“I didn’t think Trump’s reign could get more Shakespearean. I was wrong..
If you tune into wingnut proclamations then you will encounter a considerable degree of double-think. They have been quite literally promoting two conflicting ideas as “truth” this past week.
Biden is supposedly ineffectual, has dementia, and is senile, hence it would be bad if you voted for him. That is what the official Trump campaign ads are claiming. At more or less the same moment in time we have Trump himself this past week claiming that Biden is so effective and sharp, that he is sufficiently powerful enough to be an existential risk to both God and the Church.
So which is it, is Biden weak and senile or is he a superhuman with supernatural abilities that enable him to attack and threaten the maker of the entire universe?
The deep irony is that both of these absurdly silly and conflicting claims are lies, but hey, that’s Trump. You can more or less guarantee that if Trump says something, it is best to assume by default that it is not true.
What new absurdities have been promoted this past week?
Let’s take a look.
Wingnut proclamations from the last 7 days
Here are some of the highlights this week…
The Cult Of Trump
- James Robison doesn’t understand why the religious-right activists who surround President Donald Trump are criticized while the prophets who confronted kings in the Bible are celebrated.
- The answer is that they are not the same thing. The Old Testament is mostly political/religious PR fiction – the Trump shit-show is incompetence and corruption incarnate here and now.
- Mark Taylor says that Trump’s recently announced support for wearing masks to stop the spread of COVID-19 is actually part of a brilliant plan to implement national Voter ID.
- Trump wears a mask now because he cares about not getting COVID-19.
- Josh Bernstein insists that if those who don’t support President Donald Trump would simply watch one of his rallies, they’d quickly discover … “his funniness, his warmth, his love for America.”
- We do indeed see his rallies. The abundance of a complete lack of empathy, lies, and racist dog whistles are on open display for all to see.
- DeAnna Lorraine hopes that Trump has been spending months studying up on the facts and expanding his vocabulary so that he just blows Joe Biden out of the water during the debates.
- “Facts” are things that Trump is incapable of grasping … and that’s a verifiable fact.
- White House senior advisor Stephen Miller claims that Donald Trump … “saved the city of Portland.”
- The folks in Portland disagree
SATAN
- David Lane declares that “COVID-19, the plundering and burning of America’s cities, the destruction of relics and monuments and the ruthless push to defund local police make abundantly clear that America is being targeted by Satan.”
- Yes indeed Mr Lane, you voted him into Office in 2016
- James Robison Says COVID-19 Is Satan Going ‘Ballistic’ to Stop Trump’s Reelection
- COVID-19 is not supernatural.
- Chris McDonald could feel the “demonic energy” when former President Barack Obama spoke at Rep. John Lewis’ funeral, saying that it was almost as if Satan himself was speaking.
- What exactly is “demonic energy”, how do you detect and measure this?
Conspiracies
- Scott Lively Urges Christian Conservatives to Flee the ‘Democrat-Controlled Population Centers’ … because … “Democratic leaders are planning to burn down cities to escape paying out pensions to their police forces“
- To be honest, I’m quite happy for the folks who take this nut seriously to move away.
- Alex Jones Tells His Listeners to Get Ready to Die in Fight Against New World Order …“Maoists” in major cities have “explosives and weapons and trucks loaded with ammonium nitrate and just chlorine gas—everything”
- Alex Jones has still Listeners?
- Charisma’s Stephen Strang Claims Liberals Blocking COVID-19 Treatments to Deny Trump a ‘Win’
- Every nation state on the planet needs a COVID-19 treatment. His claim is basically that there exists a global conspiracy against Trump.
- Rodney Howard-Browne Keeps Spreading COVID-19 Conspiracies … “claiming that efforts to defund the police are part of a plan to allow the United Nations to invade the U.S., confiscate guns, and force everyone to take a COVID-19 vaccine that will kill them“
- Evidence for any of his claims = exactly zero.
Homophobia
- Scott Lively Blames LGBTQ People for Cultural Marxism, Says Trump Exposes ‘Demonic Forces’ Controlling the Country
- This is a tad confusing. Is he claiming that the Trump whom he loves, the guy who controls the country, is a “Demonic Force“?
- After losing his job delivering packages for FedEx because he was posting bigoted videos on YouTube while wearing his uniform, anti-LGBTQ activist Mike Heath now wants to sue FedEx for a trillion dollars.
- Let’s pay the man what he wants … 1 Trillion Dollars … Zimbabwe Dollars. 100 Trillion Zimbabwe dollars is worth about 40c … and use FedEx to deliver it to him.
Truly Bizarre
Stuff that is so utterly bizarre it becomes comedy …
- Josh Bernstein says that former President Barack Obama “was a Kenyan radical Marxist” who installed “an Islamic regime” in the United States, adding that Obama was not a Christian and probably wasn’t even an American citizen.
- Unlike Trump, Obama actually went to a Church each week and really does sincerely believe.
- E.W. Jackson Wants the NBA Investigated for Treason
- I’m surprised that he hates Basketball this much.
- Dominionists Portray California Health Restrictions as Sign of End Times Persecution of Christians
- Not wanting them to die is a novel new twist on the use of the word “Persecution”
- Mark Taylor declares that any COVID-19 vaccine “is a deadly weapon” that can justifiably be resisted by way of the Second Amendment.
- He is literally attacking something that does not (yet) exist. Given that the vaccine does not exist, you can be sure that his “evidence” for his claim does not exist either, but that’s generally true for everything he claims.
- Chris McDonald warns that once they can get you to wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there is nothing to stop them from forcing you to wear goggles, a hijab, or even “the state uniform of the Gestapo Communist Party of America.”
- I vote that we all sign a petition to mandate that Chris McDonald must wear a Hijab.
- DeAnna Lorraine is urging people to stop watching CNN and rely instead on “real news sources” like Alex Jones’ Infowars because it is “one of the only places where you can get actual news.”
- Here, let me fix that for her … “one of the
onlymany places where you can getactualfake news.” (My fix is not an opinion, it is a verifiable fact)
- Here, let me fix that for her … “one of the
- Andrew Wallace wants Democratic leaders jailed for treason, declaring that … “only people who were traitors themselves could support a man like [Joe] Biden.”
- The Trump line of “Treason” that he deploys like confetti, and others pick up and parrot as part of an orange-arse-licking exercise, is just projection.
- Lowell Ponte asserts that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki in order to kill Christians: … “Thousands of Japan’s secret Christians went to Nagasaki, believing that Christian America would never destroy Japan’s most ‘Christian’ city. More Japanese Christians died in that atomic blast than during centuries of Japan’s persecution of Christians. They did not know that the leftist Democratic ruling elite in 1945 Washington, D.C., as now, were anti-Christian.”
- I have a sneaky suspicion that the reason the bomb was actually dropped just might have been motivated by WWII
What else came out of the Wingnut fantasy land last week?
Lots of other stuff.
As always, it is an endless stream. Some of it is good, some sad, some is rather grim, and some is quite frankly hilarious. Here are a few more samples …
Roy Moore is back in the news cycle …
- Judge Roy Moore Sued Sacha Baron Cohen for Defamation; It’s About to Backfire
- The backstory is Roy Moore being exposed as a rather creepy guy who hung out in malls and hit on 14 year old teen-age girls in his 30s. Sacha did a comedy skit, a prank, that mocked him for this, and Moore then sued. (To be specific, this YouTube clip). The update is that Cohen’s team says it’s not defamation if the allegations against Roy Moore are true… so they plan to prove it by interviewing all those who accused Moore as part of discovery.
Greg Locke just relishes being the centre of attention …
- MAGA Cultist Pastor: If God Makes Me Go Viral, I “Might As Well Just Walk In It”
- Greg Locke is confusing going viral with being a universal symbol of disgust. The “Going Viral” is a reference to his clip of him ranting about being told to wear a mask when going into a coffee store. That was the week before last.
- The update that past week is that “He told the crowd, if God wanted him to go viral, he has no choice but to continue…” being an asshole, I guess.
The usual weird claims …
- Scientists Disagree on the Universe’s Age, So Creationists Are Claiming Victory
- Never listen to people whose “evidence” is the only book they’ve ever read.
Sexual abuse by clerics is rather too common and so we have this from the past week …
- California AG Files New Child Rape Charges Against Megachurch Leader
- Naasón Joaquín García allegedly told girls that rejecting his advances would go against God’s wishes.
The usual COVID-19 denialism news popped up as usual …
- Catholic School Guilt-Trips COVID-Concerned Parents Into Sending Their Kids Back
- School officials sent a vile letter to parents on Friday.
- Catholic Priest Who Said People Were “Cowering in Fear” of COVID Now Has COVID
- My irony meter is broken.
- Megachurch Leader: Pastors with Online Services “Don’t Know What a Church Is”
- This preacher won’t rest until more people are infected with the virus.
- Florida Pastor Sues Over Mask Mandate Because They Get in the Way of Prayer
- I didn’t realize God could only hear loud, articulate prayers.
- One Man With COVID Visited an Ohio Church; 91 People Got Infected as a Result
- How many more people have to suffer or die because some pastors refuse to shift to online preaching?
I should perhaps also point out that most people, regardless of the belief or lack of one, are quite sensible. The above is just the lunatic fringe. There is data to verify this …
Twit of the Week – Jerry Falwell Jr
Liberty University has had a growing problem, namely Jerry Falwell Jr, the Trump loving guy who runs this infamous religious fundamentalist university. Tthis popped up in the past week
- Black Athletes Are Abandoning Liberty University Because of the School’s Racism
- Jerry Falwell Jr.’s bigotry is coming back to haunt him.
However, the big news is that Falwell posted the picture below during the past week, then quickly removed it. To be clear, that’s not his wife …
Normally what folks do in their own time is their own business, but as for this guy …
… when Falwell’s entire “brand” is promoting conservative Christianity, and when students at Liberty are prohibited from consuming alcohol (and were once punished for being at parties where alcohol was present), and when he posts weirdly sexual (?) images with a woman who’s not his wife, it seems at least worth noting his actions …
.. the point being his rather glaring double standards. His rules apply to his students, but apparently not to him.
What then happened because of it all is this ..
Jerry Falwell, Jr. is Taking an “Indefinite Leave of Absence” from Liberty U.
The “board” put him on Indefinite leave … except that Falwell is more or less the Board and gets the final say in all that happens.
Just a thought, but this feels very much like blatant media manipulation. They have a serious racist issue along with a lot of other highly dubious stuff. If you, as a potential student, google them, all that comes up. This however changes all that, because this is now what will come up instead, and it will mask the other stuff.
Prediction: Most folks are not on campus now anyway, so Falwell going off to read his bible or whatever is no big issue. In about a year he will pop up and be back officially running it all, supposedly reformed, and life goes on. Meanwhile the deeply problematic racist stuff gets buried by this media shit-storm in google searches.
Bonus Item – How to Bible
Sarah Cooper retweeted an old clip, but a golden one, this past week …