As you all know, the DNC was the big event of the week. This week’s opening will be a longer than usual one and is focused on that DNC. There has of course been lots of coverage so I’ll not rake over it all. Instead, I’m pulling out some golden moments from each day. Once done, we can then dive into some of the truly crazy stuff from the past week.
Buckle up … here we go …
Day 1, Mon 19
It opened with a prayer. A Catholic cardinal offered a prayer for unity to open the Democratic National Convention. As you might guess, some such as The Family Research Council sneered, and also some right-wing Catholics jeered.
- So yes, the Family Research Council, right-wing Catholics, and too many evangelicals, deem a prayer in a place that does not align with their politics to be an attack upon their faith … and yet they all support a candidate with no redeeming human qualities, a convicted felon, national security risk, serial adulterer, serial liar, and adjudicated rapist and sexual abuser in Donald Trump.
- In other words, they once again fully established how truly weird they really are.
- Side Note: The DNC is a big enough tent to accommodate people of many different faiths and also no faith, but hey, if you are reading this, then you also already know this.
We also had the Harris – Biden Hug …
- Notable because neither Mike Pence, nor JD Vance could ever do anything as authentic as this with Trump (unless of course there was also a couch in the mix).
Speaking of Vance, he also got a mention from Raskin …
- He kicked him right in the couch with that one.
A vote for Trump is a vote for Project 2025 …
- Yep, the MAGA Bible.
- Having local Democrats read out bits of Project 2025 each day was an excellent bit of messaging.
Day 2, Tues 20
We learned that Kerstin Emhoff was there supporting Kamala …
- For those not up to speed, she is the ex-wife of Doug, the guy that Kamala is currently married to.
- Clearly Kamala’s husband’s ex-wife is supporting her far more enthusiastically than Trump’s current wife is supporting him.
We also learned that playing music is not an issue for the DNC…
Michelle Obama gave a truly excellent speech that was all fire and pulled no punches. It was challenging, but they managed to find one person willing to go on after her talk … it was of course Barack Obama.
So during his talk this happened …
- Yes, he said it … without actually saying it. His timing and delivery is truly exceptional.
- Is that my cue to say that it was only a very small joke … and we also all know that this will now haunt Trump until the end of his days.
Day 3, Wed 21
Jeffries: “Bro, we broke up with you for a reason” …
We also got a few words of wisdom from some 78 year old guy …
We also saw a guy that you might know from Fox News on stage …
- He has absolutely embarrassed those Fox anchors over and over.
The desire to publicly humiliate JD Vance is what binds us all together …
Walz takes the stage. We get to see a family that truly do love and adore each other …
Day 4, Thur 22
MSNBC reporter is broadcasting live with attendees in background, and one kid, realising it was live, stops and holds up a message on his phone …
- It reads “JD Vance Fucks Couches“
- Apparently there is now a suggestion that we should club together and buy him an iPad
This is indeed the bit that many were waiting for and wanted to know …
What did MAGA looking in from Outside think?
Oh come now, you know how it works. No thinking took place at all. Instead a flash of a bit of blue motivates some to declare it to be evil incarnate.
Here are a few samples for you to laugh at …
- Jason Rapert warns that … “America will not long survive or prosper if Kamala ‘Commie’ Harris is allowed to become president” … “Every God fearing American must vote for Donald Trump to stop this leftist march into the pits of hell.”
- Todd Coconato declares that …“they’re trying to put Jezebel in the White House” …“This is a Jezebel spirit, a demonic woman, she’s given herself over to a demonic agenda.”
- Lance Wallnau thinks that that former President Donald Trump will do very well with minority voters because they don’t want to be governed by “whining, lecturing female liberals.”
- Glenn Beck asserts that preventing a Kamala Harris presidency represents the “last chance” for America’s hope of survival (This is literally the same warning he issued in 2012 about a Barack Obama presidency)
- Mario Murillo also watched the convention and says that Kamala Harris “must be exposed”: “That is the solemn duty of every decent person. Four more years of this? Truly, my friends, that will be the end of us. Do not condemn your children to this nameless horror!”
Indeed yes … ending the Gaza genocide; Tax breaks for homebuilders; Tax breaks for homebuyers; child tax credits; increase minimum wage; Cap the price of insulin at $35 for everyone, not just seniors; tax the wealthy corporations to pay for it all, and much much more … basically doing what Jesus taught by looking after the most vulnerable … oh the (*checks notes*) “nameless horror” of it all.
Every single election we get this weird content-free meaningless fear mongering deployed against literally every Democratic Presidential candidate as an attempt to manipulate people, and yet every single time the Democrats won, the country was not only fine after a Democratic President, it was far better off.
RFK Jnr
Those of you with your finger on the pulse will have seen this one coming from a mile off. As reported by many, such as Josh Fiallo @ The Daily Beast: “RFK Jr. Suspends Failing Campaign to Throw His Support to Donald Trump“
As a brief reminder of the honesty and integrity in play here, we do have this …
The wider Kennedy family are of course totally thrilled, and so they put out a press release saying so…
Meanwhile via Media Matters we learn that both Roger Stone and also Alex Jones now endorse RFK Jr. as CIA director in a second Trump administration.
The Cult of Trump
Trump popped this into the Truth Social echo chamber to try and draw some attention back to himself, but by doing so exposed his recognition that her crowds really are bigger then his …
- I have several thoughts.
- One is the obvious one … is he trying to commit suicide? (remember, this is the same guy who is credibly accused of raping underage girls via Epstein).
- The other is that we might suddenly see large numbers of pastors and youth leaders quitting their jobs.
Christian Nationalism
Don’t let the word “Christian” fool you. These are the ramblings of religious fascists who, when they see how committed the Taliban are, turn and say to them, “Hold my beer and watch this“.
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon wants to see blasphemy laws enacted because such speech endangers “the entire populace by threatening to bring upon them the judgement of God.“
- Thor is indeed mightily pissed with Mullah Webbon, and will shortly be bringing judgement down in the form of storms because of all his Blasphemy.
- For a bit more, this past week Pastor Webbon was also claiming that Confederate generals and slave holders, like Robert E. Lee, are in Heaven while MLK is in Hell. Oh and yes, he also declared that “the abolitionists were not the good guys.”
Steve Maxwell says that it’s an honor to be labeled a Christian nationalist.
- Who labelled him that? It was of course Maxwell, he is the one that labeled himself as a Christian nationalist.
Ben Zeisloft gets onboard with the Christian nationalists’ “women should not be able to vote” bandwagon: “Christians are not heretics if they reject the idea that every adult should have a vote. Mass democracy is not mandated by the Bible and is clearly unwise. We are allowed to discuss limiting the vote to heads of household, as well as by taxpayer status or property ownership.”
- Lots of things are not mentioned in the bible such modern medicine, modern technology, or any kind of voting… does he advocate abandoning all that as well?
- Meanwhile, Pastor Joel Webbon (the guy from the first item above), labels Ben as totally crazy for tweeting this out.
Insight on the danger we face from Christian Nationalism.
Hemant Mehta, who managed to swing a press pass for the DNC also attended a panel on the dangers of Christian Nationalism. Reps. Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin, co-founders of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri were on the panel …
- Here is the link to his article on it.
- It’s a fascinating read. If time permits I recommend it.
- Times have changed. I can’t imagine a panel like that happening eight years ago. (I would say four … but COVID)
Pseudo-Historians
A very big Christian Nationalist thing is to promote historical fiction as fact … or to be a tad more blunt, they are running a con with a lie. Here are a few examples from this past week.
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian Tim Barton blatantly lies by claiming that SCOTUS unanimously ruled in 1844 that public schools would lose government funding if they didn’t teach the Bible.
- Mr Barton knows that his claim is a lie, and yet he continues to promote it. This is not about ignorance but instead is all about deliberate malice with a specific goal in mind
Once again, Charlie Kirk claims that Deuteronomy was the most quoted source by the Founding Fathers when forming the Constitution.
- Perpetual reminder … nope, that is not true at all.
- For context, this particular bit of misinformation originated with religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton, who misrepresented a 1984 study conducted by professor Donald S. Lutz.
- What we do learn here is that the bit in Deuteronomy that says “thou shalt not bear false witness” has been skipped over by Charlie.
While not strictly a Christian Nationalist, right-wing activist Mark Meckler also got into the pseudo-history game this past week. He says it’s “unprecedented” for Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee without winning any primary votes: “What we’re witnessing is something that’s never been done before in American history.”
- Um, primaries didn’t really even exist until the middle of the 20th Century. Somebody needs to ask him how many primaries did George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and every other president right up until the early 20th Century win?
- Bit of Guidance: Don’t take advice on democratic principles from someone who supports a party whose leader demanded that his Vice President to throw out 81M votes. Now that really was unprecedented, and yet we did not get a single peep out of Mr Meckler regarding that.
The Evangelicals For Harris Fan Club
I mentioned these people last week. This week we continue to discover that some are still being triggered by their very existence. The group is the creation of Faith Voters, a 501(c)(4) organization that previously sponsored Evangelicals for Biden in 2020. It’s understandable that some are indeed mightily triggered by @Evangels4Harris because they are gaining traction and having a real impact.
Charlie Kirk claimed “This is an oxymoron … It’s Jews For Hitler. This is really what we’re talking about here.“…
- … and yet he stands with the people who worship Trump as a Messiah, the supposedly chosen one.
- We really do need to keep reminding them that Epstein flew underage girls to Mar-a-largo to meet Donald Trump, the pedophile and convicted felon … and yet the attempt to rally the Evangelicals to support him is supposedly the moral choice. This is really not a credible argument. The degree of hypocrisy in play is truly vast.
- They have been warning of the antichrist for years, and accusing people like Obama of being the antichrist. When Trump comes along, a man who fits almost all the descriptions of the antichrist, as laid out in their beliefs, they embrace him.
Meanwhile, Hemant has also written a deep dive into them this past week (his posting is here) ….
The False Profit$
The self-appointed prophets continued their grifting in the name of God.
QAnon conspiracy theorist/self-proclaimed “prophet” Mark Taylor, who all but disappeared in the wake his false prophecies that Trump would be reelected in 2020, is back, warning that weather control weapons will be used to send a Category 6 hurricanes to disrupt the election.
- Mark is what happens when you put fantasy books into the non-fiction section of the bookstore as a joke.
- Reality Check: Category 5 is as high as it goes, and also weather machines are not a thing … but hey, while you knew that, sadly his listeners will lap it all up as delicious yummy truth because it tickles their brains.
Christian nationalist MAGA cultist and self-appointed prophet Lance Wallnau claims that those attending the RNC were united in “their thinking” whereas the DNC is just a “hivemind,” “a borg” and “a zombie takeover.”
- That’s quite some projection in play here – it beautifully describes his followers and also MAGA in general.
- Remind me again which convention saw attendees wearing maxi pads on their ears?
- and yes … his latest claim once again ticks a box that effectively labels him as “weird”.
Some are striving for Gold in the Olympic sport of “Weirdest”
And so now we move on to the stuff that is so deeply weird, that it leaves other weird people looking normal.
Stew Peters is now approvingly posting Adolf Hitler quotes on his Twitter social media pages.
- The comments under his twitter posting are a total cesspit … which perhaps tells us a great deal about the qty of pure shit that is floating about within twitter these days.
- Meanwhile, Stew Peters is asking for his viewers to subscribe to his show because for some strange reason companies refuse to advertise on his program. Oh gosh, how deeply mysterious, why oh why would any business be unwilling to support a Hitler-loving, modern-day Nazi.
Ron Johnson tried to take a pop at Tim Walz by having a go at him for … the date of his marriage …
- Tim Walz’s wedding anniversary on June 4th is also the anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote (against Donald Trump).
- If Mr Johnson is indeed deeply concerned about the optics of specific dates, then perhaps he would care to comment on why he and several of his colleagues opted to Visit Russia on July 4th a few years ago?
- Yes, this is the deeply weird “Jesus, Guns and Babies” lady who lost when she ran under that banner … bigly. (Out of the 1,204,742 Republican votes cast in the 2022 primary, only 41,232 were crazy enough to vote for her).
- When the above clip was posted on twitter, she pushed back with “Completely out of context, but I said what I said.“. It’s literally a video of her saying this. Exactly what context makes any of it credible in any way?
- As a side note, her claim that “Freedom of Religion” only means Christianity is not the weirdest stance she has ever taken. She has rather famously promoted the claim last year that the earth is flat and those denying this are part of a global conspiracy.
- Another ongoing deeply weird thing here is that Georgia’s 1st congressional district decided, “Yep, she represents us“, and so they made her their official GOP chair in April 2023.
MAGA Pastor Greg Locke put out some voting guidance this past week on Twitter …
- I’m really not in the game of correcting his grammar and punctuation. Instead I’ll simply repeat his endorsement – “Vote Harris. It’s really that simple!!” : Pastor Greg Locke.
Trump campaign troll Brenden Dilley is very proud of his attacks on Tim Walz’s teenage son: “He’s got a closeted homosexual father who more than likely is a fucking pederast and who fucked him up royally and now he’s weird.“
- Reminder: Dilley is the guy who has weirdly admitted in the past… “To get Trump elected …It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to go viral.“. Literally anything he says can be ignored.
Evangelist Mario Murillo declares (on Rumble) that “whenever there’s a lie, the devil is behind it,”
- This is indeed a rather weird claim for a die-hard fanatical Trump supporter to make.
Some Republicans do indeed have a gift for picking the weirdest possible candidates …
- Fortunately we have a highly qualified candidate on the Dem side. @MoGreenforNC successfully led NC’s 3rd largest school district @GCSchoolsNC as superintendent. He will be an excellent leader as state superintendent.
Nate, the Executive Pastor at Village Church, manages to out himself as the promoter of a totally weird variation of Christianity …
Camille points out that some are pushing “Being Weird” to new extremes …
- I can only speculate that they figured out a way to get it out of the couch cushions
Interesting Q&A
During the DNC Pete Buttegieg is asked why he goes on Fox News. His answer is a rather good one within the following 2-3 min clip …
- No team gets to play all home games. You have to go on the road and play away games as well. Pete understands that.
- … and what is truly excellent is that he keeps on getting invited back, month after month, year after year. even though, his messages – in tone and substance – are vastly different than those spewed by most of the others on fox.
- To be able to do it successfully you need to be very articulate, smart, and up to speed on the topic. He always is because he does his homework, and every time he knocks the ball out of the park.
If you would like a recent example of what happens to him on Fox News and how he comes armed with facts to very successfully push back, then here you go …
- This clip is via journalist Brian Tyler Cohen who lets you see what happens and then follows up with some analysis.
As always the Political Cartoons continue to be excellent
Here is my random selection from the past week.
Clay Bennett …
Bill Bramhall …
Steve Cousineau …
Finally…
You also want to know if the guys went to the DNC.
The answer is yes, of course they did, and unlike the RNC, they got invited inside. Here is their Day 1 clip from YouTube …
They also did a Spotify episode …