Mike the Christian Fascist is Trying to Scrub His Tracks

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has taken down the website for the podcast he did with his wife.

But all 69 episode are still available for download for anyone to archive.

The Internet doesn't forget much.

Johnson is a member of the Christian Taliban, and he and his wife ran a business based on those ideas:

The wife of newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., recently deactivated the website for her company after HuffPost found that the business' bylaws likened homosexuality to bestiality and incest.

Kelly Johnson is the owner and chief executive of Onward Christian Counseling Services, a pastoral counseling service rooted in faith, per a Friday report from HuffPost. Johnson's website, which was yanked from public access on Saturday, featured a link to an eight-page operating agreement from 2017 that detailed how the company was structured around the belief that any sort of sexual relations other than those between a man and a woman were considered "sinful and offensive to God."

“We believe and the Bible teaches that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God,” reads a section of the document.

The Johnsons are no different from the Iranian mullahs in their belief that their twisted views should be used to guide the lives of everybody, and if they don't like it, lock them up (or execute them).

Tricking These Down, Here

Interesting Gun Review

A review of the Beretta .32 Tomcat. Which probably comes as close to saying "you need to have your head examined if you buy this one" as any I can remember in recent times.

When the World is on Fire, the First Thing Republicans Do is Protect the Rich

The House GOP released a $14.3 billion standalone measure on Monday that would pay for aid to Israel by cutting the same amount in funding that was allocated to the IRS under the Inflation Reduction Act, one of President Biden's signature pieces of legislation.

Any excuse to make things easier for the uber-rich will be Job One for Republicans in Congress.

So, a three-word response to Our Leading Christian Nationalist in Congress: "Fuck you, no."

Why not pay for such aid by stripping the infrastructure improvement funds from every congressional district where both the senators and the representative voted against the funding? They didn't want it, so don't give it to them.

The End of Right-Wing Rebellion Fan Fiction?

It's not hard to find far-right rebellion fan fiction. They're the stories that began in the 1970s with neo-Nazi rebellion fiction and blossomed after President Obama was elected, Obamacare became law and then after the TOFF's coup failed.

A bunch of white nationalist rebels aren't likely to put together the supply chain and production facilities to make tens of thousands of small FPV drones. But a government sure can.

Spain's Turn in the Barrel

More than 200,000 children are estimated to have suffered sexual abuse from Spain's Catholic clergy, an independent commission has found.

The details emerged from an unprecedented public investigation by Spain's ombudsman, who spoke of the "devastating impact" on victims.

Angel Gabilondo also criticised the Church for its inaction and attempts to cover up or deny the abuse.

"What has happened has been possible because of that silence," he said.

Aren't we now past the point where there should be nobody paying any attention to the preaching of moralistic issues by the RCC? The ones who weren't directly engaged in abusing children helped to cover it up, or they knew about it and stayed silent.

Most organized religion is just evil. At least the Satanists are honest about whom they serve.

Meanwhile, back in the Party of the Christian Taliban:

A retired Republican state senator from North Dakota has been charged with traveling to Europe with the intent of paying for sex with a minor and with receiving images depicting child sexual abuse, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday.

Longtime state Sen. Ray Holmberg, 79, was arrested Monday and released after pleading not guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court in Fargo. His trial is set for Dec. 5.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Holmberg repeatedly traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic from June 2011 to November 2016 for the purpose of paying for sex with a person under 18 years old. The indictment, which also suggests Holmberg used aliases, says he received and attempted to receive images that depict child sexual abuse from November 2012 to March 2013.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

F-15s.

ETA: Well, fuck. I'll look for another F-15 video.

OK, F-15s in "the Mach Loop"

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try, Again.Then Quit. There's No Use Being a Damned Fool About It.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

“It’s become clear to me: This is not my time,” Pence said at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gathering in Las Vegas. “So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today.”

“We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets,” Pence went on to tell the friendly audience, which reacted with audible surprise to the announcement and gave him multiple standing ovations.

"Uphill battle", no shit there. The Trumpist MAGA wing of the party hates his guts for not helping in the TOFF's coup attempt. Everyone else hates his guts for having been an utter toady up until then.

To say that there is nobody not related to him who likes him is not much of an exaggeration.

Alfa Mike Foxtrot.

Some Capitalists Deserve a Final Ride in a Tumbrel

The brass of Dutch Company Royal Phillips, including CEO Roy Jakobs, which, with full knowledge, kept selling CPAP machines even though their own scientists had discovered critical risks to the users. The company had thousands of complaints about the machines and kept them secret for over a decade.

This was basically Exploding Ford Pinto logic at work.

Caturday

Priss wants lunch to be served.

It Was Their Problem to Fix

GOP "thinkers", including Megan McArdle, continue to blame Democrats for the fix that Republicans got themselves into by first ousting Hapless Kevin and then by choosing a Christian extremist as Speaker.

AOC got it right when this whole mess got underay:

Contrary to how McCarthy’s defenders are behaving, men failing up is not a Constitutionally protected right.

The man made risky decisions and faced the natural consequences of them. I am not his mom, and my job is not to put pool noodles around hard corners for Republicans.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 4, 2023

Absent a deal, the minority party doesn't vote for the majority party's candidate for Speaker. No Republican was going to make such a deal, because that would be political suicide.

McArdle's piece is how conservatives see things: Republicans are permitted to be selfish, bomb-throwing political children. Democrats are supposed to save Republicans from their own folly with nothing in return.

Fuck that noise.

Meanwhile, the TOFF continues to praise Hamas. Because he adores people and groups that practice murder and terrorism.

Because It's Friday

A double-Fairlie:

More Prayers

[Speaker of the House Mike] Johnson said “prayer is appropriate” as a response to the mass shootings in Maine.

Yeah, right. Prayer seems to be an excuse for not doing anything about a given situation.

Say that there is something not good going on in your life. Which do you want to hear from others: "I'll pray for you;" or "here I am, how can I help"?

"I'll pray for you" is about as helpful as saying "you're on your own", only far more hypocritical.

So count on Johnson to pray, publically, for those shot in Maine, but otherwise, he won't do a fucking thing for them.

Green Eagle on Hamas

Puncturing a lot of the lies about Gaza, Hamas and Israel.

H/T

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro

And they enter The Florida Man Games. Which is a real thing, apparently.

Pantsing These Down, Here

Oh, Well, What the Hell

The New Speaker

I don't find anything to like about this clown, other than there's now a warm body in the Speaker's chair.

• He thinks women should be forced to give birth to able-bodied workers.
• He hates gay people, teachers, unionized workers, senior citizens and poor people.
• He tried to steal the 2020 election for his Orange Lord.
• He’s a tool of the oil industry.
• He has Putin's back.

In short, he is a modern Confederate whose is a member of the Christian Taliban. The TOFF and Putin must be over the Moon with this guy. He looks like a nice, affable white guy, but his track record is that of a trafficker in religious-based hatred of everyone else who doesn't believe as he does. The only good thing, I suppose, is that he's not worn Klan robes, but don't be surprised if he has a pressed white sheet/robe in a garment bag deep in his closet.

White Privilege Applies to Terrorists, Too

People convicted of crimes related to domestic extremism face far shorter prison terms than those convicted in international terrorism cases, even when the crimes are similar, a new report on the outcomes of hundreds of federal criminal cases has found.

The first-of-its-kind analysis, completed by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland, was provided exclusively to The Associated Press. It comes after federal officials and researchers have repeatedly identified domestic violent extremists such as white supremacists and anti-government groups as the most significant terror threat to the U.S. And it follows scrutiny of the outcomes of Jan. 6 cases, including for some Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who received sentences years lower than what was called for by prosecutors and sentencing guidelines.
...
Researchers at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, and its Center for Health and Homeland Security examined federal criminal cases between 2014 and 2019 that were brought against people radicalized in the U.S. who were pursuing political, social, economic or religious goals.
...
START’s analysis found wide disparities in prison terms for similar conduct, which were most pronounced in certain kinds of cases. The largest was in cases where defendants plotted violent attacks that ultimately failed or were foiled, where international defendants received an average prison sentence of 11.2 years, compared with 1.6 years for domestic defendants.

For violent cases that led to injuries, domestic defendants received on average 8.6 years, versus 34.6 for international defendants. The disparity was smaller, but still significant, in violent fatal attacks with domestic cases at about 28.8 years and international cases at about 39.2 years.

None of this is surprising for anyone who has even a basic knowledge of the criminal justice system in this country. The charges are different, the judges' setencing rationales are different. Those accused of domestic terrorism are treated differently and more leniently at every step of the process.

It's white privilege in action, pure and simple.

Of Course Clarence Hasn't Repaid the "Loan"

The US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas failed to repay much – or possibly all – of a “sweetheart deal” to borrow more than $267,000 to buy a luxury motor home, a Senate committee found.

The existence of the $267,230 loan, made by the businessman Anthony Welters in 1999 and forgiven in 2008, was first reported by the New York Times. On Wednesday, the Times quoted Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer and congressional expert witness, as saying “‘this was, in short, a sweetheart deal’ that made no logical sense from a business perspective”.

Seriously, Gentle Reader, did anyone expect that ol' Clarence would have repaid more than a buck or two of the principal of the bribe "loan"?

What is Hebrew for "Stay Strapped or Get Clapped?"

I dropped out of Hebrew school after three classes, and my dad didn't make me continue on, so I can't help there.

Firearm instructors and Jewish security groups across the country say they have been flooded with new clientele since Hamas assaulted Israel on Oct. 7. And gun shop owners in Florida say they have seen more Jews purchase firearms in recent weeks than ever before.

“We’ve definitely seen a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms,” said David Kowalsky, who owns Florida Gun Store in the town of Hollywood, and also offers firearms training classes. “I’ve seen a surge in interest in individual training as well as group training.”

I have never understood my co-religionists who believe that America is different from all other countries throughout the arc of human history, that the authorities would be eager to protect the Jews living here.

There were some bombings of synagogues and Jewish community centers by far-right terrorists in the 1950s and 1960s. The story was that the FBI was loathe to do anything, which is understandible, as its director, J. Edgar Hoover, was a notorious white supremacist. So the Mossad sent a not-so-subtle signal to the FBI, which boiled down to "you fix this mess or we will." Since this was around the time that the Mossad had tracked down Adolph Eichmann and abducted him from Agentina and because Hoover believed that every American Jew would help Mossad, he believed that the Mossad had the capability and the will to do what they threatened. So the FBI got into the cases. Or so the story goes.

Who is the Man Who Would Risk His Neck for His Brother Man?

Shaft!

Richard Roundtree has passed away. he was 81.

The Flips Keep On Coming for Inmate No. P01135809

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

I expect that this means that Meadows is going to flip in the Georgia case, as well.

Felonious Donnie does have some chutzpa, comparing himself to Nelson Mandela. Even though Mandela spent 29 years behind bars and Donnie hasn't yet spent a night in stir.

Thesaurusing These Down, Here

I'm running on little sleep as I post this, so coherent thought, let alone imagination, is lacking. And I may have lost track of where I was in the Snark directory (yes, that's its actual name).

Another Rat Bails From the SS Trump

Jenna Ellis, an attorney and prominent conservative media figure, reached a deal with prosecutors Tuesday and pleaded guilty to reduced charges over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.

Ellis, the fourth defendant in the case to enter into a plea deal, was a vocal part of Trump’s reelection campaign in the last presidential cycle and was charged alongside the Republican former president and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law.

Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to a count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

She had said that she was innocent and that she trusted the Lord to make things right. Guess that didn't work out for her.

She was probably cooked after she admitted making false statements in the media and those lies were likely repeated in filed documents seeking to overturn the election.

Supposedly the TOFF's defense is going to be that he relied on the advice of the lawyers who told him what he wanted to hear. That may be a harder sell to a jury when those same lawyers are now admitting that they were engaged in criminal activity on his behalf.

Can We Now Agree That the Republican Party is a Hate Group?

Robert Reich seems to believe that it is. He wrote about how hate is corrosive, but within the column, he took on the GOP:

Tragically, hate is a huge motivator. “The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who,” wrote Kevin Phillips, the political analyst who died last week.

I did not know Phillips well. We appeared together on various panels and forums over the years, so I heard a lot of his views about political strategy. I’m reluctant to speak ill of someone recently deceased, but it is important to understand Phillips’s legacy.

His 1969 book, “The Emerging Republican Majority,” was for many decades the GOP’s blueprint for how to win over white voters unhappy with the Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights in the 1960s.

Phillips urged Republicans to link white voters’ racial anxieties to issues such as crime, federal spending, and voting rights, and make racially coded appeals such as “law and order.”

It worked — helping to produce Richard M. Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972, Reagan’s in 1980 (aided by Reagan’s condemnation of “welfare queens”), George W. Bush’s 1988 victory (remember “Willie Horton”?), and GOP majorities for decades.

Phillips’s politics of hate was the predicate for Trump’s politics of resentment and fear — Trump’s dehumanizing of immigrants and Muslims, use of antisemitic tropes, denigrating “globalists,” “coastal elites,” and the “deep state” bureaucrats, and attacking the mainstream media as “enemies of the people” and Democrats as “socialists.”

Hatred of others can be bone-deep and bred in. The Republicans realized that they could tap into the well of hatred that propelled politicians such as Lester Maddox, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Woodrow Wilson into office. Jesse Helms rode that horse every day of his political life.

The Republicans keep shifting targets from women (led by noted Quisling Phyllis Schafley) to Blacks, then gays then immigrants and now transgendered people. Their party leader has based his entire political career on hatred and racism, something he learned from both his biological father and his intellectual father.

They do this, of course, because hate sells. Telling people that their politicas of soaking the poor and the middle class in order to benefit the rich will result in gutting Social Security, having shittier roads and throwing away any hope of retaining a technological leadership in the world wouldn't make for much of platform, so they disguise that with hate.

It's not the party of Lincoln anymore, or the party of Eisenhower. It's not even the party of Hoover. It's the party of Nixon and the party of Trump. And Trump has transformed his political party into a cult of personality,

The GOP is a hate group. Are you a member?

Two Levels of Idiots

A Washington state senator was arrested in Hong Kong for carrying a gun that was not registered in the semi-autonomous Chinese city, his website and local media reported. He was released on bail on Monday.

Jeff Wilson, a Republican from Longview, was arrested after landing at the Hong Kong International Airport on Saturday. Wilson was traveling with his wife for a five-week vacation in Southeast Asia, his website said.
...
According to Wilson’s website, he had discovered the weapon mid-flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong and reported it to customs authorities on landing.

First off, there's the idiocy of his not knowing that he is carrying a gun on an airliner. Second, he somehow got the gun past the TSA. A bonus level of idiocy is bringing a gun to a country that has iffy relations with the U.S. and who might relish having even a low-grade American politician that they can legitimately throw into prison for a few years.

Pardon Me For Now Choosing to Stay Silent When the Cops Kill More Of You

Black Lives Matter-LA, among other groups, immediately came out with a statement excusing the terrorist massacre of unarmed people.

Inhuman acts, shooting old people and kids at close range, burning them alive in their homes and kidnapping people to use as human shields, those acts of barbarism are excused by BLM-LA as legitimate acts of resistance.

And why is there not such reactions in other conflict?

Do the Muslim student groups target the Chinese community to protest the treatment of Uyghers? Do the Proud Boys target Ukrainian churches to show their love for Russia?

Are [Jews] the only people under threat from both the left and the right?

Pretty much. "Kill the Jews" has been a staple of the far-right for centuries. For the far-left, it's police accountability, housing reform, and, oh, by the way, let's kill all the Jews. A lot of Christian churches have viewed the murder of Jews as payback for the death of Jesus. The only reason some of the Christian churches support Israel is they see the return of the Jews to the Holy Land as a prerequisite for Jesus to come back. (Which gets to the question of why, since most of their lives are in opposition to Jesus's teachings of love and peace, but that's not my lane.)

Time and time again, for thousands of years, Jews have been murdered in their homes or expelled. Nothing has changed.

Except this time, there are a few million Jews who have guns and the willingness to kill those who would do them harm.

Just like Christians.

The Cost of Ripping Up Those Rails

Amtrak train service was suspended Sunday between Albany and New York City because of a mudslide in Westchester County.

Back in the day, the New York Central would have rerouted those intercity passenger trains down the Harlem Line's Upper Harlem Division. But the Penn Central abandoned the line north of Dover Plains (Metro North later reopened it to Wassaic) and ripped up the tracks.

Tab Clearing

In rational times, those who think that some boss is innocent might have a few qualms when the boss's underlings plead guilty and turn state's evidence. But these aren't normal times. The TOFF's supporters have guzzled the Kool-Aid and they will be with him until the day he dies. Then they'll shift their allegance to one of his dissolute sons.

The Associated Press looked at the video evidence of the strike on the hospital in Gaza and concluded that the rocket that hit the hospital was fired by the Palestinians. That won't make a bit of difference to those who blame Israel for it. The only use for that factual finding is that, when someone repeats the lie, you'll know which side they are on.

Pro-Palestinian activists are feeling a backlash. Most of them don't acknowledge that when they moved from being pro-Palestinian to cheering on mass murder, they crossed a line. The mass killing of civilians wasn't a by-product of Hamas's plans, it was a main goal. If you want to stand up and publically support deliberate and planned mass-murder of civilians, then you have no legitimate cause to complain if there are people who don't want to be associated with you.

Of course, Fox News had to drag their Anti-Tranny crusade into this, as if any of that bullshit is relevant. Fox News is nothing but evil. Everyone who is associated with Fox News probably would have worked for Der Stürmer without a qualm.

I watched the first two episodes of the second season of Bosch: Legacy. The source of this tale isn't from the books, as far as I can remember. No, it basically proves that plaigarism is alive and well in Hollywood. The same plot was in an earlier season of The Rookie (Young female cop gets drugged, abducted and buried alive in the California desert with a video feed from inside her coffin for all the world to see.) Maybe the rest of the season will go back to mining the two dozen or so books about Harry Bosch.

Newspapers want to be paid by OpenAI for their stuff that OpenAI has used to train its eventually-humanity-killing AI. And they should. If you take somone else's stuff in order to make moeny, you should pay them. (This is why I never cooperate with opinion surveys.)

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

An RQ-4:

I don't usually feature drones, but the Global Hawk is one big mother.

We All Know How This Looks

The president of a Detroit synagogue board was found dead Saturday morning with multiple stab wounds outside her home, police said.

The victim, Samantha Woll, was the president of the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, which is in downtown Detroit, the synagogue said in a Facebook post.

It is a sad commentary on these times when one hopes that she was killed in a garden-variety robbery/murder or a domestic slaying. But you know that nobody's going to think that until something is proven.

So, until we know otherwise, an ounce of prevention is better than spilling six pints of blood.

Or, to put it another way:

Chaos and Paralysis Is the Point

As the nation is about to finish its third week with one house of Congress totally mired in internecine knife-fighting in the majority caucus, all triggered by Pedo Matt's hissy fit over the House of Representatives actually accomplishing something, one has to ask the age-hold question of homicide investigators: Cui bono? Who benefits from this?

Not the Trumpists, for the House can't do anything to aid in his desperate attempts to avoid spending time in one of three prison systems. Not the vast majority of Americans, who want government to actually do something to help them. Not those who provide governmental services, as they're watching the clock tick down to a date when they won't get paid. Not those seniors who become eligible for Medicare or Social Security in December, as the people who process those will be on furlo; same for those seeking disability coverage.

So who benefits? Those who want American democracy to fail. That list includes Putin, Xi, Iran/Hamas and a portion of the GOP. Then the question is there any intersection between the foreign enemies to American democracy and internal enemies.

I'd be willing to wager that there is.

Caturday

Random kitten blogging.

Strike Three: Gym Jordan is OUT!

Republicans dropped Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday as their nominee for House speaker, making the decision during a closed-door session after the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump failed badly on a third ballot for the gavel.

The blocked-House impasse deepening, Republicans have no realistic or workable plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since hard-liners ousted Kevin McCarthy at the start of the month.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said they’re going “come back and start over” on Monday.

In all, Jordan lost 25 Republican colleagues in Friday’s vote, leaving him far from the majority needed, with next steps uncertain.

At this point, I'm suprised that a bunch of House Republicans haven't donned ski masks and held a blanket party for Pedo Matt. As of Monday, the House will have been in coma-mode for three weeks because Republicans cannot do one elementary procedure of governance.

If you voted for any of those clowns in the Party of MAGA-Stupid, this is on you.

Another Rat Jumps Off the SS TOFF

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.

Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts.

The prosecution gets two more witnesses and they also don't end up showing their hand early. My suspicion was that was part of the plan, to get Powell and Cheseboro to, in essence, do a scouting run of the case. But there is nothing like an inpending trial with the potential of hefty prison time to concentrate the mind of a criminal co-defendant. Both walk with probation instead of up to two decades in a Georgia prison.

Cheseboro authored one of the legal-coup memos, which he may end up having to testify about. His (and Powell's) flipping is going to turn up the heat on the other criminally-indicted lawyers: Eastman and Giuliani. The smart money probably is that they aren't going to fall on their swords for the TOFF, any more than Powell and Cheseboro would.

When a New Pot of Money is There, Guess Who is First at the Trough?

The cops, of course. They are lining up to use opiod settlement money for new toys. Not as much goes for what one might think may be useful, such as treatment centers and recovery programs and social services, no. Those are too squishy.

But for things to help the cops continue to stamp their boots on the faces of "those people"? There's always money for that.

Because It's Friday

Reading & Northern:

Smacking These Down, Here

 

Bad News for the TOFF: The Flipping Continues

Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

That seems like a pretty sweet deal. The implication I draw is that she has some testimony that is well worth the deal. And possibly, with misdemeanors only, she'll not be disbarred. As far as I recall, she's licensed in Texas, which probably requires either a homicide conviction for killing a white person or theft of client's funds for a disbarment.

The reaction in the MAGA Universe should be epic.

As for the rest of us, schadenfreude is the beverage tonight.

Conservatives' Bullying Isn't Working, This Time

To win over his GOP colleagues, Jordan had relied on backing from Trump, the party’s front-runner in the 2024 election to challenge President Joe Biden, and groups pressuring rank-and-file lawmakers for the vote. But they were not enough and in fact backfired on some.

“One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully,” said a statement from Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who voted against Jordan on the second ballot and said she received “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.”

Bullying and threats of violence have been a staple of the far-right since before they paraded around with guns when national health insurance was on the table fourteen years ago, up through the 2020 campaign and the aftermath of the Turmpist failed coup. It's no surprise that those clowns incorporate elements of a thug crime family and terrorism in their politicking.

The surprise is that, this time, it seems to not be working.

The Razor-Wire Welcome

As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

I can understand why they don't. Palestinian refugees have destabilized Lebanon. They tried to take over Jordan in 1970. The other Arab countries distrust, if not outright loathe, Palestinians.

Still, it is tempting to compare and contrast the Arabian hostility to Palestinian refugees to the Europeans welcoming Ukrainian refugees.

The Trumpist Chaos Continues

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan failed again Wednesday on a crucial second ballot to become House speaker, the hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump losing even more GOP colleagues who refused to give him the the gavel.

Next steps were highly uncertain as a bipartisan group of lawmakers floated an extraordinary plan — to give the interim speaker-pro-tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., more power to reopen the House and temporarily conduct routine business.

What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost. He was opposed by two more than the 20 Republican detractors he lost in first round voting the day before.

Right now, there seem to be enough Republicans in the House who regard the Constitution and the rule of law as being worth more than a roll of toilet paper, so they are reluctant to vote for an insurrectionist plotter and a man who allegedly willfully closed his eyes to sexual predation at Ohio State.

We'll see if they can hold the line, if they have learned how to drive the bus from their counterparts in the Putinite Caucus.

Pacing These Down, Here

And Here We Go....

Republicans rejected Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on Tuesday on the first ballot, as holdouts denied the hard-charging ally of Donald Trump the majority needed to seize the gavel. ... Some 20 reluctant Republicans are refusing to give Jordan their votes, viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.

The moderates may have concluded that they are tired about being led around by the nose by the likes of Pedo Gaetz, MTG and Gym Jordan. And possibly they have taken to heart the fact that there was nobody in the House who knew more about the TOFF's impending coup attempt than ol' Gym.

Those twenty could cut a deal with the Democrats to kick the GOP extremists to the side for now.

But we shall see what happens.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Shit's going on. I expect to be out of action for a day or two.

So whatever's going on, feel free to camp in the comments section.

Chicago Rules

Here is what I believe will happen over the next several years:

Every identifiable leader of Hamas, military, political or otherwise, will be killed by the Israeli spooks. Whether it is by Shin Bet, Mossad, the IDF, everyone that can be identified, regardless of where they are, regardless of how long it takes, will be hunted down and killed.

Two pieces of advice for those who are related to such people:

1. Buy life insurance on them, and
2. Never get into a car with them.

Meatball Ron Is Afraid of a Fifteen-Year Old Kid

A fifteen-year old kid, who wants to be a reporter and isn't afraid of asking political candidates tough questions, was kicked out of a GOP public event after asking DeSantis hard questions.

One of the staffies rounded up four cops to toss the kid out of the event. But, once they realized the optics of kicking a kid out an event for asking questions that any competent reporter should be asking, they let him back in.

So here's a question for DeSantis: If you can't handle questions from a high-school kid, how are you going to deal with tough adults? Or are you planning to roll over and play lapdog to the likes of Kim Il-Jung and Vladdie Putin, like the last president from your party did?

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Last week, I posted a current video of a C-5.

Here's an older one of a C-5, with the old "growling" engines. Time was, one could pass over head a couple of miles up and you'd know it was a C-5 just from the sound.

The Broke-Dick Party Memes

And one more for conservatives:

Caturday

I can haz the remote?

At Least Two Weeks

As of Monday, that'll be how much time that the House of Representatives will have been shut down due to Pedo Matt's Circle Jerk and the Republicans' inability to get their shit together.

Good thing that there aren't any serious crises in the world requiring attention from the legislative branch....

In thirteen months, we can fix this for them.

Because It's Friday

Steam in the New Hampshire snow.

“My grammy never gave gifts. She was too busy being raped by Cossacks.”

That is a line from Annie Hall. I don't care for Woody Allen, but the line itself gets to an essential truth.

Most American Jews are not that far removed from the old country. But the stories have been passed down, the experiences, that attitudes. The stories of why people fled eastern Europe, the fearful hiding from rampaging Cossacks and Christian peasants. The atrocities that were inflicted upon Jews during the various pogroms.

Those stories are baked into our DNA, the knowledge that, wherever Jews live, that someday, the legions of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors will arise and it will be necessary to flee, fight or die. That's why one elderly Jewish woman, when told that she would have to give up her driver's license, asked how would she flee.

It is why this:

The Israeli military has confirmed the murders of babies and young children by Hamas militants.

Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus said a coroner who visited a Kibbutz close to the Gaza Strip had seen the children’s bodies and confirmed they had been massacred.

“I admit it took us some time to really understand and to verify that report and it was hard to believe that even Hamas could perform such a barbaric act,” he said in comments to the BBC.

“I think we can now say, with relative confidence, that this is what Hamas did… there were bodies scattered everywhere, mutilated,” he added.

...resonates so strongly. The Cossacks came and slaughtered children. What Hamas did was tap into a primal memory, a primal fear, for Jews.

As for Israel's response, what did you expect?

More Drama From the GOP Clown Car

Honk! Honk!

The Clown Car keeps rolling along:

Republican Steve Scalise ended his bid to become House speaker late Thursday after hardline holdouts refused to back the party’s nominee, throwing the GOP majority into deeper chaos with the chamber unable to function.

Scalise told GOP colleagues at a closed-door meeting late Thursday of his decision and pointedly declined to announce backing for anyone else, including his chief rival, Rep. Jim Jordan, the hardline Judiciary Committee chairman backed by Donald Trump who had already told colleagues he no longer would seek the job.

Indeed, who would want that job?

In a fictional universe, GOP security would drag Pedo Matt down to the parking garage and administer a crippling beatdown while the caucus admits defeat and chooses McCarthy out of exhaustion.

The party is in so much disarray that one might speculate that one or more members of the so-called Freedom Caucus is a chaos agent being paid by Russia or China.

And Now For Something Completely Different

They think it's a baby cow

🎥:David Minish pic.twitter.com/Lo6F3cASJW

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 11, 2023

Assessing These Down, Here