?



Thursday, November 09, 2023

Today's Wingnut

  • Democrats want no restrictions on abortion... "up to the moment of birth - and beyond."
  • We need to stop being shy about this and paint with bright red colors (WTAF, Bob?)
  • Bob Good - even his name is a lie

Monday, November 06, 2023

Overheard


The wingnuts who exalted 'Purity Balls', where daughters would pledge abstinence - promising their dads to maintain their virginity until their husbands "take it from them" - are now scolding us all about "sexualizing children".

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Today's Wingnut

Our rights don't come from a god, and they don't come from a government.

Saying our rights are god-given (endowed by a creator), or granted under the US Constitution - all of that is euphemism. It's just a convenience of language.

Nobody "gives" us our basic human rights - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness - we're born with them. So what we do is create institutions of law to keep powerful people from denying us those rights.



If we allow Mike Johnson's imaginary friend to inform us about our rights, then we're opening the door for Mr Johnson to tell us he gets to fuck us out of our rights because that same imaginary friend said so.

You believe what you want to believe, and sorry not sorry, but fuck you and the god you rode in on, Skeezix.


Thursday, October 19, 2023

The Great Karen-ing

Don't sleep on this.

Republicans want to strip away as much of our protections as possible - while gaslighting us with their spiel about "defending the real America from government tyranny".

North of 90% of the book banning that goes on right now is the work of 11 people.

This is not conservative ideology - this is Daddy State fuckery of the highest order.



Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Slapping Back

"Travis Kelce should be hung"

"Uh, Travis Kelce is 6'5", 250 - I think he prob'ly is."



Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Today's Wingnut


I'm not a racist, but ...
I'm not a misogynist, but ...
We're not creating a theocracy, but ...


Thursday, June 15, 2023

Today's Wingnut


People unwilling to die for their faith is not the problem.

People willing to kill for their faith is the fucking problem.


MAGA pastor: Christians need people who are ‘willing to strap bombs to their chest’ like the Muslims

Far-right Nashville pastor Kent Christmas told his congregation last Sunday that they should harness the dedication that drives Islamic terrorists to be willing to “die for their beliefs,” Right Wing Watch reported.

During his sermon, Christmas falsely claimed that the state of Vermont recently passed legislation declaring that “it is legal, up to 21 days after full-term birth, that you can kill a baby.”

As Right Wing Watch points out, Christmas is a Trump–loving pastor and conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly declared that God will soon start killing “wicked” elected officials

“I am at war with evil!” Christmas ranted. “This is one preacher that is not backing down. I can tell you this: I will give my life for the Gospel.”

“You want to know why the Muslim faith has had its advancements?” he continued. “It’s because the Muslims were willing to die for their beliefs. They were willing to strap bombs to their chest. They believed in the afterlife.”

“God, give us some men and women that will get a hold of some passion in their spirit and say, ‘I will lay down my life for the Gospel!’” he said. “This thing was born in blood.”



Usually, these guys are way more clever, taking some pains to couch their threats and their calls for violence in language that's more easily construed, and dismissed, as fluffy rhetorical excess (anybody who's trying to sell belief in the Great And Powerful Pixie In The Sky needs to pump up the bombast). This seems to cross a broad bright red line.

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Today's Wingnut


Pareidolia
noun

par·​ei·​do·​lia ˌper-ˌī-ˈdō-lē-ə -ˈdōl-yə

The tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.

The scientific explanation for some people is pareidolia, or the human ability to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness. Think of the Rorschach inkblot test.


Even if I could accept this crap as not being Photo Shopped or Midjourneyed, the explanation is pretty simple.

Monday, May 08, 2023

Today's Wingnut


I really wish I could say this is as weird as it gets.

It's not.

These god-knobber zealots are just as eager to tear down our democracy as their asshole plutocratic buddies.

I think I can recognize a certain escalation in it though - there's a strong resemblance to the old trope about "Two Sides Of The Same Evil Duopoly's Coin".

Hyper-Nationalism, Religious and Racially-charged Chauvinism, along with the impulse to obey an authoritarian Daddy Figure makes for a very shitty potential outcome.



IF ONLY THESE ASSHOLES
WOULD LEARN TO SKIP
AHEAD TO THE PART
WHERE THEIR LEADERS ARE
NOTHING BUT
SMOLDERING CORPSES
IN A DITCH OUTSIDE
DER FÙHERBUNKER

Friday, April 28, 2023

Today's Wingnut & A Quote


Happy to discuss and debate and debunk whatever religiousness you care to bandy about - as long as we're just some people talking and passing the time. But when it comes to what we should be doing to govern ourselves, I'll thank you to keep your imaginary friends to yourself.


Notice how their god always agrees with everything the fanatics have to say, and everything they do has their god's full support.

No matter what they say or do, it's because their god told them it was either OK or (more often than not) mandatory. In that regard, how are the god-knobbers any different from the Son Of Sam killer?


"Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United
States of America," Preface, 1787-1788