“Conservatives” as defined by the far right are not conservative. “Evangelicals” on the far right are not evangelical. Warping language is key to authoritarian wannabes, producing chaos, confusion and exhaustion in discerning truth from lies.
The Cruz-Unit’s political winds sensor array has detected that Texas is inching leftward, he only beat a relatively weak opponent the last time around by 2.6%, and his opponent this time is shaping up to be much stronger.
Therefore, I would expect more of this kind of behavior from the Cruz-Unit in the months ahead as its algorithms attempt to calibrate the Goldilocks amount of leftward movement without going too far.
The freedom of nihilism and vainglory is being able to shift positions more often then a guy trying to find the cool spot on the pillow in his sleep.
The Ted Cruz thing just makes him even more loathsome, because it demonstrates that he knows what the Republican party is doing is wrong, but is either too greedy or too cowardly to stand up against it.
You don't get to pretend to champion LGBT rights when your own political party is calling them groomers and abominations.
Having worked in Corporate America since 1983, can we remind everyone of the issue that drives companies to hire experts in civil rights and employment law? The issue is litigation. Every time a company hires or fires an employee, you have created either a data point (hiring) or a risk (firing). Lawsuits happen all the time. And lawsuits cost money - even if won, but more so when settled.
And depending upon your business, you can also incur risks with your products. A few decades ago, the large insurer that employed me had to examine old policy documents for policies written on Armenians - these mostly lapsed during the genocide and for an American Company in 1914-1925 - we did not know much more than that folks disappeared. But decades later we paid death claims on these individuals.
We have had numerous lawsuits from individuals who were fired - invariably they claimed to be disabled (my job was to assess disability claim at the time - so was involved in these.
Every college and university has similar concerns about possible lawsuits re those admitted and those not admitted.
While some of the diversity and inclusion work verges in preaching a point of view, entities must have a department that assesses the risks of litigation re unfair treatment.
So DeSantis surely knows this - but the folks he lies to don't.
I always figured Tara was working for one of the Dark Money republican PAC's. But then and again I guess this means she probably was. Money a bit darker.
Re: Paxton, his malfeasance has been known for years, but the GOP has been investigating for months? Were more moderate GOP members elected that are less willing to go along with his alleged crimes?
My religious teaching told me that Christians are followers of Christ, who is the subject of the New Testament, bringing a change in the "law", where the unfortunate and sinners are given grace. Yet, the extreme and fundamentalist Christians keep going back to the Old Testament for support. I can't recall a lot of mentions from the New Testament. Hard to call/consider these guys to be Christians.
Here's the problem with Tom Ascol: he's right! That's directly from the Bible, and no amount of exegesis can spin it. The primary obstacle to LGBT rights worldwide is religion, because this is in so many of the religious texts, and the people who believe in these texts see them as from God's mouth to our ears. Religion is a conversation stopper. Not every Christian is an anti-gay bigot, but I have to imagine almost every anti-gay bigot is a pretty devout Christian. That said, good for Ted Cruz. I think the real thumb in the eye for the hard right was his hash tag at the end. Now that there's no Tucker Carlson for him to go on to issue an abject apology, as he did when he characterized the J6 rioters as terrorists, I'd like to see him not attempt any walk-backs this time.
That Tara Reade quote sounds like it was written by an unpaid intern in a Russian propaganda office using ChatGPT. It's so gross that I feel a little dirty after reading it.
Tara Reade seems to be the next in a long line of pro-Russia useful idiots. It's rather bizarre that people keep falling for Kremlin propaganda - at least during Soviet times (especially early on), there was a utopian narrative which could paper over the grim realities and revolutionary excesses, but now? What does Putin's Russia really have to offer, especially to someone ostensibly on the left? The country is much more fascistic than anything else at this point, as well as being hollowed out by corruption to an absurd degree, and even if you're on the right, Russia's super high abortion rate and the lack of religious feeling among most of the population shows that the Putin's claims of being a defender of traditional values are ephemeral.
As for Ted Cruz, I'm surprised he tweeted that - it seemingly had a strong likelihood of backlash while not accomplishing anything meaningful. Still a nice gesture, and therefore not something expected from him. The responses are revealing, though. A powerful and well-placed pastor who apparently openly believes that every last Bible verse should be reflected as the law of the land in the 21st century? Scary stuff.
Ted Cruz's daughter apparently just came out on TikTok as bisexual not too long ago, so I suspect his sudden concern about people wanting to murder those who are not hetero is based in the same sort of "holy shit this just got real for me" that millions of parents have gone through over the past 30 years to get us to this point in the "LGBT people are human" struggle.
What's the problem with Tara Reade? I've been told time after time that the best way to "Make America Great Again" is to surrender to Putin. She's just doing her part!
I appreciate the attention being paid to Roger Stone, but I think Mike Flynn is an even more dangerous character that doesn’t seem to garner as much attention because he’s successfully put out into the world that he’s basically lost his mind. It’s just a part of the ongoing psy-op. There is a huge movement and it’s merged the worst of he worst together into a cohesive package. Micheal Flynn and Roger Stone brought their psyops/muscle and “ratfucking” experience, respectively, and Charismatic Pentecostalism /New Apostolic Reformation brought prophecy, prophets and their vision of God.
When these 2 groups merged some time around 2021, things really started going off the rails.
Back in 2021, a guy named Clay Clark created a movement called “ReAwaken America”. It is a cult.
They’ve got an ideology and they’re growing and they ARE the MAGA base. Michael Flynn - and many members of his family - have taken the Qanon “pledge” ffs. Hell, there are people in the researcher community who think Flynn IS Q himself. He’s got the psyops background from the military and has written a book called “The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare”. (The “5”x5 pocket sized” paperback is only $27.99 on Amazon, so not a grift at all 🙃).
Here’s whar a pastor (who protested their most recent event at Trump Miami Doral resort) said about the Christian Nationalist movement “It] is a poisonous ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identity. It suggests that to be a ‘real American,’ one must be a Christian — and not just any kind of Christian but a particular type of Christian who espouses fundamentalist beliefs and conservative political positions. Christian Nationalism overlaps with and provides cover for White Supremacy and racial subjugation”.
They believe in “The Seven Mountain Mandate, or 7M for short, [which] … calls on right-thinking Christians to conquer the seven mountains or “spheres of influence” in culture and society: education, religion, family, business, government, arts, and entertainment.”
<Stone now identifies as a “nondenominational Christian.”> Dylan Mulvaney is 10 times more woman than Stone is Christian. And Teddy only sent that tweet because he's in trouble in his re-election campaign. Sorry, Teddy, you don't get to tweet #LGBTQ after claiming that your pronouns are kiss my ass. GFY As for Tom Ascol and people like him they are not Christian. No one should ever cede the religious high ground to Pharisees like him. Matthew 25:35-36.
Tales of the Weird
“Conservatives” as defined by the far right are not conservative. “Evangelicals” on the far right are not evangelical. Warping language is key to authoritarian wannabes, producing chaos, confusion and exhaustion in discerning truth from lies.
The Cruz-Unit’s political winds sensor array has detected that Texas is inching leftward, he only beat a relatively weak opponent the last time around by 2.6%, and his opponent this time is shaping up to be much stronger.
Therefore, I would expect more of this kind of behavior from the Cruz-Unit in the months ahead as its algorithms attempt to calibrate the Goldilocks amount of leftward movement without going too far.
The freedom of nihilism and vainglory is being able to shift positions more often then a guy trying to find the cool spot on the pillow in his sleep.
The Ted Cruz thing just makes him even more loathsome, because it demonstrates that he knows what the Republican party is doing is wrong, but is either too greedy or too cowardly to stand up against it.
You don't get to pretend to champion LGBT rights when your own political party is calling them groomers and abominations.
Having worked in Corporate America since 1983, can we remind everyone of the issue that drives companies to hire experts in civil rights and employment law? The issue is litigation. Every time a company hires or fires an employee, you have created either a data point (hiring) or a risk (firing). Lawsuits happen all the time. And lawsuits cost money - even if won, but more so when settled.
And depending upon your business, you can also incur risks with your products. A few decades ago, the large insurer that employed me had to examine old policy documents for policies written on Armenians - these mostly lapsed during the genocide and for an American Company in 1914-1925 - we did not know much more than that folks disappeared. But decades later we paid death claims on these individuals.
We have had numerous lawsuits from individuals who were fired - invariably they claimed to be disabled (my job was to assess disability claim at the time - so was involved in these.
Every college and university has similar concerns about possible lawsuits re those admitted and those not admitted.
While some of the diversity and inclusion work verges in preaching a point of view, entities must have a department that assesses the risks of litigation re unfair treatment.
So DeSantis surely knows this - but the folks he lies to don't.
I always figured Tara was working for one of the Dark Money republican PAC's. But then and again I guess this means she probably was. Money a bit darker.
Re: Paxton, his malfeasance has been known for years, but the GOP has been investigating for months? Were more moderate GOP members elected that are less willing to go along with his alleged crimes?
My religious teaching told me that Christians are followers of Christ, who is the subject of the New Testament, bringing a change in the "law", where the unfortunate and sinners are given grace. Yet, the extreme and fundamentalist Christians keep going back to the Old Testament for support. I can't recall a lot of mentions from the New Testament. Hard to call/consider these guys to be Christians.
Per Tara Reade, I must not be an American woman.
Why on this Earth would anyone give a hoot about a chicken restaurant's HR policies?
Russia can have Reade.
Here's the problem with Tom Ascol: he's right! That's directly from the Bible, and no amount of exegesis can spin it. The primary obstacle to LGBT rights worldwide is religion, because this is in so many of the religious texts, and the people who believe in these texts see them as from God's mouth to our ears. Religion is a conversation stopper. Not every Christian is an anti-gay bigot, but I have to imagine almost every anti-gay bigot is a pretty devout Christian. That said, good for Ted Cruz. I think the real thumb in the eye for the hard right was his hash tag at the end. Now that there's no Tucker Carlson for him to go on to issue an abject apology, as he did when he characterized the J6 rioters as terrorists, I'd like to see him not attempt any walk-backs this time.
That Tara Reade quote sounds like it was written by an unpaid intern in a Russian propaganda office using ChatGPT. It's so gross that I feel a little dirty after reading it.
Tara Reade seems to be the next in a long line of pro-Russia useful idiots. It's rather bizarre that people keep falling for Kremlin propaganda - at least during Soviet times (especially early on), there was a utopian narrative which could paper over the grim realities and revolutionary excesses, but now? What does Putin's Russia really have to offer, especially to someone ostensibly on the left? The country is much more fascistic than anything else at this point, as well as being hollowed out by corruption to an absurd degree, and even if you're on the right, Russia's super high abortion rate and the lack of religious feeling among most of the population shows that the Putin's claims of being a defender of traditional values are ephemeral.
As for Ted Cruz, I'm surprised he tweeted that - it seemingly had a strong likelihood of backlash while not accomplishing anything meaningful. Still a nice gesture, and therefore not something expected from him. The responses are revealing, though. A powerful and well-placed pastor who apparently openly believes that every last Bible verse should be reflected as the law of the land in the 21st century? Scary stuff.
The MAGAmorons have no bottom. Their ignorance, mendacity, maliciousness and malevolence just keeps metastasizing.
Ted Cruz's daughter apparently just came out on TikTok as bisexual not too long ago, so I suspect his sudden concern about people wanting to murder those who are not hetero is based in the same sort of "holy shit this just got real for me" that millions of parents have gone through over the past 30 years to get us to this point in the "LGBT people are human" struggle.
It’s weird that Tom Ascol wouldn’t be familiar with that whole New Covenant of Jesus Christ thing. Maybe he should read past Leviticus.
What's the problem with Tara Reade? I've been told time after time that the best way to "Make America Great Again" is to surrender to Putin. She's just doing her part!
I appreciate the attention being paid to Roger Stone, but I think Mike Flynn is an even more dangerous character that doesn’t seem to garner as much attention because he’s successfully put out into the world that he’s basically lost his mind. It’s just a part of the ongoing psy-op. There is a huge movement and it’s merged the worst of he worst together into a cohesive package. Micheal Flynn and Roger Stone brought their psyops/muscle and “ratfucking” experience, respectively, and Charismatic Pentecostalism /New Apostolic Reformation brought prophecy, prophets and their vision of God.
When these 2 groups merged some time around 2021, things really started going off the rails.
Back in 2021, a guy named Clay Clark created a movement called “ReAwaken America”. It is a cult.
They’ve got an ideology and they’re growing and they ARE the MAGA base. Michael Flynn - and many members of his family - have taken the Qanon “pledge” ffs. Hell, there are people in the researcher community who think Flynn IS Q himself. He’s got the psyops background from the military and has written a book called “The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare”. (The “5”x5 pocket sized” paperback is only $27.99 on Amazon, so not a grift at all 🙃).
Here’s whar a pastor (who protested their most recent event at Trump Miami Doral resort) said about the Christian Nationalist movement “It] is a poisonous ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identity. It suggests that to be a ‘real American,’ one must be a Christian — and not just any kind of Christian but a particular type of Christian who espouses fundamentalist beliefs and conservative political positions. Christian Nationalism overlaps with and provides cover for White Supremacy and racial subjugation”.
They believe in “The Seven Mountain Mandate, or 7M for short, [which] … calls on right-thinking Christians to conquer the seven mountains or “spheres of influence” in culture and society: education, religion, family, business, government, arts, and entertainment.”
Sound familiar?
<Stone now identifies as a “nondenominational Christian.”> Dylan Mulvaney is 10 times more woman than Stone is Christian. And Teddy only sent that tweet because he's in trouble in his re-election campaign. Sorry, Teddy, you don't get to tweet #LGBTQ after claiming that your pronouns are kiss my ass. GFY As for Tom Ascol and people like him they are not Christian. No one should ever cede the religious high ground to Pharisees like him. Matthew 25:35-36.