Every year, our philosophy department puts on a colloquium series on some topic in philosophy — this year, it’s the philosophy of conspiracy theories. Very timely! And I don’t see that our local conspiracy theorist faculty member is mentioned, and maybe not even involved, so there’s hope it might be good.
The first public lecture is tonight, titled “Conspiracy Theories and Public Trust”, over Zoom. I really don’t need to pile more on my plate, but maybe I can listen in while I’m grading papers.
I had a phone conversation with my son, who currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, about the current situation there. They’re having rolling blackouts to deal with the cold and power failures, and oh boy, did his wife give us an earful. She’s disgusted with Texas — she’s from South Korea, and they’d never allow this kind of collapse of services in Korea. They spent a few hours standing in line to get food and water, and today they’re going to the Army base to try and take showers, since they haven’t had any running water for several days.
Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz fled the state to vacation in Cancun, Mexico. I’m surprised that Mexico would allow such riff-raff to cross their border. I am not surprised that Chickenshit Cruz would run away.
And (ex)-Mayor Tim Boyd of Colorado City, Texas, posted an amazing rant on Facebook that is so beautifully representative of how Republicans think.
The mayor of Colorado City, Texas has resigned after sparking outrage with a Facebook post where he told residents complaining of power outages during an unprecedented cold snap to “get off your ass and take care of your own family.” Tim Boyd, who announced his resignation Tuesday, also wrote that “if you don’t have electricity, you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe.” “No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice!” he wrote. The town, with a population of about 4,000, is located in Mitchell County, where many were left without power as record-setting cold weather batters much of the state. In a subsequent post, Boyd apologized, writing, “I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout.”
Uh, what, exactly, is local government for? When I elect a mayor, or a city council, or a state representative, what I want is a good steward of the resources of my region, who will take responsibility and use those resources to help every citizen. Did this mayor regard his position as a sinecure, or an opportunity to bleed off what he could into his pocket? Maintaining the services that all of those people paid taxes for is not a handout! Even if a citizen did not pay taxes for reasons of poverty or disability, that does not mean you get to deny a responsibility to them. Even Boyd’s “apology” is an insult and a failure to recognize his mayoral obligations.
My daughter-in-law is correct. We should try to be more like South Korea, where the civic infrastructure is taken seriously.
Texans are screaming in outrage, so ol’ Chickenshit Ted is cutting his inappropriate vacation short. But of course he’s got to squeeze out a little extra chickenshittery: he’s asking for the Houston police to protect him from his constituents!
Some people are mourning the death of Rush Limbaugh.
Liberals who didn’t listen to Rush, and just read the Media Matters accounts, never understood how *funny* he was. What set him off from his many imitators was how wildly entertaining he was, and the absolutely unbreakable bond he formed with his listeners.
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) February 17, 2021
Media Matters, you say? Thanks for reminding me.
Jesus, but he was a horrible, repulsive, nasty little man, the primordial archetype of the modern Republican.
For more than 30 years, Limbaugh’s show helped to set the agenda for hosts across the country, and it’s not clear who is likely to succeed him as talk radio’s unifying voice.
One possible replacement may ironically be the only Fox News prime-time host without radio experience. Tucker Carlson’s monologues are already frequently cited by right-wing radio hosts, and his emphasis on culture war topics — particularly his xenophobic, anti-trans, and misogynistic content — aligns well with standard talk radio fare.
But even Carlson is unlikely to match the hold Limbaugh had on a now-declining industry. Today, conservative talk radio is just one facet of a much larger right-wing media ecosystem, where television hosts and conservative writers all sound somewhat like Limbaugh. This ecosystem controls a political party whose latest president regularly sought the counsel of Fox News hosts.
Even without one of its central architects, a right-wing media machine built on outrage and cruelty will continue to deceive its audience long into the future.
He’s dead, but what’s still horrifying is that there are still right-wingers who praise him and think he was “funny”. That says a lot about his sycophants.
It seems to be the considered opinion of a super-smart ex-president with a great brain, a lot of Republican senators, and a host of well-paid lawyers, so it must be true!
So all I have to do is rob my bank and dart out the door, and then I’m scot-free? If I try it, you’ll all quote Ayn Rand and various billionaires in my defense, right?
Rebecca Watson makes a good point in this video, that we shouldn’t overlook the failings of those who put themselves in the same group as us. She takes a few potshots at familiar targets, like Bill Maher, but focuses in on Naomi Wolf. Wolf is terrible — I remember wondering what the hell was wrong with Bill Clinton, that he appointed her to be his advisor on women’s issues. For me, it was the first crack in the facade, and hoo boy, did all the flaws in that man come pouring out.
Lately, Wolf has come out as a dangerous proponent of pandemic pseudoscience, as Rebecca explains.
Also noteworthy is this comment from Lipzig Schweitzer.
Just as an aside, my younger brother is a deeply conservative Mormon public school English teacher, and he uses Naomi Wolfe books as a teaching tool for how stupid the feminist movement is. The admin let it fly because they think, due to her “reputation” that he’s teaching the exact opposite lesson. She’s being weaponized against you, THAT’S how stupid she is and how crucial community self- policing is. And believe me, he’s not smart enough to come up with this lesson plan on his own, someone he’s listening to told him to do this because on his own, he’d never have even known her name. He did not seek out controversial characters to demonize
That’s how bad Naomi Wolf is.
You know what’s nice? My in-box and Twitter feed are no longer filled with noise about Donald Trump. I have no interest in watching the current impeachment proceedings, which will be full of posturing airheads and bad lawyers making arguments in bad faith. I get a brief distillation of all stupid chatter in the morning, and then I ignore it the rest of the day. It feels good!
So the impeachment trial began yesterday. It went badly for the ol’ orange asshole, with the senate deciding that sure, they could go ahead and impeach him. That’s about it. Now the question is whether they’ll actually do it.
The Democrats are decisive (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write): yes, they will.
The Republicans are in a dither. What they do is not going to depend on their conscience, or an objective assessment of the evidence, but entirely on the basis of the polling, because they’re all amoral conniving cowards. A substantial number of Republican voters are still in the Cult of Trump, so they’re afraid that voting to impeach will trigger an angry backlash against them…but at the same time, they’re concerned that the ongoing prosecution is going to make such a strong public case that they’ll get a backlash if they don’t vote to impeach. Squirm, you creeps, squirm. I hope they’re all sweating profusely right now.
As for Trump himself, the reports are mixed. The New York Times says he’s furious.
On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the angriest, Mr. Trump “was an eight,” one person familiar with his reaction said.
And while he was heartened that his other lawyer, Mr. Schoen, gave a more spirited performance, Mr. Trump ended the day frustrated and irate, the people familiar with his reaction said.
I’m a terrible person who likes to hear that the ex-president is suffering, but it is the NYT, and I do not trust the NYT. The Washington Post says something different: he’s sanguine.
But Trump’s seeming quietude, said one confidant who recently spoke with the former president, is less the result of newfound discipline and more a consequence of Twitter’s decision to ban Trump, who no longer has an instant public forum to blast out his latest grievances.
Both papers conclude, unfortunately, that the impeachment is not likely to succeed, so maybe he’s got good reason to relax. About the trial, at least. His financial empire is crumbling around him and he’s got a future of lawsuits to shred his declining years.
That’s a wrap. Now I have to think about genetics all day long.
Can someone explain this to me, because I don’t get it.
It’s from a right-wing Christian site, which explains how they don’t understand the words patriotism, socialism, and racism, but why is there a woman in a bikini pointing out the big stupid sign? And do they really think their critics confuse racism and patriotism?
There’s a guy I follow on Facebook — regrettably, he’s an old, old friend, but he’s gone off the cliff edge with conservative BS — who was recently outraged that the government spends $40 million a year on the retirement pensions for politicians. I don’t know where he got that number, but it’s not scary at all, since there are probably a few thousand retired politicians who had contracts for a retirement package. Numbers add up!
But here’s what he isn’t complaining about, the conservative estimate of the cost of Trump’s lies.
Those are only the expenses since he lost the election and started vomiting up lies to throw the nation into chaos — he had 4 years before that where he bled us dry with nonsense, and we still have to deal with the legacy of all the garbage he littered on our government.
So yeah, $40 million in retirement expenses sounds cheap to me. I wouldn’t squeak if we were coughing up $400 million in legit retirement costs. I wonder if my poor deluded old friend has retired, and whether he thinks he is entitled to social security and a pension or a 401K, and how he’d feel if we declared him old and useless so we can take that money away?
Donald Trump has been kicked out of the Screen Actors Guild! Boo-hoo. You can tell it burns him, though, since he felt compelled to write back with a “you can’t fire me, I quit!” letter. It’s so pathetic and petty, just like Donald himself.
I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my
union membership. Who cares! [You do, Donald, you do]
While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2,
Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history,
The Apprentice – to name just a few! [He just has to pat himself on the back. His little cameos were’t that impressive]
I’ve also greatly helped the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with not much
time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC
and Fake News CNN, among many others. [He thinks that because he was such an asshole that news agencies had to report on all of his lies, he deserves credit for their work]
Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as
a union. Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me – besides collecting
dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas – as evident by your massive
unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors, who even recorded a video asking, “Why
isn’t the union fighting for me?”
These, however, are policy failures. Your disciplinary failures are even more egregious.
I no longer wish to be associated with your union.
As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resignation from SAG-AFTRA. You have done
nothing for me.
Poor baby. Even better, though, is SAG-AFTRA’s reply, which is short and sweet.
It’s so nice to see every little cut delivered as Trump falls.
Oh, get stuffed with your ludicrous “free speech” whining.
It’s not all good news, though.
The House of Representatives has voted to strip Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, following uproar over her past incendiary comments and apparent support of violence against Democrats.
Thursday’s vote was 230-199, with 11 Republicans joining with all Democrats to back the resolution.
Almost 200 Republicans refused to condemn her remarks, and thought it was just fine to have a treasonous conspiracy theorist serving their agenda. This was just a vote to kick her off the budget and education committees, not to repudiate her and kick her out of congress, as she deserves.
I’d like to see Cruz and Hawley booted off their committees, but I predict nothing will be done there.
The Republican party really must be destroyed.
