Category: Beating Back the St00pid

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Fuckwits



Fuckwits with firearms

Fuckwits with flags

Fuckwits in pickups with Confederate  flags

Gov. Whitmer’s order for Michigan citizens to stay home, they said, was tyranny (SPOILER: if you can gather in public and accuse the government of tyranny without fear of arrest, it’s not tyranny). 

They repeated Ben Franklin’s claim that ‘security without liberty is called prison’ (SPOILER: if you can drive your pickup to Lansing, Michigan, you’re not in prison and you have liberty). 

They chanted “Lock her up!” and “Keep America Great!” (SPOILER: if your nation was warned a pandemic was coming and didn’t bother to prepare for it, your country isn’t all that great, and a populace that wants to lock up a governor for trying to mitigate that pandemic isn’t particularly great either).

They also gathered to block traffic in front of a hospital. Seriously, during a goddamn pandemic, these fuckwits thought it was cute to block the emergency entrance to a hospital. 

Jesus suffering fuck. —gregfallis.com

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AMEN, Brother!

“So, You Never Really Were ‘Pro-Life,” Were You?” from John Pavlovitz:

Photo by Alyson McClaran/@McClaranAlyson











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Saves Lives

I swear Twitter just needs to just shut down Orange Caligula’s account for violating any number of their Terms of Service. But if the Russian Wig Stand’s call for armed insurrection against the governors of certain states won’t trigger it, nothing will. #complicit

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Quote Of The Day

Well, it finally isn’t funny anymore—the grandiosity, the ignorance, the cruelty, the bullying, the racism, the petty insults and incessant stupidity. But especially the non-stop lying. The greatest asset that a president can bring to a crisis is credibility. On Day One of his presidency, Donald Trumpchose to pick a fight with the media about the size of his inaugural crowd … The very next day, Kellyanne Conway let Americans know of the existence of something called “alternative facts.” Oh. So, that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Since then, the lies have come so fast and furious that keeping track has been impossible. How do you remember the last one when three or four equally ridiculous lies are almost certain to follow that day? ‘Don’t take him literally,’ his supporters insisted. ‘Take him seriously.’ Really? Well, no. What they really were saying was how happy they were that he would be appointing pro-life, pro-corporate Federalist Society judges, cutting taxes to benefit the wealthy, undoing regulations to help corporations exploit their employees and destroy our environment, and pulling us out of the Paris Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Deal. That the President of the United States is a malignant narcissist who could allow no fact to stand that contradicted his insatiable need for self-aggrandizement has been of little concern to establishment Republicans. The stock market was climbing. They were getting richer. And they had cover from the right-wing media to fool enough of his base into believing his limitless dishonesty. At this year’s State of the Union, the First Lady bestowed upon Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor he now shares with Mother Teresa, Cesar Chavez, and the crew of Apollo 13 … Until this crisis, Trump has paid no real price for his constant, pathological mendacity. Before politics, the man had spent his entire career in a business where, evidently, there was no accountability for inveterate lying. But for this crisis there is accountability. And instead of leading, Donald Trump’s focus has been where it always has been—on Donald Trump. ‘I give myself a ten out of ten.’ ‘We are very close to a vaccine.’ ‘I don’t take responsibility at all.’ ‘Anybody who needs a test can get a test. And the tests are perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcript was perfect.’ Of course, no leader could have prevented the devastation that this virus has and will continue to exact. But because Trump’s focus has been on himself, his reelection, and his fragile self-image, our federal government squandered our most valuable commodity. And the amount of suffering which that lost time will cost our nation is as tragic as it is unknowable. Trump will not step away. He will continue to take the stage and our focus—but he will not be able to claim the credibility he never earned. We are left to proceed despite our president and find the leadership we need elsewhere. From governors and mayors and other civil servants. From health care professionals and scientists and economists. From community leaders and each other. It is time for each of us to step up and fill the vacuum at the top—first by staying home. And for those fortunate enough to weather this storm financially—to help those who cannot. Lest we forget Trump’s Houdini-like ability to escape the traps he’s set for himself, it is also time for us to commit to his defeat in November. For now, find a way to do that from home. But when it’s time to come out into the light, it must be our collective mission to make this godawful human being pay the price for every lie he has ever uttered.” ~ Al Franken

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The Bill is Due

From John Pavlovitz:

The bill for MAGA has come due, Trump supporters.

It’s time to pay up.

The deferred invoice for you selling your souls is here.

It’s time to pay for every incendiary campaign boast you cheered,
every factless diatribe you vigorously applauded,
every nonsensical middle-of-the-night tweet you boosted,
every dehumanizing stereotype and slur you shared,
every callous and cruel rally insult you passionately amen-ed.

Its time to pay for every denial of Scientific evidence,
every terminated qualified conscientious objector,
every attack on factual, responsible journalism,
every vicious assault on objective reality,
every star-spangled dog-and-pony show distraction,
every lazy xenophobic caricature,
every tired racist tirade.

This is how your beloved capitalism works isn’t it: someone was always going to pay for services rendered? Nothing is free, isn’t that what you’ve been saying—no handouts? Well, dig deep friend because you are on the hook for this.

Many people have been footing the bill for a long time: migrants and Muslims and transgender people, young black men, refugees, the sick and the poor, already vulnerable communities pushed all the way to the brink—and now past it.

You were paying too of course, you were just too willfully ignorant or intellectually negligent to realize it. Over and over we tried to tell you about the cost: the civil rights you were sacrificing too, the environmental protections you were losing as well as we were, the safety and security you were relinquishing alongside us. We tried to tell you that this hardship was not a partisan expense, that his moral bankruptcy would eventually hit you hard too.

But your Fox News bubble and your white Evangelical echo chamber and your America First, Don’t Tread on Me, middle-finger affinity clubs left you certain you were insulated from it all; that the only tears that would fall would be liberal ones, that the only people suffering voted for Hillary, that all of the pain would be isolated to people who vote Blue.

You felt immune from the spreading sickness. You felt invincible, because your messiah told you that you were winning and that was enough for you.

He was lying to you as he always does, but you preferred to believe the lie because it felt warm running through your veins even as it was poisoning you—the intoxicating, cheap high of making America great while owning the Libs. That was a costly drug, that arrogance—and you were slowly going broke in your addiction.

Now, in the middle of a burgeoning pandemic and a precipitous market crash and a hopelessly fractured nation, the bill is coming due.
You can’t avoid paying now.
You’re here with us.
I think even you realize that now.

This President didn’t create this virus,
but he ignored it,
denied it,
minimized it,
joked about it,
weaponized it,
politicized it,
exacerbated it.

He systematically removed qualified people and replaced them with genuflecting, sycophantic traitors, or with no one.

He generated a steady stream of partisan attacks and conspiracy theories and abject lies created in the moment, and the kind of “I am smarter than anyone in the room” sermonizing that cult leaders bellow all the way to the terrible and tragic end.

He is culpable for the chaos and the unnecessary illness, and yes the preventable deaths because of it—and you are too.

This is the human cost of the MAGA cult delusion, and we’re all paying for it now equally, however we vote and wherever we live and whatever we value. Pandemics don’t choose sides or spare voting blocks or respect affiliations.

He will pay for it in November and in the unflattering, incorruptible light of History.

I hope whatever you received was worth it.

I hope you still feel like you’re winning.

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