Two significant political news items took place this past week. Extremist and insurrectionist Gym Jordan strove to become speaker, and thankfully failed. The other concerned Sidney Powell pleading guilty in the election subversion case. It other words Trump’s Kracken cracked. She was the first co-defendant to do so, and now others will be attempting to also strike deals in exchange for a guilty plea.
She knows how the system works. The reality in such cases is that if you get in early then you can get a good deal, but if you make the prosecutors work, then not so much.
The headline I’ve opted for is of course Gym Jordan coming ever so close to becoming the speaker because that was yet more insanity being deployed by the party of fools. There are multiple reasons why it was quite frankly an utterly horrendous move (paraphrased from here) …
- He is an insurrectionist. Jordan was an aggressive supporter of Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 loss.
- He is Trump’s lapdog.
- He undermines the rule of law. He not only defied a congressional subpoena, but also has abused his power as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to interfere in legal investigations and indictments of Trump.
- He is an anti-freedom extremist. Jordan sponsored an extreme national abortion ban. The Human Rights Campaign has called him “a member of the anti-equality fringe” for his support for anti-LGBTQ legislation.
- He is about ideological warfare, not governing. Former House Speaker John Boehner described Jordan as a “legislative terrorist,” explaining later about Jordan, “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart—never building anything, never putting anything together.”
- He is the far right’s candidate. When a group affiliated with the Koch brothers launched a petition campaign to encourage Jordan to run for House Speaker in 2018, the signers were a Who’s Who of leaders from the Religious Right, legal and corporate right, and Tea Party.
- He promotes damaging right-wing conspiracy theories.
… and finally, the reason he is also often referred to as Gym and not Jim …
- Multiple former Ohio State wrestlers have publicly charged that when he was an assistant coach, Jordan knew that a team doctor was sexually harassing and abusing student athletes, but refused to take action. One former wrestler said Jordan snickered when the student told him about a groping incident. Another athlete who has accused Jordan of lying about the situation has said Jordan doesn’t deserve to be speaker, adding, “He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
… and this is the guy they almost all rallied around to be speaker. Thankfully a handful of saner Republicans said “no way” despite the intimidation …
When its time for you to vote, then please do remember the things that were apparently not deal-breakers for the @HouseGOP caucus …
As we all watched during this past week as they strove to make the most extreme, unaccomplished, ethically compromised, and unqualified individual the speaker, all we can do is to exclaim “Jesus”, (not in a religious sense), and also now wonder whom their next candidate will be … George Santos perhaps?
One last thought.
If you are thinking “They are all the same“, then hit pause on that thought, because they really are not. The most “extreme” leftmost Democrats in the House want a $25 minimum wage, bodily autonomy, equal pay for equal work, voting rights, a climate plan, and fully funded public schools. There are no conspiracy theorists. There are no violence supporters. There are no anti-Americans. There are no kooks, no nut jobs, no wackos. They really are not all the same.
Moving on, below you will once again find my usual selection of some truly bizarre and extreme claims that have popped up during the last 7 days. Each is laced with my snarky commentary.
With my usual hat tip to my various sources, let’s once again dive into this very murky pool of absurdity and stupidity.
Christian Nationalism
Jarrin Jackson admits that as a Christian, “Yes, I do want to impose my morality on others.”
- In response we all have just two words for him … the second one is “off”.
David Lane proclaims that right-wing Christians must prioritize “electing like-minded candidates to political office who represent Christian values, who then draft and pass virtuous legislation, and so codify into law Biblical values that will safeguard the nation for our children and grandchildren.”
- Will we be seeing laws that ban shellfish consumption or endorse beating your slave, because both of those are “Biblical values“, or will they simply be cherry picking the stuff that panders to their bigotry?
Israel
Michele Bachmann declares that the attack on Israel “was a satanically inspired attack that has come from the beginning of time by Satan himself.”
- Bachmann did crazy long before it was popular or mainstream
Nearly every segment that Stew Peters does about the war in Israel features a far-right commentator ranting that the Jews killed Jesus and last night’s program was no different.
- Can any of these claimants name just one person in Israel today who was alive and influential over 2,000 years ago?
- Since it was the Romans that killed Jesus perhaps they should boycott Piazzas and Pasta.
Right-wing pastor Jack Hibbs used his Sunday sermon to declare that “God sanctions war” and therefore it is unchristian to demand that Israel’s response to the attacks from Hamas be “proportional.”
- Which specific God does he have in mind? Perhaps “Mars” the God of war.
- Pastor Hibbs appears to have gone into full crusader mode “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.” (“Kill them. The Lord knows those that are his own”) – Side Note: That “thinking” comes from the crusader assault on Béziers. When it was pointed out that some of the people in the city where Christians, a decision was made to just kill them all and let God sort it, so they slaughtered everybody.
- If only somebody had perhaps thought of writing something like “Thou shalt not kill.” on a stone tablet for these lunatics as a moral clue
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson took advantage of Gov. Roy Cooper’s absence from the state to proclaim “North Carolina Solidarity With Israel Week,” presumably in an effort to downplay his own long history of antisemitism now that he is running for governor.
- If you are wondering if this is either a “cynical publicity stunt” or a “cheap political shot”, then let me assure you that it’s not a binary choice – it is both.
- Least you wonder about his sincerity here, then let me also assure you it is not. In the not to distant past Mr Robinson was engaging in Holocaust denialism and also dishing out Antisemitic remarks.
Michele Bachmann, yes her again, because clearly this all triggered her, is outraged that Rep. Rashida Tlaib addressed a protest calling for ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, claiming it shows that “diversity of religion” is weakening this nation.
- Wait what … she thinks calling for a ceasefire is outrageous!
- Is she implying that Christians should be warmongers or insinuating that Israel is part of America
The Cult of Trump
Roger Stone spoke at a Pastors For Trump event and used the opportunity to clarify something: “We do not deify or worship Donald Trump. We worship the Lord, but we recognize Donald Trump as his apostle.”
- So basically Trump is not his Lord and Saviour, just an apostle. Does that make him the 13th apostle? We have Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, etc… and now Trump, whom Judas just loves because by comparison Trump makes him look cool, ethical, and good.
- No matter how desperately he tries to spin it, it’s still a cult.
- Meanwhile, for those that like to follow this “apostle”, then let’s not forget that his teaching is to reach out to them by grabbing them by the pussy, just like Jesus would.
Right-wing pastor Robert Henderson was a deeply committed member of the Cult of Trump and once declared that the president should never be criticised. Conveniently, these days Mr Henderson No Longer Believes the President ‘Should Never Be Criticized’
- You will know that they are Christian by their … hypocrisy.
Speaking at a Pastors for Trump rally, right-wing pastor Jackson Lahmeyer called on God to remove from office all politicians “that refuse to listen to your voice”: “Father, it is our request that you would uproot them and that you would remove them and you would replace them.”
- If God actually answered that prayer then you would see every single Republican removed from office.
- What is perhaps weird about this is that he is asking God to corruptly rig elections
- He is literally promoting the belief that the only viable kind of representative democracy is one that exclusively represents a specific strand of Christianity. Hint: That’s not democracy at all.
Meanwhile, Gov Jindal of Louisiana has, after being a strident and vocal opponent, suddenly gone full Trump …
Christian “Love”
After the above went viral and caused many to push back, Locke then pretended he didn’t say what he absolutely said and was supposedly outraged by the criticism, which basically translates into “How DARE you quote me in context and on video!!“, yet when he said the original, he said he doesn’t care what people think. Now we discover that he actually does, but only when they are the marks that donate to him.
Meanwhile, right-wing commentator “Peachy Keenan” says that the mother of transgender activist Jazz Jennings is “an abusive demon,” prompting host Eric Metaxas to declare that “in a civilized world, his mother would have been burned as a witch.”
- So yes, Mr Metaxas has indeed gone into full middle-ages mode.
Homophobia on Steroids
Scott Lively asserts that “the LGBT movement is worse” than sex trafficking because while “unwilling sex slaves can be rescued and resume a normal life, but, a great many LGBT recruits lose any sense of sexual normalcy, becoming ‘social justice’ fanatics in defense of deviance, more zealous than even religious cultists.”
- Scott as usual is talking out of his arse. The actual abnormality here is Mr Lively’s stance – nobody gets “recruited”, you are born with a specific sexual orientation.
- It’s also weird that he actually thinks “social justice” is a derogatory slur
- To be honest Mr Lively has always been making weird claims. He wrote an entire book that claims that the Nazis were all gay and that supposedly inspired the holocaust.
- Meanwhile, he has personally instigated his very own holocaust by influencing an African nation to introduce the death penalty for being gay.
This past week there was also this …
Deeply Weird
Ali Alexander says that “anyone calling a Christian ‘anti-semitic’ is actually anti-Christian”: “Without Christians there would be no Jews left on the planet. We are the stabilizing force for civilization.”
- This is simply the latest offering of weirdness from the guy who has previously claimed he is just like Jesus, the father of dragons, and is also a time traveller.
Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin claims that he has “researched it a lot” and concluded that “Hepatitis, HIV, HPV, and herpes are all theoretical” and that viruses in general probably don’t exist.
- “researched it a lot” Translation: He went on google and found a few whacky fringe websites that he liked and decided that the entire global medical community, literally millions of highly educated medical professionals, have been wrong for the past several centuries and that the lone nutter he discovered has the “truth” on the basis of exactly no evidence at all.
- Pro-life Tip: Don’t take medical advice from whacky neo-nazi lunatics
Kandiss Taylor, the Jesus, Guns, and Babies fanatic, is outraged that Taylor Swift is supposedly “celebrating witchcraft.”
- Kandiss clearly is struggling to grasp a few basics here and has gone into full-Salem mode.
- We have Taylor Swift who performs music, is smart, intelligent, and has a very large public following vs Kandiss who has none of that and is quite frankly irrelevant – if asked to place a bet, then you can guess where my money is going.
- Meanwhile, if indeed the Klanned Karenhood wish to boycott Taylor Swift, then best of luck to them doing that.
- Fact Check: SCOTUS never banned the Bible. It only banned mandatory, teacher-led, devotional reading.
- Perhaps he simply looked in the non-fiction section and was unable to find it, so simply assumed it had been banned.
- Meanwhile American Atheists Tweeted back at him … “Hi @RepBurgessOwens. You may know us from such Supreme Court cases as The One You’re Mischaracterizing. The Bible has never been banned from public schools. Do you really want teachers leading *mandatory* Bible readings in class? Which version of the Bible are you mandating?“
Jason Rapert claims that women traveling out of state in order to obtain an abortion “is just as bad as sex trafficking.”
- Sex trafficking is very obviously a moral outrage, but do you know what else is? …… Yep, denying women choices and access to basic reproductive healthcare for religious reasons, not moral ones.
The False Profit$
Curt Landry, who repeatedly prophesied that former President Donald Trump would be reelected in 2020, now says that he is not responsible if his prophecies don’t come true because it is “human lack of attention to following through with the details” that is to blame.
- The self-appointed “prophets” generally play one of these cards when challenged … 1) It really happened, but only on a spiritual level so you can’t see it. 2) We prayed and so God changed his mind. 3) Evil forces scuppered the will of God. What never ever ever (did I mention ever) happens is … oh, I was wrong, I guess I’m not a prophet.
- Back in 1956, psychologist Leon Festinger published his now famous book “When Prophecy Fails:“. Briefly: there was a UFO cult that he and his students joined to see what would happen when the aliens failed to show up as promised on a specific date. The result – those that believed doubled down on their beliefs.
When Rep. Jim Jordan was first nominated to be Speaker of the House, MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn boldly declared that it was all part of God’s plan to put former President Donald Trump in charge of the House using Jordan as his proxy. “I told you so,” Vaughn crooned. “Oh, I told you so.”
- We can’t wait to hear how Vaughn explains Jordan’s defeat.
Meanwhile the fake prophets just keep on rolling …
- For the record, it’s not new, she has been banging the above toy drum since 2021 almost non-stop
- Reminder: Last year, the “amazing” Ms Green also predicted that Charles would never become king because his murder of his mother was uncovered; Schumer, Pelosi, and McConnell would be “taken out” by the Angel of Death … in other words, her batting average on her prophecies is a solid .000.
Good News
Let’s wrap up this week on a positive note. This really is a big deal and a very positive encouraging step…
Meanwhile …
You just have to bow to the superior dark humor of some …
If you enjoyed the clip above, then here is the full 30 min interview … (Hint: 16 million views so far) …