Ask Arthur 2025, Part 2: Rogues gallery

This is the final post answering questions in this year’s “Ask Arthur” series. A (very) short series, I know, but it is what it is.

This years' fiinal question is again from Roger Green, who wrote:

I'd like you to analyze the Worst of the Worst: your least favorite members of the regime and why. Don't feel limited to the executive branch; if you want to dis Mike Johnson or John Roberts, please feel free.

It would be much easier to list who among the regime’s inhabitants I like, or, at least, can tolerate, because that list would be empty. This is a first for me: Even when I’ve strongly disagreed with whoever was in the Oval Office, there nearly always was someone that I could at least tolerate—and that even includes the Convicted Felon’s first occupation of the White House. But that’s absolutely not true this time.

Most of the regime is made up of utterly incompetent, even demonstrably stupid, people, which has probably been the main thing that’s kept the USA from going fully fascist so far. There are, however, several people who are beneath contempt, the sorts who better pray every day that there are no Nuremberg-style trials once the regime is finally gone.

The worst of the worst are, in my sincerely held opinion, anyone and everyone who is any way attached to to the Department of “Homeland” Security, its secretary and the head of the ICE Gestapo, chief among them (I will refrain wherever possible from using the rogues’ names because refusing to utter someone’s name is probably a human’s greatest gesture of contempt). They have all broken numerous federal and state laws, violated the rights of thousands of people, and committed the sorts of crimes against humanity that in the Beofre Times would get a country on a US government watchlist.

The individual who outranks all of them in this list, though, has to be the guy often called “The Shadow President”, Herr Miller, who is the architect of the regime’s racist, inhuman, and inhumane war against immigrants, regardless of legal status. The Convicted Felon’s personal Stellvertreter, in the more appropriate German, has made deliberate cruelty the focus of his work, though ensuring maximum profits for the corporations that run the detention facilities is also a strong driving motivation for the regime—though much of that speaks to the regime’s general corruption, not merely its evil intent. His sick racist Christmas tirade is just another symptom of his moral depravity.

Also in the rogues gallery would be the head of the Department of Defence who has (allegedly) violated international law and (allegedly) committed war crimes. Beyond that, his open racism, misogynistic sexism, and homophobic über-bigotry make him incredibly gross—at the very least. But it’s his (alleged) crimes against humanity that could cause him the most problems after the regime ends.

Similarly, the Secretary of State has been shockingly disgusting. Was the guy the Felon used to call “Little” always so sick and twisted, or did joining the regime give him permission to stop pretending he was ever anything other than sick and twisted? Maybe one day a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can find out.

Although generally notable mostly for incompetence, the “Attorney General”, so-called, is in the gallery because she’s been tripping over herself to eagerly do whatever her Felonious Lord and Master demands, no matter how illegal or unconstitutional it is. She better hope someone gives her a pardon.

Finally, among the denizens of the cabinet/politburo is the weird and flaky guy in charge of health. Were he merely a crackpot shouting on the Internet, he could be safely ignored. Instead, his actions will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people before everything he’s done can be reversed when sanity finally returns.

The next group in the rogues gallery are sort of second-string players, though still central to the regime’s fascistic dreams. First, there’s the Shady VP who lately has been desperately trying to convince the Republicans that he alone can be the successor to their God-King. What places him in this gallery, apart from his aggressively boorish behaviour, is that he’s now trying to convince the cult that white supremacism has a place in their cult, the very thing that’s causing deep divisions precisely because so many cultists are saying, “Nah, bro, that’s too racist even for me”.

Special mention, too, goes to the two Roger specifically mentioned, starting with Maga Mike, the worst House Speaker in my lifetime, and that includes his fellow Republican who was convicted of historic sexual abuse of young people. For a man who’s so arrogantly smug all the time, he never seems to know anything whenever he’s asked about the latest crimes or excesses committed by the regime—though perhaps he gets that from his God-King, because he, too, always lies that he doesn’t “know anything about that”. Worse, for someone who constantly parades his supposed religious beliefs, often seemingly performatively, he has done more to not just reject the message of the Jesus he claims to follow, he actually chooses to do the exact opposite. There are rumours that his slavish devotion to the God-King is because the regime has something on him, but it the real explanation is probably just he’s this awful because it’s his nature.

John Roberts gets here, too, but only as an associate member of the rogues gallery, and that, in turn, is only because three of his fellow Republicans are far, FAR worse. Mostly, he’ll go down in history as being singularly responsible for destroying all public respect for the Court, something he seems to actually care about. If he really does, maybe he’ll do better, and reject the authoritarianism of the regime, even if that means he’s in the minority in a ruling.

The one who tops them all is, of course, the Rogue in Chief: Conman, grifter, utterly devoid of any compassion, morality, or ethics, he’s overseeing a deliberate campaign to destroy freedom, democracy, and human rights, all so he can get ever more huge piles of money for himself that he’ll never live long enough to spend. If the rot starts at the top, if the most important organised crime figure is the boss, then he has to have a tier in the rogues gallery all to himself.

Thanks to Roger for participating! Hopefully my response doesn’t make him regret doing so—though it does demonstrate why I almost never talk about politics anymore. Still, it was cathartic.

I don’t know whether I’ll do an “Ask Arthur” series next year or not. I suppose it’ll depend on how well 2026 goes. Thankfully, that decision is nearly a year from now.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-25”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously in the 2025 series:

”Doing the annual inquisition AAAgain?” – The first post in this year’s series.

”Ask Arthur 2025, Part 1: Popping bubbles?”

Have nice things. Or not.

People have opinions about everything possible. Of course they do: It seems to be a large part of being a modern human. Even so, it’s amazing how people seem to feel the urgent need to spout their negative opinions about things that don’t matter, like pop music. I had two reminders of that this week.

I don’t take part in any of the numerous social media arguments over something in pop culture—movies, TV/streaming shows, music, etc. In general, my feelings about pop culture are summed up in Arthur’s Law:

Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else.

Not everyone feels that way—shocker, I know—and many of the Internet Fights I’ve seen are centred on, or related to, something in pop culture. I honestly cannot understand why people get so bothered about what other people enjoy. To me, it seems like such a colossal wast of time and energy.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when I saw a Facebook “Memory” about what I posted after the death of Prince in 2016. I later blogged about that, and the post incorporated much of what I said on Facebook. At the time, I was taken aback by the fact that some people couldn’t even leave people alone to grieve the loss of an artist they liked and admired. I said:

The Internet has provided a great way for people to share their grief with people who feel it, too, and that’s wonderful for them. Really, that should be good enough for the rest of us.

Of course, it wasn’t good enough for some people who chose to be truly awful to other people. It just felt wrong to me—not the first time that’s happened. That made me think about all the other times I’ve seen people that seemingly decided that the world simply HAD to know how much they hated a particular thing in pop culture, especially in pop music, which seems to draw the greatest level of attacks.

At the moment, there seems to be no one in pop culture who is a bigger target of hatred than Taylor Swift, but, to me, it’s utterly mystifying. My cards on the table before I go a step further: I like a lot of Taylor Swift’s songs—actually, that should probably be written be as “a LOT”. However, I wouldn’t call myself a “fan”, mainly because I’ve never bought any of her music (I’ve added her music to my Spotify library), However, her song “The Man” was one of my favourite songs of 2020, and the music video [WATCH — no, seriously, watch it!] is quite probably my favourite video of that year (and on my list of all-time favourites). It’s one of the things that got me through the first Covid lockdown. All of which is to make clear that I think she’s an enormous talent, even though I don’t call myself a “fan”—actually, am I a fan of anyone anymore? A topic for another time, maybe.

There’s a thing called toxic fandom, and they can be fans of literally anyone in the public eye. Personally, I’m not too keen on the aggressive and toxic fans of the frequently napping oddly-hued senior citizen politician from Florida, and the toxicity of such fans can be alarming. However, the number of such fans is astonishingly small considering how much attention they get in the media. Taylor Swift absolutely has aggressive and toxic fans, too, but they’re self-evidently NOT the majority.

I think part of the problem is the imperative of modern journalism to promote the sensational and even outrageous in order to get clicks on links (and, even still, eyes on broadcasts). It’s the old-timey journalist’s slogan, “if it bleeds, it leads”, or even “dog bites man isn’t news, man bites dog is.” The news media, then, has a financial incentive to give airtime and print space (online especially) to the most extreme examples of toxic fans being toxic, and while such fans are absolutely not the majority of a given fandom, and even though it can be argued they cast a shadow out of more normal fans, that doesn’t make those more normal-behaving fans insignificant.

I mention all that because part of the hatred directed at Taylor Swift is “justified” but some people as their supposed reaction to the antics of some of Taylor’s aggressive and toxic fans. The question is, those particular fans’ behaviour aside, why do so many people seem to hate Taylor so very much? Far too much of the answer comes down to politics and culture wars.

Not long ago, the news was filled with fans of NFL (American football) reacting bitterly to Taylor’s relationship with Travis Kelce, a tightend for the Kansas City Chiefs. Fox “News” picked up the chorus, condemning her for having the utter audacity to go to watch Kelce play, and declaring there was a fix in for the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl so that she could endorse Joe Biden for president amid all the media coverage. The Chiefs won, and, of course, Taylor didn’t say a word about President Biden.

Fox and other rightwing media outlets then switched their attention to Swift’s hugely, insanely successful Eras Tour. Fox performers claimed Swift would use the platform to urge her fans to support Democrats, something that apparently came from her previous non-partisan urging of her fans to register to vote (and they did). Fox performers demanded that Taylor “stay out of politics”, which, oddly enough, is a demand they’ve never made of any rightwing performer since, well, ever. Amazing, isn't it!

With the rightwing media ecosystem promoting hatred of Taylor Swift, it was inevitable it would metastasise. Now, it’s become part of the USA’s far-right religious-political activism.

Today I saw a cut-and-paste share of a Facebook post by a far-right “Christian singer, songwriter, former worship leader,” and failed Republican candidate for Congress (because I’ve never heard of him, it seems prudent to not name him, so as to not give him a Google boost). He wrote on his Facebook post, “Almost half the songs on Taylor Swift’s new album contain explicit lyrics (E), make fun of Christians and straight up blaspheme God. Is this the music you want your kids listening to? Do you think I’m overreacting?” Well, since he asked, yes, I absolutely do.

He shared small portions—in one case a single line—of lyrics to songs from Taylor’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, and I found nothing in those quoted lyrics to be even remotely offensive, so I decided to listen to the songs in their entirety to find out for myself what he was clutching his pearls about.

The fact is, I liked all three songs, and the two the guy seemed to be the most apoplectic about (because he shared more than a single line from them)? I liked those two the best of the three. This doesn’t surprise me in the least. The rightwing is constantly bleating on and on and on about how “the Left”—by which they actually mean anyone who’s not a rightwinger—is “woke” and they’re all “snowflakes” who can’t accept offence and should “just to grow up”, and because this is the rightwing mantra, I have a question: What should mainstream people say about rightwingers when they entirely overreact to a song’s lyric and claim to be mortally offended by “attacks” on supposed Christians and their version of the Christian god? Are they “woke”? Well, yes, and insofar as that has any meaning, it’s their version of it—though they’d probably prefer their version of the term, “red-pilled”. What’s clear is that, by their own definition, they’re being “snowflakes”—people who can’t accept offence.

It’s easy for people to be cynical about their ideological opposites, presuming they’re arrogant, aggressive, that they lack intelligence or, at the very least, self-awareness, and that their defining trait is hypocrisy. It’s also easy to point out things that seem to justify the prejudice, like the pearl-clutcher who attacked Taylor who then used the comments on his post to market t-shirts he sells on his website. Obviously, neother hypocrisy nor grifting is defined of limited by ideology, even though it seems like the Right has more than their fair share of it.

Decades from now, Taylor Swift and all the nonsense thrown at her by the rightwing in particular will be items in history books, but is this really the way her loudest critics want to be remembered, as intolerant pearl-clutching snowflakes? I ask for a very simple reason: The rightwing constantly demands that mainstream people should “just get over it” whenever rightwingers say or do something the mainstream finds offensive or over-the-top. Shouldn’t righwingers do the same?

Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else. No, really!

The graphic up top is something I've seen on social media for several years. Sometimes the graphic has been altered to make a different statement, but the text in this version is the first I saw. I couldn't find who originally created the graphic or where it's from (or even if this version has the original text), however, the first online use I could find was from 2016.

As he sowed

So: Kevin McCarthy now goes down in history as the first Speaker of the US House to be removed from office. Who could ever have seen that happening? I mean apart from everyone on the planet, of course. This was always going to be his only legacy: The worst Speaker of modern times, perhaps ever, created the path to his own inevitable demise from the very beginning. In the end, his ejection from the Speakership was exactly what he himself set the stage for.

McCarthy always came across as a cynical opportunist, willing to do whatever was necessary to get the Speaker’s gavel. He enabled and encouraged the lunatic fringe of his own party, and the worst excesses of the supposedly somewhat less-fringey rest of his caucus. He made his ejection inevitable by repeatedly worshiping at the feet of the party’s deified corrupt and indicted Dear Leader, a man so reviled by ordinary Americans that—mostly because of him and his clown car of sycophants in Congress—Democratic candidates in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022 exceeded expectations.

The realty is that in 2022 Republicans only won control of the US House because of gerrymandering in Republican-controlled states, something that the courts are now undoing. If it wasn’t for that gerrymandering, the Democrats would’ve retained the US House. And, of course, Democrats also retained control of the US Senate in what was supposed to be a good year for Republicans.

McCarthy didn’t seem to be too stupid to to see how all that pandering to the lunatics in his party would end. When the inevitable end neared, it was obvious and inevitable. There’s now a golden opportunity for true bipartisan, responsible action—which is precisely why it’ll never happen: The few relatively sane Republicans in the US House could join with Democrats to elect Hakeem Jeffries Speaker, then eject the Republican lunatics from their various committees, and allow the House to get back to actually doing its job again, not playing stupid extremist games, wasting the time and money of US taxpayers.

What will happen is that there will be a bitter Republican internal war as the lunatics demand a lunatic be made party leader and then Speaker. The few sane Republicans will—if they have any brains at all—oppose that. However, how long can that go on without causing even more trouble for the country—or even utter disaster? No one one knows, and the Republican lunatics couldn’t possibly care less. They’re too busy acting like 12 year olds.

Still there are two things we know for certain. The first is that the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the lunatic Republicans in the House, and also of the party’s deified multiple-indicted Dear Leader, will only increase ordinary people’s revulsion for Republicans generally, and that will cause the party lose more seats in 2024 than they otherwise might have if they had grownups running their party. The other thing we know is that all of this was inevitable. Kevin McCarthy has absolutely no one to blame but himself. He sowed the seeds of his own destruction, and he richly deserves that walloping he’s received.

Good riddance to the first Speaker to ever be removed from office: It took fifteen votes to install him, but only one to eject him. My only sympathy is for the American people who have to watch this Republican shit-show as the party’s lunatic clowns and morons continue to do absolutely nothing of any value to anyone. The sooner all of them join McCarthy in being forced out in disgrace, the better for everyone—especially the Republican Party—though it looks far more likely that it would take a new, sane conservative party to emerge in order to put grownups back in control of conservative politics, and to finally kick the lunatics out of power for good.

Hope springs eternal, and all that.

The weirdness epidemic

Until recently, the folks with odd political beliefs were on the fringes, the ones with bizarre beliefs even farther our in the void. These days, though, bizarre counterfactual beliefs aren’t limited to the shadows, the darkness where ordinary, rational people weren’t troubled by them. Instead, increasingly unhinged beliefs are creeping into the most unexpected public of places—like discussion about a new bus route.

This past Monday, a new bus service was launched herein Hamilton, liking the east and west sides of the city. Once the service is fully operational in October, the bus will run approximately every 15 minutes on weekdays, connecting the transport hub in the northwest part of Hamilton with Waikato University to the southeast, passing through the area I live, and the centre of Hamilton, among other parts of the city. This means that I could take the bus to get into the centre of the city rather than driving there, something that would probably mean I’d spend ages looking for a place to park. Other people will see different advantages related to their lives, of course.

In the comments to a Facebook ad promoting the launch, there were a lot of ordinary negative comments, similar to ones that can be seen on pretty much any public Facebook post. There were also a few railing about Hamilton City Council, and railing against one’s local government seems to be New Zealand’s leading indoor sport. However, there was also this:

“Hullo There’s that 15 minute brain tease again. Getting us ready for the 15 min city. No chnace. Vote them all out” [poor punctuation was in the original]

I’ll admit, when I first saw the comment, I thought it must be someone making an incredibly lame attempt at humour, which is pretty common when an ordinary person encounters bizarre comments like that. So I looked at the individual’s profile, and it was filled with promotions of conspiracy theory (including some very unhinged ones), attacks on those the conspiracy fans think are part of some sort of evil global cabal plotting to control them—in this case, by making their lives easier.

Naturally, the conspiracy nuts don’t accept there’s no good whatsoever about “15 minute cities”, which has become one of the more recent obsessions for the fringe. Here in the real world, the actual fact-based truth is obnoxiously simple and easy to understand. ABC (Australia) Radio National explained it this way:

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where neighbourhoods provide residents with the basic things they need — shops, schools, parks, leisure options, health care — within a 15-minute radius by foot or bike.

That’s it! The whole thing a framework for developing cities to make them more liveable and resilient, and far less dependent on using fossil fuels to handle the necessities of life. One of my biggest frustrations about where I live is that I have to drive everywhere to get anything I may need, and that includes healthcare and parks, but it’s the fact I have to drive to get a bottle of milk that really annoys me. Someday, there will be a commercial area just a few minutes’ walk form my house, and I’m really looking forward to that.

There’s nothing even remotely new about this idea—it’s as old as civilisation. People’s walking distance to basic necessities and amenities dramatics increased, or disappeared entirely, as private cars and their roads expanded (often with a fair but of corruption in the promotion of transport by car).

When Nigel and I visited the USA, he was shocked at how there were areas of ordinary cities in which it was impossible to to walk from one shopping centre to another. In fact, on our last trip there, we had to call a taxi to get us from one to another because there was absolutely no way to walk from one to the other.

And yet, being able to walk places is seen by some folks as just another “globalist conspiracy”, one that will, depending on the conspiracy fan, lead to government confiscating cars, forcing people to live in “ghettos” (an… interesting choice of words…), concentration camps (another interesting choice…), or open-air prisons that people won’t be allowed to leave without a permit. They say it would lead to fights for survival like out of the “Hunger Games”.

It seems to me that their obsession was fuelled by the fact the World Economic Forum promoted the urban planning framework, and to the conspiracy fans, the WEF is the embodiment and container for all the evil conspiracies the fans promote. Interestingly, the Left criticises the WEF, too, but for mostly entirely legitimate and rational reasons.

I have no idea how we as a society—as a civilisation—come back from this. How can we save the folks who are deeply the mired in obsession with imaginary conspiracies? How can we help them back toward being rational people who contribute to the body politic, and not exist entirely outside it? I have absolutely no idea, but as I’ve said many times, especially on my podcast, we must find a way, and if we fail to do so, it will be at our peril. [I talked about 15 minute cities in Episode 385 back in June, following a mob of conspiracy obsessives disrupted a simple public meeting in Hamilton].

One guy, so obsessed with conspiracy theories that he makes silly comments based on his bizarre beliefs on a public forum about a bus service may not seem like anything important or dangerous. However, we’ve seen time and time again how people who obsessively believe in bizarre conspiracy theories turn to violence when they grasp that no one outside their rabbit hole takes them seriously. The influence of the obsessives is growing, mostly because unscrupulous politicians pander to them in pursuit of power. We MUST find a way into our shared future that includes us all, and that means we must reject politicians who pander to the obsessives, and we must never ignore the fringe.

Personally, I’m glad for the busses every 15 minutes, and I look forward to the day when I can walk less than 15 minutes to buy a bottle of milk. There are far more people like me than there are folks who mutter darkly against those things, and that fact should give us all some hope.

The photo up top is of the brochure promoting the new bus service that I received last week. The cover of the brochure promotes the fact that weekday service will be approximately every 15 minutes. Maybe reading comprehension isn't necessary for conspiracy obsessives?

Voters deliver more good news

Voters in Ohio have just handed Republicans yet another huge defeat and stood up for the right of the people to decide for themselves what they want, and not be dictated to by overreaching authoritarians. One would think Republican politicans would learn from their ongoing string of defeats, but apparently not. Fortunately for them, voters are willing to school them again and again.

The Associated Press correctly headlined their story, “Voters in Ohio reject GOP-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights”, because even though the vote wasn’t about abortions rights (technically), what it was REALLY about was abortion rights, and absolutely everyone knew it. The referendum was the Republicans’ plan to make it nearly impossible to amend the Ohio state constitution to protect abortion rights by raising the number of votes to approves such measures to 60% from the simple majority it’s been for more than a century.

Republicans claimed the measure was to prevent “outside groups” from meddling with Ohio’s constitution, which was the only partially honest thing they said about it—but they were still being completely dishonest: They really meant they wanted to prevent a measure to protect abortion rights from passing by referendum, something that would’ve drawn support from outside the state. They knew that such measures can struggle to get to 60% approval, especially in a mostly Republican state like Ohio, so they moved with their idiotic power play.

The Republicans also decided to put their thumb on the scales by holding the referendum in the middle of summer because, they were cocksure, only the most rightwing Republicans would vote at that time of year. The Republicans vastly underestimated the determination of pissed-off voters.

For decades, and even as recently as only a few years ago, Republicans kept claiming that they wanted Roe v. Wade overturned not to ban all abortions, silly voter, but merely so it could be returned to the states to decide. They threw in, “let the people decide” for extra emphasis.

Of course we now know that Republican politicians have been lying for decades, because as soon as the Supreme Court’s far-right Republican majority overturned Roe, Republican-controlled states went at breakneck speed to ban all abortions in their states, and finally started speaking honestly and admitting that their goal was a nationwide ban on all abortions, with no exceptions. Voters responded with, “Oh yeah? WATCH THIS!!! and have handed Republicans loss after loss whenever they get the chance to vote—which is precisely what Ohio Republicans were trying to make impossible for the people of Ohio.

Here’s the obvious lesson in this and similar results in Republican-controlled places like Kansas and Kentucky: Trying to ban all abortions without exception is a losing idea. Republicans’ insistence on going ahead with their radical agenda on abortion—in defiance of the will of the people—along with their ongoing wars against books, education, women, people who aren’t white, and LGBT+ people (among many, many, many other idiotic crusades) are costing them elections. The Republican “Party” is now a far-right cult with absolutely nothing to attract the majority of voters.

This is why Democrats did so well in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2024—and the latter was supposed to be a “Red Wave” year in which the Republicans would take full control of Congress. Instead, Democrats held the Senate, barely lost the House to a caucus under the total control of its most lunatic and irrational members, folks who care only about waging unhinged Republican Party ideological wars, folks couldn’t possibly care less about delivering for the people who elected them. But hey, at least they managed to elect a lickspittle coward to become the weakest Speaker ever.

Because of Republican extremism, in 2022 Democrats took power in states, such as, gaining full control of Michigan’s state government for the first time in decades. In 2022, they also defeated every single one of the party’s candidates who set out to be just like the party’s Dear Leader, the unemployed orange Florida man who’s currently facing multiple criminal indictments with more to come.

The fact is, everyone who believes in democracy, the rule of law, and the right of voters to decide issues for themselves, should be glad that Republican politicians seem to be so universally myopic—or even outright stupid. Every time they move to advance their christofascist agenda, they piss-off more voters and end up being humiliated by them. That’s why we know for certain that between now and the 2024 US elections, Republicans will do everything they can think of to prevent people from voting, because, as a party that wants to do the exact opposite of what the people actually want, all they have left is trying to stop democracy itself. The voters of Ohio have shown that when voters have the opportunity, they’ll show the Republicans the door. Long may it continue nationwide.

Abhorrent law is dead—but the zombie may return

Today, President Biden signed HR8404, the “Respect for Marriage Act,” repealing the last of remnant of the infamous federal law, the Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA). The new law also provides certainty for married same-gender and inter-racial married couples. How long that will last is the question now.

There were two reasons this law was urgent. First, the far-right extremist Republicans on the US Supreme Court will probably overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that established the right to same-gender marriage throughout the USA, and they may also overturn Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 ruling that established the right to interracial marriage. If they do, then the new law ensures that all US states will be required to recognise same-gender and interracial marriages performed in other states, even if a state decides to outlaw such marriages being performed in their states.

Another important aspect is that the new law ensures that such marriages will be legal under federal law for federal matters—taxes, inheritance, medical care, immigration, etc. This is another ring of protection for same-gender and interracial marriage.

However—and there’s always a “but” central to any talk of progress for justice and fairness in the USA—all of this may still be undone, and we can be absolutely certain that Republicans will at least make a show of trying. It’s what the party now is and does.

First, the far-right Republican radicals on the Supreme Court could breach the bulwark the new law provides by giving states permission to refuse recognition of marriages legal in other states but not their own. They could do this when they overturn Obergefell, but I doubt that they would do that specifically if they overturn Loving (because of optics, not just because Clarence Thomas is in an interracial marriage). More than likely, they’d seek to do that when overturning Obergefell and then just allow it to apply to interracial couples, too (if they overturn Loving).

To be sure, the Supreme Court can’t give states an exemption from the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution without effectively declaring that parts of the Constitution itself are “unconstitutional”. That’d be a nonsense, obviously. Instead, they’d be more likely to declare that Congress overstepped its powers (or something similar) in passing the Respect for Marriage Act.

The biggest, most obvious, easiest and fastest threat could come from Congress: It passed the infamous Defense [sic] of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the first place, of course, and it took a somewhat more sensible Supreme Court to overturn part of it—the part that singled out same-gender couples for animus-based discrimination under federal law; equal protection of the law mattered at the time [the case was United States v. Windsor].

If Republicans have unified control of government after the 2024 elections, all they’d need to do is pass a new version of DOMA, repealing the Respect for Marriage Act. If the radical Republican Supreme Court also overturns Obergefell, as seems likely, then states would be free to ban all recognition of same-gender marriage, and such couples would also lose federal recognition, too.

To reiterate what I said when I last talked about this law, “it’s highly improbable that any US state would try to enact an outright ban interracial marriage”. However, political realities could lurch dramatically to the far-right in the future, and that brings up the most important point of all: Elections have consequences.

If Republicans win unified control of government in 2024, the end of marriage equality for same-gender couples will be inevitable. Being legally allowed to marry in rational, reason-based states will mean little if those marriages aren’t recognised—or of if they’re even criminalised—in other states. And if the federal government also refuses to recognise such marriages, then same-gender married couples in free states could become effective prisoners in their state’s island of freedom.

If Republicans get the power to do so, they absolutely will end marriage equality for same-gender couples. They may also end the nationwide right to interracial marriage, too, though they’d never admit that was a goal until they’re in power, unlike ending marriage for same-gender couples in ever state, something they’ve long and proudly promised to do.

As precedent, look at abortion rights: For years Republicans and their evangelical base promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and far too few people took their threat seriously—until Republicans succeeded in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. THEN the people who didn’t pay attention to Republicans’ vows suddenly finally understood that Republicans really did intend to make abortion illegal, without exception, in all of the USA, and they now understand that if Republicans get the power to do so, they absolutely will follow through on their promise. Similarly, those same Republicans have always promised to end marriage for same-gender couples, and it’s about damn time people started paying attention. As Maya Angelou is said have put it, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Here’s the hope: Republicans are not yet invincible. In this year’s midterm elections they suffered a catastrophic failure in a year in which they SHOULD have had a massive victory. Despite everything in their favour this year, they failed and Democrats had unprecedented success against all the odds. One of the main reasons for that is that Republicans focus ONLY on radicalised divisiveness and culture wars, and have absolutely no policy proposals whatsoever, nor even the tiniest hint of how they might deal with problems facing Americans. This year, voters massively rejected Republicans’ extremism, and the party has responded by doubling down on that extremism. Republican politicians cannot do any differently: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

The enactment of the Respect for Marriage Act protects couples in an interracial and/or same-gender marriage for now. To prevent Republicans from achieving their goal of destroying such marriages, it will be important to elect only Democrats in the 2024 elections. Republican politicians have shown us who they are over and over and over again. It’s about damn time we believe them. I do.

A few Hamilton voters proved me right

Surprising absolutely no one, the National Party candidate won the Hamilton West By-Election, which ended yesterday. The only thing we didn’t know for sure was how low the turnout would be. It was truly awful.

The turnout for the election was appalling. That was expected, but the extent was a bit worse than the most optimistic guesses. During the Advance Voting period (November 26 – December 9), 9,836 votes were cast. That compares with 24,595 votes cast during the Advance Vote period for the 2020 General Election.

The most recent By-Election was in the Tauranga Electorate when former National Party Leader Simon Bridges quit Parliament to become the head of a business lobby group in Auckland. In the By-Election to find his replacement MP, 14,168 votes were cast in the Advance Voting period (In total, Tauranga had a total of 20,784 votes cast).

Altogether—including both the Advance Voting period and votes cast on Election Day (December 10)—14,392 votes were cast in the Hamilton West By-Election. As at November 30, 2022, there were 55,512 enrolled voters in the Hamilton West Electorate, which is 84.09% of the eligible population on that date. This means that fewer than 26% of enrolled voter bothered to vote, and fewer than 22% of eligible voters.

Some journalists report voter turnout as a percentage of the eligible vote. However, unenrolled people can’t vote because they aren’t enrolled, so, in my view, the turnout among enrolled voters is the important statistic. That number, though, should be reported with a notation that, in this case, 15.91% of eligible voters weren’t registered for whatever reason.

I think this matters because otherwise it implies that people not enrolling to vote are “sending a message”, but there are always a lot of reasons why people don’t enrol—and age is one of the biggest reasons. In Hamilton West, a bit fewer than 54% of eligible people 18-24 were enrolled, only 74% of people 25-29, and just under 80% of people 30-34. At least 86% of people 35 and older were enrolled to vote (and the percentage keeps rising with age). The counter argument is that voters can enrol on Election Day, so if they remain un-enrolled, it may be deliberate. Sure, it could be that—or maybe not. There’s absolutely no way to know.

Whenever voter turnout is low, it’s almost certainly the most highly-motivated people who make a point of voting. Generally speaking, they’re the people with the strongest opinions and, in this case, they obviously oppose the current Labour Government. Here are the preliminary results of the By-Election, along with my own comments (the candidates are listed in declining order by result, just as they were in the preliminary results):

POTAKA, Tama, National Party: 6,629 votes (margin of victory was 2,285 votes).

DANSEY, Georgie, Labour Party: 4,344 votes. She went to the National Party candidate on Election Night to concede in person. She said she’ll be the party’s candidate in the General Election next year.

McDOWALL, James – ACT New Zealand party: 1,462 votes.

SHARMA, Gaurav, the former Electorate MP, who ran under his own party label: 1,156 votes.

POCOCK, Naomi, The Opportunities Party (TOP): 337 votes.

POKERE-PHILLIPS, Donna, the candidate for the far-right extremist NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party: 125 votes.

DU PLOOY, Rudi, running as the candidate of both the far-right christianist New Conservative Party and the utlra-far right theocratic christianist One Party: 117 votes.

WAKEMAN, Peter, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: 71 votes.

TAIT, Jade, of the ultra-far right christianist Vision New Zealand: 57 votes.

DICKSON, Gordon John, Independent: 26 votes.

FU, Frank, Independent: 22 votes.

OSMASTON, Richard, Money Free Party: 7 votes.

There are a number of things that stand out to me in the results. First, and the most encouraging, was the fact that a tiny, tiny 299 votes went to the most hard-core, hard-right, anti-government, and christianist candidates. That means combined they only got around 2% of the vote in an election where the outcome wouldn’t change anything so people could be free to vote their passion. Clearly the highly-motivated voters who bothered to vote in the By-Election don’t sympathise with the extremist fringe. That’s very good news, indeed.

A combined 5500 votes went to the two opposition rightwing parties, who would be in coalition if the Right wins the 2023 General Election. This time, they together got around 56% of the total vote, which underscores the anti-government nature of the vote. The National Party candidate alone got around 46% of the vote, which is a plurality, but not a majority. The Labour Party candidate got a bit more than 30% of the vote. Since Electorate elections are conducted under the old-fashioned first-past-the-post election system, a plurality is all that’s needed to win, and that fact could help either Labour or National.

Overall, though, the National Party is in a good position to hold the electorate seat in the 2023 General Election, particularly if anti-government sentiment remains strong (which is probable if the Reserve Bank of New Zealand follows through on its threat to deliberately crash the New Zealand economy). Also, the clear majority of combined votes—some 70%—were in opposition to the Government, or, at least, not in direct support of it. Despite all that, nothing can be taken for granted in a multi-candidate election, as both National and Labour would agree.

When I talked about the By-Election last month, I said that “hardly anyone will vote, regardless of who they support.” I also noted that the National Party candidate was “the clear and obvious favourite to win”, and about National, “the wind is still at their back”. I was right on all that (and I stand by all my disparaging remarks about extremist candidates).

I received very little advertising material at my house: The National candidate was first, and I also got material from candidates on the far-right and also TOP. The last one I got was from Sharma, and I found it when I opened my front door, where it had been stuck in the opening. “Sorry I missed you,” it said. The first thing that popped into my head was, “I’m not.” I opened the door because I was headed out to vote, and that was never going to be for him.

I received two campaign phone calls: One was from a Labour Party phonebank, and I was pleased to tell them I’d already voted for Labour. The other call was a Labour Party robocall on Friday evening—and it was, as far as I can remember, only the second robocall I’ve ever had (the first was during the 2017 General Election campaign and on behalf of National).

There was one funny (to me…) accidental thing that happened: Every time I saw the name of Rudi Du Plooy—which admittedly was only a couple times—my brain said, “Rooty Tooty Da Pooty” because my brain conjured up the decades-old ad slogan/product name from American restaurant chain IHOP: The “Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity” breakfast item. While I’m not above mangling someone’s name on purpose for comedy or because of a strong dislike, this was absolutely not intentional. I’ve often said that if I could put everything I need to remember to an advertising jingle (or even a slogan), I’d never forget anything. This goes to show that it wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d remember it correctly. It does go to show, I suppose, that I didn’t take anything about this By-Election seriously, not with an obvious outcome that my vote couldn’t possibly affect. It was also easy to call it exactly right—it was pretty much impossible to get it wrong.

Oddly, I’m suddenly craving pancakes…

Disclosures: I’m a member and supporter of the New Zealand Labour Party, but have absolutely no position of any kind with them, nor am I in contact with party leaders. All opinions expressed are entirely my own, based on some 50 years closely following politics and election campaigns (obviously I started when I was an infant…), as well as my personal values. I voted for Gaurav Sharma in New Zealand’s 2020 General Election, the first election I was able to vote in the Hamilton West Electorate.

Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House

It’s time to begin answering this year’s “Ask Arthur” series, and this year I decided to do what I’ve done in the past: Start with the first question and go to the last, in order. It doesn’t usually matter what order I answer them in, anyway, so chronological order is as good a way as any.

There are few questions this year, so there will also be few “Answer” posts, too. Of course, anyone can still ask new questions, but that seldom happens at this point in the process, which is why I expect it to be a short series this year.

Today’s questions are from my pal Roger Green, and are all related. Here’s the first one:

what you think is the legacy of Nancy Pelosi's tenure as Speaker and minority leader?

I have two thoughts upfront. The first is that it’s almost impossible to know a famous person’s true legacy in the moment, because time and distance are usually vital to gain some perspective. The other thing is that, generally speaking, people’s perceptions of her legacy will depend on which side of the USA’s partisan divide they live on, and even which end of the Democratic Party one resides in. Nevertheless, I definitely have my own view.

I think that Nancy Pelosi was the most important Speaker of the US House since Tip O’Neill. Like him, she could (usually…) keep the Democratic caucus in line, and so, she was able to get the House to pass all sorts of hugely important legislation. The other speakers surrounding her terms Underscore why I say that.

Her predecessor as Speaker, prior to the 2006 midterm elections, was Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert, whose reputation was destroyed by a sexual abuse scandal, and the resulting financial fraud because of it, all of which came to light some eight years after he left Congress. His Congressional legacy is now limited to a grudging acknowledgement that his 8 year term was the longest of any Republican Speaker of the House.

When Democrats lost control of the US House following the teabagger midterm election of 2010, John Boehner of Ohio became Speaker. This was a turning point, and a foreshadowing of what was to come: Teabaggers elected to the House, like those allied to the Republican presidential candidate of 2016 and 2020, were opposed to comprise of any kind, especially bipartisanship. Boehner struggled to maintain control of the Republicans’ agenda, and so, cannot be seen as having been a successful Speaker. Things got so bad that he resigned from the House in 2015, and Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan succeeded him.

Just like Boehner, Ryan was plagued with a combative, restive, and hard-right Republican caucus. Making matters worse for him was that he was Speaker after the orange Republican got into the White House in 2016, and they clearly didn’t get along (which wasn’t unusual for the orange Republican, of course, whose only concern was that everyone worship him). Ryan’s only significant “accomplishments” in his two terms as speaker was to pass Republicans’ massive tax cut for the rich (which added $7.8 trillion to the USA’s national debt) and the gutting of the Dodd-Frank Act, which had been passed in 2010 to try to fix the loopholes in the law that allowed the Great Recession to happen in 2008 (corporations and Wall Street banksters hated the act).

Republicans’ attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act only passed the House by a narrow vote, but then famously failed in the US Senate when Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain all joined Democrats in voting against it (and McCain received most of the venom and fury of hard right Republicans and their orange partyleader). Ryan didn’t get to privatise social security and Medicare as he wanted to, nor gut Medicaid. He cannot be considered to have been a successful Speaker, and he finally just gave up and didn’t run for re-election in the 2018 midterms, after which Nancy Pelosi became Speaker for the second time.

In between Tip O'Neill and Dennis Hastert was the vile Newt Gingrich, the person who we can all thank for giving birth to Republicans' "slash and burn" hyper-partisanship and the partisan gridlock that Congress is now known for. Gingrich was such an arrogant, aggressive,and aggressively negative Speaker that even his own caucus grew to loathe him, and he’s become only more and more and more contemptible since he—thankfully—quit the House ending the four-year long nightmare of him as Speaker.

What all of that history shows us is that none of the Republican speakers since Tip O'Neill were even partly as effective as he was, though one could argue that through longevity alone, Hastert was at least the least infective of the Republican speakers. By sheer comparison, then, Nancy Pelosi was a far more successful speaker than any of the Republicans I mentioned in this recap.

Another indication of her success was the depth of hatred for her among Republicans, a reaction that became more fetid the farther right a Republican was. However, Progressive Democrats also didn’t like Pelosi—though “hate” is far too strong a word for their reaction. They felt that she wasn’t progressive enough (which was probably a fair assessment, in my opinion), and they resented her unwillingness to take the caucus to the Left. One can ague whether she was right or wrong about keeping the caucus more moderate (in the modern sense), and one can be suspicious of progressives’ claims that the electorate is actually progressive, not centrist, but it is inarguable that they didn’t want her as Speaker. However, it’s also true that they were realistic that they didn’t have the numbers to stop her, and so, their best option was to work with her to get legislation passed that was at least somewhat more progressive than it otherwise might have been. The arrangement worked, and Speaker Pelosi made sure it did.

Which leads naturally to Roger’s next question:

What kind of Speaker will Kevin McCarthy be? Will he be able to keep the "Freedom Caucus" in check?

He will be a terrible speaker—if he actually wins the role, of course. People on the centre and, of course, the left, but also sane conservatives, don’t trust him—at all. He coddled seditious conspirators and when he had the chance to stand up and do the right thing about the orange guy’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election—and the constitution—to steal another four years as president, Kevin repeatedly failed the country—and the Constitution and his oath to defend it.

If he becomes Speaker, he'll be utterly beholden to that same Treason Caucus among Republicans in the House—and they don’t even like him. The first time he even micro-pauses before bowing and scraping to the Republicans’ lunatic fringe, they’ll try to dump him. It could well be a major miracle if he manages to serve out the entire two-year term, but there’s also this: If the lunatic fringe pushes too hard, Democrats and sane Republicans may well join forces to install a sane conservative as Speaker. Likely? Probably not. The old saying about Republicans falling in line may still prove true, and the seditious lunatics' posturing now may just be to make sure Kevin is fully under their thumb. I certainly wouldn’t place a bet on him still being Speaker at the end of 2024.

And this actually leads to Roger’s last question for today:

Will anything get done in the federal government in the next two years, or will we fuss over the debt limit and federal budget twice a year?.

Nope: Nothing good or useful to anyone will get out of the House for the next two years. Most of the Republicans in Congress—the House in particular—don’t believe in governing, and their record over the past decade and a half or so underscores that reality. We know the radicals’ agenda consists of launching 2,083 different investigations of Hunter Biden’s laptop, of attempting to impeach Joe Biden for the crime of being a Democrat, and they’ll also focus on hurting the American people every chance they get, including by shutting down the US Government. Everything terrible about the Republican Party that voters rejected in the midterm elections? They’ll double and triple down on that extremism, and pile more on top of it.

However, just as Kevin’s hold the speakership, if he actually gets it, will be highly fragile and tenuous, so, too, is the power of the Treason Caucus. All it will take is a few of the sane conservatives to vote with Democrats to kneecap the radicals, however, the counter to that is the fact that the majority caucus sets the House agenda through the Speaker, so it will be hard for the sane majority in Congress to do an end run around the radicals—difficult, but not impossible. The House doesn’t have a filibuster, after all. Progressive legislation is definitely dead for two years, but centrist legislation might manage to get through with the help of sane conservatives. Maybe.

Thanks to Roger for today’s questions!

It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. To avoid being public there, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page..

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

”A decade-long inquisition” – The first post in this year’s series.

Rush Limbaugh is dead

You know the old saying, right? If you can't say anything good about someone who's died, then say nothing at all. Here's my official statement on the death of Rush Limbaugh:

Making her bigotry an issue

I’d planned on trying to avoid posting much about individual Democratic presidential candidates because I’m neutral. However, today there was such vile bigotry directed at one candidate that it must be called out. Sadly, I’ve had to do that for decades. Worse still, I can see this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do.

Today MSNBC anchor Kendis Gibson hosted a discussion about Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s religion, and how that relates to religious conservatives (video above). The segment began well, with Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, who has long talked about Christianity and gay people (I featured a video of him on this blog back in 2012). He discussed how Mayor Pete’s religious views fit into certain Christian views, and how Frankie Graham’s recent loopy attacks on Mayor Pete shows Graham is desperately out of step with core Christian tenets, and how his rank hypocrisy about the current occupant undercuts all his arguments against Mayor Pete.

The next guest was a “conservative radio host” who is so unimportant that she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. She attacked Mayor Pete for “making his gayness an issue". And how did he do that? He dared to share a kiss with his husband when Pete announced his candidacy! Shock! Horror!

“Clearly Pete Buttigieg has made his gayness an issue in this campaign,” she educated us. “He’s brought his husband up on stage. They shared a kiss during his announcement.”

Gibson pushed back, pointing out that Mayor Pete didn’t make his gayness an issue any more than a straight person makes their straightness an issue, and that he barely mentioned that he’s a gay person in his announcement. The “conservative radio host” doubled down:

I think he made it a huge issue. He talked about his spouse, Chasten, and the fact that they were, um, you know, married. And let’s be real: This is not a typical candidate. We haven’t had had a gay presidential candidate ever in the history of the United States. And he made it an issue. He could have ignored it. He could have said nothing. And people would have speculated about it. But he made it an issue. So he wants that to be an identifier.

Gibson could be heard laughing with incredulity at the “conservative radio host”. Matthew Vines, meanwhile, could be seen in split-screen shots apparently trying to avoid smiling, much less laughing at the “conservative radio host” and her moronic statements. He succeeded, and only reacted at the very end when he nodded in agreement with Gibson’s pushback when he said that Mayor Pete “only did what many straight straight couples have done,” to which the “conservative radio host” responded, “Well they shared a kiss on stage, which is unusual.”

Here’s the thing. There are many Rightwingers in the USA who agree with her distaste for the very existence of openly gay people, and the older they are, the more likely they are to hold fast to such antique ideas: Younger people of whatever political leaning couldn’t possibly care less, and they don’t think a gay couple sharing a kiss is “unusual”. Maybe older Rightwingers just need to get out more.

What’s so deeply offensive about the comments from that “conservative radio host” is what she was really saying when she declared that Mayor Pete “could have ignored [the fact he’s gay]. He could have said nothing. And people would have speculated about it. But he made it an issue.” What she was really saying was that if he was deeply closeted, like many Republican politicians have been, it would have been different and somehow better. Seriouslly?!

How, precisely could he have “ignored it”? He’s married to a man, he’s a public figure who is already known as being a married gay man. Was he supposed to just pretend none of it’s true? That he’s really just a bachelor waiting for the right girl to come along? Because what she’s really saying is that he has to lie about himself in order to make her feel better. But if she’s threatened by a mere kiss, what does that say about how she feels about gay people in general?

We are well past the time when gay people have to lie about who they are in order for heterosexual snowflakes on the Right to feel comfortable in their safespace of ignorance. Gay people are as fully human and complex as heterosexuals are, and when someone objects to a gay person being fully human, they’re not being rational: They’re being bigots.

I’m so sick of having to call this shit out over and over again, as I’ve been doing for more than 35 years. Heterosexuals do not get to tell gay people how to be gay people. They do not get to object when a married gay couple shares a kiss just like a married heterosexual couple does. And they damn sure don’t get to complain about a gay person “making being gay an issue” just by being, you know, gay when it’s clearly the heterosexual who has made it “an issue”.

I don’t know who that “conservative radio host” is or why she’s used as a pundit, but based on her, um, "contribution" to that segment, I hope I never see her again. When I watch a political discussion, I want to hear the speakers on all sides of an issue, whether I agree or disagree with them, offer intelligent, reasoned, and rational commentary. Rank, bald bigotry is none of those things.

People can agree with Mayor Pete (or any of the other candidates) or not. They also don’t have to like any particular candidate, and that can even based on nothing more than feelings. But when talking about candidates, especially when criticising them, doing so based merely on who they are is never an acceptable line of attack. Ever. Things like race, gender, age, religious belief (or lack of), class, and sexuality are never acceptable lines of attack.

There are things I like and dislike about pretty much every Democratic candidate for president. In fact, if they could all be mixed together and extruded, the result would probably be pretty much perfect for me. But that’s not how it works: We take the candidates in their totality, look at the issues they talk about and the vision they offer for dealing with those issues, and we make our choice. Who they are, the bits and pieces of their identity, may be interesting, but they're  NOT what we’ll be electing: We’ll be electing a whole human being. Rational people understand that—it’s too bad that “conservative radio host” can’t.

So far, I’ve ignored the personal attacks on the Democratic candidates, most of which have been merely silly or childish. But today’s display of bald bigotry was so egregious that I had to respond. The worst thing, though, is that this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do that because the human capacity for bigotry, and people's need to express it, seems to be unlimited. And that means I'll have to talk about individual candidates more than I intended to.

Welcome to the 2020 US Presidential Election campaign.

If the video above doesn’t play, watch it on the MSNBC site.

The big joke

There are plenty of reasons to laugh at the current occupant of the White House, but plenty more reasons to laugh at his sycophants, enablers, and lackeys. The above Facebook post shares an example.

The gist of the story is that Secretary of State Pompeo was asked if the current occupant “is a new Esther.” This refers to the biblical legend in which a Jewish woman named Esther, said to be a woman that the Persian king (supposedly Xerxes I) married because of her great beauty—and to replace a disobedient wife. Esther, the legend has it, heard about a plan to kill all the Jews under Persian control, and she thwarted it.

Pompeo said, “As a Christian I certainly believe that's possible."Sending more chills down the spine of everyone who doesn’t share his particularly rigid form of extreme fundamentalist Christianity, he added, “I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

Why? Because the radical “Christian” extremists think that the current occupant will “save” the Jews (Israel) from Persia (Iran) by solving a problem the current occupant himself created in the first place. Their Lord (temporal and spiritual alike) moves in mysterious ways, indeed.

It doesn’t happen much anymore, but I did literally laugh out loud when I read about this. It was only last year that I read about radical “Christian” extremists declaring that the current occupant of the White House is a modern day King Cyrus, the Babylonian king who, while not Jewish, nevertheless “saved” the Jewish people according to biblical legend. He was, according to the legend, an unwitting tool for the Jewish god to use.

This is known as “vessel theory” in which the radical “Christian” extremists’ god can use someone who may not be a believer or even "worthy"—in this case, the current occupant of the White House—as a “vessel” for the god's will to be done. In this way, the radical “Christian” extremists can excuse and ignore the current occupant’s serial adultery, his bragging about committing sexual assault, paying off a porn star, etc., etc., etc.

This is all pretty hilarious, really. The radical “Christian” extremists are SO wedded to their man, so willing to overlook everything bad about him, that they’ll come up with anything, no matter how bizarre, to use as justification for giving him their utter loyalty. And, in return, they get absolutely everything they want. Politics at play, obviously, in which power—and gaining power over people who don’t share their beliefs—matters more than honesty, integrity, or principle. Every time.

So, I mocked them in my post:

“Waitaminute, waitaminute, those “Christian” extremists have been banging in for two years that their guy is a new King Cyrus, used by their god to accomplish things that, just coincidentally, of course, align perfectly with their radical political agenda. Now he’s supposed to be ESTHER?! I thought those radical “Christians” hated trans people…

Because, if they can come up with bizarre and stupid justifications to allow them to fall at the feet of someone not worthy of such worship, then we all get to mock them for it. Don't worry, though: The radical “Christian” extremists have plenty of quasi-biblical, loosely "Christian" rationalisations as to why such mockery is actually good for them, a "storing up treasures in heaven" sort of thing, or maybe one of those "five crowns". Point is, they don't care, which isn't even the point of such mockery: There's a social good in helping others to see how silly the radical “Christian” extremists' rationalisations and excuses for supporting the current occupant really are.

Of course, those radical “Christian” extremists could always go and sin no more, but I certainly don’t expect that to ever happen.

Related: "Trump’s spiritual adviser: relationship with president is ‘assignment’ from God" By Jessica Glenza, The Guardian

The unhinged busy unhinging

It’s no secret that social media, particularly in the USA, has become a polarised, extremely toxic place, especially over the past couple years. It seems to be getting worse, if anything, with unhinged comments popping up all over the place, often in very unexpected places. It’s getting so the only logical solution is to block unhinged commenters.

Yesterday evening I checked Facebook, and my timeline had a post to a Facebook Group I’m part of, one on print advertising from the middle of last century onwards. I enjoy that subject for multiple reasons—the evolution of graphic and advertising design, nostalgia, even for seeing ideas I can adapt for modern ads. It’s all a bit of fun, really, and nothing serious.

Until last night.

Someone that I do not know—an American or someone pretending to be an American—posted an especially unhinged rant complaining about Leftists commenting that ads are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. From there he devolved into a smears and defamatory nonsense about Leftists more generally. It was all WAY over the top, and totally inappropriate for a forum that’s just not that serious.

I checked out the guy’s profile to try and work out if he was serious or trolling, something I’ve always done in such cases, and nearly all his posts were either general pretty far rightwing memes, support for the current regime, and various attacks on “the Left”. It seemed to me he was another easily-triggered rightwinger who couldn’t stand the fact that someone somewhere might see the world differently than he did.

So, I posted a comment that was dripping with sarcasm:

Fun (apparently little known) facts about Facebook:

Membership in all Groups is optional. So is clicking “Like” for any page.

Leaving a comment or making a post is optional.

Reading a comment on a post is optional.

Bothersome posts can be hidden.

Triggering commenters can be blocked.

All groups can be left at any time, and any Page can be un-Liked.

As Captain Planet used to say, “The power is YOURS!”

If I’d been making the comment on a computer, rather than my iPad, I’d probably have edited that to make it punchier, but that’s not easy to do in a Facebook App, and, besides, comments were coming thick and fast and I wanted to get in before, I assumed, group Admins deleted the post.

Someone responded to my post saying something about people really making political comments like the rightwinger suggesting they did, but I responded basically saying that I didn’t know because I almost never read the comments on posts in that group. But that doesn’t change the truth in my sarcastic comment, the power really is ours to get rid of obnoxious comments.

The qualifiers I used in the previous paragraph are for a very good reason: I can’t remember precisely what was said, and, as I thought would happen, Admins deleted the post in question. The only reason I know what I said is that I got an email notification of the comments, and that included the full text of mine. Lucky me.

Someone else left a totally irrelevant ranting comment about how they’d once believed in “socialism”, but they’d supposedly studied the UK’s health system, and voila!, they abandoned Progressivism and support for Bernie Sanders to vote for the 2016 Republican nominee. I didn’t consider that comment to be legitimate.

And this is a constant problem with comments on posts to groups, media outlets’ pages, etc.: There are comments that may not be from real people, and we have no way of knowing. My standard response has been to block people leaving unhinged comments in such places, some Leftwing (or pretending to be), but mostly Rightwing (or pretending to be).

Today, however, I saw that a person I actually know posted an admittedly political post, so pushback from those who disagree isn’t a surprise. One hopes they’ll stick to facts and reason and be rational, though these days that’s often too much to hope for. It certainly was today: The guy commented making yet another unhinged rightwing rant, full of spittle-flecked rage at those with whom he disagreed, rather than even trying to engage in a discussion.

I checked out his profile, since it was a FB friend of a FB friend, and found that he posted rightwing things, including some anti-gay stuff. I blocked him. Then I commented, again, sarcastically:

Well, a good thing came from this post: One more racist, sexist, anti-gay far-right ranter with a hair-trigger is now blocked on my Facebook so I’ll never see his erudite, correctly spelled, rational comments again.

In reply to another comment, I added:

I had to check out his FB page, which was public enough, and most of the posts were aggressive rightwing memes. But there were also ones that seemed to be him talking (well, yelling…) to himself (apart from someone posting on his page “racist” in all caps).

The thing is, I can’t tell anymore who’s trolling, who’s real and disturbing, or who’s just personally disturbed. The only rational option is to block such people, real or not, so I don’t have to see their unhinged rants. It seems to be something that’s becoming more frequent, sadly.

And that’s the problem: Who is real? And, what comments are real and sincere, and which are faked and trolling? We know that political operatives attempt to game social media all the time, and we know that bots really are a thing, especially on Twitter. Does it make any sense to assume a comment we encounter on Facebook is from a real person?

Honestly, I don’t think it matters. There’s a huge difference between comments left by rational people with whom we may disagree, and irrational people being offensive, confrontational and divisive apparently for its own sake. When the person is rational, we can learn something, including how “the other side” thinks. But when the person is irrational, there’s nothing to be learned or gained.

Instead, I think we have both the right and even an obligation to ourselves to remove those irrational—and possibly fake—people from our attention so that we can better focus of things said by rational people. That’s why I block people on social media so frequently: If they’re irrational, overly aggressive, and offensive for its own sake, they’re gone. I do this mostly on Twitter where I can block 10-20 “people” whenever I visit. I block people on Facebook far less frequently, but I don’t hesitate to do so.

Twitter has become a highly toxic place, so much so that I seldom use it anymore. Facebook’s public pages can be every bit as bad, like, for example, rightwingers (or accounts pretending to be rightwingers) going to Left-leaning pages just to stir shit (all Facebook Pages are public, but Groups can be private). A rational person wouldn’t bother because they wouldn’t care.

Life means disagreement—sometimes heated disagreement. We need to be able to deal with that. But when someone becomes aggressive and ugly in their comments, we don’t have to tolerate it, and I don’t. It’s unusual for two examples to pop up so close to each other, but that’s precisely why I’m mentioning them.

That and, all joking aside, the power really is ours.

Another conspiracy theory that isn’t real

The USA’s far-right is awash in conspiracy theories, so much so that sometimes it seems as if they have no time for anything else, including ordinary life. Those conspiracy theories permeate down into the ordinary conservative world and supporters of the Republican Party who spread and spread fact-challenged and elaborate theories of “what’s really going on”. There’s one going around that most people seem unaware of.

The conspiracy theory says that the shutdown is being deliberately prolonged because, they say, after 30 calendar days, or 22 working days, all federal employees furloughed in a shutdown can be fired through a procedure called “Reduction in Force” (RIF). The claim started with an anonymous piece published by the far-right site, Daily Caller [I never link to far-right and questionable sites, but you can copy and paste this link: https://bit.ly/2spIhGT] supposedly written by a “senior official” in the current regime. Maybe. Maybe it’s an elaborate trolling of the gullible in the rightwing media and online groups. Or, maybe it’s real, but, shall we say, uninformed.

That was picked up and explained in self-referential style by lots of entities on the USA’s far right, one in particular tried to connect the dots [again, copy and paste the link: https://bit.ly/2W3g9ai]. They, like many other rightwing sites, also referred to a partial explanation of the RIF process [I haven’t had time to evaluate the source, so: https://bit.ly/2T2VwsS].

When I first heard about the conspiracy theory, I was extremely sceptical. It’s a lie, for example, that federal employees can’t be fired for cause, and if a worker was really deliberately frustrating the current regime’s agenda, that would be cause for disciplinary action. At worst, the worker would probably have to be given the opportunity to improve their performance, which is fair, but non-performance is non-performance.

But then I remembered something. In May of last year, the current occupant of the White House issued three executive orders intended to make it easier for government agencies to fire federal workers. They also placed strict limits on union activities. A federal judges said NO.

However, there was also the fact that the current occupant himself asked Congress to make it easier to fire federal workers, and members of his regime have complained about how hard it is to politicise the federal bureaucracy. Well, that’s not exactly how they expressed it, but it was clearly what they intended to do: Stack the bureaucracy with loyalists who would do anything, legal or not, to advance the regime’s goals.

So: Is there anything to this?

Probably not. As Snopes recently pointed out, the rules for RIFs only apply to “administrative furloughs”: “A planned event by an agency which is designed to absorb reductions necessitated by downsizing, reduced funding, lack of work, or any budget situation other than a lapse in appropriations.”

What is currently happening is classified as “emergency furloughs”, which results from a lack of appropriations. The main difference is that “administrative furloughs” are planned and foreseeable, while an “emergency furlough” is dependent on action by Congress, which on its best days is unpredictable.

So, the law is clear that the current regime cannot use the RIF process to fire workers because of an emergency furlough—but that doesn’t meant they won’t try. Lawsuits, court injunctions, and more legal defeats for the current regime being the inevitable chain of events.

But while all that was happening, people wouldn’t be talking about how much serious legal trouble the current occupant is, so maybe distraction’s the real plan. Once again.

And, anyway, it’s common enough for the far-right to fall for credible-sounding but completely wrong conspiracy theories.

Earlier this evening, I saw a meme that said that Congress had passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 and appropriated $50 billion to build a border fence, but President Obama never did, so where did the money go, and maybe that’s what Democrats were trying to hide. Say what?!

Meme-spreaders (Right or Left) almost never check out the accuracy of the memes they share, so it’s not surprise that this one is flat out wrong.

In 2006, during the time of Bush the Second, Congress did indeed pass the Act, but they appropriated only $1.4 billion; the $50 billion figure comes from estimates: “the whole cost, including maintenance, was pegged at $50 billion over 25 years”. Very different numbers.

The Department of Homeland Security complained that the specified fence wasn’t appropriate for all areas of the border, and in 2007—Bush the Second was still president—Congress amended the Act to allow the DHS Secretary to decide what was best.

By 2011, when President Obama was in office, DHS reported that they’d completed 99.5% of the fence. In 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that fence had been completed in 2015. In 2017, the GAO reported that $2.3 billion had been spent to deploy the fence—which actually was more extensive than what Congress mandated—and that it would require billions more to maintain.

So: In 2006, Congress appropriated $1.4 billion for a border fence, and not $50 billion. The fence was built and completed during the time of the Obama Administration—repeat that, the fence mandated by Congress was completed, and it was done during the time of President Obama. Nothing about the rightwing meme was true.

That’s two rightwing conspiracy theory memes busted in one post. Whew! I better take some more time off from blogging!

Weekly debrief

The video above is Matt Baume’s Weekly Debrief for this week, and it has more details about the current regime’s recent moves that will block researchers’ work on a possibly cure for HIV. Yes, it’s as petty and ideological as you’d expect, but this video explains it better—and more quickly—than most others that I’ve seen.

I could say more—in fact, in the original version of this post I did, but that was mostly about the utter evil that is Mike Pence—and he’s absolutely behind this move to condemn people to death from HIV. I don’t need to restate the utterly, blindingly obvious about what a truly awful excuse for a human he is.

The rest of the video talks about what’s coming in 2019 and—spoiler alert!—some is bad. Who’d have thought that? Considering how utterly awful the current regime in the USA is for LGBT+ people, things will get MUCH worse in 2019. We just don’t know how bad yet. Mike will get his way, after all.

Charlatans without shame

The charlatans and conmen in the “Christian” Right have ceased any pretence of trying to hide their partisanship: They are Republicans exclusively, and they want you to believe their god is, too, and if you don’t believe that, you’re damned. Well, they can say whatever they want—freedom of speech and all that—and, for the very same reason, I get to say what I honestly think of them, too. So, in my sincerely held opinion, they’re frauds and liars and Frank Graham is among the worst of the worst: Total fraud, liar, conman, and downright evil.

The graphic above is a post from Frank Graham, the scamvangelist who has done everything in his power to destroy whatever good feeling there once were for his now dead famous father, Billy Graham. Frank has long promoted rank bigotry, religious chauvinism, and christofascism. But the post above exposes the extent of his fraud: The ONLY thing he cares about is power through Republicans.

His post is filled with utter lies, and that can only be explained by two possibilities. First, he’s lying and knows it, but justifies it because, Jesus (and more power for him and his fellow scammers, just coincidentally). If true, this would prove he’s a fake Christian. Or, he really can’t see the criminality and immorality of the current occupant of the White House, in which case he’s so pathologically stupid one must worry for his well being. I’m betting on the first option.

Let’s correct his idiotic post, shall we? Yes, let’s!

“[The current occupant of the White House] has kept his promises to Christians, that he would protect religious freedoms and appoint conservative judges to the federal courts and to the Supreme Court.”

The current occupant and his Republican enablers in Congress have absolutely appointed extremist radical rightwing judges, but the current occupant couldn’t possibly are less about that—he’s outsourced it. Republicans and the “evangelical” charlatans care a lot about that because their agenda calls for taking away the right of women to control their own health decisions, for taking away the right to marry for gay couples—and outlawing our lives, and for increasing the power of corporations. So, yeah, yay Jesus! You know, the guy who, according the very stories that Frank must have heard at some point in his life, consorted with the outcasts and advocated for the poor and powerless—NOT people like Frank.

Let us never forget that “Religious Freedom” is Republican jargon which means “the right to tell fags to get the fuck out of my shop” and nothing more. Ever. Oddly enough, if an atheist refused to serve a Christian THEIR religious freedom would NEVER be defended by Frank and the scamvangelists. Funny, that!

But, our boy continues:

“And he has kept the promises he made to our country to create jobs, strengthen the military, lower taxes, and strengthen our borders.”

Every single thing is a lie. Already, jobs are being lost all over the Midwest because of the trade wars the idiot in the White House has started. Coal is dead—jobs have been lost since he took power. Strengthen the military? For WHAT?! To repress the civilians at home who DARE to disagree with the current regime? Lower taxes? Not unless you’re a corporation or obscenely rich. Strengthen borders? Don’t make me laugh more than I already do.

Frankie goes on:

“But for him to continue fulfilling the promises he made to the American people, he has to have a House and Senate that will work with him to bring positive change, regardless of party. The midterm elections are just 17 days away, and it is one of the most important in our lifetime. Pray before you vote, and don't let the media that is trying to divide our country, influence you. Look at the facts, do your research, pray, and vote.”

What. An. Asshole. He is flat out lying when he says “regardless of party”—that’s just a cynical sop to avoid endangering his tax-free status, and we all know he’s lying through his teeth: Democrats will not cooperate with this regime, nor should they ever. Everyone knows that. So, clearly Frankie wants people to vote for Republicans, and only Republicans. The media dividing us?! Is he fucking serious?!!! Has he not heard the lies and smears coming from his Dear Beloved Leader?!! Or the smears and lies from Republicans running for office? Or the cynical tricks they’re committing to get elected? Of course he has: Frank is an asshole, but he’s not stupid, and he knows damn well what a fraud the current occupant is and how Republicans say one thing and then do everything they can to help the rich and corporations and ONLY them, ordinary people be damned.

I’ll tell you what, Frankie: I don’t need to do any "research" or to "pray" to know what a fraud you and the other scamvangelists are. You don’t give a damn about anyone but yourselves and your ability to tell everyone else how they must live their lives—no, to order them how they must live their lives. To Frankie and his fellow scamvangelists, freedom ends at the nail on their bony, scolding finger wagging at us ALL disapprovingly.

So, no, Frankie, I will NOT vote for ANY Republican—not this year, not any year. Put that in your holier-than-thou scam bucket and drink deeply, Frankie! You attack me and those I love, and I will resist you. I will vote until your friends take that right away from me—as they will if they can. And if you think you win, you will be wrong. Truth, justice, freedom and liberty will never surrender to you and your scamvangelist buddies. EVER.

That’s the real truth. Not that Frankie and his scamvangelst friends have any idea what the truth actually is.