Unless you live under a rock then you will probably be aware that DeSantis tossed his hat into the circus ring this past week. We all knew it was coming of course. As part of all this he also did a live Twitter Space with Elon.
The actual session was a total Twitter crash …
As the live stream began, the audio line experienced feedback, outages and garbled audio. Many users reported their Twitter apps crashing or logging them out as they tried to join the stream.
The glitches piled on for an excruciating 20 minutes. David Sacks, the Republican donor and friend of Elon Musk moderating the audio event, got a few sentences in before the stream collapsed. He introduced Musk, and praised DeSantis for keeping Florida open during Covid. Then the feed cut again. And again. And again.
On twitter I could see Elon and other frantically arm waving and pivoting in panic, tweeting out new links for users to try. Then this epic bit of trolling popped up …
Damn, that was some quick thinking to cast such an epic bit of shade on the whole event.
Well played.
As for the event itself, after about 25 minutes they got it rolling with a far smaller crowd of listeners. As for the details, oh come now you know the playbook – he opens with the mandatory “How great I am and how crap “they” are” statement, then moved on to a stream of softball questions from carefully curated friends, all handled with the usual boring DeSantis robotic style.
But wait what about that Florida law that says that he must resign as Gov before running for president?
Nope, not a problem, on the same day he officially filed he also signed S.B. 7050. It is long and lengthy, does a lot of other stuff such as more voter suppression, but also contains a clause that does away with the legal blocker. In other words, that’s why he waited until now to file.
Meanwhile, I’m sure Elon was being totally impartial when he personally hosted DeSantis. The observation that twenty-four hours later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that will shield Musk’s SpaceX from negligence lawsuits after an explosion or a crash. The the timing of that is just a coincidence … right?
As for what others made of it all, when it was announced that Gov. Ron DeSantis would officially launch his campaign during a Twitter space with Elon Musk, hitler loving Nick Fuentes hailed it as a “brilliant” and “genius” idea. After the stunt turned out to be a disaster, Fuentes bashed it as a terrible idea.
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.
Christian Nationalism
This past week Anna Perez claimed that the Black Robe Regiment was literally “a regiment of pastors that actually fought in the [American] Revolution and was on the forefront of founding this country.”
- Fact Check: Nope, not true at all. The term “Black Robe Regiment” was made up, predictably, by Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton and referred simply to pastors who preached in favor of independence.
- Irony Check: Ms Perez has named her show “Wrong Think”
Gene Bailey asserts that when Thomas Jefferson wrote of “building a wall of separation between Church & State,” he meant “the state should not infect the church, instead the church should infect the state.”
- Fact check: If you are reading this then I really don’t need to tell you this, but for completeness, nope, Mr Bailey is lying.
Stupidity Incarnate
Two acolytes of Hitler loving Nick Fuentes—Jared Nobel (aka “Woozuh”) and Aidan Duncan (aka “Smiley”)—thought it would be “funny” to prowl around outside Columbine High School Wednesday night carrying fake weapons.
- Definitely Darwin award candidates.
- They quickly learned that it was not a good idea, and were damn lucky that they were not shot.
… and speaking of Nick … when the Biden administration released a national strategy to counter antisemitism, Nick Fuentes bragged that it is primarily aimed at him: “I am singularly responsible for most of what they’re talking about.”
- If only it was just him and a few of his buddies.
- So yes, he is literally a Narcissistic – a condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance
- And for the record, yes, he really does adore Hitler.
The Cult of Trump
Kent Christmas continues to insist that “in the eyes of the court of Heaven, Donald J. Trump is still the President of the United States.”
- I must admit, it is indeed rather weird to see a pastor promote the idea that God has absolutely no control over what happens here on earth.
- As for what the Bible says about this, yep Romans 13 very much disagrees. For a guy who is supposedly a Bible SME, it’s not a good look at all.
- Meanwhile, at his various trials that are going up Trump can simply plea “In the eyes of the courts of heaven, I’m not guilty”. That will definitely swing things his way in the eyes of a real Judge… right?
Political Shenanigans
- She has used her various platforms to promote an endless stream of white nationalism, Christian nationalism, misogyny, bigotry, and wild conspiracy theories. If this flat-earth, anti-science, homophobic, Putin loving, QAnon village idiot was elected, then what could possibly go wrong?
Homophobia on Steroids
Ali Alexander says that “Blacks and gays are destroying the country through the Democrat party.”
- Ali is himself both Black and also Gay, however, neither of those will “destroy the country”. However, nurturing both racism and homophobia might indeed do exactly that.
- What might also do exactly that would have been founding “Stop the Steal”, and then riling up a mob to attack the capitol on Jan 6 … yes he also really did all that.
Meanwhile …
Stew Peters
So Stew has ramped up his craziness a few notches this past week and gets a section to himself.
Item 1: Stew Peters declares that “June is the month we remember that the rainbow is God’s subtle way of reminding us he drowned the entire planet because it was gay.”
- So yes, he is taking a pop at Pride Month. He apparently can’t handle the existence of gay people and needs to ensure we all know that he is an intolerant homophobic gobshite.
- Fact Check 1: The obvious one, geology, archeology, paleontology, and the global distribution of species verifies there was never a global flood.
- Fact Check 2: The supposed motivation for the flood within the myth saga in Genesis 6 was not because people were gay.
- Fact Check 3: Being gay is natural and normal. Rainbows are also natural and normal, we completely understand what causes them … no gods required.
Item 2: Stew Peters declares that “Michelle Obama will most likely be the democrat presidential nominee in 2024” even though “we all know she’s a fraud, mostly due to her masquerading as a woman while having a penis.”
- I’m going out on a limb here, but I have a sneaky suspicion that he is not an Obama fan.
- Prior to what he does now Peters was a Bounty Hunter (yes really). In 2015 a Minnesota Law was introduced to limit what bounty hunters could wear and drive just because of him. He was apparently masquerading as a police officer. His bounty hunting career was eventually shutdown in 2021 after he was charged and found guilty of disorderly conduct. So now he makes $$$ by promoting the wildest weirdest claims he can dream up and is sponsored by Mike Lindell. (a.k.a. Mr Pillow)
Truly Bizarre
Kandiss Taylor, (Jesus, Guns and Babies) who ran for governor in 2022 and recently became a Georgia GOP district chair, is a flat earther: “Everywhere there’s globes … and that’s what they do to brainwash.“
- She has people all around the globe who agree with her that planet earth is flat.
- She is not just a random nutter, they picked this village idiot to be Georgia GOP district chair.
- Even the ancient Greeks had a better grasp of reality than she does.
- Here is the universe she lives in …
Messianic rabbi Jonathan Cahn declares that when President Biden lit up the White House in rainbow colors in 2022, he handed the nation over to an “ancient goddess” and we’re now under “demonic possession.”
- As I said the last time this guy popped up a few weeks ago, “Messianic rabbi” is a weird combination that is sort of akin to a claim like “Christian Atheist” or “Muslim Hindu”, these are words really don’t pair up.
- “Rainbow colours” lead to “demons” … is a MAGA badge that announces to the world “I’m an intolerant bigoted homophobic gobshite”
Eric Metaxas attempts to explain how former President Donald Trump is a lot like Martin Luther.
- Eric’s comparison only really works if he means Lex Luther.
- Then again, Martin Luther might have been a religious reformer, but he was also deeply into antisemitism, and is hailed as an inspiration for Nazism… so perhaps Eric’s comparison does actually work.
- Just like Trump, Luther was also a giant asshole (See Luther’s pamphlet titled “Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants“. He urged the authorities to violently crush a peasant rebellion).
MAGA pastor Mark Burns claims that a witch “tried to curse” him while he was out to dinner: “A witch of a false goddess tried to rebuke me for teaching about the Living God in her restaurant. She said she was a witch of a goddess.”
- “I’ll take things that never happened for 500 Alex“
- Reminder: Mr Burns has a well-established track record of lying about lots of stuff.
The False Profit$
Self-proclaimed “prophet” Nathan French says that God recently gave him a vision of President Joe Biden “hiding in a cave”: “I saw [the Lord] waving and he said, ‘Bye bye den.’ He was saying, ‘Bye bye’ to the den—the place of hiding—but also, ‘Bye Biden.’ He’s gonna be removed.”
- So here is how this “prophet” stuff works: a) Toss out lots of random claims, and over time you just might get a hit. Simply sweep the failures under the rug b) Pick something quite possible and claim it, then if it happens, declare a hit c) Simply claim you predicted it after it happens because nobody who believes ever looks to see if that was true.
- He is going with a bit of a) and b) here. Elderly guy might not win next election.
- His track record is impressively wrong: He predicted that Trump would win by a landslide in 2020. When that failed, he simply doubled down on the “stolen election” claim because the alternative is to admit that he is a false prophet, and that’s not a good look in the eyes of his very gullible marks.
Statistic of the week
Things really have profoundly changed for the better … and today is not the end-game, tomorrow will be an even better day …
Debt Ceiling is not about controlling spending, its about paying or not paying bills
I can ring up Amex and tell them, “sorry, I’m not paying”, that will work right, because that’s exactly what is going on.
This however is why we have a problem …
TX Bill to Replace Trained counsellor with untrained, unsupervised religious chaplain
Catholic Sexual Abuse: “How did you find that out?” … “You told us”
Fired for not being Polite
Background context, Seth is the owner and CEO of The Babylon Bee. That’s a supposedly conservative Christian news satire website. Basically The Onion, but right wing. Apparently criticism of DeSantis is out of bounds and doing so gets staff fired … via Twitter …
Have you ever seen the Babylon Bee post anything remotely funny or interesting?
Probably not because Satire requires a little bit of subversiveness. Handcuff yourself with conservative ideology, and it just does not work.
Book ban Award of the week
The only time you get to say “George Santos is Right”
Interesting Articles
One highlight is of course this …
- Hannah Rabinowitz and Katelyn Polantz @ CNN: Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes sentenced to 18 years in prison for plot to keep Trump in power.
Given his announcement this past week, these might come in handy in the days to come …
- Nicole Narea and Li Zhou @ Vox: A guide to Ron DeSantis’s most extreme policies in Florida.
- Hannah Knowles @ The Washington Post: DeSantis envisions shaping ‘7-2 conservative majority’ on Supreme Court.
- Will Carless @ USA Today: She stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Then Gov. Ron DeSantis made her a state regulator.
… but of course there was lots of other stuff going on as well …
- Tommy Christopher @ Mediaite: Charlie Kirk Incites Viewers to Go After Target Using Financial ‘Force’ Over Pride Merchandise.
- Hannah Natanson and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff @ The Washington Post: Book removals may have violated student civil rights, Education Dept. says.
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Moms for Liberty Leader Says Biden Behind High-Level, Coordinated Effort to Make Kids LGBTQ.
- David Gilbert @ Vice News: A Far Right Moms Group Is Targeting Students. These Women Are Fighting Back.
- Nicole Carr @ ProPublica: He Became Convinced the School Board Was Pushing “Transgender Bullshit.” He Ended Up Arrested — and Emboldened.
- Sara Boboltz @ HuffPost: Rep. George Santos Names Himself Treasurer Of His Campaign.
- Joe Jervis: QAnon Televangelist Threatens To Sue Anybody Who Claims He’s Having An Adulterous Affair With Boebert.
- Tori Otten @ The New Republic: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Who Loves Demonizing Drag Queens, Now Defends Drag-Wearing Boyfriend.
- Ken Meyer @ Mediaite: Marjorie Taylor Greene Just Paid $100,000 For Kevin McCarthy’s Used Chapstick.
- Decca Muldowney and Kelly Weill @ The Daily Beast: Florida Mom Behind Amanda Gorman Book Ban Has Proud Boy Links.