Prelude to the Apocalypse

[BulletMagnet]

Even more fun in the wake of the Dobbs decision. (EDIT: And one more.)

The best part about the Missouri law, though, as pointed out by one commentator: the reason a pregnant woman isn't allowed to get divorced there - no exception for abuse, naturally - is because the state requires the child to be born before any sort of custody agreement can be arranged. In otherwords, under Missouri divorce law an unborn child isn't considered a person.

One more reminder of just how much effort the modern right has put into anything resembling a coherent belief system. (EDIT: Speaking of which...) EDIT 2: Yup.

And in case anyone wants to say "come on now, they're not gunning for contraception next, that's just silly", both the top and bottom of the equation are currently pointing and laughing at you.

[To Far Away Times]

As if we needed any more evidence that Dobbs decision was primarily about controlling women's rights.

Only 8 republicans voted in favor of protecting contraceptives after Justice Thomas suggested that the right to use contraceptives was wrongly decided. 195 house republicans voted against making contraceptives protected by law.

So the party of no abortions wants to make sure contraceptives are illegal. Got it. I wonder what the motivation could be.

[orange808]

As if we needed any more evidence that Dobbs decision was primarily about controlling women's rights.

Only 8 republicans voted in favor of protecting contraceptives after Justice Thomas suggested that the right to use contraceptives was wrongly decided. 195 house republicans voted against making contraceptives protected by law.

So the party of no abortions wants to make sure contraceptives are illegal. Got it. I wonder what the motivation could be.

Easy now, "contraceptives" is a big word. Too many letters and syllables.

Shorten it to contras and you might have something. You'll also need something about shipping tons of free guns and making sure innocent people stay locked up. If there's big words, no bullets, and no incarceration involved, your GOP types are likely to start nodding off.

[Sima Tuna]

I'd vote for contras, but only if they have small robots and cyborg dogs firing the free guns.

[BulletMagnet]

...and in case anyone still wonders why I don't think "swing" voters are going to save us, these are the people running in one "swing" state. EDIT: And the beat goes on.

EDIT: And by the way, where are all the "Deep State" shriekers now? EDIT 2: And I'll ask again.

[Sengoku Strider]

Just another day at the Apocalypse mill.

[orange808]

Myanmar is today's big interweb outrage and I understand why. However: Myanmar is a very important supplier of essential rare earth metals that we need.

We can't fix it. We can voice our feelings, but we don't rule the world.

Redundant and inconvenient observation: Global trade isn't going fix the world or make inherently evil/corrupt human beings better. That will never ever happen. Global trade won't fix poverty or make other people good. Outraged? Well... We can't afford to cancel everyone, because we aren't self-sufficient--and we aren't going to be. Obviously, we don't rule the entire world and never could. Even if you had the resources to try, you would NOT be "welcomed as liberators" by anyone/anywhere! That's why everything is messy and always will be.

I'm not saying we have to encourage or praise nations we disagree with. We don't. But, there's a reason we balance on this frustrating global political/economic tight rope.

That's why Myanmar is going to be Myanmar and there's not much that can be done. We don't have to like it and we don't have to pretend we do, but we can't fix it.

[BulletMagnet]

Time for a recap: when the Dems finally managed to get themselves together enough to line up a very, very watered-down climate change bill in the Senate, over two dozen GOP Senators suddenly decided they no longer wanted to offer any help to soldiers who became seriously or terminally ill due to the use of burn pits; the party's "moderate" elements are using the occasion to gun for gay marriage next, and heaven only knows what after that.

One more time, for those in the back: when the modern right talks about "bipartisanship", this is what it actually means: the rest of the world calls it "capitulation".

EDIT: And to anyone tempted to say budget gimmickry!, come the fuck on.

[orange808]

I think threatening that international tax deal was the issue for Manchin.

Powerful people had already made a tax agreement. No little coal miner yokel with a banjo was going to stand in the way.

It's obviously not proper tax reform or there wouldn't have been an agreement. At the same time, people much more rich and powerful than Manchin made the accord; there was absolutely no way Manchin was going to get away with breaking that deal. That deal was both the will of powerul business and a delicate foreign policy matter. Manchin was also embarrassing America's entire foreign policy arm.

Manchin couldn't walk away. He couldn't embarrass America on foreign policy like that. Manchin is not powerful enough to stand in the way of something that huge without consequences. It's hilarious the man is so dim and thick. Manchin actually needed someone to sit him down and explain the dangers of crossing the true masters of the universe.

[Sengoku Strider]

Whelp, this arrived about 10 years earlier than I thought it would.



"They're tech-minded, you see."

[Steamflogger Boss]

A neat little Bank of America document leak

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22122791

I fuckin lold

[Sengoku Strider]

Republicans' next big play is to 'scare the hell out of Washington' by rewriting the Constitution. And they're willing to play the long game to win.

As former Republican senator Rick Santorum addressed Republican lawmakers gathered in San Diego at the American Legislative Exchange Council policy summit, he detailed a plan to fundamentally remake the United States.

It would become a conservative nation.

And the transformation, Santorum said, culminates with an unprecedented event: a first-of-its-kind convention to rewrite the Constitution.

I feel like this might possibly be being slightly massively underreported.

[BulletMagnet]

The right's been throwing a tantrum concerning a new constitutional convention for quite some time now, because obviously the countless innate electoral advantages the law in its current form already offers them - before you even get into playing consequence-free Calvinball with Supreme Court nominations or drumming up false electors and a violent mob to forcibly steal a presidential election and so forth - are not nearly enough to dispel their completely real and totally legitimate feelings of disempowerment.

Then again, I suppose when you've already shown yourself not only willing but eager to abandon democracy itself the moment it becomes minimally inconvenient, capriciously discarding your nation's founding document is a cinch by comparison.

While I'm here, the latest episode of So, About That Whole "Deep State" Thing...

[Sengoku Strider]

The right's been throwing a tantrum concerning a new constitutional convention for quite some time now, because obviously the countless innate electoral advantages the law in its current form already offers them - before you even get into playing consequence-free Calvinball with Supreme Court nominations or drumming up false electors and a violent mob to forcibly steal a presidential election and so forth - are not nearly enough to dispel their completely real and totally legitimate feelings of disempowerment.

Then again, I suppose when you've already shown yourself not only willing but eager to abandon democracy itself the moment it becomes minimally inconvenient, capriciously discarding your nation's founding document is a cinch by comparison.

While I'm here, the latest episode of So, About That Whole "Deep State" Thing...

Wow, DoD too? Are these messages actually unrecoverable? I've read conflicting things. I can't imagine the "Oops we forgot to do a backup" excuse will have any traction in front of a judge, but I guess they'd rather risk the destruction of federal records charge than dead to rights sedition.

[orange808]

Apparently, the only communication records we archive are tiresome and completely private conversations (from personal phones) that belong to Amber Heard and Johnny fucking Depp.

[BryanM]

The over ten thousand cows dropping dead due to the heat and their corpses being minced into a Kansas landfill is pretty doomy. It's like a headline you'd expect to see in a newspaper in Robocop, but you get to see it irl instead~

I love Eskow's comment on the Sri Lanka situation. "Ten years ago, they told me don't worry, they had a 500 year plan. Now ten years is two percent... ah, I don't know if this was part of their plan or not : D"

[Blinge]

I too get mad when someone visits a place I don't want them to, and go fire my guns on the beach

[Sengoku Strider]

Washington Post:

"The Great Erase": There is no Jan. 6 Presidential call log, no Presidential activity log, no official White House photography, no Secret Service texts, no texts from top Homeland Security officials, no texts from top Defense Department officials.

Wow, that has got to be the most bonkers coincidence. What are the odds? I guess that'll teach them to be more careful next time, what a zany mixup!

[orange808]

What are the odds?

The odds? Pretty good.

We are discussing human beings, after all.

[orange808]

About Jones, I'm not smiling because he was embarrassed on Twitter. Embarrassment is not accountability. Words do not hurt wealthy people.

Doesn't matter to me right now. He must be prosecuted and jailed for his perjury crime. He's also hiding assets to avoid paying the judgements against him. I'll smile when he gets twenty years in the pokey--where he belongs for the crimes he's committing right now to avoid the consequences of these civil lawsuits.

The problem is, I don't think he'll face any justice for his crimes. Some people can do anything they want. We let rich people lie, hide their money, file bankruptcies, and pass the burden to insurance companies. In turn, the insurance companies cover their losses with premiums from other customers and the money comes from the public. Only a share of a judgement is paid and the insurance company pays. The rich assholes don't lose all their money or go to jail. There's no accountability.

It's ironic to hear he's throwing around the word "rigged".

[Sengoku Strider]

Well, let's review:

Jones declared “I don’t use email,”

Shortly after Jones was shown one that came from his address

Strike 1.

Jones’ attorney asked the jury to limit damages to $8 — one dollar for each of the compensation charges they are considering — and Jones himself said any award over $2 million “would sink us.”

Another email was shown from an Infowars business officer telling Jones that the company had earned $800,000 gross in selling its products in a single day, which would amount to nearly $300 million in a year.

Strike 2.

During his testimony, Jones said he’s tried in the past to back off the hoax claims, but “they (the media) won’t let me take it back.” Jones complained that he’s been “typecast as someone that runs around talking about Sandy Hook, makes money off Sandy Hook, is obsessed by Sandy Hook.”

Eight days of testimony included videos of Jones and Infowars employees talking about the Sandy Hook conspiracy and even mocking Heslin’s description in a 2017 television interview that he’d held his dead son Jesse’s body “with a bullet hole through his head.”

Strike 3.

Jones testified Tuesday that he never mentioned Sandy Hook in text messages, so he never provided such records as required during the trial’s discovery process.

Bankston then pointed out several texts and other evidence that contradicted Jones’ previous testimony and said he had several of Jones’ text messages that mentioned Sandy Hook. He had Jones read one to confirm.

Strike 4.

There's more, but quadruple perjury while being thoroughly uncooperative and just about the least sympathetic defendant possible is enough to sink him. But even if anyone remains cynical about the outcome of the civil case, that doesn't matter. Certain ears perked up once word of Jones' texts got out:



He's got bigger problems than the Sandy Hook families getting $150 million out of him.

A Copy of Alex Jones’ Cellphone Will Be Turned Over to the January 6 Committee ‘Immediately’

In an emergency hearing this morning, an attorney for the Sandy Hook parents, Mark Bankston, confirmed that he’d had requests from “several law enforcement agencies,” including the January 6 committee, to turn over the phone data, and that he intends to do so “immediately.”

One final thing from that article, Jones' incompetent Lionel Hutz lawyer trying to get a mistrial out of this is hilarious:

In an emergency motion this morning, Jones’ attorney Federico Reynal asked Judge Maya Guerra Gamble to order Bankston and the other plaintiffs’ attorneys to destroy the phone data and return everything they have to him. “I hate to be put into this position by the conduct of plaintiffs counsel, but it appears they want to have a mistrial,” he told the judge.

Bankston retorted that Reynal had sent him the enormous cache of documents, then followed up only with the words “Please disregard” in an email, which, he argued, is legally meaningless. Reynal was required to cite specific privileged documents within 10 days, he said, and state why they were privileged and confidential. Reynal never did that, Bankston added. The phrase “please disregard” on their own “creates no legal duty on me whatsoever,” he said.

Judge Gamble did order some data deleted—namely, confidential psychiatric records for nine plaintiffs, all Sandy Hook parents—in another case.

Jones having the child massacre parents' confidential psychiatric records on his fucking cellphone is the peak of creep mountain.

[BryanM]

Someone pointed out that the parents have now been harassed by Jones's fans longer than they got to be parents.

[BulletMagnet]

I just don't think you folks have cringed enough today. Even with so many members of the Treason Caucus handily winning their primaries.

[orange808]

$4 million is a drop in the bucket. His other two companies escaped the lawsuit and have already exited their "bankruptcy". He's winning.

You say he'll be held accountable??? Well... I'll believe it when I see it.

I believe the boomers call that rich, footloose, and fancy free. Putting a bracelet on his leg for a year after sending him to a country club for three months isn't a real punishment.

Lots of people would live at a country club for a few months and wear an anklet for a little while in return for millions.

Accountability means flat broke. Furthermore, he has committed his crimes as part of a larger plan for illegal deception. He should be receiving maximum sentences. Now, whatever (in the world) makes think he'll get a slap on the wrist?

The January 6 committee is great theatre. When will someone go to prison? Because, if you don't lock up these people, they will try again. Ya know, I'm sorry Mary Surratt had to choke out on the end of a rope, but she wasn't going to stop that shit she was doing. (Could be worse, Guy Fawkes got hacked into pieces) Not participating in treason isn't that hard. It's not like accidentally stepping in chewing gum getting off the train. You don't fall into treason by accident. Consequences have to be there. I don't support capital punishment, but long prison sentences are justified. We aren't gonna do shit, are we?

[orange808]

I keep hearing people say Kansas means something. Does it?

Republicans are libertarians first.

Here's some data, if you're still feeling hopey changey.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... s-election

Here's the takeaway: a large turnout strongly suggests: the final results reflect a good sample of the population's opinion. It's an accurate sample. More votes (samples) wouldn't move the needle either way.

A poll last year showed that 60% of Kansas voters wanted abortion to remain legal. The referendum vote has 59% voting to leave abortion legal with almost the votes counted.

It means Kansas voted exactly the way polling says they would. The polling was accurate. There's nothing new or changed.

Need more? Look here. Notice how the people that want abortion illegal in all circumstances has been ~15% for decades??? I see no reason to believe Kansas has changed much over the years. The result was status quo.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/3400/LongT ... inion.aspx

As I understand it, the abortion protests were people driving to Kansas from elsewhere. Really no different than expecting a large protest of visitors to Washington DC having a large say in a local election referendum. Naturally, only people that live in Washington DC would vote in local elections--not people that drove there from elsewhere and went home. Same thing applies here.

Need to know what this means? It means Republicans are often libertarians first. The voters also went out and selected exactly what they said they would choose (already).

It doesn't mean much of anything. Sorry.

It does support one important argument. The election system works. It's honest and fair. It works. When the vote matches the opinion poll, that's efficiency. Nobody "stole" anything.

[Sengoku Strider]

$4 million is a drop in the bucket. His other two companies escaped the lawsuit and have already exited their "bankruptcy". He's winning.

He's already paid the families more than a million in punitive fines, so the total is $5.6 million. He's being sued by the families in a separate case over the very traceable financial shell game he's playing. He's got another Sandy Hook suit starting in the fall in Connecticut in which the families have already won a default judgement. And I'm sure there's another one there that I'm forgetting.

So while I'll agree this seems way too low for a guy who had lunatics shooting at the homes of bereaved parents for his own personal gain, there's more still coming. The thing is, Jones is wealthy, but he's not obscenely rich. The accountant overseeing Infowars right now says he took $62 million out of the company over 14 years, $30 million of which went to the IRS. $32 million is like, NBA benchwarmer money. For a guy who lost big in a divorce and constantly requires multiple lawyers on retainer and is clearly a giant walking ball of impulsivity, that doesn't go as far as you'd think. Ask almost every rapper alive.

EDIT: I just read somewhere he's worth $250 million? I don't know what's real now.


DE-EDIT: I read the economics professor the families hired to estimate his net worth said the $62 million number. I'll go with that guy.

I just don't think you folks have cringed enough today. Even with so many members of the Treason Caucus handily winning their primaries.

It's been a long, long time since it was worth wasting brain cells on these types of takes. They certainly aren't.

Republicans are libertarians first.

The majority are authoritarians first, second and third. Don't confuse throwing temper tantrums when government mom says to clean up their room with actual libertarianism. The genuine libertarian wing of the party is comparatively small, and the closest most of them come to that end of things is in holding incongruent generic neoliberal economic views.

"Free market capitalism! No taxes! Don't trust the government! FREEE-DOOHHHMM! But also, worship the military and law enforcement. And now, here's our keynote speaker for the evening, Hungarian Prime Minister and noted totalitarian Viktor Orbán to condemn same-sex marriage, rail against the weak-kneed feebleness of democracy and talk about the evils of race-mixing. Heil Trump."

[orange808]

Today's news is how the liberals in New York are finally being "punished" with busses of migrants. They haven't been doing their part, right? Wrong.

Let's talk about this.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/program ... and-county

The map looks scary, huh? Look at poor Texas.

But, wait...

Zoom in on New York and New Jersey. The New York City metropolitan area, if you will, has 1.2 million migrants. Among those people, most (virtually all of them) arrived with the intention of staying.

Texas has 1.7 milliom total in the entire state (not just inside a single metro area like New York/New Jersey). Many of those 1.7 million arrive in Texas planning to move on--and many do. New York City metro's population is there to stay.

Who doesn't understand or do their part? I don't know, but NYC is definitely absorbing huge masses of people.

So, if you're wondering why New York shrugs their shoulders at busses arriving from Texas, that's why. Most of those arrivals probably planned to go to the New York area, anyhow. The bussing is voluntary.

"The liberals in New York don't understand all the arrivals from South America"? If you think so, you're a fucking idiot. Look again.

[BulletMagnet]

And now, here's our keynote speaker for the evening, Hungarian Prime Minister and noted totalitarian Viktor Orbán to condemn same-sex marriage, rail against the weak-kneed feebleness of democracy and talk about the evils of race-mixing.

I would really like to see someone pin down the "oh, he's just an alternate perspective, I don't endorse everything he says" moderate conservatives and ask them what they thought, among other things, about his assertion - based on what, I have absolutely no earthly idea - that "a Christian politician cannot be racist". I imagine, assuming one is ever forthcoming, that a straight answer would be both profoundly enlightening and profoundly terrifying to anyone who somehow still hasn't been paying attention to what's actually happening on the right.

[Sengoku Strider]

And now, here's our keynote speaker for the evening, Hungarian Prime Minister and noted totalitarian Viktor Orbán to condemn same-sex marriage, rail against the weak-kneed feebleness of democracy and talk about the evils of race-mixing.

I would really like to see someone pin down the "oh, he's just an alternate perspective, I don't endorse everything he says" moderate conservatives and ask them what they thought, among other things, about his assertion - based on what, I have absolutely no earthly idea - that "a Christian politician cannot be racist". I imagine, assuming one is ever forthcoming, that a straight answer would be both profoundly enlightening and profoundly terrifying to anyone who somehow still hasn't been paying attention to what's actually happening on the right.

It'll just be something along the lines of "When your heart is truly guided by God, you always walk in the light" etc. Christian nationalists start from a quasi-Calvinist premise that white Americans are God's true chosen as evidenced by American abundance, and work backwards from that. So whatever benefits their way of life must be ultimately right by default.

After rationalizing Trump & QAnon, a guy who tells a consistent story like Orbán is patty-cake. Just look at the quote from that Hungarian woman in the article, playing Windjammers with his anti-LGBT stance - “This is why Mr. Orbán is so popular there, because he is family friendly,” Lilla Vessey said.

Orbán's not a white supremacist, he's just Hungarian friendly.

[Sengoku Strider]

WUT

The jury just said Jones has to pay $45 million in the second case today. In addition to the $5 mil he already owes. And apparently there are 18 families still to go? If this guy is worth maybe $30 million, he's just been nuked from orbit. Dumbass was crowing on his show today about "truth winning" after the $4 million ruling, too.

I have a feeling he's about to flee to Russia with a suitcase full of gold bars and piracetam.

But the most shocking fact? The guy is only 48 years old!? I could swear he's been 57 for like the last decade.