Did some Republicans really threaten the official judges of the International Criminal Court and also their immediate families?
Yep, and it was not an off-the-cuff remark, but instead was an official statement signed by multiple elected Republican Officials.
Why?
OK, let’s get into the backstory of this latest lunacy.
We have also seen similar lunacy right here. There was a recent commenter who labeled me antisemitic the other week for pointing out that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. The real issue is this. His argument is actually with the facts presented to the International Court of Justice and their current legal judgement that what is going on in Gaza is Genocide. That is an international legal fact and not just my opinion.
Israeli forces have now killed over 35,000 Palestinians and 70% of those are women and children.
The ICC is close to issuing an official Netanyahu arrest warrant for war crimes.
The spotlight headline here is that the response to the ICC judgement consisted of both US and Israeli officials threatening to retaliate against the International Criminal Court (ICC), its officials and members of their families. (See UN statement on this here on 10 May).
Least you wonder, yes, those “US Officials” threatening to sanction the International Criminal Court are all Republicans.
They wrote within a signed letter to the ICC …
Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.
Unlike these Republican fools who appear to be leaning rather hard into raw fascism, the International Court of Justice deals with facts and international law, and so they will not be intimidated by bullies. When the world is faced with a potential US regime that threatens to become deeply insular, fanatically religious, isolationist, and aggressive, then we will all be impoverished in so many different ways.
It means that next Nov has now become even more consequentially important, it will be a very decisive crossroads.
Make no mistake here. The choice you face is not Democrat vs Republican. Traditional classic Republicanism is dead. Instead it is a rather stark choice between Democrats and Fascists.
Did anything else of note happen last week?
You don’t need to ask, because as always lots of crazy stuff did. 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
Christian nationalist Jason Rapert complains that he’s been subject to a “hostile work environment“ since being appointed to the Arkansas state library board by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “I believe they’ve created a hostile work environment for a Christian white male.“
- Shall we fetch the fainting couch and smelling salts for I do declare Mr Rapert is perplexed with the vapors, bless his heart.
- Translation: He is playing the victim for the circumstances he created. His “hostile work environment” is the result of him striving hard to cut funds to libraries that have books he does not like banned, and was being a total asshole while trying to do all that. His fellow library board members are not exactly thrilled to be working with this fool.
Greg Stephens asserts that the Founders used “Israel’s ancient constitution” in the book of Deuteronomy as a framework for creating our system of representative government.
- Actual credible evidence for this absurd claim is … (oh come now, you know how this stuff works by now) … exactly zero.
Yet one more data point for …”if their position is true, why do they have to keep lying to try and “prove” it?” …
Ben Zeisloft proclaims that “every legislature, courtroom, and executive mansion in our land must be brought into submission to the risen and ascended Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords.”
- Ben would be mightily pissed if the variation of religious fanaticism that achieved this was not his but an alternative, for example, Catholic, Mormon, or JW.
The Cult of Trump
The actual attendance at Trump’s May 11 Wildwood NJ rally was abysmal, so of course some posted fake pictures …
- As can be seen below, the picture Roger Stone and others claimed was the Trump rally was actually a Rod Stewart concert in Rio de Janeiro 30 years ago.
- I also suspect Wildwood NJ never ever looked that good.
Speaker Mike Johnson & Others appeared at Trump’s NYC trial
One is worthy of a mention because of the depths of hypocrisy it flags up.
Preacher of the House Johnson turned up at the trial to lick the arse of the guy who banged a porn star then covered it all up … just like Jesus would …
Christian “Love”
Sean Feucht is outraged over a German church that held a Taylor Swift-themed service: “This is not a church. This is a shrine to the demon god of Molech.”
- I’ve generally understood that you needed the exact same set of distinct beliefs to not be considered a heretic worthy of damnation and hell, but this is a new twist. Apparently you also need to have the exactly same music preferences, and if you don’t, then you are a heretic worthy of dispatch to hell.
- I suspect Mr Feucht is simply jealous, apparently it was very popular.
Homophobia on Steroids
Mario Murillo says that he will announce some big plans in June because “Pride Month has placed a curse on us”: “That is why I have selected June 1st to unveil the most comprehensive and widespread plan to harvest souls and move toward an awakening.”
- Clearly the demographic he is targeting is the bigoted homophobic one. However, since he already has many of them in his camp he clearly will not be reaping a “harvest of souls“
- Within his posting he also goes on to promote the lie that pride month is about grooming children, and neglects to mention that the folks actually doing that are preachers and youth pastors.
Hank Kunneman is playing the same bigotry game. He says that he understands the desire to see God “wipe out all the queers” as well as “those that are confused with their gender” on the belief that “the world will be a better place,” but cautions that it is the goodness of God, not judgement, that brings repentance.
- What would actually result in a far better world is one where we don’t have religious parasites like Murillo and Kunneman whose actual goal is to groom kids and adults into a lifetime of bigotry and intolerance.
Scott Lively says that by changing its name to Scouting America, the Boy Scouts have reached “that openly grooming stage after a decade of increasing degeneracy.”
- All Scouting America is actually guilty of is rebranding (press release here). An organisation that had the name “boy” in its title, yet has 176,000 girl members, was an organization that was in dire need of a bit of rebranding to reflect that reality.
- Meanwhile, Scott Lively, the fanatical anti-LGTBQ activist, who has himself done real physical harm to people, thinks this re-branding is part of some nefarious plot by the deep state and part of some LGBTQ agenda. This fool claims Scouting America are an LGBTQ recruiting organization now.
MAGA Fanatic Valentina Gomez, who is running for secretary of state in Missouri, has unveiled a winning campaign slogan: “Don’t be weak and gay.”
- In the clip she used a song by Lupe Fiasco, a guy who is on the record as being opposed to homophobia.
- Summary of this Karen’s 11 second ad: “You can be anything you want. Also, here’s something I’ve decided you can’t be.“
Criticism of Israel apparently means “Insulting God”
Christian nationalist pastor Jack Hibbs warns that the Biden administration is “actually insulting God” by withholding weapons shipments to Israel: “That is just poking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob right in the eye.”
- You’d think an All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Lord of All Creation would be able to just smite the supposed enemies of his supposed preferred people and not need the USA to send them weapons, but apparently not. (Or to paraphrase Kirk, “What does god need weapons for?“)
- As is also observed by RWW .. “It is important to remember that when evangelicals like Jack Hibbs talk about the importance of standing with Israel, it is entirely rooted in their mission of seeing Jews “experience the salvation” of Jesus Christ.“
- He also claims that it is “impossible” for Christians to be antisemitic, which is interesting given that actual Jews assert that Hibbs is antisemitic because of things like his above-mentioned views.
Meanwhile …
The real Antisemitic loons
If you want to understand what real antisemitism looks like, then here you go.
Antisemitic far-right activist Ryan Sánchez says that … “you can’t be a Christian and be a friend of they who had Him crucified.”
- If he “thinks” every single jewish person today is personally responsible for what a few people supposedly did over 2,000 years ago, then we should perhaps also consider holding the deeply religious Mr Sánchez personally responsible for every single Christian atrocity over the centuries, for example the Crusades and much more.
Andrew Torba echoes the above sentiment: “If you cannot affirm that the Jews killed Jesus, then you reject the Word of God and thereby deny Christ Himself.”
- It really is a very old religious trope. As always, it is being deployed to justify bigotry, discrimination, intolerance, and ignorance.
- It will of course be no surprise to also discover that the “good christian” Mr Torba created and runs Gab, a social media platform that is now a safe space for conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis. He is very much on the ADL radar as a radical extremist.
Deeply Weird
Tony Perkins and Bill Koenig assert that God has been punishing the U.S. with tornadoes and floods as punishment for pressuring Israel over the Gaza war: “There’s no other explanation.”
- When bad weather happens, then the “only” explanation he has is that the gods are angry about whatever his current focus is – this is literally palaeolithic superstition.
- Side Note: Tony Perkins is the guy who, just after he declared that floods are sent as a punishment from God, had to flee his flooded home in Louisiana.
Lauren Witzke has developed a habit of blaming anything that happens on DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion) hires, which is her way of saying “non-white people.”
- What is weird is not that she claimed DEI was at fault (on the basis of exactly zero evidence), but that she had lots of comments cheering her manufactured myth as fact.
Stew Peters really just can’t wait to start executing people.
- It’s a rather stark reminder that for some, the line between defending ideas and threatening people has tragically blurred
… and since we are on the topic of Stew Peters, then let’s not forget to also mention that this past week he also calls for America to be turned into a monarchy: “I don’t think that a king is really a bad idea.”
- When he says such stuff, he assumes that it would be his guy that becomes King. There are others with a stronger claim to the Iron throne. I’m not sure how thrilled Stew would be if it ended up being King Charles III from the UK, the guy who likes to talk to plants (yes really). Seriously now, I thought we had settled this medieval lunacy a few centuries back, but apparently not, that bit of history has totally eluded the wing-nut demographic.
Holocaust denier and Nazi fanboy Jon Miller complains that Adolf Hitler has been made to seem like “this obscene monster” because otherwise people would realize that the Nazis were the good guys.
- For some, reality truly is the ultimate undiscovered country.
- Meanwhile the 50-56 million people who died in WW2 would do far more than just beg to differ if faced with this claim … but they can’t because they are dead.
Jason Rapert declares that “it is a badge of honor that the devil’s people track me constantly and find my work worthy of their time.”
- Just think how dull life would be if we did not have clowns to entertain us
Mark Meckler and Robert Natelson insist that the Texas state government has the right under the Constitution to invade Mexico in order to fight drug cartels and secure the border.
- The Mexican authorities might also “insist” on raising a more than small objection to such a military incursion … or to put it another way … play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
For some, being both stupid and weird is a challenge that they can successfully rise up to and embrace with relish …
- The mostly empty bookshelf in the background behind him tells you all you need to know about Dusty.
The False Profit$
Self-proclaimed “prophet” Robin Bullock calls on God to “save people who know the election was stolen and bring them out to speak the truth.”
- The guy who had a “prophecy” that Trump would win in 2020 is now stuck banging the stolen election drum for eternity. His only alternative would be to confess that his “prophecy” was wrong, but he can’t because doing that would seriously damage his ego (and grifting income.
James Linzey had a dream that was apparently so prophetically significant that he had to issue a press release about it.
- We all have wild whacky dreams at times. What most of us tend to not do is issue a Full Formal Press release about it the next day because most of us don’t actually believe that a god was using the dream to talk to us.
- While his dreams apparently focus on Biden, mine and yours will most probably tend to cover other topics. His ego appears to be telling Mr Linzey that that perhaps like Biden, his real name is Joseph. Does Mr Linzey also own a technicolor dream-coat, and does he also have lots of jealous brothers?
Apparently there was some “discussion” in the House last week
My response to this … LOL …
Then there was also this.
MTG stirred up a total shits-storm and got pushback for some stupid comments on the personal appearance of another member. The key to understanding it is this – if you elect clowns to congress then you get a circus. Without MTG being there none of this would have happened.
What went down is that MTG started it all by mocking Ms Crockett’s false eyelashes. The result of that was the following “exchange” of words on the floor. It devolves over 10 minutes into total and complete chaos.
Where is Rudy?
It was not a long game.
Rudy mocked the AZ AG on twitter and also boasted that he was well hidden … then just over an hour later AZ AG announced that he had been served.
GOP Family Values
Each and every week they manage to add yet one more data point to their “Family Values” list. Here is this weeks offering …
- Should he not be forced to take that marriage to full term?
Let’s not forget their “Law and Order” contributions either
Sometimes the penny really does drop for some
… and this bit …
Finally…
Trump claimed he has thousands of armed supporters outside the courthouse and that you can’t get within three blocks of the courthouse. Meanwhile back in our reality …
Autograph time …
Apparently she was not happy about it …
So you want the video of that don’t you?
Well here you go, that and much more. It’s their latest update from the past week…