Archive for the ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene’ Category
LIFE HACK: BE EXTREMELY RICH AND HAVE AN ARMY OF LAWYERS. PLUS OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY.
It’s been a strange few days. Here’s a good one: The ‘Biblical view’ that’s younger than the happy meal. Basically the idea that the Bible prohibits abortion and says life begins at conception dates from about 1980. Before then evangelicals felt the same as everyone else, it’s not a person until it’s born. And now that’s completely changed, largely driven by politics. People love to think they are making up their own minds about things, when in fact most of them are easily manipulated into believing all sorts of things. A problem that’s getting worse as the sciences of advertising and propaganda learn new ways to manipulate people constantly.
OK, a nice nature story. (Snort.) The ‘ecological hate speech’ developed around wildfire. Basically the logging industry and their subsidiary, the US Forest Service, have totally controlled the narrative about forest management. And lo and behold they’ve created a widely believed narrative which justifies maximum logging at terrible environmental cost. Greed is the most powerful force in the Universe. Read the article for the details, but it’s hella depressing. Especially how Trump fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Speaking of politics: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy threatens to strip members of committee assignments if they join the Jan. 6 investigation, reports say. We can thank the Dems for weaponizing this, I predicted such after the Dems voted to deny MTG her committee appointments. Congress was already an ineffective partisan farce, now it’s sunk deeper into irrelevancy. Though to give them their props, sometimes they get things right: House Votes to Remove ‘Grotesque’ Confederate Statues from Display in U.S. Capitol. The Confederacy was the greatest crime in American history, their revolt cost a million freaking lives. And they revolted because they wanted to keep human beings as property because of the color of their skin! No sheet the leaders of this treason shouldn’t be on display in the U.S. Capitol.
And the National Guard is apparently now guns-for-hire, a junk-car billionaire is paying for the deployment of 50 National Guardsmen on the southern border: Willis Johnson, Junk-Car Billionaire, Bankrolls Kristi Noem’s Border Deployment. This might technically be legal, but it certainly shouldn’t be. I think it’s safe to say that the astute reader could see how having the military undertake missions at the behest of billionaires could lead to major problems. Usually slippery slope arguments are bogus, but in this case, no, I don’t want Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos deciding where the US military gets deployed. I don’t think anyone does.
Sigh. A few missed holidays. June 30th was Asteroid Day. A UN sponsored day to spread awareness of asteroids and the risks they pose. June 30th was chosen because the Tunguska Event occurred on June 30th, 1908. This was a ten to thirty megaton explosion in the sky over a remote part of Siberia. That’s like a really big nuclear explosion, vastly larger than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately it was over such a remote area that maybe only three people were killed. And it was so remote that it wasn’t scientifically investigated for decades. And even when it was investigated, well, there had been a huge explosion, but no impact crater! What the hell?
It was quite the mystery. And in fact (no surprise here) lay speculation included aliens and other such nonsense. We now know that a rocky asteroid (or possibly a comet) about 100 yards in diameter heated up and exploded in the atmosphere before hitting the ground. Similar to the smaller Chelyabinsk meteor explosion in 2013. Here’s a good article about it: 1908 SIBERIA EXPLOSION: Reconstructing an Asteroid Impact from Eyewitness Accounts.
And other Holidays. July 1st was Canada Day, the Canadian parallel to America’s Independence Day. Celebrations were a bit muted because a third mass grave near a residential school was found: Nearly 200 unmarked graves found near Canada residential school. Hard to celebrate a nation that forcibly put children in essentially concentration camps for purely racist reasons. And the Brits are upset that some statues of British monarchs who were on board with this were toppled. Fork them.
Well, I hope all are doing well these strange and terrible days. Canada is burning. The ocean caught fire. Strange new forms of Covid are arising. The Pentagon says angels and demons “can’t be ruled out.” OK then. Stay safe, gentle reader.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: View from Kirensk, two seconds before the explosion. (400km, 250 miles away.) Painting © William K. Hartmann. Used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
I GIVE UP, TRUMPTOPIA FOREVER!
Sunday, another week has gone by, and the world rolls on. I have to admit, the post Trump era isn’t anything like I expected. Not that I knew what to expect, no one did. Trump and the GOP are morphing into a personality cult right in front of everyone’s (mostly horrified) eyes. A cult where loyalty to the leader is the cult’s defining characteristic. I’m certainly not the only one coming to grips with this: Michigan GOP official blasts ‘cult of personality’ after party ousts him for not voting for Trump. If the leader has an ideology, they slavishly adopt and implement that as well. Trump doesn’t really have a considered ideology, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. History will tell of course.
Speaking of history, personality cult leaders often end badly. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao leap to mind. Their ideologies weren’t the problem, the problem is giving one person unfettered power. Though people who are proponents of right wing ideology love to claim that Stalin and Mao prove “socialism bad.” That’s an incredibly shallow assessment, ignoring all the myriad confounding factors. Shallow assessments are the right’s stock in trade these days sadly. Had a guy tell me that Mexico has a huge violent drug gang problem … because of gun control. The numerous countries with strict gun control that don’t have a huge violent drug crime problem … they don’t count I guess.
I also realized that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are intertwined with the Trump phenomena. It’s not surprising they got elected, because we are seeing the coming of age of the “Fox Generation.” People who were raised in households where all they saw was Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and the like. The people raised on CNN and MSNBC have their own blind spots, mainstream media was in fact transformed into a Washington/Corporate mouthpiece by about 1990. The latter think Biden is some sort of Roosevelt reborn. Pretty nuts, but doesn’t hold a candle to “Trump is the Messiah!”
Speaking of misconceptions on the right, I came across this: EW Jackson Claims Liberals Would Love Nothing More Than to Kill Black Conservatives. Apparently he’s serious, although these days I wonder. No, liberals don’t want to murder anyone. Kinda the definition of liberal. Against the death penalty, antiwar, want the best for everybody. IDK, projection combined with the evangelical obsession with victimhood? No, liberals might make fun of black conservatives (below,) but killing people seems to be something the right is focused on.
That’s Clayton Bigsby, the world’s only black White Supremist. No, he really wasn’t at the Trump capitol riot, but my black friends had fun sharing this meme.
Speaking of Trump’s attempted coup, one of the white cops who barely survived doesn’t have much good to say about how the GOP is trying to pretend it was no big deal, or worse, it wasn’t Trump supporters: Watch: DC Cop Who Barely Survived January 6th Insurrection Incensed By “Whitewash Of Events”. I’m incensed too, how does one find common ground with people who think their leader inciting a mob to storm the capitol was a good thing?
In other words, Trumptopia is out of control. I think I may just go back to blogging about Trump every day because it’s the time we live in. He’s still running around claiming he really won the election, and that this recent Arizona recount farce will get him on the road back to the White House: Trump Hints At Mar-A-Lago That Biased Arizona Recount Could Be Road To White House. And tens of millions of his followers believe him, and are trying to purge the GOP of people who aren’t sufficiently loyal to Trump. Mitt Romney even: Utah GOP vote to censure Mitt Romney fails while senator is booed at convention. OK then.
And the GOP is now essentially outlawing protest in state after state: Anti Protest Laws Grant Drivers License to Kill. I mean, 3 people are now considered a riot in Florida? This makes sense in a twisted way though. The George Floyd protests last summer were almost universally portrayed on Fox News as BLM and Antifa thugs set on burning down American cities and destroying America. So outlawing protests makes perfect sense. The fact that this isn’t what happened last summer has no bearing on the matter, the Fox News right believes it, so all good. America in the post factual age.
One last entry for the “Satire is dead because of people like this” file: Unhinged GOP lawmaker arrested after trying to be a substitute teacher. He terrified the students. Basically he got a job as a substitute teacher, and spent his day haranguing students about his evangelical God, finally actually assaulting one and inviting other students to do so. Another Evangelical Christian who can’t handle that most Americans have decided that Evangelical Christianity’s medieval vision of America isn’t for them and they would like a country based on science, reason, cooperation, and inclusivity. Don’t want to go to a gay wedding, don’t go. Preach hatred of gay families like this fellow, well, as I’ve said for decades, Satan does his finest work in the name of Our Lord.
Or I could blog about my misadventures in online dating sites. That’s gotten weird too. Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Unknown attribution, posted on Facebook, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It looks like Public Domain. Just another illustration of showing that the GOP isn’t anything like a majority viewpoint anymore. That’s why they are also outlawing democracy in state after state, but that’s for another blog.)
STRANGE GREEN ROCK FOUND ON MARS, OTHER SCIENCE NEWS, AND #DEARMOONCREW
NASA scientists have found a six inch long green rock on Mars. (inset above.) As most of the rocks on Mars are, well, rather drab dusty red colored (above,) this is definitely unusual. Tests are underway to figure out what it is. Since Mars had all sorts of water once, there are any number of possible minerals formed in hot springs and such. A meteor origin is possible too, a number of meteorites have been spotted on Mars. That’s because Mars gets more meteors, more of them make it to the surface because of the thin atmosphere, and then they just sit there waiting to be found because erosion and such is a slow process on Mars. This made me wonder if “shooting stars” can be seen on Mars, I checked, and I’m happy to inform the gentle reader that Mars certainly has enough atmosphere to burn up incoming meteors and make shooting star displays visible from the surface of the planet.
While researching this particular rock I found out that the Chinese Yutu-2 Moon rover also discovered mysterious “gel like” green rocks on the Moon about a year ago. That mystery was solved though, the rocks were glass. IE rocks probably melted in a meteorite impact. Or maybe melted when they were testing Jewish space lasers. Sigh. Yes, Marjorie Taylor Green, the GOP’s “hold my beer” response to “Well, at least the GOP can’t elect anyone stupider than Sarah Palin;” actually blamed California wildfires on “space lasers.” Well, there’s one advantage to giving up science and reason, you can imagine whatever you want!
Sorry, slipped into politics for a moment there. Speaking of odd rocks found in far away places, I recall from my childhood that astronauts on the Moon announced they had found “green crystals” on the lunar surface. Turned out later they were joking. I was unable to confirm this on the Interweb though, so as it’s a fifty year old memory, I can’t vouch for it being accurate. Apollo 17 astronauts did indeed find unexpected orange soil on the Moon. Turns out it was volcanic in origin, created by an ancient fire fountain back when the Moon had active volcanoes. Interestingly enough scientists still can’t explain the origin of some of the unusual elements found in the soil samples after they were returned to Earth. That’s one of the wonders of science, if anything the things it can’t yet explain gets larger with every new discovery. No shortage of things for budding scientists to cut their teeth on.
Speaking of the Moon, I did apply for the #dearMoonCrew. This is a project to send eight passengers on board a spacecraft that will circle past the Moon in a few years. It was launched by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. I signed up mainly as a lark and for a bit of fun blog fodder. I waited until the last moment to actually fill out and send in my application. It was then I discovered I had made a horrible mistake. This is not a publicity stunt or such, the goal of the mission is actually incredibly cool.
Mr Maezawa is recruiting artists of all stripes (if one calls oneself an artist he’s good with it, and I sure as sheet think writing and blogging is an art,) who want to go to the Moon for inspiration, to inspire others, and to express themselves artistically. I mean, how cool is that? I could be the first blogger to circle the Moon! One better believe that would be the blogging opportunity of a lifetime. The mistake I made was not looking into it further, so my application was filled out at the last minute and wasn’t nearly as inspired and well written as it could have been. Oh well, missing opportunities is a long honored family tradition.
Still, I do want to go. They sent John Glenn up at 77 years old, so it’s not completely out of the picture. And I’ve been tagging #dearMoonCrew all over the place hoping my application at least gets passing attention. So gentle readers, if any of you are friends with Elon Musk (he’s supplying the spaceship) or the inestimable Mr Maezawa, please put in a good word for me!
Stay safe everyone, hope all are having a good week. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(NASA images the perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. NASA images are public domain so long as they aren’t used to indicate NASA endorses a product or service. No, NASA doesn’t endorse Doug’s Darkworld, although it would be cool if they did.)
WELL, I CERTAINLY GOT SOME PUSHBACK ON YESTERDAY’S BLOG ABOUT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREEN. AND OH, TRUMP IS HANGING PEOPLE ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN? WTF?
Yesterday’s blog about Marjorie Taylor Greene got some pushback, always gratifying. If people take the trouble to disagree with me, then I’m doing something right. Preaching to the converted has never appealed to me. I mostly write to encourage thought and to get my own thoughts in order. My views will likely change until the day I die, and maybe after. Well, for sure after, since if there is an after, my views about there likely not being an after would clearly need to be modified. So in that vein, I thought I’d take a look at a select few comments and see how they changed my thinking:
I dunno, MTG is obviously very stupid, ignorant and gullible, and that type of person just should not be on an education committee. So while I agree that the Dem’s motivation was wrong, I think they stumbled their way into doing the right thing.
Also I think after Trump the “shine a light on the craziness” thing can’t be relied on. He said and did so so many stupid things that just increased his popularity with his base. I think MTG’s views might be more mainstream than you think. — S.
He has a point, Trump being a crazy bad president if anything empowered his base. Giving MTG free rein in congress might just make the situation worse.
If it was purely partisan I might agree with Doug, but it wasn’t. 11 republicans also voted to remove Ms. Greene from her assignments, one more than voted to impeach Trump for insurrection (the most bipartisan impeachment in history). Someone who publicly ridicules parents of kids who were murdered at Sandy Hook probably isn’t qualified to be on an education committee. And if one thinks Jewish space lasers are behind the world’s problems it’s probably past time to see a psychiatrist, not sit on a budget committee. You have freedom to say what you want, but it comes with consequences. Ms. Greene can have her seat she rightfully won, but she is not entitled to committee work when she has demonstrated over and over she is mentally unhinged and potentially violent. — J.V.
Well, 11 out of like 200 GOP congressmen is a pretty low bar for “bipartisan,” but it’s better than none I suppose. Can’t argue the logic after that though. Still, I agree that MTG is unsuited for congress, let alone sitting on committees. Just not sure this was the best way to handle it.
I think you may be wrong here. We’re all in need of a signal, which this is, that crazy theories in the public sphere won’t be tolerated. We’ve waited long enough. And it’s not as if 75% or more of the Rep. politicians tolerate it either, despite still voting on party lines, being cowardly hypocrites for the most part. — M.T.
Oh, absolutely. I’m certainly less sure of my opinion than when I wrote the previous blog post. And yes, MTG crosses a line is a good point. I would certainly agree there is a point where a candidate is so unsuitable and unqualified that this action would be the only sensible recourse.
That’s putting it nicely. It’s gonna take a lot of bipartisan effort to get these people off their Q horse so to speak.
So I do think this censure is sorta worth it. Innocent people could be harmed if she continues to run her mouth off accusing people who are just run of the mill citizens of being baby eaters or something. — E.K.
Yes, this comment definitely made me think, I hadn’t really considered that MTG could do (or encourage) actual real world harm the more latitude she is given in congress. People like her were the heart and soul of the Capitol Riot, so it’s a point I can’t refute.
Since this line is drawn, we can now expect Republicans to remove all Democrats from every committee in either chamber they control.
They will cast any prior statement (e.g. stated support for BLM or suggestion that Trump did anything wrong after this election) as being as bad or worse than the statements made by Greene.
I have already seen demands made that Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Maxine Waters, and Rashida Talib be removed from all committee assignments due to their supposed racist statements and incitement of violence. — C.P.H
Well, at least one person agrees with me. I guess all things considered, it kind of comes down to how much harm could Ms Green do given full leeway in congress vs how much this action could come back to haunt the Democrats later? And as I don’t have a crystal ball, damned if I know. I did come on too strong yesterday though, for that, well, mea culpa. I’m always trying to find that sweet spot where people that disagree with me want to engage. And it seems to have worked this time. Thanks always for those who shared their thoughts!
I mean, it is frelking nuts. Ms Green might as well be a flat earther who thinks Earth is run by lizard people, QAnon really is, well, delusional. At odds with reality. Unsustainable logically. Nuts. All of the above. She did recant all her past views in congress, so she’s smart enough to lay low or she really is menatally … inconsistent? Boy, trying to avoid using ableist language is quite a challenge sometimes.
And what do QAnon believers think now? See the above image. Yes, that’s a gallows set up on the White House lawn. Wait, what? Wouldn’t this be on the news? Muhahaha, of course not. The fake news about Biden being president is all part of Trump’s plan. He’s actually still president, and since Biden’s inauguration he has been carrying out his plan, publicly hanging the enemies of democracy. It will no doubt all be revealed soon, and won’t that own the libtards! I wish I was making this up. Barring that, I wish the person making this up made it up. I don’t hardly know anymore: These QAnon followers believe Trump is still secretly president — and has been carrying out public executions at the White House.
Yes, dear foreigners, future readers, aliens, and time travellers; it is indeed mind blowing to live in an era where tens of millions of Americans live in a fantasy alternate reality. If any reader wanders by the White House and takes pictures of whatever is going on, I’ll gladly post them. Oh well. In actual Northern Iowa reality we had the first big snowstorm of winter and are in single digit temps now. I stay inside a lot. I don’t think the parsley is going to survive this, but next year’s garden is already taking shape in my dreams. Comments, shares, and especially patrons are appreciated. Subscribe to the WaPo or the NYT for a dollar a week, and they won’t even know you exist, gentle reader. Subscribe to my blog for a dollar a month, and I’ll write posts on topics you suggest! Subscribe for more and I will be eternally grateful. (That means I’ll buy you a drink if you’re ever out this way, eternal gratitude from mortals has its limits.) Stay safe and warm everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Photoshopped image of gallows on the White House lawn. Credit: Some person on QAnon, found on the Rawstory QAnon link above, attribution unknown, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
I WASN’T GOING TO BLOG TONIGHT, BUT THEN THE DEMS DID SOMETHING MONUMENTALLY STUPID
Yes, Trump and company aren’t the only ones who do stupid things. Hell, everyone does something stupid now and then. This is what I am talking about: House votes to remove Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee roles. The honorable Ms Greene is in fact the author of the above tweet. I’ll go into that in a bit. For now, she’s gotten a lot of flak for some of her past social media posts. Yes, she is the “Jewish space lasers” gal. And a major proponent of Qanon “theories.” (I’m being polite by not calling it a hoax, or worse.) Hell, here’s a rundown of some of her posts, including essentially threats to Democratic leaders. Marjorie Taylor Greene removes social media posts amid scrutiny of past controversial comments. Yerp, she went from Trump’s “Lock her up!” to “Hang her!” Well, it was a logical extension of Trump’s views I suppose.
So no, I’m not a fan of Ms Greene. Her views are ridiculous too offensive, sometimes both. And she’s not the brightest candle on the cake as the above twitter exchange shows. I mean, one is a public figure but can’t be bothered to check one’s spelling? Also, as my brilliant potential assistant pointed out, she’s a blonde or a blond woman, but “blonde woman” makes no sense in American English. Blonde is a noun for females, blond is the adjective. And the idea that AOC is stupid, boy, amazing how the right has conflated “they’re liberal” with “they’re stupid.” I guess it plays to the base, but boy, they sure sound stupid when they trot it out. AOC whatever one thinks of her views, like Obama, is pretty smart. That’s a fact. Sadly it appears facts no longer matter, or even intrude, on people like Ms Greene’s world view now.
Ok, so why do I think removing her from her congressional committee assignments was one giant mistake? First off, let’s be perfectly clear. The House didn’t vote to strip Ms Greene of her committee assignments, the Democrats did. The vote was essentially on partisan lines, so this is the Democrats punishing Ms Greene for her “extremist” views. Views held by tens of millions of Americans. And how will they view this? As proof of “cancel culture” and a liberal conspiracy to shut down the Evangelical Right. It makes Ms Greene a martyr to her cause. And what a precedent to set, now the next time the GOP has a majority in either house, they can do the same to kick Dems out of committees. The committee system is horrible and undemocratic, now it’s partisan. Great.
I don’t think giving the opposition what they want is shrewd politics. This was the Dems pandering to their base with no thought to the political consequences. What the Dems should have done, is stand back and let Ms Greene shine her crazy lamp through. It’s not like she was going to do any harm on committees, instead she would have made a fool of herself and the nonsense she espouces. So the Dems accomplished nothing by doing this except pleasing their base and giving GOP extremists a new cause. And denying Ms Greene the opportunity to make a fool of herself. How, exactly, is that helping?
Call me a cynic, but I see two possibilities here. The Dems are lost in space, and not able to produce a rational political response to a clear opportunity to have the QAnon evangelicals for breakfast; or worse, they don’t care and are just continuing to play good cop/bad cop where the Dems are the “good” cop. I just don’t see any benefits for actual progressive politics in the Dems decision to punish Ms Greene for exercising her freedom of speech. Her employer can punish her for what she says, her constituents can punish her for what she says; the Democrats are neither and their action in this regard is the opposite of the democracy they ostensibly serve.
Convince me otherwise. Stay safe and warm everyone.#StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: A twitter exchange between Ms Greene and AOC. Likely Public Domain under US copyright law, claimed as Fair Use under same.)
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