Christ, capitalism, and crime go hand in hand

When you’re watching the Super Bowl, do try to avoid the commercials. Not only is it rampant capitalism, but they’re propaganda for odious organizations. Take those “Jesus gets it” commercials:

The Servant Foundation has plunged millions of dollars into its ‘He Gets Us’ ads, which paint Jesus as an “influencer” who was “cancelled” for standing up for his beliefs. The controversial adverts were shown at this year’s Super Bowl and have been plastered across billboards in the United States over the last year.

But analysis of financial accounts by openDemocracy shows over the last five years the Servant Foundation has also grown to become the main identifiable source of funding for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), described as an anti-LGBTIQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) – an allegation it denies.

You already know that if they can afford a Super Bowl ad, they’re a poisonous organization. They’re pushing Jesus, which is about as awful as pushing heroin. Here’s a local Minnesota example, you’ve probably got these creeps in your neighborhood, too.

A former minister at a large Owatonna church has been charged with multiple felonies after a woman reported he sexually assaulted her while she was a student at the school associated with the church – and again as an adult.A second woman reported he had attempted sexual contact with her, also when she was a student.

Luverne Zacharias, 46, of Medford, faces one count each of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, as well as two counts each of third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, as reported by the Steele County Times.

Zacharias was a teacher and principal at the school; the victim was about 14 years of age when the inappropriate touching began, the complaint says.

The woman told police that Zacharias would meet her in the basement of the school when she was sent to get milk for her classmates at lunchtime and during breaks. He allegedly touched her breasts and genitals over her clothing at first, doing it at least once every day, the woman said.

Zacharias would give her notes, tell her she was beautiful and that she reminded him of his daughter. He also reportedly told her he couldn’t control himself around her, and that she was “like my kryptonite.”

She reminded him of his daughter…so what’s he doing molesting her? It just got worse and worse from there.

The girl also reported Zacharias…to other church authorities. Doesn’t she know that their first thought would be to protect their own?

Court documents state the victim reported the alleged assault to pastors Tim and Cherrie Peterson. They told her they would hold Zacharias accountable for his actions, but told the victim to “think about Zacharias’s family and kids and what they might go through if she went to law enforcement,” the complaint says.

Keep that in mind when the lying Christian ads appear on your screen. Jesus chose the rapists and child molesters.

I’m Still Here! Let’s Bitch About American Healthcare!

Hi guys! I’m alive!

I’ve had a few weird moments, definitely a little up and down, but I have not relapsed. I’ve been hiding because I didn’t think I could trust myself going through med changes, but I’m not going to wait around any more. I’ve been nervous thinking the shit is going to hit the fan at any time, but I know that’s no way to live. I need to enjoy the good days and be grateful that I’m doing so well despite all the shit I’ve been through. 

Whew. It’s good to be back.

Now I need a moment to complain about the American healthcare system. While dealing with my mental health issues, I have also been dealing with physical issues. I’ve had knee pain for months. Some days are better than others, but it always hurts. 

After a few doctor’s appointments, I was referred to physical therapy even though we really didn’t know what was wrong. My health insurance made me go through several weeks of physical therapy before they would pay for an MRI. It was really painful. 

Three weeks ago I finally got the MRI and there are several things wrong with my knee including a meniscus tear. It felt like physical therapy made my problems worse and I was really angry that I had to jump through hoops just to get an MRI – to finally get answers. It just all felt unnecessary. Had my insurance covered an MRI earlier, I could have been feeling better by now. 

I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on the 26th.

Dealing with insurance companies is absolute shit, and it’s not just my insurance company, my doctor said any insurance company would have made me go through the same thing. 

Are you up for a bitch fest? Tell me your American healthcare horror stories. I’m injured, I’m broke, I’m running out of patience, and I know I’m not alone. 

Empirical data that shows people finding happiness is good news

We can make all kinds of arguments about what defines or doesn’t define a sex, but it really doesn’t matter — especially when it’s from a stock vanilla cishet person like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, or me. What we should be discussing is the lived experience of trans people who are better acquainted with the actual life in a trans body.

So they did.

The report, called the 2022 US Trans Survey, presents an early look at findings from a survey of more than 92,000 people who identify as binary or nonbinary transgender adults. It is the first such report since the NCTE produced a survey of more than 28,000 individuals in 2015. Individuals were asked a variety of more than 600 possible questions. No respondent received all questions.

Importantly, the transgender survey is large but is not random. Although surveyors weighted the responses to try to account for biases, people who took the survey might still be unrepresentative of transgender people living in the US as a whole.

The report found that 94% of transgender individuals who live at least part of the time in a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth – in other words, who “transitioned” – were either “a lot” (79%) or “a little more satisfied” (15%) with their lives. Nearly 98% of respondents were receiving some kind of hormone replacement therapy, which made them “a lot” (84%) or “a little” (14%) more satisfied with their lives.

I don’t think the report will convince the opposition to shut the fuck up, unfortunately. I predict two responses. One, they’ll focus on the 6% (although it’s actually less than 1% who were unhappy after hormone treatments or surgery) and shriek about their ruined lives while ignoring the majority of successful outcomes, and not bothering to ask what went wrong in that minority. Two, they’ll point to the study as proof that they were right all along, see how seductive the trans lifestyle is? I remember how the anti-gay people moaned about how appealing the self-indulgent, self-gratifying, sybaritic gay life was, and how we must ban all gay references to keep our children from falling into the trap. This is the same thing. They’re going to call this study trans propaganda and ignore the actual data.

The one thing I can say as a stock vanilla cishet person is that no, I’m not going to suddenly shed all my sexual preferences and change my interests because I see somebody else having a good time. I’m going to be happy for them. What’s the matter with those people who’d rather others were unhappy?

GOP: The party that can’t count straight

The US House of Representatives is structured so as to give the speaker, who is selected by the majority party, almost total control over what legislation comes to the floor for a vote. This means that you are almost guaranteed that when the speaker put a bill before the house, it is because they are confident that they have the votes to pass it. When Nancy Pelosi was the speaker, she was an accurate vote counter and never lost a vote.

But yesterday, the GOP lost a vote. This was not over a trivial issue but a vote to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A major goal of the GOP is to impeach someone, anyone, as revenge for the two impeachments of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) but their efforts to do so against Joe Biden are floundering because they cannot find any grounds for dong so. They decided on Mayorkas because he deals with border security and accusing him of failing to protect the country advances that agenda too. Not everyone in the GOP was happy with the idea of frivolously using the impeachment process this way and three of the GOP members said that they planned to vote vote against the measure but the speaker went ahead with the planned vote anyway.
[Read more…]

Nancy Pelosi makes baseless charges against those calling for ceasefire in Gaza

The Democratic former speaker of the House is one of those who gives unquestioned support to Israel whatever it does. Norman Solomon says that her latest statement shows how out of touch she is with popular sentiment on what is happening in Gaza.

“The former House speaker said, without offering evidence, that she believed some protesters are connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” NPR reported.

“For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message,” Pelosi said. “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia. And I say that having looked at this for a long time now.”

Like Congress as a whole, Pelosi refuses to acknowledge that so many Americans are protesting because the Israeli armed forces have been engaged in mass murder in Gaza for more than three and a half months. And an inconvenient truth is that polling shows a large majority of people in the United States favor a ceasefire, including over 70 percent of young voters who say they disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. 

Pelosi is hardly unusual on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan loyalty to Israel has been the political reflex, with few exceptions. But Pelosi is notably servile to Israel.
…

But there’s also another key aspect of Pelosi’s nonsensical yet calculated smear effort. Biden’s poll numbers have kept dropping, most recently while so many Americans – especially those whose votes he’ll need this fall – find his support for the Gaza slaughter repugnant. Grasping at straws, Pelosi evidently hopes for some political benefit by casting blame on Russia for how Biden’s deference to Israel has met with strong public opposition and erosion of support for re-election.
…

Like President Biden and so many others in the political establishment, Nancy Pelosi cannot imagine breaking with the murderous Israeli government and pursuing a foreign policy of peace instead of nonstop U.S. efforts to dominate as much of the world as possible.

Money talks but it can also shut people up

It has been three days since the jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in the defamation suit brought by her against serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) and you may have noticed something strange. It is silence from SSAT. He has not mentioned her by name since the verdict. SSAT’s typical reaction to anything adverse is to fire off a series of angry posts on his social media site at everyone and everything he perceives is against him, and use those attacks to raise money. But not this time. Even many of his most his vociferous allies have gone quiet.

Some of Trump’s critics said they weren’t surprised that many of his defenders chose to keep an arm’s length from the fallout. This wasn’t a case about classified documents, or an effort to keep him off the ballot. The jury’s award came for remarks Trump made about Carroll in response to her rape accusation.

“It’s his one legal case that no Republican gives a damn about because it doesn’t fit with their narrative that the Democrats are using the justice system to prevent him from running for office,” said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh — who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020. “Which is bullshit. But this one is just about Trump’s personal behavior. It’s separate.”

[Read more…]

Trump ordered to pay Carroll $83 million

The jury in the trial took only about two hours to come back with a verdict that said that serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) has to pay her $83 million. It consists of $7.3m in compensatory damages, $11m to repair her reputation, and $65m in punitive damages. He has, of course, said that he will appeal.

The punitive damages are to make SSAT shut up.

Even on Fox News, a rightwing network generally supportive of the former president, John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general, saw nothing but bad news.

“The whole point of these unprecedented damages is to tell Donald Trump to shut up,” Yoo said.“You could think of it this way: every time Donald Trump wants to insult [E] Jean Carroll, he’s gonna have to write a $40m check for each sentence. That’s how bad this is.

“I can’t believe his lawyers haven’t succeeded in just telling him, ‘Campaign for president, run for president, make your accusations about a two-tiered justice system. But leave this alone.’”

It looks like the antics of SSAT inside and outside the courtroom that so irritated the judge did not endear him to the jury either. Neither did the obnoxious behavior of his lawyer Alina Habba who seemed to think that her audience was the MAGA cult instead of the nine people in the jury box.

In a recent interview with some MAGA-friendly person, Habba was asked whether she would like to be pretty or smart. She instantly replied that she would like to be pretty because you can fake being smart. Well, maybe some people can fake being smart, but she is clearly not one of them. For example, on Monday, she told the judge that she was feeling unwell and had been exposed to people with Covid and asked that the proceedings for the next day be canceled. It was duly done. But then on Tuesday evening, she was seen at a victory party in New Hampshire following the primary election. Judges do not like lawyers lying to them and she is lucky that he did not reprimand her for that.

Observers were astounded at the level of her incompetence, down to basic knowledge of courtroom proceedings.

After the verdict, Habba sounded off to the media. She is mad because the judge did not allow her to re-litigate the issue of assault that the first jury had already decided.

Carroll’s lawyer nails her description of Trump

In her closing arguments to the jury yesterday, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan pretty much nailed it in her description of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) and why the jury should award her hefty damages.

At the end of her closing, Roberta Kaplan urged jurors to hold Trump accountable – and that the only way to make him follow the law and stop defaming Carroll would be a hefty penalty.

“At the first trial between Ms Carroll and Mr Trump … Donald Trump didn’t even bother to show up,” Kaplan said. But at this trial, where the issue is money, Trump decided to attend, she noted.

“What does that mean? It means that the one thing Donald Trump cares about is money,” she said. “While Donald Trump may not care about the law, while he certainly does not care about the truth, he does care about money.

“The question for you as a jury is this: given Donald Trump’s insistence on continuing to defame Ms Carroll and considering his immense wealth, how much will it take to make him stop?

“He thinks the rules that govern everyone else don’t apply to him,” Kaplan added.

“You actually have the opportunity, maybe even the responsibility, to put an end to this right now with this verdict by requiring Donald Trump to pay an amount of money large enough for him – and I repeat, large enough for him – that it will finally make him stop.

“Now is the time to make him pay for it and now is the time to make him pay for it dearly.”

SSAT views money as a measure of a person’s worth which is why he consistently inflates the amount of his own wealth, as was seen in his other trial for fraud that was brought by New York’s attorney general Letitia James. Taking SSAT’s dubious claims of his own ‘immense wealth’ at face value in order to suggest that a large penalty was necessary to deter him in future was a nice touch by Kaplan.