The Power of Propaganda

found online by Raymond

 
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

That’s right, she is seeing patients who are dying of Covid-19, but they believe the propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies spewed by Donald Trump and the right-wing media, that their last words before they die are that the pandemic is a hoax and that they will be fine. Their last breaths are not used to talk to their loved ones, or to get their affairs in order. Instead, they are angry and in denial about being told they have contracted Covid-19.

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Short Stories: Down the Hill in Chula Vista

found online by Raymond

 

chula vista 1960sChula Vista, early 1960s. Front Row: My brother Bobby, my sister Robin, friend of Marijene’s, Aunt Marijene, and Butch. Back Row: Neighbor boy. Gotta love my gun, hat, and vest.     [Image from The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser]

From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

In the early 1960s, my dad packed up Mom and me, along with my younger brother and sister, and moved us to California. Dad was certain that California was a land of rainbows, and that a pot of gold awaited him in the Golden State. Three years later, as broke as when he arrived, Dad moved us back to Bryan, Ohio. In fact, Dad was so broke that he had to trade his pocket watch for a tank of gas in Illinois — just enough fuel to get us to Bryan.

We lived in several houses in California, one of which was a sprawling ranch house on a hill in Chula Vista. One day, my grandmother, Jeanette Rausch, and her daughter, Marijene, came to visit us. While Grandma and Mom were talking, my siblings and I went outside to play; “play” being climbing in the front seat of Grandma’s car.

I was sitting on the driver’s side of the car, and my sibling were next to me. I am sure both of them would say that it was no surprise that Butch (my family nickname) was in the driver’s seat. I was ALWAYS in the driver’s seat; the boss; the “man” in charge.

I had not yet shut the driver’s side door when I decided — as ornery six-year-old boys are wont to do — to grab the column shifter and put the transmission in neutral. Much to my youthful surprise, the car began rolling down the hill.

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Senator Lindsey Graham was NOT Breaking a Federal Law

found on Twitter by Burr

 
He was just joking! With officials from several states
about breaking the law
 

Officials in charge of counting didn’t get the joke.
No sense of humor

Trump Brags About Turning a Majority of Republicans Against Democracy

found online by Raymond

 
From News Corpse:

There are many things for which Donald Trump will be remembered. They include being impeached for his complicity with Russian election interference, caging children and separating them from their parents, wasting billions of dollars on a fake border wall that Mexico will never pay for, alienating allies, and driving the economy into a persistent recession. Wait, that aint all.

Trump has also presided over the despoiling the environment, skimming millions of taxpayer funds for himself, wantonly violating innumerable laws, humiliating the nation with his hostile and infantile behavior, and, of course, being responsible for the deaths of a quarter of a million Americans due to his ignorance, incompetence, and deliberate mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s quite a legacy. But it is apparently not enough for Trump. He is using his final days in the White House to purposefully undermine respect for the most fundamental American principles. Rather than accept the obvious and decisive defeat that he was dealt by President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has chosen to malign democracy with repeated assertions that the election he so deservedly lost was “rigged” by an implausible cabal of Democrats, Republicans, press, tech companies, civil servants, and even members of his own administration whom he appointed.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s bitter and selfish defiance of reality has resulted in an attitudinal shift among his weak minded cult followers and Fox News junkies. The consequences have been affirmed in a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos. And Trump is so proud of the findings that he featured it in his Wednesday morning tweetstorm:

Needless to say, literally everything Trump alleged in that tweet is verifiably false. Some of it was even stipulated as false by his attorneys in one of the many court cases he’s filed.

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Georgia Republican Senate Candidates Have A Trump Problem? Womp Womp!

found online by Raymond

 

Georgia Senator David Perdue interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on Fox     [Image from Fox News]

From Frances Langum:

All of a sudden, runoff Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue have to “attract the anti-Trump Republican” in Georgia? Make me laugh.

What’s are corrupt Republicans like Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue supposed to do?

On the one side, Donald Trump is still the god-king of the MAGA set.

On the other side, he’s LOST the election, his Twitter feed is a complete embarrassment, and the fact that his toadies are trying to throw out votes in Georgia doesn’t endear him to those proud of their conservative Republican Secretary of State.

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Litigation Station: The Current State of Contemporary Conservatism (Courtroom Version)

found on Twitter by Burr

 
Come on – Nobody knows what ‘opacity’ means…
 

…except for lawyers and grammaticians

Giuliani insists he is one, clearly is not the other.

It gets worse: much, much worse.

This, too, appeared to confuse Giuliani, who asked if the judge was inviting him to file the retooled third version of the lawsuit that he’d promised earlier.

“This is a brief in opposition to their motion to dismiss,” Brann replied.

“Oh!” Giuliani said. “Oh, sure, absolutely.”

The latest episode of The Three Stooges in Court

“Mr. Giuliani is talking about another case, not the case before your honor,” Aronchick said.

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You Raised Me To Be A Good Person. Then You Voted for Trump

found online by Raymond

 

… that you’re trying to take medicine away     [Image from The DNC]

From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

As a child, I looked up to you, and that part of me will continue to love you dearly and be grateful for you.
But as an adult, I see you face to face and I grieve the loss of the person I imagined you were when you were teaching me how to be a good person.

By continuing to support this man you have gone against everything you told me was important growing up: decency, honesty, fairness, maturity, empathy.

Either you were lying then or you’re wrong now.

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‘Tis the Season for
Terrible Christmas Movies

found online by Raymond

 

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey | Everything is Possible | Official Trailer     [Image from Netflix]

From Professor PZ Myers:

Note from Ray: A wonderfully vicious, hilarious review

Sometimes I wonder if I just have bad taste, or if everyone else in the world does. My wife and I were beguiled by the advertising and reviews for this new movie on Netflix, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, “An instant classic!”, one review crowed, so we watched it the other day.

It jingle-jangled my brain.

OH MY GOD IT WAS SO BAD. This is a movie that tries desperately hard to be cheerful holiday fare that it crosses right over the line into creepy, and I was appalled in the first five minutes. All the characters have these intense nonstop grins splitting their faces and are so enthusiastic about everything that I was confident that the entire stage had been doses with smilex gas, and the show was a race to reach a conclusion before everyone collapsed in cackling death. There was no acting. There was only grimacing.

The plot: it’s about a toymaker who is famous for his inventions, although we’re not really shown any talent, or even any comprehension of what a child would want. In the opening, he builds a tiny and hyperkinetic matador doll that talks…and proves to be so egotistical that he ought to run for president, but has no personality other than an overwhelming narcissism. This creation is supposed to be the great new toy that will make him even more famous, but really, it’s a toy so lacking in charm that you just want to smash it. It might be a fine example of the worst evils of AI you can imagine, but nothing more.

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