So yes, this past week his “Big Announcement” turned out to be him launching a new grifting scam … tacky trading cards …
Clearly he has decided to squeeze as much $$$ as possible from those that still support him. It is perhaps a form of taxation on stupidity.
The interesting twist, yet to be discovered by those that supposedly bought his NFT cards, is that they don’t actually own them at all. If they try to sell them, they will then discover that they have to kick back 10% of the proceeds to Trump. (yes really).
This twist is buried within the small print of the terms and conditions. You can be darn sure that none of the gullible fools that bought them read those, and don’t yet know that they do not own what they think they bought.
Why don’t they know?
Well, because there was no link to the Terms and Conditions.
Also jaw dropping is this. Trump has licensed all this via NFT International. If you dig into them then be prepared to wade deeply into a pool of epic sleaziness. Follow the threads of it all and it leads to a Mr Gerald Pitts who is very much up to his neck in numerous lawsuits involving failure to pay taxes, securities fraud, and trademark infringement.
Honestly, is anybody actually surprised to discover that Mr T naturally gravitated to him.
Meanwhile, who actually buys these?
The fact that they all got sold in 12 hours does rather strongly hints that this might be a way for outside sources such as the Saudis or Russians to drop some cash into Trump’s wallet in a completely untraceable way. (That’s just a guess)
As for the actual ownership of what was sold … surprise … he simply stole photos from small clothing brands and then very badly photoshopped his face in.
There are so many red flags here that it all feels a bit like an old soviet style may-day parade in red square from forty years ago.
Meanwhile the MAGA folks who were stupid enough to actually spend $99 on these are now having a few problems …
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 dive in.
Enjoy.
Christian Nationalism
Jackson Lahmeyer declares that in order “To Make America Great Again we must FIRST Make America Godly Again.”
- “again”! … exactly when in its entire history has the secular US ever actually been “Godly”, and what exactly does that mean?
Gab founder Andrew Torba proclaims that “Christians must support and uplift explicitly Christian leadership in: tech, media, news, entertainment, culture, and politics. No Pagans. No Atheists. No Jews. They can still enjoy the fruits of Christian leadership, rules, nations, and morality; but they can not lead us. No more. Never again.”
- Hint: That’s not exactly democracy.
- Meanwhile, Gab founder Mr Torba is indeed well-known for his promotion of “Christian” values such as Racism, Nazism, Fascism, and whacky conspiracy theories. (I’m really not making any of that up)
- He is in fact so completely nutty that he makes other nutters look quite sane.
Trump Cult Devotees
Eric Metaxas and Jenna Ellis attempt to explain away former President Donald Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution in order to put him back in office, with Ellis insisting “without a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump loves and respects the Constitution more than almost anyone that I know.”
- They are either Delusional or Lying … neither option make them look good.
This perhaps best sums up the reality …
Political Shenanigans
Ali Alexander declares that others have no right to question him because he’s “the most successful right-wing organizer in American history”: “How are the Pharisees and the Sadducees going to question Jesus? … How are those Luddites going to question Socrates?”
- Luddites … Ancient Greece…!!! … was that via one of Bill and Ted’s excellent adventures?
- “I have no ego” says guy who then compares himself to Jesus
- I guess we should be grateful that he did not claim he could time travel this week, that claim was a few weeks ago … then again Luddites in Ancient Greece does perhaps count as a Time Travel claim.
Climate “Experts”
Christian preacher Kent Christmas says the Bible references four seasons, therefore “global warming doesn’t exist.”
- Fact Check: Nowhere does the bible explicitly mention 4 seasons. The best you get are lists of pairs … “cold and heat”, “Seedtime and Havest”, etc…
- What the bible does say is that there will be always seasons. Even in a warming world with Climate Change, that remains true. He really is so stupid that he can’t grasp that.
- Meanwhile, unlike Mr Christmas, empirical measurements don’t lie, the world really is warming
Homophobia on Steroids
Tony Perkins mourns the signing of the Respect For Marriage Act: “Today is a dark day for religious freedom. President Biden has now unleashed one of the greatest assaults on religious freedom in modern history.”
- Perkins Translator: He can no longer legally inflict his religious bigotry upon others.
- Meanwhile Tony, if you are opposed to marriage between folks of the same gender, then don’t marry somebody of the same gender. There, problem solved.
Founding Father “Experts”
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton falsely claims that “every single right in the Due Process clauses came directly out of the Bible“: “They quoted the Bible in the Constitution … They were Bible scholars.“
- Mr Barton’s historical “Expertise” was well established by him being the author of what was official recognised as “the least credible history book in print”. It takes a great deal of skill to be able to manage that. Even the Christian run publisher realised that they had been conned by him and pulled the plug on it.
- I guess I don’t need to tell you this, but the bible verses he cites do not say what he claims.
For the curious, here are some quotes on the topic from Mr Barton’s “Bible scholars” …
Truly Bizarre
Evangelical conspiracy theorist Eric Metaxas said that the “classical Greeks” promoted a “biblical worldview”… even though the Bible didn’t exist until hundreds of years later.
- What Eric is actually confirming is that the supposedly divinely inspired text simply plagiarised earlier ideas and that there was nothing new or unique within the “biblical worldview”.
- What is a revelation here is that Eric is confirming that virtue does not *necessarily* have to be grounded in the Bible. The greeks managed it without the bible. Eric is telling you this without really appreciating that he is telling you that you don’t need the bible for that.
Nick Fuentes suspects that the Biden administration rushed to secure the release of Brittney Griner because Ye was scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to free her.
- The “evidence” Nick offers for this claim is about as credible as all that “evidence” that the earth of flat.
- If Ye was really thinking of actually doing that then somebody should perhaps advise him that the 1799 Logan Act (18 U.S. Code § 953) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to engage in unauthorized foreign diplomacy, including to “influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government“.
Ali Alexander, yes another item this week, claims that he didn’t enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 because the government had “pre-cleared kill squads” in place ready to shoot him, Alex Jones, and Roger Stone: “They were literally going to kill us.”
- Reminder: On Jan 6, “The Government” that he claims was out to get him was run by Trump and the GOP, they still ran the shop on that day.
- This past week he also claimed that he has prophetic abilities: “I think one of my spiritual gifts is that I am a seer. I do think that is one of my spiritual gifts. I have an uncanny ability to either flirt with prophecy or be endowed with prophecy.” … which to be honest is not as crazy as his previous claim last month that he was a time traveller.
The False Profit$
Pastor Shane Vaughn is now demanding the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of U.S. senators, because voters keep electing Democrats: “It’s not fair.“
- It really is so unfair (for Shane) that the candidate that got the most votes wins. He clearly believes in “one man one vote”, and clearly wants to be that one man with just one vote to decide everything.
- I’m honestly not sure how he thinks this actually works. He is ticked off that he can’t get enough votes to get the Senators he likes elected, so he wants to solve that by amending the Constitution. Where exactly does he think the votes to enact that amendment would come from?
- I also, when I lose, used to whine about it just like he now does …. when I was 6.
Interesting Articles
- Hannah Gais and Michael Edison Hayden @ Hatewatch: White Nationalists, Other Republicans Brace for ‘Total War.’
- Josephine Harvey @ HuffPost: Marjorie Taylor Greene Says ‘We Would’ve Won’ If She Organized The Jan. 6 Attack.
- Ken Meyer @ Mediaite: Herschel Walker’s Son Threatens to Dish on Fired Blaze TV Host Who Blamed Him For His Dad’s Defeat: ‘I Don’t Like Cheaters.’
- Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby @ Popular Information: How to ban 3600 books from school libraries.
- Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: A Plot To Overturn An American Election.
- Nick Schwellenbach @ The Project On Government Oversight: Hundreds of Oath Keepers Have Worked for DHS, Leaked List Shows.
- Hunter Walker, Josh Kovensky and Emine Yücel @ Talking Points Memo: Mark Meadows Exchanged Texts With 34 Members Of Congress About Plans To Overturn The 2020 Election.
- Ian Millhiser @ Vox: A notorious Trump judge just fired the first shot against birth control.
- Bill Browning @ LGBTQ Nation: Biden signs Respect for Marriage Act on White House lawn.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Despite failures, Texas Republicans eye new voter fraud unit.
- S.V. Date @ HuffPost: DeSantis, Who Once Praised Vaccines, Now Wants To Prosecute Those Who Pushed Them.
- Eric Hananoki and Payton Armstrong @ Media Matters: 100-plus examples of Republican politicians embracing antisemitic media since 2021.
- Drew Harwell @ The Washington Post: QAnon, adrift after Trump’s defeat, finds new life in Elon Musk’s Twitter.
- Tess Owen @ Vice News: Proud Boys Abruptly Shifted Focus to Anti-LGBTQ Action in 2022.
- Andy Kroll, Andrew Perez and Aditi Ramaswami, @ ProPublica: Conservative Activist Poured Millions Into Groups Seeking to Influence Supreme Court on Elections and Discrimination.