Hey! Did you hear that Donnie Drumpf had some big announcement or other that he was going to make? Well, he’s finally made it, and…it’s a wet fart. Ben Meiselas has the breakdown (and the laughably sad photos, too):
I can’t help being reminded of how grifty this guy’s presiduncy was from the get-go, when the White House homepage itself was covered with ads for shitty Donnie merch (and Melania™ wristwatches, too).
And here’s David Doel with some further details of just how ridiculous it is, in case the above wasn’t funny enough already:
You just know it’s pitiful when even the Newsmax sycophants can’t manage even to fake the tiniest bit of enthusiasm for it. Usually they’re all over everything he does like flies on a pile of dog turds. This latest grift, though, just doesn’t seem to be dazzling them.
During the summer of 2021, Canadian researchers examined the encrypted government-held records of more than 11 million adults, 16% of whom hadn’t received the COVID vaccine.
They found that the unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash—in which at least one person was transported to the hospital—than those who were vaccinated. That’s similar to the increased risk of car crashes for people with sleep apnea, though only about half that of people who abuse alcohol, researchers found.
The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.
Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”
Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.
Welp, that probably explains why so few of the dummies in the Freedumb Convoy that ravaged Ottawa earlier this year were actual professional truckers, and working ones at that. Conversely, the truckers who were actually on the road, doing their job, getting goods to and from points A and B, were the over 90% who got their shots and followed the safety rules. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they were also more safety-conscious and less accident-prone, in general. There’s a certain personality type that’s reckless on the road, and that carries over into other facets of life as well.
The only sad thing is that those people somehow manage to get their driving licences in the first place.
Emma Vigeland and Co. on the Majority Report dissect what went down at Dave Chappelle’s “comedy” show the other night. (Note the quotes — as usual, there for a reason.) Sounds like a good time was had by almost none until he dragged a certain billionaire onto the stage in a lame effort to look cool, and got both of them dragged in return by the crowd. Now THAT was funny!
What’s not so funny, of course, is how many people paid good money for bad seats just to see…this fucking shit. And to get a dull sermon on being nice to billionaires, from someone who you’d think didn’t need to lick boots for cash anymore. If those people had wanted to attend a megachurch to get preached at and fleeced, they’d have paid to see Joel Fucking Osteen. (Chances are, they’d get better views and audio, too.)
But hey! The real comedy is still happening out here on the internets, where people are still dunking on the both of them, but mainly you-know-who. And of course, most of them couldn’t resist pointing out the parallels to a certain episode of The Simpsons:
Yup, that’s about the size of it. And that’s about the extent to which Dave Chappelle, “I’m rich, bitch” notwithstanding, has shrunk in the eyes of the world. He’s now the guy who insists the crowd was saying “Boo-urns”. Maybe next time, don’t shit on the people who paid insane amounts of money for their nosebleed seats just to see your saggy ol’ ass making lame jokes about titty bars on Mars, Dave.
And if you care so much about “feeling free”, you might also not want to invite Apartheid Clyde, who is still trying to expunge the videos of his disgrace from the internet in the name of Freeze Peach.
It’s that time of year again, and a YouTuber who often researches shady businesses has some bad news for you good folks, about those bell-ringers with the little red buckets:
Yup, the Salvation Army has not learned much from the lessons of its very messy past. They’d rather YOU, their prospective donor, just feel guilty and throw money at them.
And if you happen to call on them for help, you face being forced to abide by their distinctly sexist and homophobic rules, which seem to be more about saving their own faces (and “converting” the “sinners”) than about actually making a positive difference in needy people’s lives.
And if you work for them, and you’re not a member of the brass but just some peon in their drug-rehab program, you might be paid just 75 cents an hour…or less. In other words, sub-poverty wages. Not exactly the stuff of which productive members of society are built.
But enough about ol’ Sally. On “Giving Tuesday”, the day when everyone who’s already all tapped out from “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” is supposed to dig deeper into their pockets and help those even less fortunate, the heavily strapped grocery buyers of Canada were hit with an insult to their collective intelligence, courtesy of all those loyalty-points programs we bought into at the store:
An email sent by Loblaws encouraging its customers to donate their Optimum loyalty points is not going over well.
On “Giving Tuesday,” the grocery corporation, in partnership with some food bank charities, suggested customers who collect PC Optimum points donate them directly to several partnered charities.
“We’re proud of the many charitable things we do to help Canadians live life well, but we’ll leave all that for another day,” the message reads. “Instead, and for the first time ever, we’re handing over our PC Optimum platform — a direct line to millions of Canadians like you — to our partners at Food Banks Canada and Second Harvest.”
The email goes on to acknowledge the rise of inflation worldwide along with the food insecurity crisis and how it disproportionately impacts women, children and marginalized communities.
While it encourages people to donate their PC Optimum points, it also suggests donating directly or to one of the grocery chain’s food drives, which will be matched up to $100,000.
Isn’t that rich? The wealthiest chain of grocery stores in the land, which could so easily afford to donate directly to the food banks themselves and cover ALL the needs of food-insecure Canadians for decades, is asking you and me to do it instead, and for whatever we manage to cough up, they’ll merely “match” it with a pittance. So generous!
Pity the poor cashiers, whose low-paid jobs require them to ask us if we would like to donate our measly hoard of points so some poor family out there doesn’t starve. Pity, also, those who volunteered to ring the bells for the Salvation Army kettles, strategically positioned right next to the oversize yellow No Frills grocery cart where we can drop off the donated goods we just paid an inflated price for.
We may as well just chip in to buy the man his next mansion. Or will it a big-ass boat? Tomayto, tomahto, let’s buy Galen a yacht-o. After all, it’s the giving season! Won’t somebody think of the poor little rich guys?
Hey, I know. Maybe Galen should ask the Salvation Army to pay for his next big-ticket purchase. After all, they’ve got all those donations that they’re not using for anything good…
Hey! Remember when the participants at a certain right-wing convention in the US of Amnesia put up a banner reading “We Are All Domestic Terrorists”? Pepperidge Farm remembers:
Anyhow. Looks like that actually wasn’t a joke, even if it was played off as one at the time. Because REAL domestic terrorists who take their cues from displays like this have now cropped up in at least two different states, and they are getting bolder:
Shark3ozero, whose YouTube channel is definitely worth subscribing to, explores this phenomenon, and decries it.
There’s also a heartening sequel to the North Carolina terror incident, which took out the power to an entire community just in an effort to stop an adults-only drag show at a local theatre from going ahead. Namely, that the show still went on…with help from the audience, who lit up their phone screens and anything else they had on them that could produce light, so the performers weren’t left in the dark. A lovely metaphor for community solidarity.
Let’s hope there’s more of that, in whatever form it takes to beat back these fascist sacks-o-shit.
Y’okay. Before I get to today’s (stupid) story, here’s a little snippet — a rare moment of levity from one of my all-time favorite movies, just to set the tone for y’all:
Now. Why is this important? Uh, because Marjorie Fucking Taylor Fucking (soon-to-be-formerly) Greene has returned to Twitter with the Great Unbanning, and she has something, uh, IMPORTANT to say:
Yeah, that’s right. She decided to make her big comeback all about farts. The Turks have already shown why that was so fucking dumb, so here’s my (untweeted) contribution to the whole stink:
Ben Meiselas breaks down today’s verdicts in the sedition case against the Oath Keepers, and it’s a doozer with far-reaching repercussions — and not just for the defendants proper:
As Ben says, it’s been a slow and gradual, and very meticulous, build-up towards a case against Der Drumpf himself. The Justice Department has had to wade through the trials from the smallest fish — the disorganized rioters of January 6 — on up through the ranks toward the best-organized conspirators, who happen to be the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. And with the biggest fish among them now found guilty and likely to spend anywhere from 20 years to life in prison, the pressure will be on those not yet convicted. If those co-conspirators want to see any of their charges dropped and/or potential sentences reduced, they will have to turn on Dear Leader and testify against him before a grand jury. How many of those, and who exactly they are, remains yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, however, one family will most likely be feeling a great deal of hope, if not yet relief, as a result of today’s batch of verdicts. Meet Tasha Adams and her son Dakota, who escaped from Stewart Rhodes with a great deal of courage, the clothes on their backs, and very little else:
Notice how Dakota doesn’t refer to his own father as “Dad”, or even “my father”, but by name only. He has also changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name — a further testimony to the state of profound alienation in which he grew up. For, as Dakota notes, his father was never really a parent to him; only his mother was that. His father was, as he says, an obstacle — not only to his freedom but also his personal safety. Dakota was brought up with all the same propaganda and training the rest of Rhodes’s men got, but with him, it didn’t take. No doubt his father’s coldness toward him, as well as his obvious obsession and power-hunger, saw to that. Still, Dakota managed to keep up the dutiful-son/militiaman act until finally, an opportunity came for him, his mother, and his little sisters to make their final break. And this all happened nearly three years before the terrorist insurrection of January 6, 2021…
The family has been working hard to rebuild their lives on their own, in a remote and lonely part of the country. If Stewart Rhodes gets a life sentence for his leading role in the Oath Keepers’ part of the insurrection, then the Adams family will be breathing their biggest collective sigh of relief. Given how deeply entrenched Rhodes’s views are, how violent and dangerous he is, and how important he is as head of a movement, it seems very likely that he will be behind bars for the rest of his life.
And it won’t be just his estranged family members breathing easier then, but an entire country.
Aldo Nova pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix on what would have been the latter’s 80th birthday, with a song inspired by Jimi’s revolutionary guitar style.
Writes Nova: “Happy Birthday, Jimi!!! Today, Jimi Hendrix would’ve been 80 years old. I made a little montage of his photos accompanied by a part of my song called ‘Excuse me While I Scream,’ which is an hommage to Jimi, taken from my album Nova’s Dream, which I will re-release in 2023, completely remastered by the best of the best, ‘The Legend’ Bob Ludwig himself.”
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Posted inMusic for a Sunday|Comments Off on Music for a Sunday: Excuse me while I say Happy Birthday to this guy
Aldrich, Brink, and Aldrich’s mother, Laura Voepel, have long raised red flags among others in the family, a relative told The Daily Beast shortly after Aldrich’s arrest.
“I don’t want anything to do with that part of the family,” the relative said, asking that their name not be used to avoid becoming tangled up with them again. “They’ve always had issues, a lot of problems… I’m totally disgusted by that side of the family right now.”
In Brink’s interview with CBS 8, he apologized for Aldrich’s alleged actions, saying there’s “no excuse for going and killing people. If you’re killing people, there’s something wrong. It’s not the answer.”
At the same time, Brink, a recovering methamphetamine user who once appeared on the reality show Intervention, said he “praised [Aldrich] for violent behavior really early. I told him it works. It is instant and you’ll get immediate results.”
Brink also said he didn’t realize Aldrich was still alive, telling CBS 8 that Voepel called him in 2016 and said their son had changed their name to Anderson Lee Aldrich, then died by suicide.
“I thought he was dead,” Brink said. “I mourned his loss. I had gone through a meltdown and thought I had lost my son… His mother told me he changed his name because I was in Intervention and I had been a porno actor.”
So, let’s take a moment to absorb all this: The accused shooter may be an enby, which makes for a horrifying probable motive for going in there and shooting up a drag performance night in which several trans people were also present. They’re estranged from other relatives. AND they have THIS weirdly oblivious guy for a father, who has some interesting entries on his résumé:
Brink, who has appeared in such films as My MILF Boss 8, I Wanna Get Titty Fucked, and Latina Slut Academy, told CBS 8, “You know Mormons don’t do gay. We don’t do gay. There’s no gays in the Mormon church. We don’t do gay.” (The Mormon Church has confirmed that Aldrich was a member but had not been active in some time.)
A Mormon? A porn performer? A “recovering” meth head? That’s fucked up, and don’t ask me which part of it I think is the fuckiest. I’d be going in circles all night!
California chapters of a group focused on national security are calling on the State Assembly to expel member Randy Voepel, R-Santee, for comments he made following the siege on the U.S. Capitol last week.
“This is Lexington and Concord. First shots fired against tyranny,” Voepel said in a San Diego Union-Tribune article that ran three days after the Capitol riot which left five people dead, including a San Diego woman. “Tyranny will follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear-in on January 20th,” Voepel said.
Tyranny, huh? Funny, but the only tyranny I’m seeing is the rampaging of the fascist gun nuts, shooting up anything and everything that they don’t like. Including nightclubs where innocent people of all gender and sexual orientations are just enjoying a drag show and celebrating the memory of trans people whose lives have been lost to just such senseless violence as this.
Farron Cousins has a bombshell for us, one that should make everyone furious. And it certainly bugs ME:
…because I’m just a common nobody, with no influence to speak of, much less power to spread false news to detrimental effect. And look what Facebook has done to me:
So what’s behind that restriction (which I’m currently spending 90 days in Facebook Jail for)? Glad you asked:
This is one of the items. A joke, which I even acknowledged was a joke, but Facebook’s “independent fact checkers” still saw fit to punish me for.
My other “offenses” are all in this same vein. There are five in all. None are serious, and none are meant to be. They’ve done no harm to anyone or anything.
I have no followers and fewer than 500 Facebook friends (some of whom are deceased!), so it’s hard to imagine why this is even a problem. But somehow, though I’m an honest person who just loves a good joke against the political right, I’ve pulled a 90-day shadow ban for them.
And the worst part is, I have no recourse. None. Whatsoever.
Meanwhile, right-wingers — even outright NAZIS — are being allowed to lie unchecked. Why? Because their bullshit counts as “political speech”.
I really don’t want to leave another social media platform, but this nonsense is really out of hand now. Facebook fucked up, and it deserves to be BROKEN up. Partly to save us from another fucking Drumpf presidency, but mainly just because shit like this really is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with a working social conscience.
Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.
--Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, October 21, 1996
All opinions here are the brain-wrackings of Sabina C. Becker, unless otherwise credited. If you cite them, please give credit where due.
