When I read that criminal syndicates in Asia use social media to trap people into running financial scams, I realize I might be more kindly disposed toward those who constantly call me trying to rip me off. And, of course, I’ll be less kindly-disposed toward QAnon lunatics, who have missed yet another real example of human trafficking as they squeal about imaginary ones. Some folks really do deserve life in prison, and the human traffickers running these scams are some of them. (Read this article all the way to the last paragraph, though; it’s a real gut-punch.)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (E-SC), lately heard saying abortion legislation should be left to the states, will soon introduce, guess what, a bill that would ban abortion nationally. But let’s not dwell too much on his hypocrisy; let’s instead note that he’d ban abortion nationally while other Republicans on the ballot this year are scrambling to tone down their past pronouncements on the matter, and let’s not call this “disarray” or “dysfunction” but drama, aiming, as always, to distract us from more important things. You know, like the fact that giving Republicans any power anywhere ever again brings us that much closer to fascism.
Dig this: Republican U.S. House candidate Erik Aadland, running in a winnable district in Colorado, has gone on and on about how the 2020 election was “stolen” and Joe Biden isn’t a “real” President, but has also gone on the record about the necessity of, ah, backgrounding that information when talking to voters. Why, it’s like he knows how little voters want their Rep to whine about an election that’s almost two years old. Anyway, if he thinks he can keep this from the good voters of Colorado’s 7th, well, I think that ship has sailed.
Right-wing Texas District Court judge – famous for ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional in 2018, a ruling our Supreme Court reversed in 2021 – now rules that the part of the ACA ensuring free preventive health care is itself unconstitutional. In case you were wondering, Judge Reed O’Connor was a George W. Bush appointee, and right-wingers go out of their way to file suits in his district. Among Judge O’Connor’s claims: that covering the HIV-preventative drug PreP violates the religious “freedom” of folks who don’t want to “encourage” homosexuality, drug use, or sex outside of marriage. Or an end to a 40-years-and-counting epidemic, apparently! Besides, if right-wingers don’t want to “encourage” sex, they should stop sending their kids to Bible camp.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels – last seen scrubbing the Trump endorsement from his campaign website after his primary victory – says folks should “be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal (sic) media has become.” But let’s play offense and focus on how he called for “torches and pitchforks” for accurate reporting about his actual positions, and call him a whiny diaper-loaded brat. Let us remember, also, that Tim Michels once lost a U.S. Senate race by 11 points – to Russ Feingold! In 2004, no less!
Finally, when I hear that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is using “‘full armor of God’ rhetoric” on the campaign trail, I feel compelled to say that it’s well past time to stop fearing the folks who eat this crap up – they’re not a majority, even in Florida! – and start calling this crap what it is: drama. I never want to hear Ron DeSantis’s name in a sentence again without also hearing the word “drama” in it. I wish I thought Charlie Crist was up to that task.
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