Weird, BUT TRUE!

Grim Reaper statue, Cathedral of Trier, Trier, Germany

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/02/1146318331/yoga-guru-qanon-conspiracy-theories

She was a popular yoga teacher who embraced QAnon

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Man… shit’s just getting weirder, and weirder by the day.

Next thing you know, Putin will be an outer space transsexual vegan lesbian lizard with a PhD in Marianas Trench basket weaving using Jewish space lasers funded by Elon Musk and owned by Muslims who are in cahoots with dead Pope Benedict XVI, who actually died 59 years ago, and has been a zombie ever since, secretly controlled by Elvis who is still living in seclusion in Memphis, is a major Republican donor, secretly married Marilyn Monroe who is also still alive in the Himalayas, and gave birth to a child who has the secret ability to morph, then became the 43rd, 44th, 45th, and 46th U.S. President, and is still President, but secretly living in seclusion after impregnating Hillary.

That man, is

Consuming A Steady Diet Of Lies Has Damaged The GOP

While I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party, I am completely simpatico with Senator Sasse’s observations, and remarks.

Competition is good, wholesome, and healthy, and strengthens each competitor. So in a very real way, it would be disastrous for our political system – which for all practical purposes, is comprised of but two political parties – to suffer the loss of one. Instead, we should be seeking to increase the number of viable competitors.

The GOP’s problems are myriad, not the least of which are cowardice, and failure to stand for truth, and oppose lies, no matter their source, or who promulgated them. As evidenced by what they did the past 4 years, if the party cannot will not stand for “truth, justice, and the American way,” what will they fall for?

As the colloquial saying – and song by the same name – goes, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”

Sadly, the GOP has already fallen.

The following article contains abbreviated excerpts of the original, which may be found linked at the conclusion.

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QAnon Is Destroying the GOP From Within

Until last week, too many in the Republican Party thought they could preach the Constitution and wink at QAnon. They can’t.

By Senator Ben Sasse
Republican of Nebraska
January 19, 2021

Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College’s vote, Goodman strategically lured dozens of the mayhem-minded away from an unguarded door to the Senate floor.

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If and when the House sends its article of impeachment against Trump to the Senate, I will be a juror in his trial, and thus what I can say in advance is limited. But no matter what happens in that trial, the Republican Party faces a separate reckoning. Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.

The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.” During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: Disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn’t going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She’s already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party.

If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of Internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.

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America’s Junk-Food Media Diet

The way Americans are consuming and producing news—or what passes for it these days—is driving us mad. This has been said many times, but the problem has worsened in the past five years. On the supply side, media outlets have discovered that dialing up the rhetoric increases clicks, eyeballs, and revenue. On the demand side, readers and viewers like to see their opinions affirmed, rather than challenged. When everybody’s outraged, everybody wins—at least in the short term.

This is not a problem only on the right or only on obscure blogs. The underlying economics that drive

Rand Paul Reads Disallowed Impeachment Question On Senate Floor

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul today read his disallowed question from the Senate Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.

His pertinent comments while on the Senate floor are excerpted, in part, below.

The essence of what he is saying, is alleging by questioning (asserting, would be more like it), is that, there was an impeachment conspiracy being cooked up by governmental officials against the President, long before the President’s now-infamous July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He points to several faults with the FISA Court system, and what was very likely FBI abuse of that court system to “spy,” as he puts it, upon American citizens, and extrapolates from there.

To further bolster his case, Senator Paul points to open testimony given to the Senate by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on March 12, 2013 in response to a question by Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Senator Wyden asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Mr. Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.”

We knew that Mr. Clapper lied because he later obliquely stated that he did in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell who asked him why he answered the way he did.

Clapper answered saying, “I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked ‘when are you going to … stop beating your wife’ kind of question, which is … not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘No.’”

Senator Wyden had also earlier given Mr. Clapper advance notice that he would ask that question, so in a sense, he was “putting him in a box,” and expecting him to either deny it, or admit it in his testimony. Senator Wyden is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he was regularly briefed on Top Secret programs, and knew the answer would be ‘YES’ before he asked it. He was simply giving Director Clapper an opportunity to be forthright about the matter. Director Clapper could have answered more circumspectly, or even use more finesse in his response, though he did neither.

But more to the point, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul does raise some interesting questions, although, on the whole, it certainly seems as if he’s