Top 10 Conservative Idiots #15-14: The Third Reich Triangulation Theory Edition

[Top 10 Idiots]

Last edited Thu Nov 30, 2023, 08:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #15-14: The Third Reich Triangulation Theory Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Yooooooooooooo!!! What’s up Oxnard? It is great to be back at Levity Live! How are you guys doing? You doing fucking good? Great! So we have just two more Top 10s left in the year that is 2023 and then we do our Year In Review special, then we out for the winter! So I want to say that we’ve been getting a lot of questions about the long term future of our fine program. Well, we’re still evaluating all possibilities and we will let you know in due time. But for now, you can rest assured that we’ve been renewed for season 16 that will last from January – June of 2024. Depending on what happens after that, we will let you know. We will keep bringing you the free funny (as Kevin Smith calls it) as long as we possibly can. Our original plan was to stay on after the 2024 election, then bow out after that. But we’re not entirely sure what the future is going to hold after this year. We will let you know, check our social media at Mastodon for updates! Do we have time for the thing? Of course we do! Look… we don’t talk about the Kardashians around here, especially after they’ve been hanging out with the Trumps. Just nope. But apparently Netflix paid Kim Kardashian the sum of $80 million to write, direct, produce, and star in her own comedy movie. Hey come on, Kim, stay in your lane – which is making teenage girls feel insecure about themselves. Oh come on, that’s the joke you walk out on? OK then! But yeah… I have many questions about this. Mainly one – fucking what? And two – fucking why? Like is this something we really need in this day and age? And apparently there was a bidding war too. A fucking bidding war! Look, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, and the rest of the 80,000,000,000 streaming services out there – we don’t need this, and no one even asked for it either! A Kim Kardashian comedy film. What the actual fuck. OK enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to. But first John Oliver is back and he talks about the nightmare conditions for both shoppers and employees at Dollar General stores. Holy shit.

Well, Nazism appears to be an unfortunate recurring theme in the news lately, and there’s going to be a lot of that this week. But before we get into the bad news, we’re going to start this week by talking about something good. In the number one slot this week, we unfortunately lost a true legend, and one of the greatest first ladies of the United States of all time, Rosalynn Carter passed last week at age 96, so we’re going to pay tribute (1) to one of the greatest of all time! Didn’t want you guys to think that this show was entirely about negativity! In the second slot this week, now we got to talk about the bad, and really the worst of humanity. The exact opposite of Jimmy Carter – that guy who we inexplicably used to call president, Donald J. Trump (2) is back in the news, and is he using Nazi rhetoric and quoting Hitler directly? Yes and yes, and it’s as bad as you think it is! And speaking of Nazis, a guy who thinks that his online friends are his real friends, Elon Musk (3) is suing Media Matters after they dug up some dirt on his social media activities and it cost Twitter / X some big name sponsors. But he’s doing this under the guise of – wait for it – free speech. You can’t make this up. Meanwhile, in the number 4 slot this week, Fox News (4) presented its’ annual attempt to fit in with the cool kids by hosting their own black tie awards gala called the Patriot Awards, and it’s every bit as much of a shit show as you might have expected! In the number 5 slot this week is a new edition of our segment “We’re All Gonna Die”, and if you think the November Rain, and snow, sleet, thunder, winds, and fires are getting worse, well, it’s as bad as you think and even worse than that! In the number 6 slot this week is our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” (6) and this week we’re going to do something a bit different and talk about the ever-evolving debate in the holy community about climate change. But despite which side you’re on, we all have one thing in common – the shit’s gonna hit the fan! In the number 7 slot this week, after a big brew ha ha in the Senate, we add Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin (7) to the ever growing list of People Who Somehow Got Elected. And how did this guy get elected? Because he’s a member of the Fox News multi-level marketing firm, that’s how! In the number 8 slot is our weekly venture into the never ending world of online tin foil hat nuttery in Conspiracy Corner (8), and this week, the MAGA world lit up with a theory that a violent incident at the US – Canadian border might have been a terrorist attack but it was really just some idiots in a poorly maintained vehicle on their way to see KISS in concert. Sigh… this is why we can’t have nice things! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week is a new “I Need A Drink” (9) – is Snoop Dogg giving up weed for good? Well when you see why he’s giving up “smoke”, you can bet that his personal joint roller will rest easier once you see what the real marketing campaign was for! Finally this week it’s our ongoing battle of red state governors and blue state governors in “My Governor Is An Idiot” (10) and this week it’s a battle for central superiority as Minnesota’s Tim Walz takes on neighboring rival with Iowa’s Kim Reynolds! Plus to cap things off, we have some live music from the legendary Rival Sons! Buy their new albums Darkfighter and Lightbringer or you’re no friend of this program! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]RIP Rosalynn Carter
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Last week, we lost one of the greats, and one of the greatest human beings of all time. She wasn’t just an amazing first lady, but along with her husband, former president Jimmy Carter, was also an amazing humanitarian as well. Seriously, in a world full of Melania Trumps, be a Rosalynn Carter. So when one of our own passes on, we have to pay tribute to them. We unfortunately didn’t get to do a proper send off to the late, great Ruth Bader Ginsburg because we were dealing with COVID insanity. And speaking of Melania Trump, don’t worry, we’ll get to her in a minute. But before we do, we have to talk about the great things that Mrs. Carter did. We don’t want you to think that this program is entirely about negativity, oh no! Because what kind of hosts would we be? But when you look over the accomplishments that the Carters had in their short reign in the White House, and what they have done after leaving it, it’s truly remarkable. You seriously got to wonder how the US jumped from Carter to Reagan, insane. But again, this is about the good.

In the many tributes written since Rosalynn Carter’s death on Nov. 19, one word often is used to describe her: trailblazer. Indeed, Rosalynn Carter was like no other first lady, since Eleanor Roosevelt. Rosalynn Carter established the first Office of the First Lady of the United States, complete with a budget and staff, and regularly attended cabinet meetings. Rosalynn Carter testified before Congress on mental health issues; made policy proposals on caregiving and established the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers in 1987; worked to advance women’s rights; and helped in the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The first First Lady in history to have an office in the East Wing, Rosalynn provided the wise guidance and encouragement described in Jimmy Carter’s tribute message about her death: “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

First Lady Jill Biden, along with many others, recognized her contributions: “She was well known for her efforts on mental health and caregiving and women’s rights.” “Rosalynn Carter walked her own path, inspiring a nation and the world along the way,” said the Bidens in a statement. “She was a champion for equal rights and opportunities for women and girls; an advocate for mental health and wellness for every person; and a supporter of the often unseen and uncompensated caregivers of our children, aging loved ones, and people with disabilities.”
https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/27/rosalynn-carter/

As our good friend Kevin Smith says, huge, huge bucket of wind! And no, we’re not going to talk about how Trump wasn’t invited, because that’s one thing where we quite frankly, do not give a fuck. Instead let’s talk about how Mrs. Carter was even in her passing, an awesome human being. Because she wanted the former first ladies to come together at her funeral, which, yes, included Melania Trump, and don’t worry, we will get to her in a minute. But this was something really great that happened and we definitely want to acknowledge that!

The Washington Post has reported that Melania Trump has been invited to the service for Rosalynn Carter in Plains, Georgia, next Wednesday. Rosalynn Carter died at her home in Plains, Georgia, Sunday at the age of 96, two days after she entered hospice care. Jimmy Carter, her husband of 77 years, was by her side, the Washington Post said.

As the Carter family is preparing for Rosalynn Carter’s funeral, they are keeping in mind that she was a member of a unique group of women: presidential first ladies. All first ladies have been invited to the service, the Washington Post said. This means the world could see Melania Trump at the same event as Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps all five women could sit together in the same pew at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, though Jill Biden may sit with her husband, Joe Biden, who also has been invited ...

It would be monumental to see Melania Trump sitting near Jill Biden. The former model notoriously broke a nearly 70-year tradition and didn’t invite Jill Biden, as the incoming first lady, to “a tea and tour” of the White House after her husband defeated Trump in the 2020 election ...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/23/melania-trump-among-first-ladies-invited-to-rosalynn-carters-funeral/

So yeah that’s amazing that this actually happened and that no bad blood was spilled. I mean what’s next? Americans coming together and uniting against the rise of fascism in this country and around the world? Oh god I’m delirious! But at the funeral there was a lot that was going on, including the Carter’s children reading memorials, and even the entertainment was A list. Yes, they had Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood performing a rendition of John Lennon’s classic song Imagine. So that’s pretty great, even in a time of sadness, that things like this can happen!

"Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks honored Rosalynn Carter with a performance of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine” at a memorial service for the former first lady on Tuesday.
....
Yearwood and Brooks enjoyed a close relationship with Carter and her husband, former president Jimmy Carter, through their shared involvement with Habitat for Humanity. The Carters were longtime champions of the cause, while Yearwood and Brooks became involved with the organization following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The two couples frequently worked alongside each other on building projects, and this year — with the Carters in hospice care — Yearwood and Brooks officially took over as hosts of Habitat for Humanity’s annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Week Project.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/garth-brooks-trisha-yearwood-sing-imagine-rosalynn-carter-funeral-1234902467/amp/

OK enough applause. Now we got to talk about something bad that happened. Remember what I said about Melania Trump appearing at the funeral? Of course they have to make everything about them, and we decided that we weren’t going to let it ruin this tribute to one of the best first ladies of all time in United States history. But here’s the thing, that you probably saw relentless social media trolling about because Melania *DARED* to be different: IT IS A FUCKING FUNERAL! Literally everyone there was dressed in black. It’s not the time to standout. Show some damn respect! Oh wait, the MAGAs are totally incapable of doing that. SMDH.

Author and conservative activist Brigitte Gabriel supported her color choice and shared an image on X, formerly Twitter, and her thoughts on Trump's time in the coveted role of first lady.

The post of an image of Trump entering the memorial, followed by Obama, Bush and Clinton was accompanied by a comment saying how she was the "best first lady" in the image.

Gabriel's bold statement has divided social media users, causing more of a frenzy around her outfit.

She captioned the image: "Melania Trump is the BEST First Lady in this picture, and it's not close!"

The post, which was shared in the early hours of Wednesday morning, had been viewed over 291,000 times when this article was published, received over 2,000 comments, and been liked over 13,000 times.
https://www.newsweek.com/melania-trump-michelle-obama-viral-funeral-photo-1847862

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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Now that we’ve got the good out of the way, let’s jump right into the bad. Yes, that guy who we inexplicably used to call president, Donald J. Trump is back in the news and as we say around here, what he’s up to can be summed up in three words: It ain’t good. As we said last week, we have put a temporary ban on covering Trump rallies and public appearances after he came and barfed his brain at my hometown, and it was every bit as vile as you would expect (see: Idiots #15-9 ). But the thing is, his rallies are getting more frequent as he’s splitting his time between Iowa for the rallies and New York for the trials. Which we got to wonder, who’s funding Trump Force One? We can’t imagine that plane is cheap to maintain. That seems like a fact worth knowing! But his rallies are getting more and more frequent, they’re getting more erratic, and worse – they’re getting more extreme. And he usually has the same group of crazy people following him like he’s some kind of fucked up Jerry Garcia or something. But in the nonstop 24 hour a day coverage of the never-ending MAGA shit show, what’s getting overlooked is Trump’s increasingly and incredibly extremist behavior. But is he going full blown Nazi? Well that’s a fine line and detail that seems to be overlooked.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, his plans for a second presidency if he wins next year’s election, and his description of political enemies as “vermin” reflect the language of 1930s Germany and the Nazis’ rise to power there, a senior Democrat warned on Sunday.

JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor of Jewish descent who helped drive the construction of the state’s Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Chicago, added his voice to a wave of condemnation over the former president’s remarks.

Joe Biden last week also likened Trump’s comments to the era when Nazi Germany orchestrated the murders of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, saying “it isn’t even the first time” he had done so.

“The rhetoric that’s being used by Trump, by some of the Maga (Make America great again) extremists, is rhetoric that was used in the 1930s in Germany [and] I am very concerned about the direction of the country if we see policies like what Donald Trump is espousing come to light,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/19/trump-rhetoric-reminiscent-of-nazi-era-jb-pritzker

Look… look, here’s my whole thing,. It’s truly, insanely frightening what the GOP wants for a second term. If you didn’t see our piece on the shocking Project 2025 that was developed by the Heritage Foundation and distributed by Steve Bannon and Fox News, well you absolutely should (see: Idiots #15-13 ). Because there’s some truly frightening stuff that would suggest that the United States is on a path towards enacting and enabling a mass genocide not seen since World War II. And unlike the bullshit that the right is peddling, this ain’t a conspiracy, and it’s not a conspiracy if it’s out in the open and you can easily search for it on Google.

U.S. President Joe Biden's 2024 re-election team on Monday said former President Donald Trump had embraced the language of Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler by using the word "vermin" to refer to his political enemies.

Trump told a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday he would "root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections," repeating his false claim that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.

His comments, made on the Veterans Day holiday honoring military veterans, drew criticism online, with some historians saying his language mirrored that of autocrats who have sought to dehumanize their foes.

"On a weekend when most Americans were honoring our nation's heroes, Donald Trump parroted the autocratic language of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini – two dictators many U.S. veterans gave their lives fighting," Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-campaign-says-trump-echoed-hitler-with-use-word-vermin-2023-11-13/

Yeah where’s that guy when you need him? I’ve said before that I feel like we’re living in that movie Don’t Look Up. But it’s not a giant meteor staring us in the face. It’s Nazism, version 2.0. Trump and other MAGA republicans in the House and Senate aren’t using their “wink wink nudge nudge” attitude that they were using before. They’re saying this shit straight up. You don’t go full Nazi. You never, ever go full Nazi. But the question is – is Trump’s scary Hitler tone and straight up neo Nazi rhetoric intentional or is it accidental? Well as we’ve been seeing a pattern this year, is that there is no accidentally quoting the Nazis, and you can’t look back on it.

Former President Trump prompted backlash for comparing his political enemies to “vermin” who needed to be exposed, with critics drawing comparisons to dictators from decades ago.

Trump, in a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire, pledged to “root out … the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” the latest in a growing line of increasingly incendiary comments about his political opponents heading into the 2024 election.

The former president warned the audience of supporters that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

Democrats and even some Republicans expressed alarm over Trump’s comments, equating them to the type of rhetoric used by dictators during World War II and suggesting it was a sign of how Trump would conduct himself if elected to a second term in the White House.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4307719-trump-vermin-remark-draws-comparisons-dictators-criticism/

Yeah where are those guys when you need them? But this is why we need competent leadership in the White House and we can’t fall victim to populist or authoritarian ideals, which is exactly who the MAGA / America First party caters to. But even Joe Biden has been hammering Trump’s use of hateful and violent language. So why aren’t more people outraged by this? And why is Fox News allowing and enabling Trump to get away with it? Because once again, Fox is part of the reason for this rise in authoritarianism around the globe. And if we don’t stop it now, things are going to get just that much worse.

In another sign President Joe Biden is resharpening his attacks on former President Donald Trump ahead of their potential rematch next year, he condemned Trump for comparing political enemies to "vermin" and saying some immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country."

Biden suggested those phrases were intentional reminders of Nazi Germany as the former president vows vengeance against his opponents.

"In just the last few days, Trump has said if he returns to office, he's going to go after all those who oppose him and wipe out what he called the 'vermin' -- quote, the 'vermin' in America. A specific phrase with a specific meaning," he said Tuesday evening at a fundraiser in San Francisco. "It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the '30s. And it isn't even the first time."

"Trump also recently talked about, quote, 'the blood of America is being poisoned' -- 'the blood of America is being poisoned.' Again, echoes the same phrases used in Nazi Germany," he said. "Folks, we can't fail. We can't fail to treat the threat that he poses. I mean, we can't."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-blasts-trump-echoes-same-phrases-nazi-germany/story?id=104906749

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[font size="8"]Elon Musk
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Well, folks, Nazism seems to be an unfortunately recurring theme in the news lately, so let me make something perfectly clear to those of you who cheerlead the alarming rise of fascism and authoritarianism in the world: WE FOUGHT AN ENTIRE WAR OVER THIS! IT LASTED NEARLY A DECADE AND COST MILLIONS OF LIVES!!! And in the end, we decided that Nazism, white supremacy, and religious extremism were ideas that were best tossed in the dumpster and forgotten about. Well the fact that it seems to be coming back at an alarming rate should terrify anybody. But leave it to social media to make things worse. And one site in particular seems to be festering a lot of it. I’m of course talking about the one that’s currently owned by the Tesla and Space X CEO, and guy who thinks that his online friends are his real friends, Elon Musk. Yeah the hate spreading online seems to be getting worse and it seems like nobody is doing a damn thing about it. Well it actually looks like someone might finally be doing something about it, and telling Elon “enough is enough!”. And it appears that his antics are finally causing some alarm among the few advertisers that Twitter / X still had left.

An overwhelming majority of the world's biggest-spending advertisers have stopped advertising on X following Elon Musk's acquisition of the company, according to new data provided exclusively to Insider by the marketing consultancy Ebiquity.

Ebiquity, which works with 70 of the top 100 top-spending advertisers, according to media research company COMvergence, said that just two of its clients had purchased ads on X last month. That was down from 31 brands in September last year, prior to Musk's takeover of Twitter that October. The number of Ebiquity clients advertising on X has steadily declined ever since, the data shows.

Ebiquity didn't name those advertisers. Ebiquity's clients include Google, Walmart, Vodafone, and General Motors, according to recent financial filings. The company drew its X data from its digital media solutions unit, through which it gathers digital media investment data from agencies and platforms.

"The recent claims by X's leadership around the mass return of top advertisers buying ads on their platform has puzzled us," said Ebiquity's Schreurs, who added that the consultancy's work with clients and discussions with advertiser trade body groups hadn't provided any indicators that big advertisers were back on X.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ebiquity-data-most-advertisers-stopped-spending-x-twitter-2023-10

Yeah don’t be a stupid, be a smarty! Come and join the Nazi party! You know, between this, the 2025 Project (if you haven’t seen our piece on that, check out last week’s edition) and Trump going full Nazi, it seems we have a trifecta on our hands. Why don’t we name this after something that sounds like a Big Bang Theory episode… let’s call this “The Third Reich Triangulation Theory”. Oh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Oh come on, they made jokes about Sheldon being a Nazi in the show! Am I the only one who pays attention to these things? I’ll be expecting a call from Chuck Lorre’s lawyers shortly. But back to the matter at hand, when you play with Nazis, you’re gonna have a bad time. There should be absolutely no debate on this.

Advertisers have fled X, formerly Twitter, in droves in the last 24 hours due to owner Elon Musk endorsing and promoting antisemitic beliefs on the platform.

An X user posted on Wednesday that Jewish communities have pushed “diabolical hatred against whites,” a neo-Nazi talking point. Musk replied, “You have said the actual truth.” About an hour later, he tried to claim he was only criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit Musk has threatened to sue for monitoring hate speech on X.

The next day, a report published by Media Matters found that X has been placing ads for brands including Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to posts that promote Hitler and Nazi beliefs.

The floodgates opened soon after. IBM announced Thursday evening that it had paused advertising on X in light of the Media Matters report. The next morning, the European Commission said it had frozen ads on X.
https://news.yahoo.com/many-advertisers-x-twitter-lose-212025186.html

And here’s the thing we can’t emphasize enough: when you play with Nazism and white supremacy, you’re playing with fire. These are very dangerous ideologies. So you can either stop playing with Nazis, or you can go further down the wormhole and see how many advertisers you lose. What’s even more bizarre is the fact that Elon is suing Media Matters for pointing out Elon’s obvious white supremacy flirtation under the guise of “protecting free speech”. Which means that we have to state this: yes, free speech gives you the right to be a Nazi under the 1st amendment of the United States Constitution, but that also means that people have the right to not listen to you. It works both ways., and that’s one thing that the MAGAs just do not seem to get.

More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform in the first weeks of January, according to data provided to CNN by digital marketing analysis firm Pathmatics, in a striking sign of how far reaching the advertiser exodus has been following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company.

Some 625 of the top 1,000 Twitter advertisers, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep and Merck, had pulled their ad dollars as of January, according to estimates from Pathmatics, based on data running through January 25. The brands did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As a result, monthly revenue from Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers plummeted by more than 60% from October through January 25, from around $127 million to just over $48 million, according to the data.

The data demonstrate the sharp decline of what was once a $4.5 billion advertising business for Twitter. After Musk completed his takeover of the company in late October, advertisers began to worry about the safety and stability of the platform given his plans to cut staff and relax content moderation policies. In early November, Musk said Twitter had seen a “massive revenue drop.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/more-than-half-of-twitter-s-top-1-000-advertisers-stopped-spending-on-platform-data-show/ar-AA17lfzX

Hoooooooooooooooooooly shit! Since posting some neo-Nazi friendly tweets, Elon has lost over half of his advertisers. Elon has completely destroyed Twitter and is now flushing its’ remains down the proverbial toilet. And we are starting to wonder if he bought Twitter with the intent of destroying it, and for that, it’s gone swimmingly. At this point, it’s probably going to be like the last days of the Glenn Beck show on Fox News where he was practically reduced to hawking Cash For Gold and that was the only sponsor he had left. Well, it appears that X/Twitter is going that way, and people are leaving that platform in droves. But again, we cannot emphasize this enough – when you hang with Nazis, you’re gonna have a bad time! But the battle between Elon and Media Matters is just getting started and it could have some drastic implications on free speech if it goes the way that Elon wants.

Twitter (the company that Elon Musk insists upon calling “X”) appears to be hemorrhaging advertisers. And it’s responded to this lost revenue by suing a prominent critic of the increasingly right-wing social media website: Media Matters, a left-leaning organization known for criticizing conservative and GOP-aligned outlets.

Ordinarily, this lawsuit would be the kind of stunt that legal observers could probably ignore. The First Amendment provides extraordinarily robust protections against lawsuits that target speech.

But the case was just reassigned to Judge Reed O’Connor, a notoriously partisan former Republican Senate staffer, known for handing down poorly reasoned opinions giving major policy victories to right-wing litigants. O’Connor is frequently reversed by the Supreme Court, even though this Court is also quite conservative.

In fairness, Media Matters does have some tools it can use to mitigate O’Connor’s ability to shape the outcome of this lawsuit — most significantly, it can demand that the case be heard by a jury. But trial judges have a great deal of authority to manipulate who sits on a jury and what evidence that jury sees. And judges, not juries, decide legal questions such as whether Twitter’s lawsuit is barred by the First Amendment.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/28/23979884/elon-musk-supreme-court-first-amendment-twitter-x-media-matters-reed-oconnor

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[font size="8"]Fox News
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Hey Republicans, MAGA lurkers, and Fox News bots – we need to have a heart to heart discussion so we can end this once and for all. But I’m going to be perfectly blunt and it’s a harsh reality that you need to face, but if we are to move forward, it’s a reality that you have to face. And that reality is: you guys really fucking suck at the entertainment business. Your late night host is a “comedian” whose schtick is that he can’t be a racist psychopath enough. Your movies like Sound Of Freedom are really shitty and plain awful. And don’t get us started on Kid Rock and Ted Niugent either. And last week, did anyone else just laugh their asses off when Fox News hosted their annual “awards” show? It’s an awards show for people who don’t watch awards shows and have no idea what goes on at an awards show, produced by people who don’t watch awards shows and have no idea what goes on at an awards show. Yes, two wrongs definitely do not make a right here. So who is getting nominated for awards at this joke of an awards show? Well, as you might guess, from those of us who don’t live in the Fox bubble, some really unsavory characters.

Hordes of Fox Nation fans gathered outside the historic Grand Ole Opry building in Nashville, Tennessee, on a weeknight last week, waiting to be let into the streaming network’s fifth annual Patriot Awards. The show, billed as a celebration of “everyday heroes,” was slated to broadcast live at 7 p.m., but at 6:40 the doors were still locked. A giant, Fox-branded step-and-repeat blocked most entrances.

Outside, the energy was almost religious in its intensity. More than one person asked a stranger next to them, “Do you watch Fox?” as though trying to sniff out impostors in their midst. They shared anecdotes about their favorite on-air personalities—“He’s a storyteller,” a woman in a rhinestone American flag cowboy hat told another attendee of Jesse Watters—and traded patriotic quips: “These are real Americans here.” “I’m just glad it isn’t WOKE.” “The anchors are the real rock stars.”

As folks grew impatient, it quickly became clear why we were still outside. The evening’s stars—mostly on-air personalities, with a smattering of C- and D-list celebrities mixed in for good measure—were walking the red carpet beneath the iconic sign painted on the Opry’s large brick facade, which reads “Welcome to the Opry.” When the doors finally opened, the crowd cheered fanatically, and more than one person shoved me out of the way to pack tighter into the mass of people constituting a line. I could sense the urgency of a group of women behind me and stepped aside to let them pass; one remarked under her breath that my baseball cap wasn’t dressy enough for the occasion.
https://slate.com/business/2023/11/fox-news-patriot-awards-grand-ole-opry-nashville.html

OK… let’s think about this for a second. This is what happens when you shut off reality for Fox News talking points and internet conspiracy theories. Like do the people who were shoving their way to the front of the line for this shit show really think anyone who doesn’t have their eyeballs glued to Fox News 24 hours a day would be in attendance? I know I wasn’t. I have much better things to do. Also do we shame the Opryland Hotel in Nashville for hosting this shit show? Yeah because the GOP is the party of Trump and Fox no matter how much they try to distance themselves from it. But really it was a lot of Fox News patting themselves on the back.

Fox News took a good chunk of their cast of anchors, hosts, and personalities to the Grand Ole Opry Thursday night, for what they clearly see as a celebration of patriotism that they call the “Patriot Awards” in a very on-the-nose name.

But nuance and subtlety aren’t the game here, and while hipster media critics surely delight in mocking the event with snarky, ironic detachment, it’s no joke. In fact, I’m not sure that any other news outlet could even come close to pulling off such an event, for better and worse.

Fox News isn’t the first cable channel to host a brick-and-mortar event that features network stars for the channel’s super fans. No, BravoTV, home to trashy botoxed docusoaps, created the progenitor of the form with BravoCon, a name borrowed from ComicCon and other events for passionate and loyal fan bases. But while BravoCon is a three-day event in Vegas, the Patriot Awards aren’t quite at that level — yet.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-nation-patriot-awards-becomes-an-annual-celebration-for-fox-news-superfans/

Look, we talk a lot of shit about Fox News on this program. And I can assure you that we have good reasons for it. A big part of the problem is that they gave us Trump. They gave us shitty senators like Tommy Tuberville and even shitter representatives like Marjorie Shit For Brains. Ha ha ha ha ha ha… you ever make fun of someone so much you wish you could thank them for all the good times you’ve had? I mean we’re not laughing with them, we’re laughing *AT* them. And they also enabled and emboldened the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. But the reason we give them so much shit is that wherever Fox News goes, fascism and authoritarianism follow. Like when someone gives their stage introduction in full cowboy cosplay, how are we supposed to take these people with any sort of seriousness? The MAGAs are not a serious people!

This award came after Fox host Pete Hegseth, in full cowboy cosplay and wholesomely bragging about the many children he has fathered with various women, remarked on the famed Opry circle, a historic piece of the Opry stage worn smooth by the boots of some of music and culture’s most important figures. It’s supposed to be an honor to stand within that circle, but this was a desecration.

Comparatively, the middle of the ceremony dragged, with most of the show’s run time devoted to promoting current or upcoming Fox Nation projects. There was a trailer for a show about the Boston Tea Party hosted by [checks notes] Rob Lowe? It’s called Liberty or Death, and it looks deeply weird, not in a good way. Noted aviation expert and aspiring gospel singer (and actor) Dennis Quaid will host Top Combat Pilot, a docuseries about an elite combat pilot training program in Arizona that sounds way cooler.

Speaking of Quaid, despite the ceremony’s taking place in literal Music City, the Jaws 3-D actor was one of two musical guests (country artist and Army veteran Craig Morgan sang the national anthem), performing a song from his forthcoming gospel album. It was as strange as it sounds.
https://slate.com/business/2023/11/fox-news-patriot-awards-grand-ole-opry-nashville.html

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[font size="8"]We’re All Gonna Die
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Hey everyone, guess what? We’re all gonna die! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WOOOOOO!! WOO. WOO. So what’s going to kill us all this week, you might ask? Well, once again, the answer is climate change! And look, we hate to keep beating a dead horse here, but climate change is the reason why this segment was born! You know what? It didn’t have to be like this. We could have been working to end this disaster 20 years ago when Al Gore warned us about it. But nope, people have to listen to the stupid news network with the manufactured talking points and just like COVID, they heckled, booed, and harassed the one guy who was trying to help. See why we say that we can’t have nice things around here? And like any disaster, the phrase “triple threat” is not exactly something that you want to hear that’s neither flattering nor comforting. Like the only good time you want to hear the phrase “triple threat” is when you’re playing Street Fighter and you’ve entered a 3 move combo that knocks out your opponent. Or maybe you prefer video slot machines and that’s how you get the big jackpot. But the simple fact of the current state of climate change can be boiled down to three simple words: It ain’t good. However, the upcoming COP28 Summit in Dubai plans to expunge some of the myths and reality surrounding climate change.

A major, annual international climate meeting kicks off later this week in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

World leaders are meeting from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 to discuss the effects of climate change, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the increasingly pressing question of who will pay for the costs of a hotter planet.

Attendance at the annual negotiations has ballooned and hit an estimated 45,000 people last year. Thousands of climate scientists, mayors, activists, corporate executives and representatives of major oil companies will also fly to the petroleum-dependent host country to attend hundreds of side events.

The meeting comes at the close of the hottest year ever recorded on Earth. Extreme weather is killing people around the world. And while it's still possible for humans to avoid catastrophic climate change effects — such as mass extinctions and runaway sea level rise by the end of this century — it is only possible if greenhouse gas pollution falls dramatically and immediately, scientists warn.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1209676382/cop28-climate-change-conference-faq

OK… let’s take a moment to think about how absurd this is. Yes, having global meetings about climate change involving foreign leaders and dignitaries is a good thing. No, having 45,000 people fly in from all over the world is not a good thing. Especially in one of the wealthiest cities in the world – a city that prides itself on big buildings, big cars, and even bigger jets. Where the national airline’s first class gives you your own private apartment in the sky. No, that ain’t helping. But the real question among scientists – is should an emergency be declared or should an emergency not be declared? Either way it’s literally a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of scenario.

Thanks to modern technologies, from airplanes to social media, humans seem to be more interconnected than ever. While that has sparked positive developments, it has also brought new challenges.

According to CBC News’ Lauren Pelley, more than 200 medical journals recently asked the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency either at or before the next World Health Assembly in May 2024.

The medical journals petitioned the WHO with their request in an editorial published on Oct. 25 via peer-reviewed medical journal The BMJ, saying the combination of biodiversity loss and changing global temperatures is creating a crisis, per CBC News.

“An emergency declaration helps us realize that we’ve got to act with thought — but also with haste,” said Dr. Gaurab Basu, the director of education and policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment.
https://news.yahoo.com/over-200-medical-journals-call-114534250.html

Yeah so the whole idea of declaring climate change an emergency could be either great or it could be a total disaster. And there’s good arguments for both reasons, and trust us, we’ve heard just about all of them. But now the question is – are we or are we not in a situation where climate change could be declared a national emergency? Well like we said, when you see the words “triple threat” and “failure isn’t an option” next to a story, again, like we say around here: it ain’t good. Sure, it could be better but it does seem like we’re improving, but we’re a long way from being out of the woods.

Too little is being done to protect the most vulnerable people against the negative impacts of climate change, warns Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). World leaders gathering in Dubai for the COP28 conference on climate change must take urgent measures to protect the health of the most affected communities.

“The world’s most vulnerable people are paying with their health and their lives for a problem they did not create,” says Dr Christos Christou, MSF International President. “It is both absurd and tragic that those who are the least responsible for the emissions that generate the climate emergency are left to suffer the consequences. This shows that we are not just in a crisis of climate, but also in a crisis of humanity and solidarity.”

The climate emergency is a health and humanitarian emergency. Severe health impacts of climate change are already affecting people across the globe and are projected to increase over time as the planet heats up. MSF works in many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable settings and treats patients experiencing the health impacts of climate change first-hand.
https://www.msf.org/cop28-more-failure-not-option-vulnerable-communities

No, no one’s gonna die just yet. Now the question is – what can be done? You might be screaming at your monitor or other device that you watch, listen or read us on going “But hey! We’ve seen the worst that climate change has brought on us this year with Hurricane Ira and the Maui fires!”. The answer of course is yes we’ve seen it, and we hear your cries. But there is one thing that’s currently working to our advantage is that right now we have cooler heads at the state level. I’m not talking about the MAGA clowns in the House and Senate. I’m talking about White House. But whatever happens, it can’t happen soon enough.

When it comes to climate change, everything is trending in the wrong direction. Summer 2023 was the hottest ever recorded in human history. Study after study shows that climate change is warming the planet to unsustainable levels. It has already baked intense storms, extreme heat and desperate droughts into humanity's future. Columbia University climatologist Dr. James Hansen, one of the earliest scientists to sound the alarm about climate change, has published a study noting that the "early phase of a climate emergency" is "already in the pipeline." Scientists recently calculated that even if we meet some of our more ambitious climate goals, we cannot stop the West Antarctic Ice Shelf from melting. And when it does finally liquefy, the resulting sea level rise will cause apocalyptic floods that displace almost a billion people.

In the midst of such a dire existential threat to the planet, some have urged President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, if for no other reason than the potent symbolic significance of such a statement. Yet while Biden has arguably been one of the most pro-environmental presidents in American history, he has stopped short of officially declaring such, though CNN noted the president (incorrectly) claimed he had. "I've already done that," Biden said in an interview with The Weather Channel, adding "it is the existential threat to humanity.”
https://www.salon.com/2023/11/10/is-biden-taking-climate-change-seriously-heres-why-some-experts-want-him-to-declare-an/

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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Gather around my fair brothers and sisters! 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 time to remind you that the holiest among us are the most full of:



My fair congregation! Please be seated! You know we decided to do something a bit different for our sermon this week. We originally had a piece planned about SAYTAN but we will save that for another week. But this week, I got a ton of requests to do this one because some of my fellow brothers and sisters on the right were polled about their feelings about the environment. As we know, in the last few years, that Mother Nature herself has proven to be quite the cruel mistress and things are only getting worse, but can something be done about it? Well there’s two things we know. One is that people will start caring about the environment when it becomes profitable to do so. And the other is that worshippers of the unholy, ungodly Dark One just do not care to do a damn thing about it. I of course speak of a man who is so foul, so profane and disgusting that his name DARE NOT be spoken in my church! So here’s what we know is that churches have taken a very different, though not entirely unexpected turn in the war on climate change. And it’s not a good one either!

On the same day Pope Francis issued a new call for climate change action, a group of mostly mainline Protestant and Jewish leaders launched a seven-year campaign to advocate for meaningful climate solutions.

“One Home One Future” is the latest multifaith effort intended to engage congregations in caring for the Earth.

But a new survey released by the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that work won’t be easy.

Beliefs on the severity of climate change have not shifted much among religious traditions over the past decade and few religious Americans view climate change as a crisis, according to the PRRI study published Wednesday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/10/06/religion-climate-change-survey/

OK… OK there’s a lot to unpack there. But you know how we say that America’s religious aren’t just deprogrammable, but they seem to be infected with some kind of virus that makes them completely shut off reality? Well this is a perfect example of that. No matter how many times you tell them “NO” they seem to think that’s OK to do it. And you can *SHOW* them examples and literally point to them, but they will come back and say that it’s fake news. Or it didn’t happen. Like Florida is drowning in hurricanes. We just had a really terrible one this year. So what do they do? You guessed it – they prayed instead of acting on it. And that’s what we get.

Religiously unaffiliated Americans and Hispanic Catholics are the most likely religious groups to acknowledge climate change is caused by human activity, with Latter-day Saints and white evangelical Protestants the only groups where a majority does not, according to a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

The survey indicated that among both unaffiliated Americans and Hispanic Catholics, 76 percent acknowledge human-caused climate change, followed by religious Americans who are neither Christian nor Jewish at 70 percent. Sixty-seven percent of American Jews acknowledge it, followed by Hispanic Protestants at 61 percent, Black Protestants at 59 percent and white Catholics at 56 percent.

Pollsters also found that 54 percent of white mainline Protestants said the same, followed by 48 percent of Latter-day Saints and 31 percent of white evangelical Protestants. Nineteen percent of white evangelical Protestants said there was no evidence the climate is changing at all.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4240908-hispanic-catholics-unaffiliated-most-likely-religious-groups-to-acknowledge-human-caused-climate-change/

Of course they don’t. Because as most of us know, there’s way too many humans on this planet. In fact we’re approaching a global population of 9 BILLION. Yes, BILLION. With a B. And just 20 years ago we were at the 7 BILLION mark. So in 20 years, the population has just exploded. And any serious long term climate change proposal is probably going to say that we need less humans on this planet, and definitely not more. So what happens when the country isn’t going to get off its’ ass any time soon because it watches a news network that shall not be named and it’s filling its’ viewers heads with bile and garbage 24 hours a day every day? Well, you take matters into your own hands, that’s’ what!

Like many community-based solutions, the community lighthouse network in New Orleans can be traced back to a crisis moment when people realized that something had to change and they—not elected officials—would have to make it happen.

“For [Hurricane] Ida we were ready with showers, mattresses, shelter and food, but once again the electricity was out so we couldn’t serve our community,” said Antoine Barriere, a 61-year-old pastor. “The power was the missing piece.

“We realized that we had to stop waiting for a fix and do it ourselves. We need to get off the grid and be self-sufficient, as with climate change we’re going to get more disasters.”

In late August 2021, several faith leaders were on a Zoom call during yet another citywide blackout which left vulnerable residents struggling to cope with extreme heat and humidity. The power lines had been knocked out by Hurricane Ida, a category 4 Atlantic storm that had made landfall on 29 August, exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/11/together-new-orleans-community-lighthouse-network-climate-crisis/

Yeah so that’s exactly what you do in those situations. You have to take matters into your own hands. So here’s what might be the most shocking part of this entire survey. In case you’re wondering if the current anti-environment backlash that’s going on is tied to the rise in white supremacy and authoritarianism happening around the globe, well guess what? It is! And I’m sure that it’s not something that JAYSUS would want now, is it? Because guess which religion is most likely to take climate change seriously out of all of them? Well it’s an answer that Rupert Murdoch and the unholy Dark One aren’t going to like!

Jews are more concerned about climate change than other religious groups in the US, according to a survey released on Thursday.

The poll, conducted in June, found that 32 percent of US Jews said climate change was a crisis, a larger proportion than any other religious group surveyed.

Following Jews were Hispanic Catholics, at 31%, according to the survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.

The religious group least likely to view climate change as a crisis was white evangelical protestants, at 8%.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jews-more-likely-than-any-us-religious-group-to-see-climate-change-as-crisis-poll/

Yes, so my friends, the unholy Dark One and his followers may be attempting to undo climate change action, but we all know the truth about this movement! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! Don’t forget episode 4 of Holy Shit: The Sunday Sermons premiers this Sunday at 2:00! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]People Who Somehow Got Elected: Markwayne Mullin
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Politicians at the state and local levels who are so toxic, you wonder how they’re able to get away with the things they get away with. This is:



This week – Markwayne Mullin. If you don’t know who that is, this guy is a first time, Fox News installed and approved senator of Oklahoma. Now we’ve often said that MAGA politicians really don’t want to work and are only interested in the title and power that comes with holding these offices. Which is why the MAGAs were recently paid a visit by their regional manager, Sean Hannity. And really, you have to wonder how people like Markwayne Mullin get elected. Oh wait, Fox News, that’s how. And he is a candidate by and for Fox News viewers, because no matter how hard he gets humiliated in an argument, he's not afraid to go down without a fight. And since getting elected to the Senate, he’s got a history of that sort of thing. So if you haven’t been following, the feud between Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, has been nothing short of spectacular. And it’s been unfolding for the last several months on… yup, you guessed it, Fox News.

A congressional hearing devolved into an angry confrontation between a senator and a witness on Tuesday after Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma challenged Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to “stand your butt up” and settle longstanding differences right there in the room.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate panel that was holding the hearing, yelled at Mullin to sit down after he challenged O’Brien to a fight. Mullin had stood up from his seat at the dais and appeared to start taking his ring off.

“This is the time, this is the place,” Mullin told O’Brien after reading a series of critical tweets O’Brien had sent about him in the past. “If you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”
https://apnews.com/article/senate-mullin-obrien-teamsters-fight-hearing-153e28d131973d1e10b539491c9e94a6

So what do you want to do? You want to fight about it? Well once again, we have another product of the Fox News / Heritage Foundation Ministry Of Propaganda – the reason why we can’t have nice things in this country. And come on, here’s the thing – when one challenges you to a duel, you pretty much have to take them up on it. But Markwayne Mullin is the kind of asshole whose bark really is as strong as his bite – and we do mean this literally. Yes, he said that he doesn’t care if he literally bites people. And that’s not anything any sane or civilized American would do. This is criminally insane behavior again brought to you by Fox News.

A day after trying to start a fistfight in a Senate committee hearing, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said Wednesday that he has no problem biting people if he gets into a brawl.

“By the way, I’m not afraid of biting,” Mullin declared in an interview with Oklahoma native Kyle Thompson on his podcast “Undaunted.Life.”

“Biting?” Thompson asked.

“I’ll bite 100%,” replied the U.S. senator. “In a fight, I’m going to bite. I’ll do anything. I’m not above it. And I don’t care where I bite, by the way.”

“I’m not even going to ask any further questions on that,” replied Thompson, whose podcast has the stated mission of being “specifically designed for the rugged Christian looking for ways to more closely follow after Christ and improve as a man.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/markwayne-mullin-biting-people-oklahoma-senator_n_65550143e4b05723e4bb858e

Yeah we’re not religious, but we’re pretty sure that biting people and generally acting like colossal douchebags isn’t what Jesus had in mind when it comes to being a good Christian. And come on, at this point, given the MAGAs’ outrageous behavior, can’t we just put them all in a steel cage death match and let them fight it out until there’s one left standing? We would like to see George Carlin’s vision of the ultimate arena brawl come to life. But really, America is just teetering on the edge of being one election away from Congress turning into the House Of Representin’ from Idiocracy.

Congressional dysfunction took a dangerous turn this month. In the House, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., allegedly elbowed Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., in the kidney (McCarthy denied the claim). Not to be outdone, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., challenged the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, Sean O’Brien, to a fight, with the two men exchanging insults.

For those inclined to believe that these childish provocations auger the end of the republic, please consider life in Congress in the decades before the Civil War. If the politicians of that era could be magically transported to our own Congress, they would likely roll their eyes — thinking that today’s antics are child’s play — and say: “hold my beer.”

When Congress first met in 1789, political parties didn’t yet exist. That changed quickly, and by the decade’s end, the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were at each other’s throats — literally. In 1798, Rep. Matthew Lyon of Vermont, a Democratic-Republican, said something nasty about Rep. Roger Griswold of Connecticut, a Federalist.

Griswold called Lyon a coward in front of the other legislators. Lyon promptly spat in Griswold’s face. At this point, Griswold got hold of a hickory walking stick and beat Lyon 20-plus times. As Lyon ran from his attacker, he managed to pick up a pair of fire tongs and hit back. The melee would continue for some time before the audience pulled the men apart.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-todays-congress-genteel-compared-to-slavery-eras/

Yes, it’ll be like that a few generations after the MAGA dust has finally settled. But in case you’re asking – does Sen. Mullin have any qualifications to actually lead the country? The answer, simply, is a big flat out NO. His qualifications are that he runs a mildly successful plumbing business, and that’s about it, and the MAGA community likes it that way. Which, again, is yet another reason why we can’t have nice things in this country. And just like the other countless MAGA idiots, er, politicians, that we’ve seen, they lie about, well, just about everything, And you can add Markwayne Mullin to the list of MAGA politicians who just don’t give a shit about what you think.

A Republican senator drastically understated how much money he made in the private sector as he argued with the head of the Teamsters union at a hearing in Washington on Wednesday.

While lambasting Teamsters president Sean O'Brien for his nearly $200,000 salary, Oklahoma's Senator Markwayne Mullin claimed that he paid himself a salary of just $50,000 when he ran a plumbing business. But his financial disclosures show his salary was nearly $92,000 in 2012, the year he was first elected to Congress. His total income was even greater.

"What did you make when you owned your company?" O'Brien asked.

"When I made my company? I kept my salary down at about $50,000 a year because I invested every penny into it," Mullin replied.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-senator-who-ran-a-multimillion-dollar-plumbing-business-claimed-he-only-took-a-50-000-salary-his-financial-statements-show-otherwise/ar-AA18nDMj

Yes that’s Oklahoma’s more redneck than thou Fox News installed senator who’s willing to both fight and bite you, Markwayne Mullin. Yet another toxic politician to add to that ever growing list of:




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[font size="8"]Conspiracy Corner
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Welcome back to our segment that attempts to explain the unexplainable, Conspiracy Corner! Of course conspiracies exist when people simply don’t want to read the article past the headlines and just flat out make shit up. We of course are coming to you live from our underground doomsday shelter from deep within the New Mexico badlands. Undisclosed location, of course! Let me just adjust my trusty tin foil hat for maximum government interference. Ah, there we go! They are trying to read yours and my thoughts after all! This week, you might have seen social media light up after a Bentley exploded at the US – Canadian border. Well, that didn’t stop MAGA extremists online from floating some absolutely wild theories about it being a terrorist attack. Well, it turns out that it was just some idiots in a poorly maintained vehicle heading out to a Kiss concert in Buffalo. Or…………… was it? Of course that’s what they want you to think! But that didn’t stop the tin foil hat misinformation from flying.

Social media was flooded with conspiracy theories after an explosion at the U.S.-Canada border involving a car near Niagara Falls on Wednesday. Two people are dead and the cause is still under investigation, but reports have gone viral claiming the explosion was caused by terrorists who were trying to target the upcoming Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. But there’s simply no evidence that’s true.

“The FBI is suspecting that the Car Bomb Explosion TERRORIST ATTACK at the Rainbow Bridge US-Canada border in Niagara Falls could have been heading directly to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in NEW YORK CITY,” far-right influencer Laura Loomer tweeted on Wednesday.

“FBI and NYPD on extreme high alert and advising no travel to NEW YORK City. THEY ARE ALSO NOW LOOKING FOR A SECOND VEHICLE! STAY OUT OF NEW YORK CITY! AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK BY ISLAMISTS AGAIN!” Loomer continued.

The problem with this completely unfounded theory is that the vehicle was actually on the U.S. side and trying to travel into Canada. Any hypothetical terrorists who wanted to target an event in the U.S., like a parade in New York, would not be moving into Canada.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/11/22/no-evidence-explosion-at-us-canada-border-targeted-macys-thanksgiving-parade/?sh=511862f63057

Of course that’s what happens when you don’t read the news past the headlines and let pre manufactured talking points fill your head and the rest of the story with bile and garbage. So of course it’s only natural for the MAGA mind to think that it’s the beginnings of a border war between the US and Canada. OMG! The sky is falling!!! Everyone run for your lives!!! And you know how in every movie where there’s some kind of crisis happening and there’s one guy in the room who’s clearly not helping things and making everyone else’s lives worse? Well, that was the FBI on Wednesday when this news was first breaking.

The FBI's conclusion that a car explosion near a bridge linking the United States and Canada was not a terrorist incident has sparked claims on social media of a conspiracy to cover up the true nature of the incident.

Two people were killed after their vehicle exploded on Wednesday afternoon at the Rainbow Bridge, which straddles the two nations' sides of the Niagara Falls. The incident prompted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to shut down three other crossings between New York and Canada out of an abundance of caution.

The explosion prompted many—including several lawmakers, such as Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)—to presume the incident was terror-related.

However, in a statement on Wednesday night, the FBI field office in Buffalo, New York, said it had "concluded our investigation at the scene" which "revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified."
https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-response-canada-border-explosion-conspiracy-theories-1846297

Yeah here’s exactly why we keep placing the blame on right wing talk shows. This is how much their heads keep getting filled with bile and garbage on a 24 hour a day basis. Like the MAGAs were quick to declare war on Canada before the dust even settled on the explosion. And the reason why is they listen to professional trolls like Sean Hannity, who were quick to declare war on Canada before the dust even settled in the explosion. They call it an echo chamber because the same bullshit gets repeated to the same people over and over and over. Did you catch what I just did there? That’s a perfect example of how the echo chamber whips people into a needless frenzy. But yeah in case you’re wondering, this is why we can’t have nice things.

On Wednesday, a well-to-do middle-aged couple died when their speeding Bentley crashed and exploded in a speculator fireball at a United States-Canada border crossing. But as is so often the case, this tragedy quickly dovetailed in real-time with right-wing misinformation about terror attacks and anti-immigrant bigotry.

It’s a playbook that’s unfortunately become extremely commonplace in the window that’s experienced following a major event.

On Wednesday, shortly before noon, a Bently drove into the Rainbow Bridge border crossing in Niagara Falls, New York, at a high speed, it lost control, was launched into the air, and exploded when it made contact with some of the infrastructure. The two in the vehicle were declared dead and for a short while, flames raged at the crossing, causing a dramatic scene. A person working at the crossing was injured but suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Information regarding the incident was scarce for several hours following the incident, with the main bit of on-the-record information coming from the FBI, who said they were investigating and coordinating with other law enforcement agencies. The explosion had set off a lot of speculation online about whether it was a terrorist attack, and then it was seemingly confirmed, as Fox News declared that law enforcement sources told them that the incident was a “terror attack” and that explosives were found on the scene.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkavmm/us-border-car-crash-ring-wing-misinformaiton

No it’s not rigged. There’s no terrorist attack. There’s no border war. There’s no international incident or crisis here. It’s not Hamas trying to cross the US border. Can we all just take a step back, chill the fuck out, and pull each other’s heads out of our collective asses? Because if you read the actual news and not made up conspiracy theory bullshit that’s designed to whip people into a needless frenzy, you’d know that there wasn’t a terror attack. Nothing even remotely close to it. Which is why it’s a good time to remind you that New York has a democratic governor and if this happened in a GOP run state, it might not have ended the same way.

The investigation of a car crash and explosion at a Niagara Falls, New York, border checkpoint on Wednesday – which killed the married couple inside the vehicle – is examining whether mechanical or medical issues were to blame, according to reports.

That detail surfaced as officials identified the Rainbow Bridge crash victims as Kurt P Villani and Monica Villani, both 53. The Villani family owns several hardware stores as well as a lumber business around the Buffalo, New York, region.

Robert Restaino, the Niagara Falls mayor, said the Villanis may have originally been heading to a Kiss concert in Canada which had been canceled hours before, according to the New York Times. The Seneca Niagara Resort & Casino, which is about one mile from the bridge, confirmed that the Villanis had been at the gambling facility for a few moments before their deadly crash, the newspaper said.

The wreck unfolded when the Villanis’ 2022 Bentley Flying Spur sped through an intersection at Rainbow Bridge, struck a low median and flew through the air. The luxury car careened into a line of security booths and burst into flames.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/25/us-canada-border-car-explosion-police-investigate

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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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Hey everyone, I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink!



So of course you know by now that the idea of this segment is that we have some drinks, and while we are drinking, we talk about literally anything in the news as long as it doesn’t directly relate to politics, because there’s a lot of dark shit in the news right now, so the best escape from it is to belly up to the bar and have a few cold ones! Only rules we got in this bar – no fighting, no cussing, and no politics! A bit of mild swearing is allowed, as long as it’s never *AT* someone! And my sober brothers and sisters, don’t worry, we got you covered too, just grab a glass of your favorite coffee, tea or energy drink and come get wired with us! Actually this week we should temporarily change the name to “I Need A Smoke”… ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, that’s our motto! Because this week, our old buddy Snoop Dogg was in the news because of some marijuana related news. So tell me bartender, what goes well with a story about Snoop Dogg and weed? Some space tea? What’s in that? Marijuana and tea? That sounds lethal. I’ll just stick with my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. I call it the “Double Jack”. So of course we mentioned that the king of getting stoned, Snoop Dogg, is in the news because it was announced that he’s quitting smoking weed. Yeah womp womp! So does this mean that marijuana is losing one of it’s biggest brand ambassadors? Well Snoop may be blowing some smoke, and well you’ll see why his personal joint roller can rest easier in a minute.

Snoop Dogg says he is giving up marijuana – or at least, smoking it.

“After much consideration & conversation with my family, I’ve decided to give up smoke,” the rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, told his 82.5 million followers on Instagram.

“Please respect my privacy at this time.”

The news may come as a shock to some - the rapper has long been open about his love of weed, and even claimed to have smoked in the White House. He has launched several business ventures related to marijuana, including a pot-focused media company called “Merry Jane,” and a line of cannabis products.

He has also invested in in Casa Verde Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in marijuana start-ups.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/entertainment/snoop-dogg-gives-up-smoking-intl-scli/index.html

So let’s recap here – Snoop Dogg is one of marijuana’s biggest brand ambassadors. We already lost one of them earlier this year when Kevin Smith announced that he was giving up the MJ for good. At least Cypress Hill still exists! But of course his announcement sent shockwaves through the weed community – companies who are profiting off cannabis suffered a huge blow (ha!) with this hit. And again, we know that Snoop has a personal joint roller, and for the longest time, we thought that was the most secure job in the world, if you’re a good joint roller, that is! But yeah again this is one of those things we always talk about where actions have consequences!

After Snoop Dogg announced on Thursday that he was giving up smoking, the share prices of a number of cannabis companies suffered a blow.

The 52-year-old musician, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, became known for his love of the recreational drug over the years and made the surprise announcement to his social media followers.

"After much consideration & conversation with my family, I've decided to give up smoke. Please respect my privacy at this time," he posted on Instagram and X.

Newsweek reached out to Snoop Dogg's representative via email for comment Friday.

It has come as a shock to fans of the veteran rapper due to his open appreciation for the drug, which has extended to a variety of business endeavors, such as edibles, weed strains and a digital media business devoted to marijuana-related news.
https://www.newsweek.com/weed-stocks-hit-after-snoop-dog-quits-1844787

So allow me to channel my inner local news reporter here – is Snoop Dogg really blowing smoke or is he just full of hot air? Well, you might say that it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. He’s definitely giving up smoke all right, but this one is actually for a good cause. So it turns out that Snoop A Loop isn’t giving up marijuana, he’s just giving up smoke. And when you see why – it’s actually to raise awareness for the environment. So does this mean that Snoop is woke now? Yeah we can see the MAGAs rushing to burn their Snoop Dogg CDs right now. Oh wait, I’m breaking my “no politics at the bar” rule. Moving on! But yes, Snoop is still going to smoke some weed, so all you cannabis heads can rest easier and inhale more smoke.

Snoop Dogg isn't giving up the kind of "smoke" he's been associated with for much of his career.

The rapper and entrepreneur's statement shocked fans Thursday after he posted a black-and-white social media post, announcing: "After much consideration & conversation with my family, I've decided to give up smoke. Please respect my privacy at this time."

"I'm giving up smoke," he added in the caption.

Snoop did not clarify whether the smoke was related to cannabis or something else, until now. The rapper announced Monday that he is partnering with Solo Stove, a smokeless fire pit brand.

“I love a good fire outside but the smoke was too much. Solo Stove fixed fire and took out the smoke. They changed the game and now I’m excited to spread the love and stay warm with my friends and family,” Snoop said in a press release.

Under this partnership, the business mogul is the official "smokesman" for the brand and will be releasing a collaboration on Monday at 4:20 p.m. EDT available exclusively at solostove.com and goingsmokeless.com.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2023/11/20/snoop-dogg-giving-up-smoke-partnership-solo-stove/71652760007/

Yeah so all you pot heads out there, you can definitely rest easier now because Snoop isn’t quitting weed, he’s just quitting smoke. Yes, he’s doing this for a good cause. But why do we fall for celebrities and their cryptic messages time and time again? Whether it’s Snoop quitting smoke or Gwenyth Paltrow’s Exploding Vagina Candles… don’t go see them at the Troubadour, terrible band… or Kanye’s… I don’t know whatever the hell this is, but don’t do it… but we fall for it every single time, and they do this because why? It gets their name in the news. Yeah it’s publicity stunt and we all fell for it, and we’ll keep falling for it because… reasons.

Last week, according to several major news outlets, Snoop Dogg quit smoking weed.

The Independent, the BBC and CNN all reported that the rapper, who has his own cannabis line, had decided to “give up smoke” after he shared a post on Instagram announcing that the move had followed “much consideration & conversation with my family” and asking the public to “please respect my privacy at this time”.

It makes sense that it would be deemed newsworthy: this is one of the world’s most successful artists, who is almost as famous for his love of marijuana, and who once declared on a TV talkshow that he has a full-time staffer to whose sole job it is to roll his blunts.

But if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that every viral moment is probably an ad – and the outlets who chose restraint over traffic were rewarded a few days later when Snoop launched his latest product collaboration: a smokeless fire pit. He was giving up smoke. Cue eye roll.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/21/snoop-dogg-quitting-weed-marketing-stunt-smokeless-fire-pit-celebrity-endorsements

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[font size="8"]My Governor Is An Idiot Round 7: Walz Vs Reynolds

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Welcome back to the segment where we pit red state governors against blue state governors in a quest for nothing more than superiority and bragging rights, inspired by a bumper sticker that we see way too frequently in California: My Governor Is An Idiot! In the last few weeks we’ve been touring the US as we’ve seen JB Pritzker take on Texas’ Greg Abbott, while Andy Beshear edged out a victory for reelection and upstaged Alabama’s Kay Ivey! This week it’s a battle for Central supremacy as neighbors Minnesota and Iowa’s Kim Reynolds duke it out!

[font size="4"]Walz[/font]

Tim Walz is the two term governor of one of the bluest states in the country – Minnesota. You know Minnesota, it’s the home of the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins. It’s also the home of the world famous Juicy Lucy hamburger. And it’s also the home of way too many television characters who say the word “eh” a lot. But it’s also the home of WHY ELECTIONS FUCKING MATTER. Yes, Ilhan Omar is from there, and regardless of what you think of her, she’s been a very valuable asset to the party. But this is about governor Tim Walz. And right now, we have to say that we definitely support what he’s saying and doing about the GOP’s terrible antics.

When he signed an executive order on Wednesday making Minnesota a refuge state for all those seeking gender-affirming care, Gov. Tim Walz spoke of those behind the bans instituted in other states.

“It’s being led by bullies, and I say this as a teacher, we cannot stand bullies,” said the 59-year-old Democrat, who was a high-school geography teacher and football coach before serving five terms in Congress, and now a second term as governor.

He added of the ban backers, “Nothing to gain for themselves, not following any factual data, and essentially using the state apparatus to bring cruelty.”

That very same day, the state legislature in adjacent Iowa passed a ban similar to one that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had instituted through a complaisant Florida medical board. The Iowa measure only needed Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signature when DeSantis arrived in her state on Friday. The visit was officially part of a book tour, but it was widely seen as a wind-up to his inevitable presidential bid.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/minnesotas-gov-tim-walz-is-the-anti-desantis?ref=wrap

Yeah we need more anti-Desantis and anti-Trump because I don’t know if you have been paying attention or not to the rest of this edition (and if you haven’t, as George Clinton says, take your dead ass home!), but there’s been an underlying theme in the news the last couple of weeks: Nazism. And yeah we need to speak up now before it’s too late! But enough of the bad, how about some good? One good thing that Tim Walz has done lately was enact one of the first of its’ kind right to repair laws in the United States. That’s right – you can now have the right to repair your own shit, folks! As Uncle Roger would say, fuiyoh!!!

Advocates trying to keep electronics out of landfills and reduce consumption are cheering in Minnesota.

A “right to repair” bill on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s desk would require manufacturers of phones, computers, and home appliances to share documentation and software needed to fix electronic devices, making it easier for consumers to go to third-party companies for repairs or repair items themselves. Repair, advocates say, extends the life of personal electronics, home appliances and more.

A spokesperson for the governor said that Walz is expected to sign the bill Wednesday.

Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, a repair and advocacy website, said the bill could result in electronics manufacturers making repair software available worldwide, since they “tend to respond in a global manner.”

“This is huge,” Wiens said. “This should move the U.S. ahead of Europe,” which historically has had stronger right-to-repair laws.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/the-long-game/2023/05/23/the-fix-is-almost-in-00098339

[font size="4"]Reynolds[/font]

Iowa and Minnesota are neighbors and rivals and not just on the collegiate football field either. They are literal polar opposites when it comes to politics. As blue as Minnesota is, Iowa is blood red and it’s only getting that much redder. I mean come on, this is the state that gave us one of the most racist Congressional people in history. So we’re not surprised that Iowa elected Christian conservative Kim Reynolds not once but twice. And again, people another perfect example of why elections matter at every single level. Because while Minnesota is enjoying benefits and perks, Iowa is busy taking away and eroding rights. Like that of trans people to be able to access health care, which goes back to internet conspiracy theories. Again, some bullshit.

Republicans sent a ban on gender-affirming care for minors to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk Wednesday, less than two weeks after the measure was first brought up as a possibility.

Two other LGBTQ-related measures on what materials are available in school libraries and classrooms also passed the House.

The bill on transgender health care, Senate File 538 cleared the House on a 57-39 vote after passing the Senate Tuesday night. If signed by the governor, the measure will prohibit transgender minors from obtaining gender-related medical care such as puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy or any surgical interventions.

Youth seeking the gender-related treatments outlined by the bill for purposes outside of transitioning would still be able to receive the care.
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/03/08/ban-on-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-minors-heads-to-reynolds-desk/

Although if there is anything good coming from Kim Reynolds, it’s that she’s one of the rare ones in the GOP who is going against the MAGA cult and choosing to endorse Ron DeSantis over you know, that guy who we for some reason used to call president. Which has him fuming. But given Desantis’ ridiculously failing campaign, we’re not sure if that’s something to be proud of or not. In case you’re wondering if Iowa has made any progress at all, well, let’s just say that Iowa’s going literally the exact opposite of their neighbors Minnesota when it comes to education, and they’re among the states that are siding with the Murdoch cult and making things this much worse.

Iowa Republican lawmakers promised that passing the private school voucher bill was only the beginning of their plan to reshape education and fight against public school “indoctrination” during an event in Des Moines on Thursday.

Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based right-wing organization that has led a nationwide crusade to ban books they don’t approve of, sponsored the event which featured Gov. Kim Reynolds and other state Republican leaders.

When she spoke, Reynolds endorsed several bills moving through the Iowa Legislature including a revamped version of last year’s curriculum bill, a bill to limit the teaching of gender identity, and one that forcibly outs LGBTQ students.

“Think about it. It’s sad that any of this needs to be written into law,” Reynolds said. “Unfortunately, that is where we’re at.”

more...https://iowastartingline.com/2023/02/03/gop-leaders-lob-accusations-at-teachers-of-child-abuse-indoctrination-hating-america

[font size="4"]And The Idiot Is: [/font]

Oh come on, you didn’t think it was going to be Tim Walz, did you? Kim Reynolds wins, or loses, this round easily!

[font size="4"]Next Week: [/font]

Next week for Round 8, it’s another Beltway Battle as Maryland’s Wes Moore takes on Ohio’s Mike DeWine! Gonna be a fun one!


[font size="4"]And Now This: [/font]
[font size="4"]Rival Sons[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest has not one but two albums out. This is their new album called Darkfighter. Playing their song “Nobody Wants To Die”, give it up for Rival Sons!

Thank you Oxnard! This was fun! We’ll be back soon! We are back home in Santa Ana for our last regular Top 10 of 2023! See you next week!

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