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Top 10 Idiots

(597 posts)
Wed Aug 8, 2018, 05:00 PM Aug 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Order Of The Phoenix Edition

Last edited Thu Nov 1, 2018, 02:26 PM - Edit history (2)


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Order Of The Phoenix Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up New York City??? We made it, and you know that old saying, if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere! Glad to see you still have your trains running! Holy shit did we have quite the weekend! I mean you had Nazi rallies in Portland and DC, you had the DC worker’s metro strike, you had Apple forcing Alex Jones fans to get his latest podcast beamed directly to their tin foil hats, to Joe Arpaio telling Sascha Baron Cohen that he’d accept a blowjob from Trump. I mean, damn that is a lot! Do we have time for the thing? Yes? My producer is saying yes. So China’s extremely controversial and I might add glorious dictator Xi Jinping as you may have seen from John Oliver and elsewhere, has literally banned all instances of Winnie The Pooh from China. So I don’t know if any of you saw Disney’s excellent new live action Winnie flick “Christopher Robin”, well, you ain’t seeing that either. No, sir, I have not seen it yet. I’ve been too busy with my own show! And you got to feel for Xi, because, let’s face it – he really really does look like Winnie The Pooh… thank you sound effects guy! That was perfect timing by the way, “Oh bother!” is right! Wait, so does that mean this week’s Top 10 will be available in China? Yeah my producer is telling me that it isn’t available in China anyways. Eh, it’s basic math. If you add 0.0000000001 to one its’ still less than two, am I right? But seriously if you haven’t seen this thing involving China and Winnie The Pooh, it’s something else. And just watching Xi’s obsession with Winnie The Pooh is insane and it’s not healthy on multiple levels. But then again it’s classic dictator behavior. Thank you sound effects guy! Oh bother indeed! OK that’s enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to this week, but first we have to play Bill Maher’s excellent New Rule from last week where he plainly spells out what this current administration is all about:



In the number one slot this week, we got to talk about it, it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room, I’m of course talking about Qanon (1), the internet conspiracy theory has finally come out of the 4chan basement and it may be the world’s biggest hoax! Taking slots number 2 and 3 we're going to talk about dueling rallies. Yes, cue dueling banjos. In the second slot is actually next week's Unite The Right Two: Electric Boogaloo Die Harder, and it's already a shit show before it even begins! For the third slot we're going to talk about last week's Proud Boys (3) rally in Portland, and it went about as well as you'd expect a Proud Boys rally to go. At number 4 of course is the guy who we currently call president and that’s Donald J. Trump (4) and we're going to do some Trump fact checking in regards to his latest tweet storm, because they are exquisite! In the fifth slot this week is Alex Jones (5). So yeah Infowars had quite possibly its’ worst week ever and expect Infowars to be broadcast live directly to the fillings of its’ listeners teeth! For number 6 this week is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and this week our resident pastor is going to delve into the religious side of the conspiracy theory known as Qanon. Whew, it's insane. At number 7 this week is our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates and this week we’re going to take a look at the funeral industry and specifically a disturbing new trend called “extreme funerals”. Taking the 8th slot this week we have a new installment of “How Is This Still A Thing” and this week we’re going to delve into Tim Allen’s controversial sitcom and ask “Last Man Standing: How Is This Still A Thing?”. In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week we have an all new edition of People Are Dumb, because, well, people are dumb! Finally this week we’ve got a new edition of Deep State Diaries. Last week we showed you the inner workings of the food industry with the USDA, this week we’re going to see how our votes are validated by checking out what’s going on at the Federal Election Commission! And we’ve got some awesome southern rock this week and we’ve got the great Blackberry Smoke visiting the show for the first time! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Qanon
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Hey everybody! It’s time for the WHEEL OF CORRUPTION! YAY!!!!!



Of course you know the rules by now – I spin the wheel and we have to talk about whatever it lands on. Of course if it lands on the guacamole option, you know that it costs $1.50 extra. So here’s what is on the wheel this week:

- Guns
- Abortion
- Crime
- Poverty
- Sex
- Chance
- 5,000
- Infowars
- Nazis
- Go Directly To Jail
- Buy A Vowel
- The Trumper Games
- Lawsuits
- Whammy
- Donald Trump
- People Are Dumb
- ‘Merica!
- How Is This Still A Thing?
- A Random Tweet
- 10,000
- Community Chest
- Talk Shows
- Clip Without Context
- Something Random In The News
- Fox News
- Top 10 Investigates
- Polls
- Chance
- Nukes
- Civility
- Intermission
- Deep State Diaries
- 15,000
- Bankrupt
- Morally Bankrupt
- Golf
- The GOP
- Butter Beer
- Community Chest
- Florida (Obviously)
- This Fucking Guy
- Beating A Dead Horse
- Holy Shit
- Guacamole ($1.50 Extra)
- Harry Potter
- T-Shirt Cannon
- ? (Mystery Item)
- I Need A Drink
- Lightning Round
- Bonus Spin

Let’s get this going! Spin that shit! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy stop! Clip without context!



Sure, go after the underground pedophiles, but what about the above ground ones, Mark? Like you know – those in your own party! If you’re going to get serious about this, get fucking serious! Spin it again! And it lands on… sex! So we got to talk about it, it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It’s of course the conspiracy theory known as Qanon. We’ve brought up Q before but this week it finally came out of the conspiracy theory closet and hit the mainstream media big time.

QAnon is the latest high-profile and spectacularly dumb right-wing conspiracy theory. Here's everything you didn't want to have to know about it.

If you're lucky, before last week you had only ever heard of QAnon from some of Roseanne Barr's less racist tweets. Because it was possible to live your life completely unaware of the new, dumb conspiracy theory taking off online until it finally spilled over into the real world thanks to Donald Trump. Recently, people who buy into QAnon have been visibly showing up at Trump rallies and campaign events, wearing T-shirts and signs to show that they're in the know and they support a president who is supposed to be secretly fighting an international ring of billionaire pedophiles.

But if you're one of those lucky people who doesn't spend lurking on or reading about the seedier parts of the Internet, QAnon is likely a big mystery for you. None of us want to have to know about this thing. But since it's spilling into the real world now, here are some of the basics about this convoluted and elaborate conspiracy.

What exactly does "QAnon" mean?

The whole thing started on 4chan. An anonymous user going by "Q," a reference to the highest level of security clearance, began posting in October of last year. According to Q, who claims to be one or more people high in the Trump administration, all past presidents have been involved in shadowy criminal dealings centered mostly on an international pedophile ring and a global sex trade of child slaves. Featuring prominently in this are the usual boogeyman: Barack Obama, the Clintons, George Soros, the whole gang.

Is that not Pizzagate?

It sounds a lot like it, doesn't it? Think Pizzagate but bigger, more complicated, and dumber. In fact, this is a pretty boiled down explanation considering how complex and grandiose the whole conspiracy is.
https://www.gq.com/story/what-the-hell-is-qanon




And yes if you do believe in the Qanon conspiracy theory, I have a bag of magic beans to sell you for $9.99, what do they do? They’re magic! So here’s a good question – how did the republicans get to be the party of batshit crazy, off the wall conspiracy theories?

When people started showing up at recent Trump rallies waving signs with giant “Q”s on them and making references to QAnon, a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories, members of the press, and no doubt many people at home, were puzzled. Aren’t things crazy enough already without this fresh new lunacy? The trouble is that this is neither the first nor the last absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory to infiltrate today’s GOP, getting both literally and figuratively within a few feet of the president of the United States. In fact, it would have been more surprising if the Republican Party wasn’t overrun with conspiracy theorists.

It’s hard to do justice to the intricate madness of what QAnon is about in a concise manner, but I’ll let Molly Roberts give it a shot:

The simplest description of the plot line goes something like this: President Trump isn’t under investigation; he is only pretending to be, as part of a countercoup to restore power to the people after more than a century of governmental control by a globalist cabal. Also, there are pedophiles.

A figure named “Q,” who supposedly possesses Q-level security clearance, disperses “crumbs” that “bakers” bring together to create a “dough” of synthesized information. (This is not how baking works, but that seems the least of our worries.) Because Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet and 17 is also a number Trump has said a few times, among other clearly-not-coincidences, he is the real deal, not an Internet troll engaged in an elaborate example of live-action role-play.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/08/06/why-the-gop-is-so-easily-infiltrated-by-bonkers-conspiracy-theorists/?utm_term=.fc5cac586357




And you should always listen to Dave Grohl too, for he is wise in the ways of the world! But this might be my favorite story related to Qanon, and who better to explain a batshit crazy conspiracy theory than batshit crazy conspiracy theorists? I mean if you thought the previous people were too stupid to insult, I give you Liz Crokin:

Last weekend, right-wing “journalist” and fringe conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin did an interview with online psychic and YouTube host Jenny Moonstone in which she laid out her theory that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his own death in 1999 and is now behind the QAnon account.

QAnon is an anonymous figure at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm” that alleges that high-ranking members of the Trump administration have been using the 8Chan forum board to drop hints revealing that Robert Muller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is really cover for a secret operation to take down a global network of satanic pedophile cannibals. Proponents of this conspiracy theory have increasingly been making their presence known at Trump rallies.

In a video posted by Moonstone on Sunday, Crokin explained her theory that JFK Jr. has been running the QAnon account all along, insisting that any mockery she receives, or attacks she endures, for promoting her absurd ideas is proof that she is right.

Crokin asserted that when she first heard the theory of JFK Jr. being behind the QAnon account, “it immediately resonated with me, I got goosebumps everywhere. I’m a very intuitive person and usually when that happens, that’s confirmation that there is truth to it.”

“Q at one point said, ‘You’re not going to believe who you are talking to here,'” Crokin said. “When Q wrote that, I thought it’s going to be someone that’s so crazy that even people that are woke and know what’s going on are going to be like, ‘Oh my lord, this is insane’ … John F. Kennedy Jr., that would be shocking because we all think he’s dead.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-john-f-kennedy-jr-faked-his-death-and-is-now-qanon/




That is a good point sir! I mean really you can’t get much more stupid than that! And not only is it underground pedophiles, it’s also satanic pedophiles too. I mean not unlike Kevin Spacey. Hey o!!!!!!!!!!!!! And by the way, you might be asking yourself “Who Is Q?”. Well now we have a face – the pedo patrol has got right on the case! I give you… *drum roll* this guy!

With the appearance of numerous sign-waving supporters at a Trump rally last week, the world at large was introduced to a far-right conspiracy theory known as QAnon. Until recently, QAnon stuff remained in the dark corners of 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit, but as it continues to spill into mainstream news coverage, we’re forced to hear about all the dumb shit these people are actually doing. According to a new report from The Daily Beast, that dumb shit now includes lionizing some minor player from Vanderpump Rules as a “Hollywood whistleblower.”

For those who have managed to remain blissfully unaware, QAnon is a far-reaching, multi-faceted conspiracy that claims—among other things—that President Trump and Robert Mueller are actually working together to take down a massive pedophile ring run by Hollywood celebrities and major Democratic Party players. “Deep state” secrets are leaked to supporters courtesy of an anonymous message board user named “Q.” Relying on cryptic information from an anonymous source has primed QAnon followers to believe pretty much anything from anyone, including Vanderpump Rules actor Isaac Kappy, who appeared on Infowars recently to accuse Tom Hanks and Seth Green of being secret Illuminati pedophiles.
https://news.avclub.com/the-hot-new-face-of-qanon-is-some-fucking-guy-from-vand-1828132542





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[font size="8"]A Tale Of Two Rallies: Washington, DC
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… wait for it… something random in the news!

While appearing on Greg Hunter’s “USA Watchdog” YouTube program on Saturday, right-wing radio host Dave Janda claimed that President Trump has survived “close to a dozen” assassination attempts while in office.

“I believe there have been a number of assassination attempts on his life since he took office,” Janda said. “I’ve been told that there have been close to a dozen attempts on his life and obviously he has survived those. I believe the difference between JFK and Donald Trump is the following: Donald Trump has the support of the military. Donald Trump, I believe, has not only the Secret Service protecting him, but I believe he also has another layer of protection that he has arranged for, that he’s paid for himself, for him and his family.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-has-survived-close-to-a-dozen-assassination-attempts-claims-right-wing-radio-host-dave-janda/




Gee, you’d think that with all these assassination attempts it would make the news somehow. If only we had an outlet for reporting these things. What is it? Oh well. Spin it again! Racism! You know since the 2016 election racism has reared its’ ugly head time and time again, and the racists only seem to be growing in popularity since Trump got elected. We’ll get into his rallies in a minute. But speaking of rallies, one group in particular had rallies on both coasts. The first one was on the west coast in Portland, Oregon. The second is the one we’re going to get into right now and that’s what happened in our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. Ooh boy, the racists are pissed, folks. And they are coming for our nation’s capital. Is this Nazis on tour? Nazis on parade? Nazis on parade on parade? But guess what? That’s not the story we want to highlight here. Here’s the story we want to highlight here.

Metro is considering providing separate trains for opposing groups when demonstrators come to Washington, D.C., for a "Unite the Right" rally Aug. 12, the chairman of the transit agency's board said.

"We have groups clearly at odds with each other," Chairman Jack Evans said. "We'd like to keep the groups separate. We don't want incidents on Metro."

"Unite the Right" demonstrators plan to use Metro from the Vienna, Virginia, station to Foggy Bottom in D.C. Police and Metro are making plans to avoid a deadly confrontation like the one at the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally last year.

"Maybe put all of one group on a train or a certain car on a train," Evans said. "We're trying to see how can we keep the groups separate so we don't have any incidents but not put in place programs that could be problematic in the future."
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Metro-Planning-for-Unite-the-Right-Rally-490010251.html




Damn straight. Nazis On A Train might make a good comedy flick but in real life it doesn’t quite work that way. Anyway you want to know how this story played out? New York City, come on, let’s see how it played out!

Metro’s plans to keep white supremacists separate from other riders this weekend are still under review, but the agency attempted to clarify Monday that there are no plans for a “special train” for the group.

In a statement Monday, Metro said it continues to work with law enforcement agencies on security surrounding Sunday’s “Unite the Right” rally that comes one year after a man police said had ties to white supremacist groups plowed a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

“The transit agency is working closely with law enforcement to prepare security options that place the highest priority on protecting Metro passengers, employees and public safety, giving special consideration to the security challenges posed by rail car space constraints,” Metro said.

D.C. police security plans focus on keeping attendees of the “Unite the Right” rally separate from counterprotesters and other riders, something police in Charlottesville failed to do last year.
https://wtop.com/tracking-metro-24-7/2018/08/metro-no-special-train-for-unite-the-right-rally-in-dc/




Well so they may be canceled, or they may not. Either way, don’t ride the Metro if you’re going to Washington, DC that weekend. But really do we need a “white rights” pity party? We don’t, and this kind of crap is making the whole world cringe.

Last August, hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the alt-right descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for “Unite the Right,” a rally to put the power of white nationalists on full display. A year after that event resulted in chaos and violence, groups plan to hold another “white civil rights rally” in Washington, DC.

But a broad coalition of organizers representing anti-racist, anti-fascist, and socialist groups say that when Unite the Right 2 participants arrive in DC, they will be met with significant resistance throughout the weekend.

On the morning of August 12, Shut It Down DC, a coalition of local organizations working to plan counterprotests and other events against Unite the Right, will hold a “Still Here, Still Strong” Rally in DC’s Freedom Plaza. Counterprotesters also plan to be present at the actual Unite the Right event, which takes place later that afternoon in Lafayette Square. Two days before these events, organizers will hold a six-hour “action camp” to train those planning to protest on Sunday.

After the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed as she protested against the first Unite the Right; the brutal assault of DeAndre Harris, who was beaten by white supremacists in Charlottesville and faced criminal charges for defending a counterprotester; and other incidents of violence in the year since, organizers say the impacts of the first Unite the Right rally are still being felt today.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/6/17653252/unite-the-right-2-protest-antiracist-charlottesville-washington-dc




They’re here! They’re racist! They want… something. What that is, even we’re not exactly clear on what they want. I think even they’re not exactly clear on what they want. That’s why they’re racists. At least the DC police chief is preparing properly!

As D.C. anticipates a planned white nationalist rally to coincide with the August one-year anniversary of the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, D.C.’s police chief is prepared for what’s to come.

“Our role is to make sure we have a First Amendment event that goes on without any types of violence or destruction of property,” D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a Monday news conference. “We intend to have the entire police department engaged to make sure that we handle this type of thing.”

Jason Kessler, an organizer of last year’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, submitted a request earlier this year to the National Park Service to hold a rally between Aug. 11 and Aug. 12 at Lafayette Square, right in front of the White House.

Kessler’s application got an initial approval last month, but a permit had not been issued yet.
https://wtop.com/dc/2018/07/dc-police-chief-prepared-for-planned-white-nationalist-rally/





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[font size="8"]A Tale Of Two Rallies: Portland
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… Chance!



Nice! I get to advance to Go! I’ll take my $200 thanks! Spin it again! And it lands on… racism! Folks, in case you haven’t noticed Portland has a huge white supremacy problem. After all, it was the center of that Bundy shit show a couple of years back. You know that happened back in the very early days of the Top 10. So what happened on Saturday is exactly what you’d expect at a Proud Boys / Patriot Prayer rally by now.

Hundreds of right-wing protesters and counter-protesters faced off in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, shouting chants like, “USA, USA,” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” at each other across a barrier of police in riot gear.

The permit-less rally was organized by Patriot Prayer, a far-right group founded by Joey Gibson, who is running for U.S. Senate in Washington. In response, leftist Portland-area groups planned a counter-protest rally to start at City Hall and march towards the waterfront, where the Patriot Prayer rally took place.

“We’re here to teach a lesson to the entire country,” said Gibson to a crowd of supporters, minutes before the planned march. “Do not break the line – they will come to us. Go slow and keep tight.”

Many in helmets and riot gear of their own, the far-right groups began their march along the river at around 1:30 p.m. local time, after Gibson quickly took the mic to offer a prayer to the crowd. Anti-fascist protesters followed on the other side of the street, while police jogged to stay in between the two.

That’s when the announcements began. “This is the Portland police bureau. Remain on the sidewalk, get out of the street.” At 2:30 p.m. local time, Portland police were ordering crowds to disperse via loudspeaker.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-police-city-officials-prepare-for-right-wing-rally-and-counter-protest


?itemid=5114632

Dude, Dave Chappelle called you a racist. You’re a fucking racist. But you know that politics makes for strange bedfellows and we’ve seen more strange bedfellows with the Trump administration than you would have ever thought possible. And they attracted a lot of them to Portland.

Joey Gibson and his Patriot Prayer group came to Portland on Saturday itching for a fight, raising alarms in the Portland community and national press. Instead, the Portland Police did their work for them.

Patriot Prayer rallies, packaged in the language of free speech, attract far-right and alt-right pro-Trump groups, such as the Proud Boys, who provide “protection” for attendees. Gibson himself, however, cagily avoids using the kind of language that smacks of hate.

Gibson’s main intention seems to be to provoke left-wing, anti-fascist activists into physical confrontations with his rally-goers.

As it turned out, Gibson hardly needed help from the Proud Boys; Portland Police went beyond their mandate to provide protection by aggressively chasing counter-protesters down side-streets, and hurling flash-bang grenades into the crowds who had come to demonstrate against Gibson and his far-right comrades. The police handling of the Patriot Prayer protest provoked condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Coming seemingly from out of nowhere, Gibson sprang onto the West Coast political protest scene with no documented political involvement prior to January 2017, when he livestreamed protests of the Trump administration’s Muslim ban at the Portland airport. In April last year, Gibson began organizing his own rallies on the West Coast, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. That month, a Patriot Prayer rally in Portland attracted neo-Nazi Jeremy Christian, who allegedly murdered two people on the city’s public transit a month later.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-portland-rally-far-right-extremists-mingle-with-mainstay-maga/




Yes they are idiots. And racists and sexists and misogynists, and homophobes, and transphobes, and xenophobes. Seriously is there anything good about these guys? Probably not. So was there anything good that came out of Portland on Saturday? Probably not. Even the police were in on it, it seems!

On Saturday, in a planned protest that some worried would turn out to be “another Charlottesville,” hundreds of far-right demonstrators gathered in the city of Portland, Oregon, and were met by hundreds of counterprotesters.

The demonstrators said they were rallying to support the leader of the Patriot Prayer group, which has been behind contentious far-right rallies in several cities in the past couple years. Supporters of the far-right men’s group the Proud Boys also rallied in support.

But the clash turned out to be relatively nonviolent—there were just four arrests—and it was the Portland police who came under fire on social media afterward for their tactics. According to reports from the protests, the police were out in large numbers in downtown Portland and worked actively to keep the two groups separated. But, police said afterward, the crowds turned violent, and some protesters started throwing rocks and bottles at the officers.

“This was a dangerous situation for all those involved, including officers, and I am disheartened that this kind of illegal behavior occurred in our beautiful city,” Police Chief Danielle Outlaw said in a statement afterward.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-police-city-officials-prepare-for-right-wing-rally-and-counter-protest





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[font size="8"]Infowars
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Let’s spin it to win it! And it lands on… what? Bankrupt? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!



Spin it again. And it lands on… Infowars. I’ll tell you someone who’s morally bankrupt and that’s Alex Jones. You know it’s not in my nature to kick a man when he’s down but considering Alex made an entire career out of that, I am pulling no fucking punches, damn it! It is off, it is going off the rails! I mean come on, this is a guy who instructed his followers to harass the parents of murdered children. He called the Parkland students “crisis actors”. He has said every single mass shooting in the last 5 years is a false flag. Well, you can’t false flag this, Alex!

In a rapid domino effect, conspiracy theorist and right-wing media host Alex Jones’ Infowars has been banned from popular streaming services like YouTube, Apple, Facebook, and Spotify. The controversial host has been responsible for the spread of extremely controversial conspiracy ideas, including accusations that the parents of Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors.

On Sunday night, Apple started deleting InfoWars episodes from iTunes, stating that the company does not tolerate hate speech. Now, the entire series appears missing, though a spin-off show and InfoWars app are still live.

After a social media backlash against Spotify for hosting episodes of Infowars and The Alex Jones Show, the streaming media company took four episodes off the air for violating their hateful conduct policy. Now, the entire show is missing, and other streaming services have joined in on the ban.

Earlier today (Monday), Spotify announced that The Alex Jones Show would no longer have access to the Spotify platform.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/08/06/infowars-banned-itunes-spotify-facebook-youtube/




But is it really victory just yet? I mean Alex can crow about how conservativism is being shadow banned all he wants, but in reality there’s no such thing. In fact we explored this topic back in Idiots #5-2 when we talked about how conservatives are afraid of getting banned from social media for being conservative. Nah, see there’s this thing called the “terms of service” which you get when you signed up, and they have this rule that says “don’t be hateful”. Most conservatives violate this rule because hate generally has a conservative bias to it.

With the mid-term elections rapidly approaching, YouTube has become the latest internet platform to restrict the activities of far-right conspiracy website InfoWars.

The company has pulled four InfoWars videos for including hate speech and graphic content, and has banned it from broadcasting live for 90 days.

The move represents the 'third strike' for InfoWars, which received its first in February for 'harassment and bullying', after posting videos claiming that the Parkland shooting survivors were crisis actors - a claim that would be laughable were it not also so callous. The site's second strike followed a few days later and involved similar claims.

However, because 90 days has elapsed since InfoWars' first and second strikes, they are deemed to have elapsed and the site isn't facing a YouTube ban altogether as a result of this third strike.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2018/07/26/why-youtubes-infowars-ban-is-meaningless/#381d708a65af




Um I wouldn’t exactly say it tastes like victory just yet. Even MailChimp banned Alex Jones, and come on, you got to take a service like MailChimp seriously when they say that!

Email marketing service provider MailChimp has removed accounts for Alex Jones and Infowars, citing "hateful content," according to Media Matters for America.

The progressive group said MailChimp confirmed its action on Tuesday, a day after the Infowars founder displayed a document from the company during a livestream broadcast. The document referenced in Jones's show reportedly said MailChimp had removed his account for violating the company's terms of use.

"MailChimp doesn’t generally comment on individual users or accounts, but we’ll make an exception today," the MailChimp statement read, according to Media Matters. "MailChimp notified Infowars that their accounts have been terminated for violating our Terms of Service, which make it clear that we don’t allow people to use our platform to disseminate hateful content."

"The decision to terminate this account was thoughtfully considered and is in line with our company’s values," MailChimp added.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/400755-mailchimp-removes-accounts-for-alex-jones-and-infowars




Oh and here’s my favorite part – if you try to do some fact checking on this subject and you don’t know what you’re talking about – don’t be surprised if you get owned!

InfoWars reporter Millie Weaver on Tuesday publicly humiliated herself by botching the basic terminology of economics journalism to try to claim Facebook is a public utility.

After Facebook axed Jones’ Facebook page this week, Weaver and other InfoWars supporters have tried to claim that this amounts to an unconstitutional violation of the website’s free speech.

The flaw in this argument is that Facebook is a privately run company that can make decisions about whether to give individual media outlets a platform — and the Constitution clearly states only that the government cannot do anything to restrict free speech.

Weaver, however, thinks that she has found a loophole by noting that Facebook is a publicly traded company — which means, in her estimation, that it is publicly owned.

“Dear Libtards who think Facebook is a privately owned business,” she writes on Twitter. “There’s a thing called fact-checking. Facebook is a public business that’s publicly traded. Using that argument to justify banning Alex Jones doesn’t work.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/infowars-reporter-tries-fact-check-claim-facebook-private-company-gets-utterly-humiliated/




By the way, Millie, if you want to do some fact checking, why don’t I show you Infowars’ terms of service for their very own fucking message board?



“You will not post anything libelous, defamatory, threatening, harassing, harmful, abusive, hateful, invasive of another’s privacy, racially or ethnically objectionable, or otherwise illegal.” But harassing or threatening the parents of murdered children is perfectly OK by their standards!! Oh New York City, thank you, I’m out!!!!




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Shit, I still have a whole 40 minutes left? And we got Blackberry Smoke coming? OK fine I’ll do it for Blackberry Smoke. Let’s spin the wheel shall we? And it lands on…. Oh hey a clip without context!



24 years? Man I can barely keep up with the next 10 fucking minutes! Spin it again! Donald Trump. So we already covered dueling white supremacy rallies on opposite coasts. But someone who’s holding crazy rallies in his own right is of course the guy who we currently call president, Donald J. Trump. I mean the guy is becoming more unhinged by the day. Let’s go through his last couple of rallies, which really are becoming more hateful by the day. I mean just look at these winners:



Well hey if you want to move to Russia, the door is that way, and they will gladly have you! And they're not making America great again, they're making America white again! Oh and by the way before we get into the rallies, here’s some actual fact checking for our friend Millie from the previous entry:

Because of summer vacation schedules, we had fallen a month behind in updating The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

It turns out that’s when the president decided to turn on the spigots of false and misleading claims. As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months. That’s an overall average of nearly 7.6 claims a day.

When we first started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. But the average number of claims per day keeps climbing the longer Trump stays in office. In fact, in June and July, the president averaged 16 claims a day.

Put another way: In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/01/president-trump-has-made-4229-false-or-misleading-claims-in-558-days/




Yeah Trump lies kind of like that guy does. But that’s a staggering statistic there – 4,229 claims in 558 days. And it seems like every day he adds another 100 to that number. So let’s go through a few of these claims made over the last couple of days. Like did anyone see the news about Lebron James? See, LeBron is actually doing the world some good. But Trump of course decided to take a dump all over it:




So let’s put up the actual story:

"Anyone that's done what LeBron James has done for the past decade to 15 years for our children to prepare them to flourish in life has to be an intelligent person." With that, Akron Public Schools spokesman Mark Williamson joined first lady Melania Trump in praising a newly opened Ohio public school in support of disadvantaged youth, made possible by the LeBron James Family Foundation, which will spend at least $2 million a year to fund it. "He's a bright guy, end of story," Williamson told Reuters of the three-time NBA champion on Monday. Days earlier, President Trump referred to a CNN interview in which James was critical of him, noting "the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon ... made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do." Lemon counters that "referring to African-Americans as dumb is one of the oldest canards of America's racist past and present."

Racist or not, the tweet has given extra publicity to the I Promise elementary school run by Akron Public Schools in James' hometown, which will offer classes for at-risk students in the third and fourth grades before expanding to the first through eighth grades by 2022, writes Jordan Weissman at Slate. He argues the school is deserving of attention not only because each student will receive free breakfast and lunch, a free Chromebook and bicycle, and tuition to the University of Akron paid for by James upon graduation, but because James is "sending the message that it's worth investing in our traditional public education systems, and that they should be trusted to run socially and academically ambitious schools." At the Guardian, Laurence Halsted adds James is the kind of role model "society needs now more than ever."
http://www.newser.com/story/262994/akron-public-schools-weighs-in-on-lebron-james-intelligence.html




Damn straight! And speaking of bullshit, here’s another one that Trump decided to take a dump all over – my home state. You know republicans have been trying to fuck with California since the 80s, and we’ve been through a lot of shit. We’ve been through fires, earthquakes, extreme heat, and you know what? We’ve survived it. And of course Trump couldn’t be bothered with facts. Let’s throw that tweet up there:




I can’t even possibly begin to comprehend that word salad. But here’s someone who can!

In his first remarks on the vast California wildfires that have killed at least seven people and forced thousands to flee, President Trump blamed the blazes on the state’s environmental policies and inaccurately claimed that water that could be used to fight the fires was “foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

State officials and firefighting experts dismissed the president’s comments, which he posted on Twitter. “We have plenty of water to fight these wildfires, but let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires,” said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency.

He and others said that Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to a perennial and unrelated water dispute in California between farmers and environmentalists. Farmers have long argued for more water to be allocated to irrigating crops, while environmentalists counter that the state’s rivers would suffer and fish stocks would die.

The president first addressed the fires late Sunday, writing on Twitter, “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.” He also referred to a debate in forest management about the effectiveness of removing trees and vegetation as a fire control method.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/climate/trump-california-fire-tweets.html





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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Come on let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? Oh hey look it’s a clip without context!



Really, Dave? I can’t think of one! You might want to lay off the covfefe, there, it’s some bad shit. Spin it again! Oh hey it’s time for Holy Shit! Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters of New York City, it’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened and it’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:



My fair congregation! There is a war brewing upon those in the religious right! For there is a conspiracy, if you will. One so outrageously batshit crazy that it deserves it’s own name and theme music! Yes of course I’m talking about the conspiracy theory known as “Q”. But since we are allowed to swear in my church, and I do say this with every ounce of the Good LAWRD in me, but fuck this fucking bullshit! I mean really, can it get any less Christiany than this? Yes, that is a word, sir! What do our religious brethren have to say about such ridiculousness?

Mark Taylor, the so-called “firefighter prophet” and radical conspiracy theorist about whom Liberty University is making a movie, appeared recently on “The Sharpening Report,” where he asserted that the U.S. military is training soldiers to fight underground because that is where satanic pedophiles build secret bunkers in which they abuse, sacrifice, and eat children.

“The underground child sacrifices, the sex trafficking rings, where is that stuff taking place?” Taylor asked. “Underground, in the tunnels.”

Taylor claimed that Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy investment banker and political donor who pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from minors a decade ago, had spent millions of dollars filling in tunnels on his private island that he and others had used to engage in pedophilia and cannibalism in order to be closer to Satan.

“There were having a dining room where they had cannibalism going on,” Taylor said. “It’s all going on underground. Now, the Lord showed me something: Why is it going on underground? Because, number one, they don’t have any resistance underground, and number two, they’re closer to the entities—digging down—that they’re trying to invoke.”

“That’s why they’re doing that,” he continued. “They’re closer to the enemies they’re invoking—of course, it’s in secret—[and] they have no resistance … I read an article where the military is literally training to start fighting underground because so much of that is going on underground right now, globally.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/firefighter-prophet-mark-taylor-says-the-military-is-gearing-for-war-with-pedophiles/




Of COURSE it’s got to be Satanic pedophiles! You wouldn’t want them dang normal, non religious secular pedophiles doing wrong would you? Can I get an amen??? You really cannot make this stuff up, and apparently it’s getting weirder and weirder! Apparently, people like the late, great Kate Spade were involved in this nonsense!

Liz Crokin, a pedophilia-obsessed right-wing “reporter,” responded to the reported suicide of renowned fashion designer Kate Spade on Monday by suggesting that Spade may have been involved in a satanic pedophilia ring and killed herself to escape jail time.

In a video uploaded just hours after news broke of Spade’s suicide, Crokin alleged that the designer may not have actually killed herself, based on warnings posted by “QAnon”—an anonymous poster on the 8Chan forum board that conspiracy theorists believe is a high-level Trump official ordered to leak out sensitive intelligence to their gang of amateur sleuths. Crokin said that “QAnon said that he warned that people would be committing suicide and today it was reported that she committed suicide.”

“The circumstances, just from the initial reports are very shady, they’re very suspicious, she allegedly hung herself with a red scarf and when I hear things like that I immediately think Illuminati and occult symbolism. The Illuminati is obsessed with the color red, we also know that the pedophile Satanists are obsessed with handkerchiefs, talk about handkerchiefs in the [John] Podesta emails,” Crokin said.

Crokin said that pictures of Spade and her husband show them to be “your typical creepy occult couple” and said the couple reminded her of “Tony Podesta and his ex-wife, who looks like Cruella de Vil.” She then urged viewers to search for images of Andy Spade and “pizza,” claiming that numerous photos of him delivering boxes of pizza were evidence that Spade is a pedophile. She also pushed this theory on Twitter:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-kate-spade-may-have-committed-suicide-because-she-was-a-satanic-pedophile/




Yes and apparently any time that you send out for pizza, you’re engaging in Q. Because who knew there were that many pizzas out there? I could seriously go all day on this nonsense! And by the way, would you validate these psychopaths? I know I wouldn’t!

Adherents to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory and former “Pizzagate” truthers who have alleged that President Trump is secretly working behind the scenes to dismantle a global network of satanic child sex traffickers believe a new press release from the Department of Justice has validated their wild conspiracy theories.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the arrest of more than 2,300 “suspected online child sex offenders.”
<snip>

The announcement was seen as validation by conspiracy theorists who have long-since obsessed over their belief that members of the political, media and corporate elite are part of an international network of pedophiles and that the Trump administration would soon be putting those figures in jail.

On The Goldwater, a news site built specifically for 8Chan users, an author named “Red Pill” wrote an article thanking “AG Jeff Sessions, the ICAC Task Force, and all agencies involved in the process of making America safe again.” The Twitter account for “An Open Secret,” which is a film about “Hollywood pedophiles & convicted sex offenders” shared the news to its followers.

Lisa Crowley, a #QAnon truther with tens of thousands of followers online, said she couldn’t wait until “all the BIG FISH in Hollywood, DC, & corporate America are finally indicted/arrested”:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/former-pizzagate-and-current-qanon-believers-say-the-doj-has-validated-them/




Excuse me a minute… But of course there’s mass indictments coming, my fair congregation, yes, there are mass indictments coming! Because when the good LAWRD JAYSUS rains down fire and brimstone, he rains it down hard!

One of the central components of the bizarre right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory, which alleges that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is actually just cover for the Trump administration’s effort to take down a global pedophile ring, is the belief that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has been racking up thousands of sealed indictments against powerful political, media, and business leaders who will soon be rounded up in mass raids.

During his recent appearance on the “USA Watchdog” program, right-wing radio host Dave Janda reported that these indictments will be unsealed once the primaries in the midterm elections are over and that former CIA director John Brennan will be among the first to be arrested.

“Everybody who is a freedom fighter is tired of hearing this, ‘It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,’ and nothing is happening,” Janda said. “What I’m told and have been told—and it’s been consistently told to me—you’re going to start to see movement on the indictments after the primaries are over.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-janda-qanon-mass-arrests-will-begin-after-the-primaries-are-over/




Yes, dissecting the Q saga is going to take a lot to unpack and it is going to be like that. By the way did anyone think that America would get to the point where this shit is in the news? I know I certainly did not! And by the way, don’t give VIP access to these morons! Because our GAWD will not allow that, his VIP room is pure!

When President Trump approached the podium at his rally last night in Duluth, Minnesota, he paused for a split-second to gesture to a man wearing a shirt emblazoned with the letter “Q.”

The Q on the man’s t-shirt refers to the right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm” that has thousands of adherents online. The theory goes like this: President Trump is not actually under investigation for possible collusion with Russian officials in 2016, but rather he is secretly working overtime to dismantle a global network of Satanic pedophiles involving some of the most powerful global elites and to share information about this secret project. According to the theory, Trump has ordered top-level officials to disseminate cryptic pieces of information—known as “crumbs”—to a bunch of random people on 4chan and 8chan who spend hours trying to put the puzzle pieces together. The conspiracy theory has been spread by the likes of Infowars and by comedian Roseanne Barr, but some conspiracy theorists have recently begun to allege that the whole operation was compromised once the unknown authors of the Q posts started to criticize one-time Q believers like Jerome Corsi and David Seaman of attempting to profit off the movement.

And as crazy as all of that sounds, it apparently didn’t stop anyone on the Trump advance team from giving someone advertising this theory front-row VIP access at last night’s rally.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-team-gives-vip-rally-access-to-qanon-truther/




Yes there you have it, the conspiracy theorists have come out of the closet and they’re abusing their VIP privileges! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Extreme Embalming
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Let’s spin the wheel shall we? Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! No, a whammy!!!



Spin it again! Oh hey New York City, it’s time to investigate beyond the headlines! This is Top 10 Investigates!



The questions about what happens when one dies are some extremely tough decisions to be made, such as “how will I be remembered?”. “What’s going to happen to my loved ones?”. “What will happen to my estate?”. Yes, you probably have those questions in your head and so much more. But really, the questions about how you will be remembered after you pass on is the one we are looking at for this discussion today. And you most likely don’t want to be remembered in this way. A disturbing new trend has emerged among the funeral industry called “extreme embalming”. Here’s more.

Two weeks after Renard Matthews was tragically shot and killed in his New Orleans neighborhood, the 18-year-old looked exactly how he had in life. At his wake, he lay slumped in an office chair in front of a TV "playing" NBA2K with his hands wrapped around a PS4 controller. Clad in sunglasses, socks and flip-flops, and a Celtics jersey, he even had his favorite snacks—Doritos and root beer—within reach. And that’s just how his family wanted it.

Matthews’s wake was the latest in a string of what funeral directors call "nontraditional" memorial services. Instead of displaying their loved ones in a casket, some families choose to pose the bodies in life-like scenarios to see them as they were in life before they’re laid to rest. The practice first appeared in Puerto Rico in 2008 as a more celebratory send-off to the deceased, with the Marín Funeral Home posing bodies propped up on motorcycles or standing in a makeshift boxing ring.

In 2012, "extreme embalming" funerals hit New Orleans, when the family of Lionel Batiste—the drummer in the famed Treme Brass Band—asked the Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home to lean him next to his bass drum, his hand resting on the cane he always carried. When Mickey Easterling, a New Orleans socialite known for her extravagant parties, died two years later, her family tapped Jacob Schoen & Son to throw her a final blowout, posing her in her signature feather boa with a cigarette in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. And then there was Miriam Burbank, a Saints fan whose daughters had Charbonnet deck her out like they’d always seen her: sitting at a table in black and gold, with a menthol cigarette between her fingers and a can of Busch beer at her side.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmqy7/inside-new-orleans-extreme-embalming-funerals




In fact the concept of non traditional funerals isn’t anything new. It’s gaining in popularity from where it was 5 years ago. In fact there’s a company that actually launches remains into space.

When US Army Infantry Soldier Steven Jenks was deployed in Iraq, he used to get letters from his mother signed like this: "No matter how lonely you feel and how far you are, always look at the moon and know I am with you. I love you to the moon and back."

So when his mother died of lung cancer, Jenks thought it befitting to send her remains to the moon. "I will know that she is looking down on my family and maybe they won't feel so alone," he said in a statement.

Jenks is the first client of Elysium Space, a company that offers "celestial services to honor and celebrate the life of someone you love." (In other words, they launch small amounts of cremated remains into space.) In a press release, Elysium said: "The time to change the vision of death from the underground to the celestial is now."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdw8q/the-space-race-for-lunar-funerals-511




But even that isn’t anything new. However the concept has taken some interesting new turns and has generated controversy. Mainly – how do you prop up a corpse?

MIRIAM Birkbank is sat at a dining room table with a can of her favourite beer and a pack of cigs... but the 53-year-old isn't enjoying a relaxing evening at home after a long day's work.

In fact, she's dead - and her rigid body has been dressed up, contorted into position and put on display at the request of her family.

This is extreme embalming - where bodies are preserved by injecting them with a chemical fluid which makes them totally rigid - before being displayed in bizarre real life positions.

Corpses are forced into position by having their feet nailed to the floor, poles erected behind their necks - and even their limbs prized apart.

The demand for it is growing, with more and more people paying around £2,000 to have their loved one brought back to life for 2-3 days before the funeral takes place.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6750734/extreme-embalming-dead-funeral-pose/




Yes, there’s actually a growing demand for non traditional and unusual funeral services. Of course people want to be remembered as they lived, not as they died. But is this acceptable in current society? Some might say yes and others say no. It’s a hotly debated topic but ultimately we’ll leave it to the deceased.

Charbonnet Labat Glapion Funeral Home, where Matthews' wake took place, is accustomed to handling "extreme embalming" requests. They have go-to specialists that prepare the bodies according to the families' specifications or the stated wishes of the deceased, and also offer traditional New Orleans jazz funerals.

"One time, we stood a deceased drummer from a grassroots band at a drum set," the funeral home told Yahoo Lifestyle.

At another Charbonnet Labat Glapion wake, Miriam "Mae Mae" Burbank, 53, was positioned at a table with a menthol cigarette, an ashtray, and a Busch beer, her fingernails painted in the colors of her beloved New Orleans Saints football team.

"A lot of people didn't accept what I was doing," Burbank's daughter Zymora Kimball told WGNO of her mother's 2014 bar-themed memorial. "I didn't let that stop me, and I know she's happy with how she's looking. That's her, that's Mae."

Other examples of "extreme embalming" have positioned the dead in superhero costumes, driving a car (with some mourners taking the time to sit beside the deceased), or simply sitting in a realistic fashion wearing their everyday clothes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-lifelike-extreme-embalming-2018-7?r=UK&IR=T




That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.




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[font size="8"]Last Man Standing: How Is This Still A Thing
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New York City, let’s spin it to win it! And it lands on… come on no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! Clip without context!




I love that he says this while he’s hawking a $1750 generator “with bonuses”. Really, it’s just the Home Shopping Network with an added bonus of “everyone’s going to die”. Spin it again! And hey, it lands on “How Is This Still A Thing!” New York City, it’s time once again to ask:



Tim Allen’s show “Last Man Standing” – how is this still a thing? It used to be that when your favorite TV show was canceled, that was it, it was done. Now we live in an era where shows can hop from network to network. Most of the time it’s generally harmless like Futurama or Brooklyn 99 or Arrested Development. But one show that’s being revived after being cancelled is getting a lot of attention, and it’s for all the wrong reasons.

When Fox announced in May that it would be resuscitating the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing for the 2018-2019 TV season, one question arose: would Tim Allen’s character be a vocal Trump supporter, like Roseanne Conner on ABC’s revived (and later, canceled) Roseanne? The Television Critics Association’s summer press tour seemed to offer an answer: maybe, but we won’t shove it in your face.

“He’s probably pro-Trump,” Allen declared of his Last Man Standing character, Mike Baxter. But “he probably doesn’t defend him,” Allen continued. He also offered that he thinks the character’s view of Trump might be less positive than it is benignly indifferent: “The dude is flying the plane right now; there’s no reason to take him out until he lands.”

“Oh yes we will!” Allen immediately chimed in mischievously. Despite the interjection, Abbott quickly repeated his statement that he didn’t expect the show to specifically comment on the president.
Try Vanity Fair and receive a free tote.Join Now

“We had a bank of stuff” planned in case “Mrs. Clinton” had been elected, Allen then offered. R.I.P., all those lost “lock her up” and pantsuit jokes.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/tim-allen-last-man-standing-fox-trump




Oh thank god he spared us a bunch of pantsuit jokes! Really, that is what passes for humor in the conservative male world? Well this show wasn’t the only one who was prepared for a Clinton victory and they were really hoping for it, because, jokes.

Tim Allen may be a supporter for president Donald Trump, but the “Last Man Standing” star said on Thursday there was one reason he was upset over Trump’s surprising victory. They had to throw away all their pantsuit jokes.

“We had a whole, we had a bank of stuff going on,” Allen said during the the revived comedy’s TCA panel, on how they were planning to address for not-to-be President Clinton. “Those of us in the comedy business went ‘shoot.’ Because of [Trump’s victory], we don’t have all that pantsuit stuff.”

But that doesn’t mean that the comedy leveled at the former Secretary of State’s expense would’ve been mean spirited. “Just the jokes that she would find funny,” he clarified, saying that the for comedians it’s important to not have too much of a partisan slant. “We want both sides to think it’s funny.”

Allen was responding to a question about any story lines the show had to drop because of ABC’s decision to cancel the show. Allen was explaining that “Last Man Standing,” like most other shows, were planning for Clinton to win.
https://www.thewrap.com/last-man-standing-tim-allen-upset-clinton-lost-to-trump-because-he-couldnt-tell-pantsuit-jokes/




Yes that’s the joke, and it’s further evidence of the fact that conservatives don’t really have a sense of humor. Or decency. So is his character pro Trump or not Pro Trump? That is the question!

While Allen admitted that, at least in some respects, his character Mike Baxter probably supports certain aspects of President Trump and his administration, he and the comedy’s executive producers say that there is no specific plan to vocalize that support. At least not now, and certainly not with the blatant, headline-grabbing pride that Roseanne Barr’s character on Roseanne did in that series’ controversial revival. That series was so popular before its scandal-induced cancellation that many critics, reporters, and couch surfers cynically assumed it had led to Fox’s decision to bring Last Man Standing back from the dead.

“It’s a legitimate question,” Allen said, referring to whether his character, who voiced his displeasure with then-President Barack Obama many times during Last Man Standing’s original run on ABC, would be openly MAGA.

“I think the guy’s kinda a centrist,” he continued. “I think the best line I heard is actually from [Bryan] Cranston from Breaking Bad. The dude’s flying a plane right now. There’s really no reason to get him out of the pilot seat until he lands. So this guy’s a practical guy. He owns a big business. If it’s helping his business, he’s probably pro-Trump. He probably doesn’t defend him. Whatever is good for his business and good for the state of Colorado.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tim-allens-last-man-standing-character-is-probably-pro-trump-but-wont-say-it-on-tv




Yes it’s probably for the best that the character doesn’t go full MAGA. Because when you go full MAGA you don’t go back. Just ask how well that worked for Roseanne.

Tim Allen, who raised eyebrows last year after likening being a conservative in Hollywood to living in 1930s Germany, has opened up about ABC's firing of fellow right-leaning actor Roseanne Barr.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the comedian -- whose sitcom "Last Man Standing" was canceled last year by ABC before being rescued by Fox -- said during a panel at the Television Critics Association press tour that the network "had to do what they had to do," when it came to firing Barr. Her rebooted sitcom was canceled in May after she sent a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an adviser to President Barack Obama. ABC has since ordered a spinoff of the show that will not include its titular star.

Allen, who plays an outspoken conservative on "Last Man Standing," also spoke of his longtime friendship with Barr, whom he called "the most diverse and tolerant woman I've ever known for a long time." He added that "it's a very icy time" for comedians.

"I've been a comedian for 38 years and I've never seen it, like Lenny Bruce said at the Purple Onion, 'We've gone backwards,' " Allen said, as quoted by Entertainment Weekly and other outlets. "There are things you can't say. There are things you shouldn't say. Who makes up these rules? And as a stand-up comic, it's a dangerous position to be in because I like pushing buttons. It's unfortunate."
https://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/2018/08/tim_allen_talks_last_man_stand.html


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There you have it, Last Man Standing is coming back on the air during a time when pushing buttons isn’t exactly the right thing to do in this increasingly hostile environment. That’s enough to make you ask – Last Man Standing:




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[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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New York City let’s spin the wheel shall we? And it lands on… ‘Merica!




Ha ha, nice! Spin it again, oh hey it’s time for People Are Dumb!



So I want to start of course with America’s most penis shaped state of Florida. Actually I think most or all stories this edition are going to come from the Sunshine State. And there’s an interesting twist to this story that popped up two days after it published. And I know we briefly talked about this last week but there’s much more to it. . Which makes us wonder if there really is something in Florida’s water. Of course if there is, there’s probably an antidote to it. But still, this kind of thing definitely can’t be ignored. Here’s the original story:

A man made a beer run to a Jacksonville convenience store while carrying a live alligator, then posted a video of the “prank” on Facebook.

He yells: "Ya'll aint out of beer are ya? Is he taking the last bit of beer? You aren't taking the last bit of beer are you?"

The man then runs toward a customer with the gator — which had its jaws taped shut — and grabs a 12-pack, Wink News reports.

Florida wildlife investigators are said to be looking into the incident.

First Coast News spoke to the man who posted the video, and he said it was "all fun and games. I knew everybody in there."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-man-chases-people-with-gator-20180728-story.html




And now here’s the story as he tells it. So I guess this one falls under “you be the judge”.:

A man who walked into a convenience store with a live alligator tucked under his arm — with the whole fiasco recorded — was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, last week.

Robert Timothy Barr, 28 — who’s also known as Robby Stratton — and Kevin Scott Keene, 23, were charged with illegal possession of an alligator, illegal exhibition of dangerous wildlife and cruelty to animals, local news station WJXT4 reported.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the incident, told HuffPost on Monday it is still trying to identify another individual in the case.

Barr was seen in a viral Facebook video boastfully running around the convenience store in late July carrying the 4- to 5-foot alligator whose mouth was duct-taped shut, per news station WTLV.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drunk-florida-man-who-made-beer-run-with-live-alligator-says-he-doesnt-remember-it_us_5b684b50e4b0de86f4a36b2f




Excuse me a minute… that one never gets old! So sticking with the Sunshine State, this is the only state where you can walk into a convenience store and have this happen to you. And really, it shouldn’t happen no matter where you are.

In one of the more vile episodes to recently transpire inside a 7-Eleven, a Florida man yesterday dumped a bucket containing human feces and urine inside a convenience store in St. Petersburg, according to police.

Investigators allege that Damian Simms, 41, arrived at the 7-Eleven around 1:30 AM Wednesday and proceeded to toss the slurry of human waste on the floor of the business. The liquid splashed on merchandise valued at $28.

Pictured at right, Simms apparently obtained the waste from a portable toilet. “The defendant threw a bucket of port a potty liquid human feces and urine,” reported Officer Donald Ziglar.

In late-May, Simms was trespassed from the 7-Eleven and “returned tonight with a bucket of human feces,” wrote Ziglar, who noted an “indication of alcohol influence.” The incident was recorded by store security cameras.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/vile-slurry-arrest-710532




Damn straight! Next up we’re going to South Carolina for this one. You know it’s fair season and people will definitely eat some junk food. But whatever your fair food is, as long as it’s deep fried and served on a stick, don’t do this!

A corn dog thief is on the loose in South Carolina, police report.

A Myrtle Beach woman told cops that she returned to her home yesterday afternoon and found a male intruder “just inside her door eating a corndog.” The 30-year-old victim said that she recognized the man as someone she had met last year (but whose name she did not recall).

When confronted by the homeowner, the suspect “said he was hungry and stopped by to get something to eat,” according to a Myrtle Beach Police Department report.

The suspect peddled away from the crime scene on a bicycle owned by the woman, who told cops that her phone was also missing.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/burglary/corn-dog-thief-sought-173958




Next up – bears! And of course you know that bears are godless killing machines. And if you have any sort of nice car, don’t leave food in it if you’re going anywhere near where bears are! Just don’t freaking do it!

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A North Carolina man plans to leave the dents in his rare vintage car for a while to relish the Alaska vacation story behind it. It’s not every day that a pricey collector’s treasure is damaged by a bear breaking into it to steal cookies.

“It’s bar room talk,” Tom Cotter of Davidson, North Carolina, said Monday shortly before he was scheduled to fly home from Anchorage after he toured the state for two weeks in his red 1965 289 Shelby Cobra with several other car collectors.

Cotter’s car sustained major rips to the vinyl roof and dents on the body when the bear broke into it last week at Alyeska Ski Resort, 38 miles (61 kilometers) south of Anchorage. He learned about the break-in when one of his friends texted him a photo of the damaged car the morning it was discovered.

No words were necessary for Cotter, who rushed out to assess the damages. ... “This car will forever be known as the bear Cobra,” said Cotter, 64, an author who writes about finding rare vintage cars. He also has a YouTube channel called The Barn Find Hunter.....
https://apnews.com/22784fa145d24107b9a272020e37dd20/Bear-tears-through-classic-Shelby-Cobra-on-Alaska-road-trip




Finally this week for People Are Dumb – you know… it’s 2018. Twitter and Facebook exist. And if you’re in any sort of public position, don’t be a dick. Because words and actions have consequences, and if you’re not careful it can backfire on you big time. Of course even worse if you’re the employer in this case.

A white police officer in Michigan who says he was taunted by fellow officers when he told them that he was part black will receive a $65,000 settlement, his attorney said.

Sgt. Cleon Brown, a 19-year veteran with the police department in Hastings, Michigan, said a series of taunts began in 2016 when he took a genetic test through Ancestry.com and learned that he was 18% African.

His colleagues at the police department were whispering "Black Lives Matter" while pumping their fists as they walked past him and his police chief referred to him as "Kunta," he said. (Kunta Kinte is a character in Alex Haley's novel, "Roots: The Saga of an American Family."

"It was almost like a disgraced type of reaction that I got from them like, 'Why are you proud of this type of thing?'," he told CNN affiliate WDIV.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/01/us/police-lawsuit-african-ancestry-settlement-trnd/index.html




That’s it this week for:




[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Deep State Diaries Episode 8: The NSA
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Spin the wheel one final time this week! And it lands on… t-shirt cannon!!! Yes everyone will get our awesome new Top 10 tour shirt. Spin it again! And it’s time for Deep State Diaries!



It’s time for episode 8 of Deep State Diaries. Yes we’re touring the 24 branches and services that make up the United States government. Everything from the FBI to the IRS to the Pentagon to the CIA to the DPW to the DVA to parks and recreation and all branches and services in between. Of course if you’re here you probably already know more about our government and how it works than your average Fox News loving Trump supporter does. So that’s what this segment is going to address. We are going to do a deep dive into all that makes the United States the United States. Because we here at the Top 10 love to educate as well as entertain. Because we care.

[font size="6"]The NSA[/font]


*CONTROVERSY ALERT* *CONTROVERSY ALERT* *CONTROVERSY ALERT* For this next entry in our 24 part series exploring all of our government’s institutions and entities we’re going to take a look at our nation’s surveillance industry and explore the National Surveillance Agency. Fun fact: The NSA is actually an unofficial arm of the Department Of Defense. OK so we live in troubled times, obviously. And what happens when your boss owes his debt to a hostile foreign power? Well let’s just say that a lot of shit is going to hit multiple fans when this whole thing goes down.

As Cabinet members, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, looked on on Wednesday, Donald Trump sunk still deeper into the Russia-sympathy hole he has so effectively dug for himself since taking office. “No,” the president replied when asked by a White House pool reporter whether Russia is still targeting the U.S. with attacks on its digital infrastructure. Seemingly enamored of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, Trump has spent the past two days defending the Soviets from charges that they meddled in the 2016 presidential election, telling reporters that Putin gave a “very strong” denial when pressed on the matter behind the scenes. Even as the White House scrambles to backtrack, with certain staffers adamant that Trump correct the record—a push that resulted in a grammatical correction on Tuesday afternoon, and a feeble re-characterization on Wednesday—the person at the top of the food chain seems loath to accept the conclusions of people like Coats, who hours after the Trump-Putin presser put out an unequivocal statement: “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.” (Days before, Coats had drawn a comparison between Russia’s ongoing attempts at interference and warning signs before 9/11: “The warning lights are blinking red again,” Coats said. “Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.”)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-nsa-and-cyber-command-go-rogue


?w=840

Yes, listen to the Captain here! Now it is time to fight. Because we have never seen a president who has collided with a foreign power before, what do we do about it? And in fact how do we deal with it? That’s what the NSA is trying to answer here. And you know what? They’re not as evil as you think.

The head of the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm has directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections.

The move, announced to staff at the National Security Agency last week by NSA Director Paul Nakasone, is an attempt to maximize the efforts of the two groups and comes as President Trump in Helsinki on Monday said Russian President Vladi­mir Putin was “extremely strong and powerful” in denying Russian involvement in the presidential election two years ago.

It is the latest initiative by national security agencies to push back against Russian aggression in the absence of direct guidance from the White House on the issue.

“Nakasone, and the heads of the other three-letter agencies, are doing what they can in their own lanes, absent an overall approach directed by the president,” said Michael V. Hayden, who has headed the NSA and the CIA. “As good as it is, it’s not good enough. This is not a narrowly defined cyberthreat. This is one of the most significant strategic national security threats facing the United States since 9/11.”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-and-cyber-command-to-coordinate-actions-to-counter-russian-election-interference-in-2018-amid-absence-of-white-house-guidance/2018/07/17/baac95b2-8900-11e8-85ae-511bc1146b0b_story.html?utm_term=.399e9507b723




Not today, Loki! But then what happens when an agency gets too big for its’ own good? That is the case with the NSA, an agency can get too large and overstep its’ boundaries. In fact it seems to have both parties alarmed at how big it is:

Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have sent a letter [PDF] to the NSA's inspector general asking him to look into the agency's torching of metadata for hundreds of millions of phone calls.

"We write to request that you conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding, and any systemic problems that may have led to, the deletion by the National Security Agency (NSA) of certain call detail records (CDRs) collected from telecommunications service providers pursuant to Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)," the letter begins.

That deletion was announced back in June, one month after the spy agency revealed in a "statistical transparency report" [PDF] that it had collected 534 million call details in 2017, a tripling of the number from the previous year.

The NSA blamed "technical irregularities" for the receipt and storing of an unspecified amount of phone call data, and said that, since it was not possible to discern between legitimately and illegally gathered details, it was going to "delete all CDRs acquired since 2015."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/06/us_spying_programs/




So the NSA may be too big and we’re colluding with a hostile foreign power that’s bent on destroying us into oblivion. What do we do? Who do we call when the network gets too big for its’ own good? Where do we go from there?

A pair of U.S. senators is asking the National Security Agency’s inspector general to investigate the circumstances surrounding the spy agency’s decision to delete scores of call records that it collected for foreign intelligence purposes.

The NSA announced in late June that it was deleting all so-called call detail records (CDRs) collected since 2015 after discovering that “technical irregularities” resulted in the agency collecting data it was not authorized to receive.

The NSA said it publicly disclosed the developments in accordance with the agency’s “core values of respect for the law, accountability, integrity, and transparency.” While the spy agency said the root of the problem has been addressed, it offered limited details about the issue.

Now, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are asking Robert Storch, the NSA inspector general, to launch an investigation into “the circumstances surrounding, and any systemic problems that may have led to, the deletion by the National Security Agency (NSA) of certain call detail records,” according to a letter sent Thursday.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/400144-govt-watchdog-pressed-to-investigate-nsa-call-record-deletion




[font size="6"]Score Card [/font]

Overall importance: C
How Things Are Going: D
Likely hood To Survive: B

Overall: C-

[font size="6"]Next Week [/font]

When the Top 10 returns we’re going to take a look at how our legal system is going as we delve into the DOJ!



[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Blackberry Smoke[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen my next guest is a great southern rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina and you can see them on tour everywhere this August and September. Playing their song “Flesh & Bone” from their new album “Shine A Light”, give it up for Blackberry Smoke!




New York City, we had an awesome time! Love you guys. We will be back very soon! We are off next week, I am taking a much needed vacay and we will be running a best of in the meantime. We will be back on August 22nd in the Motor City! See you in 2 weeks!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: Grammercy Theater, New York City, NY
Special Thanks To: Grammercy Theater management
Holy Shit Gospel Choir: Bethel Church Band, Brooklyn, NY
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Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
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