mockpaperscissors.com, 12 hours ago to random

https://mockpaperscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/screen-shot-2023-10-16-at-6.58.29-am.png?w=640H/T Scissorhead Jimmy-T

I ❤️ New York:

Another man approached Rep #LaurenBoebert & handed her a “Beetlejuice” program, & asked for her to sign it — poking fun at when she was kicked out of the musical for outrageous & disruptive behavior — was blocked by security.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/16/some-fries-with-your-stupid-246/

#LaurenBoebert

mockpaperscissors.com, 16 hours ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/guillotine.jpg?w=640&h=795Meal prep is the most important part of eating the rich

I’m shocked. Shocked I say:

The Billionaire Family Business: 50 Billionaire Clans Have Already Spent Over $600 Million on the 2024 Elections, Mostly to Preserve Their Fortunes

Just 50 billionaire families have already injected more than $600 million collectively into the crucial 2024 elections, with that number sure to show accelerating growth in the final six months of the campaign. These billionaire clans donated the $600 million mostly to political parties, political action committees (PACs) and outside spending groups (Super PACs) as of May 9, offering further proof that the nation’s richest families consider democracy just another commodity they can buy.

This is the latest in a series of “billionaires buying elections” reports from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). It is the first in the series to look beyond the political donations of individual billionaires to those of billionaire families. Wealth is a family affair, so this broader frame provides a more accurate picture of how the country’s great family fortunes are being wielded in the political arena.

Over two-thirds (69%, or $416 million) of the contributions from America’s biggest billionaire-family donors supported Republican candidates and conservative causes. Less than a quarter (23% or $137 million) backed Democratic office-seekers and progressive positions. (There is no clear partisan label for the remaining 8% of donations.)

That pronounced GOP tilt is a sign that the political spending of billionaire families is largely an investment in preserving familial wealth and power. That’s because it is Democrats, including President Biden, who are pushing for more effective taxation of great wealth, the income generated by that wealth, and the transfer of wealth between generations. Republicans advocate for just the opposite: lower taxes on the rich, on the corporations they control and on the great inheritances that perpetuate and exacerbate wealth inequality.

We need more effective taxation of billionaires and on intergenerational wealth transfers, as well as tighter campaign-finance laws, to curb this power grab by America’s economic dynasties.

The whole report is worth your time to read, maybe at lunchtime? You’re sure to be hungry for a nice Billionaire Burger by the time you’re done reading.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/16/every-billionaire-represents-a-tax-policy-failure/

mockpaperscissors.com, 17 hours ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/democracy-thats-all-folks.gif?w=640&h=465

We say every poll this early needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Get out the salt-lick , there’s a new NPR (Nice. Polite. Republicans.) poll out that is probably going to get some attention today, as it asks whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump would do more in a second term to weaken democracy.

Pluralities Say Second Terms for EITHER Biden or Trump Will Weaken Democracy

Americans are not overly optimistic about the fate of democracy with either Biden or Trump in the Oval Office. 46% of Americans think a second Biden term would weaken U.S. democracy. 30% believe it would strengthen it, and 23% think it would make no difference.

48% of residents nationally think a Trump return would weaken democracy in America. 37% say it would strengthen it, and 14% think it will not make a difference.

What’s up with that, fellow Americans? Hair Füror actually has a record of weakening democracy, and has probably done more to hurt democracy than all the presidents before him combined. Just off the top of my head, he:

• politicized the office of the Attorney General
• blackmailed Ukraine to further his own agenda
• attempted to overturn an election
• attempted a violent overthrow of the United States

Hair Füror has vowed to install a fascist government on Day One. This is not a joke (and he has no sense of humor). He said it to Sean Hannity on Fox News, and you know damn well, he won’t leave at the end of his term (if re-elected).

Ferchristsake, the goddamn Bulwark summarizes/highlights the 4th Reich better than NPR and this stupid poll:

Trump’s first term turned out much worse than anyone feared. He did the mean tweets and some racist stuff. He deployed armed, masked, and unbadged federal agents to grab citizens off the streets. He did his family separation policy with migrants. Not great, but also not ‘end of the Republic’ stuff.

But then the sum of all fears hit. America was handed a real-deal, genuine crisis while Trump was at the helm and the result was that one million Americans died from Covid while Trump oversaw the greatest failure of the federal government since the Great Depression.

And then Trump lost his re-elect and attempted a coup.

How bad was this? If you went back in a time machine and described Trump’s Covid response and coup attempt to Republican voters in 2016, they would have accused you of being a hysteric.

Anyway, the point is the polls are garbage, it’s too early to be meaningful, and lordy, there is no objective reality reflected here.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/16/the-united-states-of-amnesia-cont-2/

mockpaperscissors.com, 2 days ago to random

I’m really glad my (lawyer) parents did not live long enough to see what has happened to the SCOTUS. It is amazing to me that the obviously corrupt and illegitimate SCOTUS would blow it so badly that ads like this will resonate with probably half of America without even breaking a sweat.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/14/no-lies-detected/

mockpaperscissors.com, 2 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/monster-clown1.jpg?w=6404th Reich Staffer (Undated File Photo)

Hell is not hot enough for this dude:

Johnny McEntee, senior advisor to Project 2025 & Trump’s Director of the Office of Personnel Management, says he likes to distribute fake money to homeless people so that they will be arrested when they spend it.

This is disgusting and illegal.
pic.twitter.com/kpU0z1IOYW

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 13, 2024

This is who they are, and yes, it is all about the cruelty.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/14/the-best-people-part-infinity/

mockpaperscissors.com, 3 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/cohen.png?w=640&h=407Touched By An Angel, or at least a Fed.

Michael Cohen has taken the stand after all. Here’s a Gift Link to the WaPo BEHIND THE PAYWALL.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/13/cohen-takes-the-stand/

mockpaperscissors.com, 4 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/drem-big-typo.jpeg?w=640&h=480H/T Scissorhead Pete

Never let anyone talk you out of your drems, whether they be big or litl.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/12/bad-signs-cont-1222/

mockpaperscissors.com, 4 days ago to random

Mididnight is so fast, he would return the ball before you threw it!

(Hat tip: Scissorhead Purplehead)

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/12/midday-palate-cleanser-2140/

mockpaperscissors.com, 8 days ago to random

Happy Hour News

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/noem-ol-yeller.jpeg?w=640&h=320

Kristi Noem Cuts Short Book Tour Citing ‘Bad Weather’

Raining cats and dogs, methinks.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/08/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2100/

mockpaperscissors.com, 12 days ago to random

Happy Hour News

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/war-song-of-dixie.jpg?w=640Republican Theme Song?

Congressman praises heckling of war protesters, including 1 who made monkey gestures at Black woman

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Israel-Hamas war demonstrations at the University of Mississippi turned ugly this week when one counter-protester appeared to make monkey noises and gestures at a Black student in a raucous gathering that was endorsed by a far-right congressman from Georgia.

“Ole Miss taking care of business,” Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins wrote Friday on the social platform X with a with a link to the video showing the racist jeers.

The Associated Press left voicemail messages for Collins on Friday at his offices in Georgia and Washington and sent an email to his spokesperson, asking for an explanation of what Collins meant. There was no immediate response.

And before we get too far, here’s a screen cap of the post from Rep. Collins:

A Republican congressman sharing a video posted by Richard Hainania of an Ole Miss counter protester making monkey noises at a black protester.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) 2024-05-03T15:00:36.712Z

That costume is pretty distinctive, and that got friend of the blog David Waldman’s interest:

He's caught in a still photo from the scene that I saw yesterday, visible in the background between the protester and the person she's speaking to. From The Daily Mississippian's coverage, photo credits to Maria Ramirez and Antonella Rescigno. thedmonline.com/may-2nd-pro-…

— David Waldman (@kagrox.bsky.social) 2024-05-03T15:13:04.338Z

You might notice that there are in fact two of ‘em wearing those Uncle Sam-HeeHaw style coveralls, and that made Waldman’s search of the crowd even more precise, and lo!

In case anyone had any doubts about who exactly was showing up as “counter protesters” at Ole Miss:

— David Waldman (@kagrox.bsky.social) 2024-05-03T15:52:08.807Z

So… racist supporters of Vulgarmort stirring up trouble. It totally scans.

So when we wonder about outside agitators coming into the protests to stir the pot, just remember that. Some of Hair Füror’s MAGA racists saw an opportunity and couldn’t pass by the opportunity to rile up the left, and a MAGA and racist representative from Georgeduh thought this was OK.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/04/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2098/

mockpaperscissors.com, 14 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/drive-like-your-kids-from-nameless.jpg?w=640&h=741H/T @NamelessCynic

Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear my father yelling in terror from beyond the grave, “No, your OTHER RIGHT!”

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/02/bad-signs-cont-1218/

mockpaperscissors.com, 14 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/from-skinny-d.jpg?w=640&h=812Hair Füror (H/T Scissorhead Skinny-D)

I don’t like to link-out to substacks (I don’t want to give the Nazi-enabling management the clicks), but I am going to today because both of these journalists have gone through the transcript from Time magazine’s interview with Hair Füror and have analyzed it and make very cogent points.

• Jay Kuo: Believe Him When He Says It. Kuo does a narrow focus on abortion rights, migrants and the border, and democracy and the rule of law portions of the transcript, which is not to say that these topics are minor.
• Noah Berlatsky: He’s not even trying to hide it. Berlatsky casts a wider net and touches lightly on pretty much all the topics in the transcript, which is not to say that this is a shallow analysis, just that he shows the scope of the insanity and unbridled fascism.

If you are wondering why I continue to beat the drum about these transcripts, it is because we are in danger. This is not conjecture, these are words TFG himself said voluntarily for publication. You can read the entire context of the questions, and the belching out of inchoate rage and fascism. You can also experience the egoism as he keeps running to his self deification, and of course his own hagiography. The lies are just as stunning, the omission of supporting facts are glaring enough to be a separate category of lies.

As Kuo says in the into to his piece,

I should caution that this exercise may produce a bit of stress for readers. Rather than allow that stress to morph into generalized anxiety, over which we can sometimes feel powerless, I hope to leverage his words to help forge a path to his electoral defeat. Remember, these are wedges of Trump’s own making, and though he means them to sow fear and discord, our response can also build courage and resolve to defeat him.

Critically, I believe Trump has erred in showing his cards in this way, perhaps out of sheer vanity to be on the cover of Time. The Biden Campaign, Democratic officials, and we, the voting public, now have concrete points around which to rally, mobilize and communicate. That’s why I am setting them out here, too, in the hopes that readers can absorb and share them.

Please find the time to read both analysis; it is important. Knowledge is strength.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/02/about-hair-furors-plans/

mockpaperscissors.com, 14 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/sd-gov.-kristi-noem.jpeg?w=640&h=360SD Gov. Kristi Noem (on top)

Keep talking, Kristi. Keep reminding the public, please:

Noem: Well, you know, how the fake news works. They leave out some or most of the facts.. I hope people buy the book and they find out the truth of the story because the truth is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy, pic.twitter.com/RGq2seJ6j6

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2024

If you are still explaining why you killed your puppy nearly a week later, you’ve lost.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/02/kristi-the-puppy-slayer/

mockpaperscissors.com, 14 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/wile-e-coyote.gif?w=640Wile E. Coyote performs JD Vance in interpretive dance

Veep-wannabe Hedge-Funder Peter Thiel, er, Hillbilly Effigy JD Vance is not very good at this politics stuff:

KAITLAN COLLINS: So you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted?

JD VANCE: Yes

COLLINS: Ok, I'm just checking, because you helped raise money for people who did so on January 6 pic.twitter.com/nEztSPrQlC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 2, 2024

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/05/02/wannabe-veep-jd-vances-talking-points-went-over-well/

mockpaperscissors.com, 16 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/typos-chlymedia-in-bloom.png?w=640&h=846

Oh, dear.

At least your flower is nice.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/30/because-we-love-a-good-typo-7/

mockpaperscissors.com, 16 days ago to random

Happy Hour News

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/trump-tits.jpg?w=640&h=787“This is an IHOP sir.”

This link is to the full transcript from the Time magazine cover story with Grandpa Sundowner. Skip the story, read the transcript, please. All Hands On Deck

This is the unedited interview, and it is quite an eye-opener. It’s not just the stuff that has been excerpted all over the place, it is the full, incoherent rambling. No matter what the question is, the answer always meanders into grievance, lies (and they hyperlink to fact checks when he does lie), and boasting, and then when prodded again to answer the question, then the fascist stuff comes out. Hair Füror is not all there, and what remains is paranoid and dangerous. Jason Miller is clearly his minder, and interrupts multiple times to try to bring this thing to an end, reminding Fat Nixon that it is dinnertime.

As I said to a friend in our chat cave, this is a 5-alarm fire.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/30/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2096/

mockpaperscissors.com, 20 days ago to random

Happy Hour News

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/trump-family-visit-e1692924918998.jpg?w=640&h=866

You wanna remind him…

President Trump wishes Melania a Happy Birthday before entering court:

"I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday. It would be nice to be with her, but I'm at a courthouse for a rigged trial.." pic.twitter.com/v0Tw68ZPiY

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 26, 2024

..or shall I?

YOU WOULD NOT BE THERE IF YOU HAD NOT CHEATED ON YOUR WIFE, BIF!

Happy birthday, Mel. I’m glad your birthday present to yourself includes not showing up at court for familial support, or any campaign event.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/26/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2093/

mockpaperscissors.com, 22 days ago to random

https://mockpaperscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/faceberg.png?w=640H/T Scissorhead BDR

This is fun:

Facebook’s AI Told Parents Group It Has a Gifted, Disabled Child

Fancy Autocomplete, amirite?

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/24/lunchtime-reading-16/

mockpaperscissors.com, 23 days ago to random

https://mockpaperscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/duran-duran.png?w=640

My X-er soul just squee’ed.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/23/great-marketing-cont-20/

mockpaperscissors.com, 23 days ago to random

The kid is going to be a jerk when he grows up:

A nine-year-old British boy has won a European championship with his uncanny impression of a seagull.

Cooper, from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, travelled to the Belgian coastal town of De Panne to compete in the EC Gull Screeching competition.

He originally started doing seagull impressions after being nipped by one while he was eating a tuna sandwich.

He wanted to become “Seagull Boy”, like when Peter Parker became Spider-Man after being bitten by a spider.

It’s a cute story, and makes a good palate cleanser, even if at heart it is about embracing well-known jerks.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/23/midday-palate-cleanser-2121/

mockpaperscissors.com, 24 days ago to random

https://mockpaperscissors.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/killer-rabbit.jpg?w=640Monty Python had a point about that rabbit

One of the under-reported stories about Speaker Johnson’s sudden come-to-Jesus moment in the recent successful passage of funding for Ukraine (and Israel and Tawain, amongst other items), is what actually got to him and convinced him it was the right thing to do.

As we all know, Jeebus Johnson dithered for months on delivering the bill, and then suddenly and seemingly at the last possible moment, he was all in.

Was it an arm twisting session from President Handsome Joe Biden? Certainly not.

Was it a damning classified briefing from the NSA? Surely you jest. (“And quit calling me Shirley” —beat you to it!)

Was it a delegation of Ukrainian Evangelicals?

Ding! We have a winner!

In the hours before Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he was willing to lose his speakership to help Ukraine, he met with the evangelical leader of Ukraine’s National Prayer Breakfast, who says he told Johnson they could create “an army of Jesus.”

It was Pavlo Unguryan’s third reported meeting with Johnson this year. As one Christian Republican insider asserted after Saturday’s House approval of $61 billion for Ukraine aid, evangelical messaging “definitely tipped” Johnson and House Republicans.

U.S. reporting has focused on national-security briefings cracking Johnson’s months of paralysis. But the intel messaging has been consistently dire since Russia invaded. Only in the past several months has “religious freedom” gained momentum as a casus belli, appearing in Ukrainian and U.S. religious media and now embraced by evangelical Republicans.

And the religious and intel motivations complement each other. National-security warnings that Ukraine will fall without U.S. aid would take on heightened urgency if Johnson started to see Ukraine as an evangelical redoubt and potential wellspring of missionary action in a godless Europe.

In short, what got Johnson over the finish line was the possibility that Ukraine (and others) could end up being the equivalent of the Bible Belt in Europe:

According to CBN, [Gary Marx, president of Defenders of Faith and Religious Freedom in Ukraine] “asked Johnson to view support for Ukraine, long considered the Bible Belt of Europe, through the lens of fighting for religious liberty.”

How Johnson understands religious freedom was hinted at by Marx, who noted that Johnson has “worked on those issues as an attorney for decades.” In fact, Johnson’s legal career included work for the Alliance Defending Freedom, advocating for anti-LGBTQ+ laws including a sodomy ban and criminalizing gay sex.

[Pavlo “Pavel” Unguryan is a Ukrainian political and evangelical leader] had floated the idea of Ukraine as a European Bible Belt earlier in the week. On Thursday I wrote about Unguryan telling Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that Ukraine is “to be the Bible Belt” for Europe, “such a liberal continent.”

Ah, our old friend White Christian Nationalist Tony Perkins —the head of a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Family Research Council— surfaces in the story. Should guessed it.

Perkins underscored the point: “So you see the vision of Ukraine as being kind of a Bible Belt?” Unguryan said, “Absolutely yes … we are like the Bible Belt for the liberal, European continent,” touting “pro-family [and] pro-life issues.”

Unguryan told Perkins he envisioned a “strategic partnership between Christians, evangelicals, conservatives in U.S. and Christians and conservatives in Ukraine to do our missionary ministry, global missionary ministry, and to protect our values.”

Nothing good ever comes from Perkins. But I digest…

Anyway all sorts of Evangelicals from The Fellowship enter from stage right. (You might recall The Fellowship/The Family from the old Senator Ensign sex scandal (“the sheep with a secret sorrow”) and their frat house domicile in D.C. for Republican weirdo evangelicals who covered-up his affair) come into the story:

In 2021, I revealed that Unguryan was the main Ukraine liaison for the organization behind the original U.S. prayer breakfast, the Fellowship Foundation, the secretive Christian group also known as The Family.

And it goes on and on, and I should probably stop excerpting from his post and say go read it. Crooks And Liars has a post or two that are worth the time to read, too.

The point I want to make here is that sometimes in politics, actors like Jeebus Johnson do the right thing for all the wrong reasons. He did not care that Putin and Russia were going to wipe out Ukraine until he learned that they were Brothers in Christ, and he could only support it then.

We have a dangerous theocrat second in line for the presidency. This is terrifying to me because he is apparently even more malleable that Pence to actually acting on his beliefs, untethered from the rules, customs, and laws separating Church and State.

Johnson is not a hero, he is a crusader.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/22/jeebus-johnson-and-the-last-crusades/

mockpaperscissors.com, 25 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/space-needle-1.jpg?w=640Happy Birthday, Space Needle!

On this date in 1962, Seattle’s Space Needle opened for the World’s Fair! Sure, it’s cheesy Jetsons-esque, but it comes from an optimistic era when we Americans thought that the future was bright, instead of dystopian. From my coffee table book on the history of it, when first opened, it was the tallest man-made structure west of the Mississippi.

I’m so luck, I get to see it every day.

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/21/happy-birthday-space-needle-3/

mockpaperscissors.com, 26 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/dad-joke-from-nameless.jpg?w=640&h=645H/T @NamelessCynic

GROAnnnnnnnn…

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/20/dad-signs-cont-111/

mockpaperscissors.com, 27 days ago to random

https://mps110.files.wordpress.com/2023/10/lara-trump.jpg?w=640&h=425“And for my next number…”

World-famous chanteuse and interpreter of Tom Petty’s catalog performs her greatest hit:

Lara Trump: “It’s 4 years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.” pic.twitter.com/be0oFuDwH2

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) April 18, 2024

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/19/mme-twizzler-performs-revenge-of-the-turds/

mockpaperscissors.com, 29 days ago to random

The only sensible thing to do with Trump's "Gettysburg, Wow" speech in Pennsylvania was to make a one-minute documentary film of it. These are all his real words. I added some "bing bongs" at the start. "Never fight uphill, me boys! Never fight uphill." #FunWithPhotoshop pic.twitter.com/xFQffyCa37

— Randall Stephens (@Randall_Stps) April 16, 2024

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/04/17/cleo-the-muse-of-history-laughed-so-hard-she-farted/