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I believe they are all witches

There is no bar too low. A recently elected Republican representative from Florida, Anna Paulina Luna — you know this is a poor start to anything — is squabbling with a competitor, and has sued him to get him to retract defamatory claims.

A letter obtained by The Daily Beast reveals that the Florida Republican retained the high-powered law firm Holland & Knight to go after a would-be rival who leveled a series of outlandish allegations against Luna on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show in the fall.

The letter demands that Matt Tito, a pal of Roger Stone who mulled challenging Luna in a primary, apologize on video for his accusations, which include claims that Luna was fired from a job—and that she had a sexual liaison with Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Oh, what a world…that a show called Bubba the Love Sponge would have any credibility, and that it would even exist, is an indictment of the Florida radio audience. OK, but I agree, an accusation that one had sex with that slimeball Matt Gaetz is grossly insulting. Focus on that…oh wait, she’s more concerned about a different accusation?

“You said that Ms. Luna (a devout Christian) practices witchcraft,” Lisko added.

“You are hereby demanded to publicly and immediately retract each and every defamatory statement you made about Ms. Luna on the show,” Lisko continued. “Because you do not have the ability to distribute your retraction widely on your social media, you are demanded to apologize and retract your statements on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show or by making a retraction and apology video that you send to me that Ms. Luna will distribute via her social media.”

Tito is not backing down. He claims to have evidence that she is a witch based on hearsay statements from “MAGA figures,” so we’re already relying on dubious sources.

Tito claimed he learned about Luna’s purported background from other MAGA figures.

According to Tito, Hispanics for Trump associate Paloma Zuniga said that “Luna practices witchcraft.”

“That is where I heard that from,” Tito said. “She puts spells on people.”

Their reasoning is remarkable.

Another failed California Republican congressional hopeful, Omar Navarro, suggested the unsubstantiated rumors must be accurate because so many people were repeating them.

“It has got to be true to a certain extent,” he told The Daily Beast. “It’s fair enough to say that it’s spread among people in the Republican Party.”

So Ted Cruz actually is the Zodiac killer? All it takes is enough people saying something is true for it to be true? If enough of us simply say that all Republicans are witches, they’ll all be run out of office, or they’ll use their sorcerous powers to enchant the public into believing them.

Who is to say that last possibility isn’t already true? Witches, every one.

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Comments

  1. KG says

    He claims to have evidence that she is a witch based on hearsay statements from “MAGA figures,” so we’re already relying on dubious sources.

    It would be more credible if he could show that she’d turned him into a newt – even if he subsequently got better.

  3. StevoR says

    So .. a literal witch hunt then?

    Or sheer Luna see?

    Time to see if they weigh as much as ducks? ( Moty python ref )

    Of course being Repugliklan I guess its safe to say its white witchcraft huh?

    / Laugh or cry? / Which century we livin’ in again huh?

  5. hemidactylus says

    Don’t blame me. I refused to listen to Bubba the Love Sponge. I vaguely recall it being forced on me via a local rock format station WJRR and I fled. I did enjoy the guilty pleasure of Pat Lynch and Taco Bob back when I listened to radio. At least they played music in addition to often tasteless on air comic hijinks. Back in the day there was also the Ron and Ron show where Larry the Cable Guy got his start. He was from Nebraska and NOT a Florida Man ™.

    Anyway this was one of the more infamous news bits associated with Bubba (cringe):
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker

    Peter Thiel makes a cameo. Uggghh the Hulkster.

    And now we can each go and take a mind shower after being polluted with that imagery.

    So glad I can stream music or podcasts now and not be subjected to corporate radio formatting. Talk is cheap.

  7. dbinmn says

    From Wikipedia: “Maxim selected her as the “Hometown Hottie” for Fort Walton Beach in 2014. Also that year, Luna worked briefly as a waitress at a gentleman’s club in Fort Walton Beach, Florida

    From the movie “Big Daddy”:
    Q: And, for the record, where did you work before you attended medical school?
    A: Hooters.
    Q: No further questions.

  9. Dunc says

    Funnily enough, there probably actually are more people practicing witchcraft now than at any point in history…

  10. says

    “That is where I heard that from,” Tito said. “She puts spells on people.”

    Well, I can certainly believe she has spells.
    Actually, I think a lot of these people have spells. They should probably get it checked out.

  11. raven says

    “That is where I heard that from,” Tito said. “She puts spells on people.”

    Luna has already proved that she isn’t a real witch.

    If she was, she would have put a spell on this guy,Tito, and he would now look like a large green humanoid frog. Who only says nice things about Luna.

    What she could do is state that she will, ‘pray for him”.
    This is xian witchcraft but the xians don’t mind witchcraft as long as it only involves their collection of gods and angels.

  12. robro says

    PZ, you’ll be pleased to know that Rep. Luna has a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from University of West Florida…that is if you can believe what’s in Wikipedia. Given her magic abilities as a witch I’m sure she and her team can pull a George Santos on that information without any difficulty.

    This is also in Wikipedia: “Religiously, Luna identifies as a Messianic Jew, but she has also called herself a Christian.”

  13. moarscienceplz says

    @#12
    UWF is in Pensacola, right next to Alabama. I’m guessing one of the questions on her final exam was, “Name three of the kinds of animals Noah took on the ark”.

  14. KG says

    there probably actually are more people practicing witchcraft now than at any point in history… Dunc@9

    OK, there may be a lot of people practicing, but have they actually got any good at it?

  15. tuatara says

    I find those who think they are practicing witchcraft often confuse there and their. No wonder they’re spells don’t work!

  20. says

    Her biography at Ballotpedia where WP got her college information from now just says she has a Bachelor’s with no mention of a major, so that could be sketchy (or not…no idea…). In any event, the University of West Florida Biology department seems normal (if too industry-oriented).

  22. Erp says

    @12 robro
    “This is also in Wikipedia: “Religiously, Luna identifies as a Messianic Jew, but she has also called herself a Christian.””

    Messianic Jews are Christians. Many are not Jewish by the standards of most other Jews.

  23. garysturgess says

    @14 KG
    Well they’re not good at the moment, but that’s exactly why they need the practise. :)

  24. StevoR says

    @ ^ Erp : Yep. Their wikipage notes :

    Messianic Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת מְשִׁיחִית‎ or יהדות משיחית, Yahadút Mešiḥít) is a modernist and syncretic[1] movement of Protestant Christianity[2] that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions[3][4][5][6] into evangelicalism.

    It emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier Hebrew Christian movement,[7][8] and was most prominently propelled through the non-profit organization “Jews for Jesus”[9][10] founded in 1973 by Martin “Moishe” Rosen, an American minister under the Conservative Baptist Association.[11][12]

    Evangelical Protestants who identify as Messianic Jews believe that Jesus (referred to by the Hebrew-language name Yeshua among adherents) is the Jewish Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and that the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) and the New Testament are the authoritative scriptures of mankind.[13][14] Salvation in Messianic Judaism is achieved only through the acceptance of Jesus as one’s saviour,[10][15][16] and not through adherence to Jewish rabbinical law.[15][16] Belief in Jesus as a messianic figure and as divine (i.e. God the Son) is considered by Jews to be one of the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. Among other evangelical groups, Messianic Judaism is usually accepted as a form of Christianity.[20] However, adherents of Messianic Judaism believe that the movement is instead a form of Judaism.[21] In the Hebrew language, they tend to identify themselves with the terms maaminim (מאמינים, lit. ’believers’) and yehudim (יְהוּדִים‬‎‎, lit. ’Jews’) in opposition to being identified as notzrim (נוצרים, lit. ’Christians’).[a][22] Jewish organizations inside and outside of Israel reject this framing; the Supreme Court of Israel has also rejected this claim in cases related to the Israeli Law of Return, and Messianic Judaism is recognized only as a Christian movement in the country.[17][23] In this context, there is discourse among scholars as to whether Messianic Judaism should be labeled a Jewish or Christian religious sect.

    & also :

    B’nai Brith Canada considers Messianic activities as antisemitic incidents.[117] Rabbi Tovia Singer, founder of the anti-missionary organization Outreach Judaism, noted of a Messianic rabbi in Toledo: “He’s not running a Jewish synagogue.[…] It’s a church designed to appear as if it were a synagogue and I’m there to expose him. What these irresponsible extremist Christians do is a form of consumer fraud. They blur the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity in order to lure Jewish people who would otherwise resist a straightforward message.”[118]

    Association by a Jewish politician with a Messianic rabbi, inviting him to pray at a public meeting, even though made in error, resulted in nearly universal condemnation by Jewish congregations in Detroit in 2018,[119][120] as the majority opinion in both Israeli and American Jewish circles is to consider Messianic Judaism as Christianity and its followers as Christians.

    Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism

    Of course Christianity as a whole began as a splinter sect of Judaism that then went & became its own thing so..

  25. F.O. says

    So Ted Cruz actually is the Zodiac killer? All it takes is enough people saying something is true for it to be true?

    No you silly!
    They don’t play by the same rules as us.
    They play by the rule “this will weaken my opponent and give me more power”.
    Power, or the perception of power, is the only thing that matters.
    They are not interested in seeing past that, so they will not.

    Why are you still, after so many years, taking their claims at face value?
    Didn’t you have evidence enough?

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