Dr. MID-Nite

And the fact that this is the type of person and that is the kind of rhetoric that gets people to fork over their money is both pathetic and profoundly disturbing. I could care less about her actual intelligence. Her moral and social values are repugnant.

And the fact that this is the type of person and that is the kind of rhetoric that gets people to fork over their money is both pathetic and profoundly disturbing. I could care less about her actual intelligence. Her moral and social values are repugnant.

If at first you don't succeed, cheat:
 
‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections
 
 

There Have Already Been 17 Mass Shootings in the Week Since Uvalde

It will never stop. The country lacks the political will to do anything about it.
 

Them's good eatin'.
 
 
 
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'."
- Isaac Asimov

Yes....quite fortunate for you. As a progressive living in a reactionary country...not so much. I'm just....tired. As I see potentially decades of social progress on the edge of being wiped away, it feels like it was all for nothing. Loki was right....humans wanted to be ruled. Sigh.

No cynicism needed. The Supreme Court has held that the police have no duty to protect us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html
 
It's taken me a long time to realize the truth. Police write up reports for insurance companies and (selectively) police our behavior.  Above all, they protect the wealthy and powerful (and their property) from the rest of us.
 
It's not an accident as far as I can tell; the system seems to be set up that way. Heck, when we peaceably assemble in front of a supreme court judge's home, look what happens. Or when we assemble to protest legitimate concerns such as elites shipping our jobs overseas (one-sided trade agreements) or police summarily executing citizens with impunity. But when a murderer enters a school to kill children, the police make room for him and start arresting the parents who ask them why they're not saving the children. And then they lie about it. They apparently lie constantly, seemingly reflexively, about every aspect of their jobs. And they get away with it, are given almost complete impunity for their behavior toward us.
 
It seems pretty clear to me what the police are there for, and unfortunately it's not what decades of copaganda TV shows had led me to believe.

Meanwhile, the NRA is holding their Leadership Forum in Houston this week, and are banning guns from the event.
 
https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-conference-wont-allow-attendees-to-bring-their-guns-2022-5

After Trump's retweet today, I feel like nostalgically digging up the post on this thread where someone was accusing everyone on this thread of being traitors against the (then) President. >_>
 
I'm in a mood.  Like this was a mood.    Time for some drink and chips.
 

And another quote from this moron:
 
 
 
UNDER populated...yeah, right.  And of course, that only married people should have sex.  THAT is classic Moral Majority.
 
This one's dangerous, in my book, as she'll justify absolutely anything that's in service to her beliefs.  

I registered as Republican just so I could vote in the primary. Originally because Ammon Bundy was running (before messing up and having to be independent). But, McGeachin was a piece of work.
 
I was disappointed that Raúl Labrador won Attorney General.

1. As your next Attorney General I will be the aggressive, relentless leader that Idaho needs. I will defend Idaho’s sovereignty and fight unconstitutional mandates. I will keep our elections fair and honest. I will defend and expand our 2A rights. I will ensure we are the most pro-life state in the Union. I will fight to reinstate President Trump’s border security policies. I will fight the radicals that are trying to force CRT and transgender ideology on our children. And I will fight Big Tech’s social credit scores and their anti-conservative and anti-American censorship. Idaho needs an Attorney General who will be the people’s lawyer, rather than a tool for the bureaucracy and special interests. I will defend every Idahoan’s individual liberties; fight back against the Biden administration’s failed policies; and ensure the people of Idaho have a voice in the Attorney General’s office. I will bring needed reforms to the office. Idaho’s incumbent Attorney General has been in office for twenty-years. He’s been employed by the government for over thirty-years. No wonder he sees his job as defending the government and the bureaucracy, not you. I will change that starting day one.
2. Idaho needs an Attorney General who understands that government exists to ensure that the rights of the citizens are secured and protected. During the pandemic, I fought for the rights of Idahoans to keep their jobs and pursue their livelihoods, to meet with their families, and to continue practicing their religion freely. I fought for Idahoans’ medical freedom and against unconstitutional mandates. I will continue to do so as Idaho’s next Attorney General. In contrast, during the pandemic, the current Attorney General interpreted Idaho’s statutes as granting the chief executive the power to declare a state of emergency for over 750 days despite Idaho law limiting emergency authority to sixty days. That decision closed schools in Idaho, closed businesses and churches, and it affected every single person in Idaho dramatically. It was wrong and will not happen again if I am your Attorney General.
3. The great battles for the soul of our nation are taking place in our courthouses. All across America, strong Republican Attorneys General are pushing back against the Radical Left and their agenda to “fundamentally transform” our nation. Except in Idaho, where our Attorney General is absent from these fights. The incumbent Attorney General of Idaho did not fight for election integrity and instead stood with radical Democrat lawyers. The incumbent Attorney General did not defend Idaho’s pro-girl sports bill, instead saying that biological men had a constitutional right to compete on girls’ sports teams and use women’s locker rooms. Also, the incumbent Attorney General joined with Democrats to support some of Biden’s radical nominees to run the Department of Justice. Finally, he failed to join the lawsuit filed by the other Republican Attorneys General demanding the Biden DOJ either explain or rescind their memo asking to surveil parents for expressing their opinions at school board meetings and other forums. Maybe this is why he has received donations from former Democrat Attorneys General and the praise of the radical Attorney General from the State of Washington.

I swear by Allah, Buddha, Cthulhu and The Flying Spaghetti Monster--this is a real book.

I feel like I've lost IQ points just from looking at this.

The NYTimes podcast "The Daily" offers a brief guide to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory used by white supremacist mass shooters... and those who inspire them, such as Tucker Carlson.
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/podcasts/the-daily/buffalo-shooting-replacement-theory.html?action=click&module=audio-series-bar&region=header&pgtype=Article
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm sorry, but I can't let remarks like that slide any more. You're looking at the situation as though it will continue to be politics as usual. I respectfully submit that it will not. The Republican Party, at the national and state level, are instituting policies designed to secure the numbers for them despite the will of the people. Gerrymandering. Voter suppression. Placing their loyalists in key election-deciding offices. If this process isn't halted and reversed, they will have a lock on power regardless of what the real vote is.
 
I also used to think Mitch and other Republicans were just "chumming the waters." I no longer believe that. Books are being banned in schools, books with the actual history of America's past sins, books addressing issues around race and gender, books describing the rise of fascist states. The GOP want Americans ignorant, and thereby manipulable and controllable.
 
There's no surprise in remarks by the likes of Matt Gaetz that "over-educated women" are problematic, or by Mike Pence that American society has to return to "traditional Christian family values." But that's not fringe any more, it's become mainstream Republican talking points. Are we supposed to believe it's all just talk, that there's no intent behind it by the privileged white men doing it? We have legislation up for debate in more than one state right now, that would classify abortion as murder. The mask is morality, but the true face is control of women's lives.
 
Most alarming to me is recent statements from SCOTUS, like this leaked draft ruling that calls the very concept of right to privacy into question, from which many progressive rulings have stemmed: gay marriage, homosexual sex, access to contraception. We also have recent remarks from Justice Clarence Thomas blaming demonstrations by people on the political/social left -- expressions of free speech -- for the growing disillusionment of the American people for their governmental institutions. The classic fascist tactic of "othering" a group without actual power, blaming them for what goes wrong so people won't notice the hand in their pocket and knife at their throat.
 
There's an agenda at work here. There's a goal the Right is working toward, and it isn't the America we all grew up with. It's a fascist, racist, classist semi-theocracy in which a minority of people with the "right" attitudes, background and appearance make decisions for the rest of us, and the rest of us do what we're told or suffer. We've seen country after country go down this same road for a hundred years. The past six years have seen results we all thought "possible but unlikely" actually come to pass, and each has been worse than the last.
 
These people have to be voted out, now. It doesn't matter that Democrats aren't perfect and have fallen short of their promises and potential. They aren't the ones actively trying to subvert democracy and cast the United States back to the 19th Century. They can at least hold the line. If Americans don't vote Democrat, Republicans will do everything they can to hold onto power forever, and every person in one of the vulnerable groups they'll victimize will suffer for it. If the Republican Party is destroyed, another opposition party will arise, just as the Republicans under Lincoln replaced the Whigs. Probably a much healthier one. But not voting because no choice is good, is giving the keys to the one that's actively evil.

There's an official Champions villain, Nebula (Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains), who has essentially this power, although not using ECV (which IIRC under 6E no longer automatically grants LOS). Nebula is a displaced extra-galactic law enforcement officer with a very Draconian mindset. Her "Duress Gauntlets" exile criminals to a pocket dimension called Duress.
 
Duress receives a capsule description in Digital Hero #5, p. 11 (13 of the PDF), along with stats for its robotic guards, the Keepers.

The degree to which Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are major supporting characters with stories of their own was a welcome surprise. And Willem Dafoe almost steals the movie, magnificently.

I was most happy to see that all the returning actors in their roles didnt feel like they were mailing in performances, but instead seemed to embrace the parts. Molina was again brilliant as Doc Ock, Dafoe as Goblin/Osborne especially.

I have finally gotten around to seeing No Way Home. It was excellent. Brilliant writing as usual, and Tom Holland and Zendaya are very good at their jobs. 

I really don't want a repeat of Thor: Ragnarök, but it looks like that is what we're going to get. Sigh...

I really don't want a repeat of Thor: Ragnarök, but it looks like that is what we're going to get. Sigh...

The Dems need to go all out in branding the Reps cowards for doing this.

Florida Legislature surrenders to DeSantis on redistricting
 
 
'Draft dodgers' belie Ukrainian message of soldiers, volunteers overwhelmingly committed to fight for their country
 
 
Syrians help defend Ukraine against Russia, whose troops are now led by their brutal commander Dvornikov

Well...that's one way to get a season three out of this show.