Marriage Equality Reduces Teen Suicides.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Wenig.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Wenig.

A new study reveals something remarkable: marriage equality cuts down on teen suicide. This shows just how much social justice issues matter, and that they can be, all too often, a matter of life or death. LGB teens are prone to suicide, given that they often find themselves with no support system, no safety net, and see a bleak future in which they can all too easily envision never being accepted, and never having the same human rights as other people.

A new study found some stunning results: After same-sex marriage became legal on a state level, the rate at which young people attempted suicide in that state dropped significantly.

Published this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, the new study used data from the hundreds of thousands of students who participated in the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) between 1999 and 2015. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, and Boston Children’s Hospital looked at 32 different states that legalized same-sex marriage in that span of time and found a consistent drop in teen suicide attempts in each state after marriage equality arrived.

Overall, the suicide rate attempt among all high school students dropped 7 percent in the year after marriage equality arrived in a state. For students who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or who were still questioning their orientation — a group whom the suicide attempt rate is much higher — the drop-off in suicide attempts was 14 percent after the arrival of marriage equality.

Because the effect was specific to each state as it legalized marriage equality, it cannot be dismissed as mere correlation. In fact, during the same span of time, suicide rates in the country were actually increasing across almost all age groups.

[…]

Regardless, the study offers a profound addition to the wealth of research already documenting the impact of what psychologists call “minority stress.” For example, a study published earlier this month in Australia found that LGB people who had strong social support and affirmation had normative rates of depression and anxiety, while only those who experienced rejection or had past experiences of trauma experienced higher rates. Several other studies in the U.S. have found that simply living in more conservative communities can have a negative impact.

Republicans, who so often tout themselves as being so very “pro-life”, but could not care less about the lives or health of women, and support the death penalty, are also staunchly against marriage equality. The fact that equality helps to maintain life is one which will, no doubt, not sway them in the least. For all their claims of pro-lifery, they don’t seem to be the least bit concerned with LGBT people dying. It’s rather difficult to not get the feeling they are cheering behind closed doors, so I imagine this news will be met with a renewed determination to kill marriage equality. Seeing as the Trump Regime is all set to rescind the Obama administration’s guidance protecting transgender students, which is little more than a license to harass and bully transgender kids, I’m sure an uptick in violence against transgender people and suicides will be seen. This is not a good. This is evil, absolutely evil, repulsive behaviour that any decent person should be ashamed of, and be willing to fight against, tooth and nail. Once again, the rethuglicans prove they are people who are pro-death, and they will go to any length to ostracize those they deem subhuman, and hope they will be driven to death, one way or another.

Full stories at Think Progress: one, two.

Genius! A La Wile E. Coyote.

w

This is a nuclear weapon. Note the size.

marijuana-floating-on-ocean

These are bales of weed. Note the size.

So, you’re a superuberbad villain, with deeply maleficent intent. You just need a genius way to smuggle a nuke into the States, so you can conveniently get it to your chosen location and detonate it. No need to trouble yourself with the specifics of how this villainy could be carried out, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has you covered! See, you just need to hide the nuke in a bale of weed, then sail right through those incredibly porous borders! Why no one would ever think to check that out, no. Honestly, what in the fuck is wrong with people, that they freely elect such compleat idiots? FFS.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), whose district is just over 100 miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, referenced the illicit drug trade in a discussion Wednesday with CNN’s Brianna Keilar on President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.

“The reality, Brianna, is that we have to measure all of the costs, ancillary and otherwise, and make the best decision that we can. But I can suggest to you that there are national security implications here for a porous border,” Franks said. “We sometimes used to make the point that if someone wanted to smuggle in a dangerous weapon, even a nuclear weapon, into America, how would they do it? And the suggestion was made, ‘Well, we’ll simply hide it in a bale of marijuana.’”

Pretty sure most smugglers are considerably smarter than Mr. Franks and whoever made the “hide it in weed!” suggestion. As for weed, eh, given the sheer amount of domestically grown weed, why bother with the imported stuff?

This was not Frank’s first reference to a nuclear weapon traveling across the border in a bale of marijuana. In fact, he raised the possibility on the floor of the U.S. House during an Aug. 2, 2012 speech, according to his website.

“Specifically imagine for a moment, Mr. Speaker, the scenario of Hezbollah, one of Iran’s terrorist proxies, gaining possession of just two nuclear warheads and bringing them across the border into the United States concealed, say, in bales of marijuana,” he said, “then transporting them into the heart of two different, crowded, unnamed cities. Then calling and telling the White House exactly when and where the first one will be detonated, and then following through 60 seconds later.”

Right. That’s Wile E. genius if I ever heard it. Via TPM.

Go Fuck Yourself, Maher.

bill-maher-milo-yiannopoulos

Bill Maher is now taking credit for the downfall of Milo Yiannopoulos. Yep. Having him on HBO, playing nice and whispering sweet talk at those pearls, that led to the current state of affairs. Had nothing at all to do with the video of Yiannopoulos talking about sex with underage kids, oh no, even though that is the line crossed, according to CPAC and Simon & Schuster. Supposedly, the resignation from Breitbart was all Milo’s idea, but there’s good reason to be skeptical over that one. The one thing which is absolutely certain? Bill Maher had absolutely nothing to do with it. Go fuck yourself, you bloated bag of shit.

Full story here. For an outstanding look from the inside, read this article.

Pastor: Traumatized by Trump.

Trump speaks to supporters at a rally in Melbourne, Florida (screen grab).

Trump speaks to supporters at a rally in Melbourne, Florida (screen grab).

A Florida pastor has recounted his experience at the Trump rally in Melbourne, Florida. To say he wasn’t impressed is quite the understatement. His child was traumatized.

Joel Tooley, lead pastor at First Church Of The Nazarene in Melbourne, said that both he and his daughter were traumatized after attending President Donald Trump’s rally in Florida over the weekend.

In a lengthy Facebook post written after Trump’s Saturday rally, Tooley explains that he had not supported the Republican presidential candidate but he felt that attending a presidential speech would be a good civics lesson for his daughter.

[…]

“People were being ushered into a deeply religious experience…and it made me completely uncomfortable,” the pastor recalls. “I felt like people were here to worship an ideology along with the man who was leading it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the song per se – it was this inexplicable movement that was happening in the room. It was a religious zeal.”

Tooley describes First Lady Melania Trump’s reading of the Lord’s Prayer as “theatrical and manipulative.”

“I can’t explain it, but I felt sick,” he notes. “People across the room were reciting it as if it were a pep squad cheer. At the close of the prayer, the room erupted in cheering. It was so uncomfortable.”

After the president began speaking, Tooley says that Trump fans squared off against protesters in the crowd.

“Two ladies in front of them began seething and screaming in their face while shaking their Trump signs at [the protesters],” he writes. “As they continued chanting, the people around them became violently enraged. One angry man grabbed the lady’s arm – that’s when I went into action. I barged through the crowd and yelled at them to back off.”

“My 11-year-old daughter was clinging to my arm, sobbing in fear,” Tooley reveals. “The two angry, screaming ladies looked at me, both of them raised their middle finger at me in my face and repeatedly yelled, ‘F*#% YOU!’ Repeatedly.”

These are the people who think they comprise American greatness. I imagine they would have pressed assault charges on anyone who dared to to flip the bird at their little darlings.

I raised my voice and calmly said, “These ladies have the right to do what they are doing and they are harming no one; this is America and they a right to express themselves in this way. They are harming no one.” A couple of other people around me stepped in and supported me in protecting them as a barrier, as well.

My daughter was shaking in fear as she clung to me. The one man behind the protesters shoved himself forward, grabbed the lady by the arm and screamed with multiple expletives, “I’m going to take you out! This is my president and nobody has the right to disrespect him and nobody has the right to keep me from hearing him!”

Ah, the amazing reasonableness of the Trump fanatic. Funny how they didn’t notice all the people yelling and making noise were the Trump supporters.

Tooley states that he eventually lost track of what Trump was saying because of the ongoing scuffles.

“My kid was shaken – she had just seen some of the worst of humanity,” the pastor laments in his Facebook post. “But, at the end of the day, what I felt from his leadership in this experience was actually horrifying. There was palpable fear in the room. There was thick anger and vengeance. He was counting on it.”

You can read the whole Facebook post here. So, we don’t just have to be concerned with a maniacal, unstable tyrant, the possibility of nuclear war, and fascism, but there’s a cultish thing going, too. Times continue to be interesting. What I wouldn’t give for uninteresting times.

Oh, Now He’s Against Anti-Semitism.

20573036330_8f9500376a_b

© DonkeyHotey.

Nearly a dozen Jewish community centers reported phoned-in bomb threats on Monday, following a disturbing uptick in anti-Semitic scares and harassment in recent months. Yet President Trump — known for immediately tweeting his outrage over international Islamic attacks and threats on U.S. soil before all the facts are known— stayed silent until Tuesday morning.

[…]

“Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in response to a request by NBC News reporter Peter Alexander on Monday. “The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.”

But the president had not said such actions “are unacceptable” as of Monday night. In fact, it took until Tuesday morning for the president to respond to the wave of anti-Semitic threats at all. During remarks from the National Museum of African American History, Trump said, “Anti-Semitism is horrible, and it’s going to stop.” Trump also said he would never pass up an opportunity to denounce anti-Semitism.

“Wherever I get a chance, I do it,” Trump said.

That’s just a lie though, isn’t it, Donny? A bigly, yuuuuuuge lie. You couldn’t even be arsed to mention it on Holocaust Remembrance Day. I’d call that a chance, a yuuuuge chance, actually, to address anti-Semitism.

In a memorable exchange with Jewish reporter Jake Turx during a press conference last week, Trump interrupted Turx’s question about the wave of anti-Semitic threats, saying it was “not a fair question” and demanding that the reporter “sit down.” Trump went on to defend himself as “the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

Yes, well, the Tiny Tyrant is always the best, most, or least of something or other. So, as usual, that’s saying nothing at all.

The administration has been largely silent when it comes to attacks on Jews (and Muslims) thus far. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House released a presidential proclamation that omitted the words “Jewish” and “Jews.” Prominent anti-Semites like Richard Spencer and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke endorsed Trump’s candidacy and presidency, as ThinkProgress previously reported. And his supporters have long harassed and sent death threats to Jewish reporters.

The president and other administration officials have been quick to condemn horrific incidents that do not exist, however. Trump recently suggested that something horrific had taken place in Sweden, allowing him to justify plans to restrict travel to the United States.

On Tuesday, Steve Goldstein, the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, issued a harsh critique of Trump’s denouncement, saying that the president’s “sudden acknowledgement of Anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration.”

“His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record,” Goldstein said. “Make no mistake: The Anti-Semitism coming out of this Administration is the worst we have ever seen from any Administration.

Think Progress has the full story.

The Rich Are Different: Buying Access to the President.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. CREDIT: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. CREDIT: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File.

It’s a very old saying, the rich are different. It’s true, they are, by virtue of money, and the power money purchases. If they are different as people, it’s because money allows them to be arrogant, compassion free, unethical assholes without consequence. No, not every rich person on the planet is a truly shitty person, but they are rare birds in the flock of the rich. Rich people are accustomed to getting their way, using the time-honored method of greasing palms and opening doors with wedges of cash and promises. Now that we have someone in the white house who wouldn’t know an ethical behaviour if it bit him on the balls, the slime trail of the rich is visible from space.

According to a New York Times piece published on Saturday, Trump’s son Eric told the newspaper that Mar-a-Lago admits about 20 to 40 new members each year. Considering that Mar-a-Lago raised its initiation fees to $200,0000 after Trump’s presidential inauguration, that’s up to $8 million dollars coming in from new members per year. And that doesn’t include taxes or the $14,000 charge for each member’s annual dues.

Trump and his closest advisers have repeatedly denied there’s anything improper about Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach. They say it doesn’t amount to paying for access to President Trump because the club is social, not political. And they argue the powerful people who pay for membership have other avenues of communicating with the president.

That’s an argument? I fail to see it.

“He has not and will not be discussing policy with club members,” White House spokesperson Holly Hicks said in a statement provided to the New York Times.

But reporting from the Times and from Politico suggests otherwise.

Real estate executive Bruce Toll told the New York Times that he does occasionally discuss national policy issues — specifically, Trump’s plans to increase spending on infrastructure projects — when he sees Trump at Mar-a-Lago. According to Toll, Trump sometimes receives advice from other club members about what he should do policy-wise.

Developer Richard LeFrak, a close friend of Trump’s, recounted a discussion at Mar-a-Lago last weekend during which Trump asked him for help with the proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump was unhappy with the projected cost of the wall, wanted to come up with a way to build it more cheaply, and suggested that the head of the Department of Homeland Security would give LeFrak a call to talk about it.

And according to an audio tape obtained by Politico from one of Trump’s New Jersey clubs that was also published on Saturday, Trump has asked his club members for their guidance selecting his cabinet appointees.

“We were just talking about who we [are] going to pick for the FCC, who [are] we going to pick for this, who we gonna accept — boy, can you give me some recommendations?” Trump said to a member, according to the tape.

[…]

This weekend, Trump is planning to use Mar-a-Lago to meet with potential candidates he’s considering to fill the National Security Adviser position recently vacated by Michael Flynn.

Of course, it’s not unusual for world leaders to surround themselves with rich and powerful people. But it is unique to be able to pay $200,000 for entry into a private club where multiple sources close to the president have confirmed he’s at his most relaxed and ready to mingle.

Applications to Mar-a-Lago have surged since Trump won the presidency.

Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have demanded more information about who holds a membership at Mar-a-Lago and how closely they have been vetted. The urgency increased after last weekend, when Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed a potential North Korea crisis in full view of the diners and waiters at his club.

Trump has spent the past three weekends at Mar-a-Lago even though he promised during the campaign that he would “rarely leave the White House.”

The system of government in the States has always been susceptible to corruption, it’s not the most well thought out system. I would say that no sitting president has ever been as open to corruption, and so willing to embrace it in full view of the public at large as the Tiny Tyrant. Donny isn’t capable of governing, he isn’t even capable of running a proper business, and hates being in the white house, acting as president. No, he only feels capable when he’s immersed in the foul cronyism of the monied, who he can slither over to for ‘advice’ on how to president, as he is utterly bankrupt when it comes to the little things, like intelligence, planning, and knowledge.

Via Think Progress.

Right Now, Trump Is…

From a Native American's perspective, Trump is acting more like the Founding Fathers than Hitler.

From a Native American’s perspective, Trump is acting more like the Founding Fathers than Hitler.

Donald J. Trump has been called a lot of things. A bigot. A misogynist. A racist.

And I agree with these descriptions of the new president. He’s earned those titles, especially given all he has spewed over the decades about women and racial minorities, and just about anyone he disagrees with, or who disagree with him.

But Mr. Trump is also unoriginal.

Many of the controversial policies and plans he’s setting into motion have already been executed in this country.

Think about it.

Mr. Trump has vowed to evict millions of undocumented individuals. Brown folks, mostly.

But, of course, this wouldn’t be the first time a sitting U.S. president would forcibly and eagerly evict the indigenous peoples of this continent from their homes.

One of the first of such evictions in this country’s shady history occurred in the 19th century, back in 1830, when president Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which coercively extirpated thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands.

The brutal act prompted the “Trail of Tears,” a vicious campaign that resulted in a forced westward march of men, women, and children through ice, snow, and freezing temperatures. More than four thousand Native Americans died during that rotten trudge.

“But Mexicans aren’t Indians,” a white man recently said to me at an eatery on the north side of Denver, Colorado, during an impromptu discussion on Trump’s unoriginality.

[Read more…]

“Generals, dictators, we have everything,”

President Donald Trump, living alone inside the White House, often hungers for friendly interaction as he adjusts to the difficult work of governance. At his clubs, he finds what’s missing.

That showed last November at a cocktail and dinner reception celebrating longtime members of his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. Deep into the process of meeting potential Cabinet nominees, the president-elect invited partygoers to stop by the next day to join the excitement.

“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything,” Trump told the crowd, according to an audio tape of his closed-press remarks obtained by POLITICO from a source in the room. “You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.”

For Trump, the “Winter White House” of Mar-a-Lago offers him more than a warm and gilded setting outside of Washington, D.C. — it puts the isolated president back in the mix with his club family, where friends said he feels most like himself.

“So, this is my real group,” Trump said at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, on November 18, according to the audio tape. “These are the people that came here in the beginning, when nobody knew what this monster was gonna turn out to be, right?”

He added: “I see all of you. I recognize, like 100 percent of you, just about.”

[…]

Turning to a longtime club member that night, he said: “We were just talking about who we [are] going to pick for the FCC, who [are] we going to pick for this, who we gonna accept — boy, can you give me some recommendations?”

The supportive crowd ate it up as the relaxed Trump, in his element, gave them a close-up view of how he was setting up the government. “You are the special people,” he told the crowd of about 100 members, who mingled around a sushi station served by a waiter wearing a camouflage “Make America Great Again” cap.

Politico has the full story on this, and it should upset the hell outta people. It upsets me, and it’s fucking infuriating. The only thing that matters to Trump is being the center of attention, and that attention is best when people are paying obscene amounts of money to be one of the Tiny Tyrant’s “friends.” The special people – filthy rich lickspittles. Obviously, the rest of us don’t matter in the flaky crust of Trump’s manufactured reality.

Turmoil and Trouble.

Twitter.

Twitter.

So many Trump supporters think he’s a good businessman, and that’s why they retain a great deal of faith in him, but Trump’s no businessman, never has been. He started out with not a silver spoon, but a whole set. He’s dismissed his trust fund, and the “little” loan of a million bucks from daddy. For reasons beyond my understanding, supporters don’t seem disturbed in the slightest about any of that, or the numerous failed “businesses”, the open frauds, or the lawsuits. This myth of the “good businessman” persists. Trump sucks at business, and he’s not worth what he claims, either, one of the reasons he doesn’t want those tax returns seen by anyone. I’m sure that’s not the only reason.

Bert Spector has an excellent article up at The Conversation, explaining how Trump does not have business chops, in detail. There’s a big difference between being the CEO of a company, answerable not only to a board, but to shareholders as well. Trump has never done that. He has an LLC, which basically allows him to run a family business, which is not answerable to anyone, so there’s no need to do things in the proper manner, at least not until you get caught. When it comes to Trump, he’s been caught, numerous times, and eventually leaks money out in a settlement, then goes right back to scamming again. The article is in-depth, so just a bit here.

Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made much of his business experience, claiming he’s been “creating jobs and rebuilding neighborhoods my entire adult life.”

The fact that he was from the business world rather than a career politician was something that appealed to many of his supporters.

It’s easy to understand the appeal of a president as CEO. The U.S. president is indisputably the chief executive of a massive, complex, global structure known as the federal government. And if the performance of our national economy is vital to the well-being of us all, why not believe that Trump’s experience running a large company equips him to effectively manage a nation?

Instead of a “fine-tuned machine,” however, the opening weeks of the Trump administration have revealed a White House that’s chaotic, disorganized and anything but efficient. Examples include rushed and poorly constructed executive orders, a dysfunctional national security team and unclear and even contradictory messages emanating from multiple administrative spokespeople, which frequently clash with the tweets of the president himself.

Senator John McCain succinctly summed up the growing sentiment even some Republicans are feeling: “Nobody knows who’s in charge.”

So why the seeming contradiction between his businessman credentials and chaotic governing style?

Well for one thing, Trump wasn’t a genuine CEO. That is, he didn’t run a major public corporation with shareholders and a board of directors that could hold him to account. Instead, he was the head of a family-owned, private web of enterprises. Regardless of the title he gave himself, the position arguably ill-equipped him for the demands of the presidency.

If, like me, your understanding of just how businesses work isn’t all that, go have a read, and learn why the whole “I’m a businessman!” rhetoric from Trump is nothing more than another lie.

White House in turmoil shows why Trump’s no CEO.

Devil-Worshiping, Luciferian, Demon-Possessed Maniacs!

Belzebuth ou Belzebub ou Beelzebuth, J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863. Prince of demons, the first in power and crimes after Satan. Cornell University Library.

Belzebuth ou Belzebub ou Beelzebuth, J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863.
Prince of demons, the first in power and crimes after Satan. Cornell University Library.

Rick Wiles has come completely unglued, not that he had far to go in that regard. He’s now floating in Alex Jones territory, doing all he can to keep the pizza place conspiracy alive, although I don’t know why. I’ve lived through two major Satanic Panics, where nationwide devil worship was posited, a massive conspiracy of murder, rape, and sacrifices, oh my! None of this shit actually happened, but plenty of people were happy to believe it, at the behest of those who found it a good way to make money. Books were written, it was on news shows, the whole thing. I guess I get to live through a third one, if these idiotic christian fanatics get their way. I’ll just go with the assumption that this latest is yet another way for these professional liars to fill their coffers. Mr. Wiles and his cohorts should remember that in their chosen mythology, there’s the demon Mammon.

Mammon

Mammon, J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863.

Wiles also can’t shut up about Ms. Clinton:

Claiming that a tweet from Clinton mocking the conspiracy theory was itself proof that the conspiracy is real, Wiles declared that Christians have no idea how many of their elected leaders are part of a “demonic system” that kidnaps children “to be raped, molested and then murdered.”

Our elected leaders, you say. Okay, why not have a close look at our elected leaders? We can start with the current administration. Plenty of material there without all the demonic pizza.

“Hillary Clinton is telling up front what this is all about,” he said. “She’s bragging it’s about Pizzagate. She’s telling them, ‘We took you down, you dared talk about our filthy child molestation and we took you down.’ That’s what she’s saying.” (Flynn’s son has avidly promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, causing him to lose his job in the administration’s transition team, and Flynn himself has also embraced many wildconspiracytheories, including one linking Clinton to “sex crimes [with] children.”)

I’m pretty sure what Ms. Clinton said amounted to “Oh, bullshit!”

Wiles asserted that “devil-worshiping, Luciferian, demon-possessed maniacs” have formed a “criminal cabal [that is] running this nation and much of the world” that allows them to engage in “child trafficking, child molestation, child rape, [and] child murder.”

The Catholic Church is rife with people who molest and rape children. Child trafficking, child molestation, child rape, and child murder is most often done by people who believe in a god, often the christian god. The person who started raping me when I was a child characterized themselves as a good christian. Lots of “good christians” tied up in those activities. Christians are major consumers of porn. I think you should look to your own houses, they are taking on the stink of the Augean Stables.

When the truth is finally revealed, Wiles warned, “there will be mass vomiting in the society when the people find out what these demon-possessed rulers have been doing for decades with children.”

Oh, there’s plenty of vomiting already taking place over the way theists deal with children. Religion allows for some of the very worst child abuse, such as refusing to provide your child with medical care. Or deciding they are demon possessed, and using that as an excuse to beat the shit out of them. Or denying them an education. Or finding some way to justify sexually abusing them. Or filling their heads with visions of eternal anguish and torment at the hands of a psychopathic god.

“Many of the key officials, elected and appointed, and in corporate board rooms and in Hollywood and in New York City, they are part of a global child molestation ring,” said Wiles, who insisted that Clinton is now “relishing in the fact that they brought down General Flynn because he knows what they are and what they’re doing.”

So Hollywood and New York City are the latter day Sodom and Gomorrah? Trump’s from New York, perhaps you ought to cool it with the east coast blame, eh? The Tiny Tyrant might not like that. The only thing that brought down General Flynn was General Flynn. Like everyone else in the current administration, he was in over his head, lacked the requisite experience, and embodied the Peter Principle.

Via RWW.

Excuses, Republican Style.

EXCUSE

The excuses for not doing a damn thing about the current clusterfuck are flying fast, and none of them are remotely good. Think Progress has outlined four of them.

This might be bigger than Watergate. Late Tuesday night, the New York Times reported that U.S. spy agencies had intercepted multiple phone conversations between associates of President Donald Trump and Russian intelligence agents. That means Trump allies may have colluded with a foreign power in an effort to undermine the American democratic process — and that Russia may now have access to the highest levels of American government.

[…]

But lest anyone think GOP lawmakers are dragging their heels, it’s important to note they’ve offered up some good reasons for their desultory approach. Here are some of the best ones.

1. There’s already an ongoing investigation, so a new one would be redundant.

That’s a favorite excuse of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who have now spent months deflecting calls for an independent commission by gesturing at existing committees and U.S. intelligence agencies.

[…]

2. Executive privilege means we can’t get the information we’d need.

Speaking of Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee leader said Tuesday that he would not examine conversations between Flynn and the president because of executive privilege.

[…]

3. Flynn resigned, so the whole thing took care of itself.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) told reporters Tuesday the fact of Flynn’s resignation meant there was no point in scrutinizing the events leading up to it.

“It’s taking care of itself,” he said.

[…]

4. We’re too busy trying to repeal Obamacare.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks a full investigation would get in the way of all the other important work that Congress needs to do — such as cutting people’s health insurance.

“I just don’t think it’s useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party,” said Paul. “We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do like repealing Obamacare if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense.”

All the excuse details are at Think Progress.

The Power Must Not Be Questioned!

Stephen Miller, policy adviser to President-elect Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

Stephen Miller, policy adviser to President-elect Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

As most everyone is aware, Stephen Miller did the media dance all of Sunday, spreading bullshit far and wide. It’s no secret that the Tiny Dictator is displeased with Spicer, and tweeted happily about Miller’s performances. Those performances should disturb the hell out of everyone with a brain and the ability to use it.

Senior White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller raised plenty of eyebrows on Sunday as the perused the talk-show circuit talking about cases of voter fraud (that don’t exist) and Steve Bannon’s lack of involvement in drafting executive orders (which, according to most reports, is the exact opposite of the truth).

But perhaps his most alarming statement was in reference to the federal judges in Washington rejecting President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

“I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government,” Miller told John Dickerson of CBS News, as first noted by Will Saletan of Slate. “The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

Emphasis mine. This is the boot stomp of authoritarianism, the herald of a regime which wants no dissent whatsoever, from anyone. What’s even more frightening is the amount of people willing to go along with it. Elsewhere I wrote: I think there’s a place for the very worst truth of all: it does not take much to normalise the most monstrous of behaviours, and it takes very little indeed to make people willingly join in said behaviours. The time and place is now.

Think Progress has the full story.

Jeers, Sneers and Pants On Fire.

A person shouts to Rep. Jason Chaffetz during his town hall meeting at Brighton High School on Thursday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer.

A person shouts to Rep. Jason Chaffetz during his town hall meeting at Brighton High School on Thursday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer.

The GOP is getting desperate in the face of their constituents, who will not stop protesting, showing up, and demanding answers. The reek of cowardly ordure emanating from repubs is overwhelming at this point, and they are saying the first thing that pops into their vacuous heads in an attempt to make everyone shut up and go away, including the resurrection of the infamous lie about death panels. Yep. There are two stories here, we’ll start with Utah, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says paid protesters were among the thousand-plus people who gave him a raucous, negative reception at a town hall in Salt Lake City on Thursday. The crowd chanted “shame!” and “do your job.”

It was “more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate” than a reflection of the feelings of his constituents, Chaffetz told the Deseret News. … But reporters who were at the event and interviewed attendees say they found no evidence anybody was paid to be there.

No, they wouldn’t, because the “paid protesters” nonsense is nothing more than a lie, and attempt to justify stupid and harmful actions along with evading questions about said actions.

Utah state Rep. Marie Poulson (D-Cottonwood Heights) represents the area around the high school where the town hall was held. She told the Deseret News she believes almost all the protesters were local.

“I’ve heard some of my colleagues (at the Utah Legislature) say here today that they had shipped in liberals to give him a bad time,” she said. “I serve that area and I listen to their frustrations.”

Poulson said she’s heard from many people frustrated that Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has so far seemed unwilling to investigate President Trump’s conflicts of interests.

“I had so many get back to me and say, ‘We’ve been so upset by what Rep. Chaffetz is doing. We want him to investigate equally, with as much zeal as he did in the past, with this current administration,’” Poulson said, referring to Chaffetz’s dogged investigation into the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi incident that occurred under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s watch.

A whole lot of people are wondering what happened to all that violating the constitution, and why no one seems to be concerned about it, let alone doing something about it. The constitution has indeed been violated, to pieces, and the response from the rethugs? ****crickets****

Last Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said “protesting has become a profession now.”

No, it hasn’t. People still have their day jobs, if they are fortunate enough to be employed. All the protests are a sign of just how bad you are fucking up, and people are tired. They are also mad as hell, and not willing to take it anymore.

“They have every right to do that, don’t get me wrong, but I think that we need to call it what it is. It’s not these organic uprisings that we’ve seen through the last several decades — the Tea Party was a very organic movement — this has become a very paid, astroturf-type movement,” Spicer added, providing no evidence for his claims.

The Tea Party was organic because…? Oh right, delusional right wingers, who spent years flinging their shit all over the place in an effort to unseat a legally elected president. And yet, in the case of an illegally elected president, one who is an inexperienced, incompetent megalomaniac bent on destruction, the current grassroots movement is astroturf. Right. That is one of the stupidest things I have heard in a while, and that’s saying something, given the news every day.

Full story at Think Progress. Moving on to Rep. Gus Bilirakis and Bill Akins — chair of Pasco County, Florida’s Republican Party, who tried the “death panels!” defense, which did not work in any way.

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