“It is a total witch hunt!”

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President Donald Trump and the Russian foreign minister used the same phrase to push back against the widening scandal engulfing the White House.

[…]

Trump said in his statement late Thursday that Sessions was “an honest man” who “did not say anything wrong” by denying during his Senate confirmation any contacts with Russian officials — despite having twice met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign.

“He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional,” Trump said in his statement.

There’s a mouthful of double speak. If Sessions spoke more accurately, that would have meant telling the truth. As he didn’t, it was an intentional case of lying, full stop. It’s a simple question: did you meet with so and so? Here’s how to answer that one: yes or no. Could not possibly be more simple. There simply isn’t double speak wiggle room here, regardless of the shit the Tiny Tyrant is pumping out. And if there’s some sort of claim that Sessions just didn’t remember, fine, then that means he’s too damn old for the job, kick him out.

“This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win,” the president continued. “The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled his agreement with Trump early Friday and also denounced the scandal as a “witch hunt.”

“I can cite the media that say all this is very much reminiscent of a witch hunt and the McCarthyism era which we all thought was long gone,” Lavrov said.

This whole narrative is about corrupt liars with Nazi inclinations infesting the white house. This whole narrative is about a puppet regime. This whole narrative, well, this could go on all day. As for this godsdamn witch hunt bullshit, enough! Stop it already. It’s not in the least a witch hunt, has nothing at all in common with a witch hunt. Anyone seen The Inquisition around lately? Seen gibbets with corpses hanging? Stakes with people on fire, greasy oily smoke? No? Then shut the fuck up. Criticism is not a witch hunt. Attempting to find out the truth is not a witch hunt. Asking questions is not a witch hunt. This is the cry of fucking idiots everywhere, and in many cases, the cry of guilty fucking idiots. Oh, and McCarthyism was a commie hunt, just so you know.

Full story here.

Who Needs A Free Press?

Republican Logo (Shutterstock).

Republican Logo (Shutterstock).

President Donald Trump has made a habit of criticizing the media, calling both stories and news outlets he doesn’t like “fake news” and declaring the press the “enemy of the people.” While some bristle at the idea of the president of the United States attacking the fourth estate, it would appear that Trump’s base doesn’t actually think a free press is all that necessary.

In a new poll, only 49 percent of Republicans and people who lean Republican said it was very important for American democracy that “news organizations are free to criticize political leaders.” The poll, which was published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, found that 76 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents said the free press was an important part of maintaining a strong democracy.

That’s a whole lot of people who think an independent press is simply not necessary, and in an age where ignorant celebrities can waltz into the highest office in the land, that’s disturbing. It’s an indicator of just how many people are openly willing to embrace a dictatorship.

Full story here.

Religious Right Myths.

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The myths of the Religious Right, they never, ever die, just keep being recycled in order to shore up claims of christian persecution.

Earlier this week, James Dobson interviewed Kelly Shackleford and Jeremy Dys of the First Liberty Institute about what they see as the vital need for President Trump to protect the religious liberty of Christians in this nation.

Dobson, Dys and Shackleford insisted that conservative Christians are under relentless attack in America and facing increasing persecution, so much so that now even five-year-old girls are being told they cannot pray before eating their lunch at school.

“The attacks are not just increasing, they’re increasing at an exponential level,” Shackleford asserted. “So we’re seeing a lot more attacks, [including] a little five-year-old girl we represented who was actually stopped from paying over her meal and told—quote—’It’s not good to pray in school’.”

“You’re not making that up,” Dobson responded, to which Shackleford replied that this was indeed one of the “real cases that are occurring all over the country.”

Later in the program, when Dys brought up the incident again, Dobson still couldn’t believe that “that’s a real story,” but Dys assured him that it was, saying that he was personally in the room when the young girl was asked to identify the teacher who allegedly told her that she was not allowed to pray because “it’s not good.”

“These are real stories,” Dys insisted.

Okay, everyone counted all the “really trulys” and “real stories!”, right? For sure, absolutely real, the truth, you know, because he was actually there, right there in the room!

If this story sounds familiar, that might be because we covered it back in 2014 after Fox News commentator Todd Starnes wrote about it in one of his columns while conveniently failing to mention that the young girl in question just so happened to be the daughter of the man who was the vice president of sales at the Christian publishing house that was publishing Starnes’ forthcoming book, that just so happened to be about how Christians in America were under attack.

As we noted back then, the school district launched an investigation into the allegations and concluded that there was “no proof whatsoever” that this young girl had ever been told to stop praying. The teacher identified by the student, according to the school, wasn’t even in the cafeteria at the time the event supposedly occurred:

School officials said Wednesday that they can’t find any evidence to suggest that a kindergartner was told not to pray in a Seminole County elementary lunchroom.

But the school district apologized anyway, and a lawyer for the girl’s parents said they are satisfied with the outcome.

“We found zero evidence an incident ever occurred,” said district spokesman Mike Lawrence. “There’s no proof whatsoever.”

…

As for the identified staffer, a school-district investigator has concluded that “there is no way possible that person was anywhere near the lunchroom” that kindergartners and first-graders use. In addition to the student and her family, the district has interviewed staffers, the accused adult and Gabriella’s classmates, Lawrence said.

If there’s one truth the Religious Right does demonstrate, repeatedly, it’s their absolute willingness to lie, because they know there are a whole bunch of smug assholes out there who are so desperate for power over others, they’ll promote whatever shit they are told to swallow.

Via RWW.

Jesus Toast. Again.

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That’s Jesus. Yep. Showed up on a piece of toast, and soon to be on ebay.

WINDHAM, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — A man in Windham believes a holy depiction has graced his piece of buttered toast.

George Maley’s son, Andrew told NEWS CENTER, “I thought [dad] was lying. I thought it was completely fake, and then he showed me and my mind was blown.”

That’s all it takes to blow your mind? There’s a mighty low bar.

Both Andrew and George, believe you can see the face of Jesus in the toast.

George Maley said he made the toast three weeks ago at his home. He was having a particularly hard day, missing loved ones who have passed away, when he saw the image in the toast.

“It was an answer to a lot of questions I had,” George Maley said. “Even if it was just a brief image, it’s still a sign, and it points in the right direction.”

That’s nice, I hope you’re feeling better now.

George Maley is keeping the toast preserved in the freezer.

He’s hoping to sell it on eBay, and use the profits to help his two sons.

Oh, so that’s the godly direction, is it? Jesus sorta shows up on a piece of toast so you can auction it off and make some money. Yeah, that just screams godliness. What if Jesus wanted you to eat the toast, dude?

Via WCSH.

Just One Question…

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Oh, the roiling turmoil, the ducking, the dodging, the calls for resignation, yada, yada, yada. Lots of headlines over Sessions right now. He lied. He committed perjury. Surely, I can’t be the only person not in the least bit surprised. What would surprise me is if any of the current cabinet didn’t lie during confirmation hearings. So, all the headlines:

Sessions lied to Congress about his contacts with Russia during the Trump campaign. Here’s the tape.

Jeff Sessions said that people who commit perjury must be removed from office.

Jeff Sessions’ shifting, deceptive explanations for his secret meetings with Russia.

48 Congressional Democrats call on Attorney General to resign.

US Attorney General Sessions says to recuse himself when ‘appropriate’.

Just one question, and this goes for every person, not just Sessions – why in the fuck were these people ever confirmed in the first place? It would have been nice if all the democrats had been busy doing their damn job then.

A Planned, Personal Thank You.

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Pastor Greg Locke.

Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke is well known for his spittle-flecked invectives over most everything, but mostly over…women. Everyone knows everything is the fault of women, right? One woman made a donation to Planned Parenthood in Mr. Locke’s name, and he had a meltdown over it. He really, really doesn’t want anyone to ever do this again, so…

In the video below, he howls about the fact this thank you card was sent to him and wants to make it crystal clear that he doesn’t in anyway support women’s health care at Planned Parenthood. He warned that such donations in his name are a waste of time and he’ll deposit any thank you cards in the trash. So, whatever you do, don’t waste your time donating to the Planned Parenthood clinic closest to Greg Locke’s church—Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee—and don’t waste your time making sure a thank you card gets mailed to him at:

Greg Locke
c/o Global Vision Bible Church
2060 Old Lebanon Dirt Rd
Mt Juliet, TN 37122

Via Daily Kos.

Fighting for Cultural Survival.

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Everything Anywhere.

A steel blindfold covers the head of a human female figure, yet, unlike Lady Justice, her arms and legs too are bound. Fiber, in an interlocking braid, ties her wrists, wraps her neck and belly, and snakes down to hitch her legs at the ankles. Over her shoulder, however, her hands clutch the means to freedom from her bondage: a soft white blade digs beneath the rope around her neck. Salvation via ceramics.

Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger was born on the Standing Rock Reservation. He is of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, Austrian, and Norwegian heritage. A graduate with honors from The Institute of American Indian Arts, in 2016 he was the recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artists Fellowship Award for artists who “represent the cultural continuity of Native peoples in contemporary contexts, and are the creative voices of their communities.” His work in sculpture is figurative yet imaginative, assembling a panoply of cultural symbols—feathers, bones, textiles—into signifiers all his own. More mythopoeic than surreal, it frames him as a medium, a psychic intermediary between colonizer and Native, ancient tradition and modern understanding, soft clay and hard ceramics.

Nature.

Nature.

 

The Creators Project has an interview with Cannupa Hanska Luger, you can see and read much more!

http://www.cannupahanska.com/

Streets of Gold.

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In the Spring of 2014, after spending a decade working on her photography book, The Oldest Living Things in the World, artist Rachel Sussman came across an image circulating on the internet: a broken bowl that had been restored using gold dust and glue. The bowl was the product of a traditional Japanese art practice called kintsukuroi, which translates to ‘golden repair’ and involves fixing broken pottery with lacquer that’s been mixed or dusted with powdered color pigment. After she was introduced to the technique, Sussman had the idea to take this practice to the streets—literally—by using it to repair cracks in sidewalks. This concept ultimately went on to become the basis of her ongoing series, Sidewalk Kintsukuroi, a contemporary take on the traditional Japanese practice.

You can read and see much more at The Creators Project.

Miyazaki Dreams of Flying.

Joe Hisaishi, the composer who put music to nearly all of Hayao Miyazaki‘s 11 feature films, once remarked in an interview that, “Many of his works have flying scenes and flying has always been the dream of human beings.” In fact, few artists have so successfully captured how the imagination defies gravity than the My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke director. A new film essay by Zach Prewitt gathers some of the 76-year-old director and producer’s finest flights of fancy into a rejuvenating three-minute video.

Miyazaki, who recently announced he was coming out of retirement (again!), explains the paradox of his love for military airplanes and his hatred of war in the video below. While little is known about the narrative of his upcoming film, currently titled Boro the Caterpillar, an ending in which the protagonist transforms into a butterfly and attains flight would align with Miyazaki’s fascination with airships, fantastical insect-winged aircraft, flying castles, and early 20th century aircraft. All of the above and more stretch their wings and take to the skies in Prewitt’s Fandor-produced video.

Via The Creators Project.