You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Yes. That sort of thing almost makes me want to get a Twitter account. Almost.

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

So much for the law and order party.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Joe Guy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Joe Guy »

Mabye it should be called the law and border party since they seem to blame everything wrong with our country on immigrants.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

There's a NYT piece about one of Trump's early backers who seems to be having second thoughts:
Trump, he added, “has thrown several people that were close to him under the bus”; “has no idea what loyalty means”; and “severely lacks character and integrity.”
Tom Marino was a Pennsylvania Congressperson from 2011 through 2019. You like to think that our elected reps are smarter than most of us (against all evidence: I have met I think three British MPs and two congress critturs and really I should be over that nonsense by now) but it seems to have taken him a few years to arrive at those totally fucking obvious conclusions.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

From the McCarthy shit show, a CNN story is headed:
Trump tells far-right GOP to vote for McCarthy and avoid embarrassment
And they say irony is dead.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by BoSoxGal »

:lol: :ok
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Don't know if this fits the "Florida man" stereotype or the truism that if criminals weren't this goddamned dumb the cops would never catch any of them.
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Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

The Log Cabin Republican’s [sic] new “ambassador” is a straight homophobe who declares “Heil Hitler”

The gay conservative group the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) has named far-right commentator Isabella Riley Moody as one of its “Outspoken Ambassadors for 2023.” She has openly wished for a more homophobic society, has called gay people “groomers,” and recently said “Heil Hitler” after interviewing an antisemite.

In its public announcement of her ambassadorship, the LCR called Moody a “funny, fierce, and fiery female.” Moody shared the announcement by erroneously writing on her Twitter, “Happy to be a the [sic] token straight homophobic b**ch ambassador for @GetOutspokenUSA!”

On her podcast, MOODY with Isabella, she ended an interview with antisemite Dalton Clodfelter, a man who said he wanted to visit the Pulse nightclub with a Nerf gun, by saying, “Heil Hitler.” A 2016 shooting at the Orlando, Florida gay bar killed 49 people and wounded 53 more.

In a February 15 tweet, Moody wrote that public schools have “groomed” kids to be gay, echoing a far-right claim that gay people sexually prey on minors.

In a January 29 tweet, she asked her followers “What’s your favorite word that rhymes with trigger??” Numerous commenters predictably insinuated that the n-word was their favorite. She also regularly calls anything she disagrees with “gay.”

In a February 14 livestream of her podcast, she repeatedly used the anti-gay slur fa**ot, stating, “Hey fa**ot, are you being serious right now?… Our society literally puts fa**ots on a pedestal and worships them as God. The rainbow flag is everywhere. We love it. It’s such B.S. to say that we’re a homophobic society. I wish we were a homophobic society, and that’s the goddamn truth!”

In a February 15 tweet, Moody expressed delight with the “media outrage” over her being named as an LCR ambassador. “The Left wants to groom & mutilate our kids while simultaneously destroying America,” she wrote in a February 16 tweet, echoing claims that have encouraged death threats against children’s hospitals.

The LCR has been compared to “Jews for Hitler.” It has defended Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill by comparing its opponents to pedophiles who have “wet dreams of gender fluid, indoctrinated, and groomed children.” The group’s President Charles Moran has written op-eds opposing transgender civil rights and also the Equality Act, legislation that includes LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections.

The group’s executive director Jerri Ann Henry called U.S. President Donald Trump’s numerous anti-LGBTQ+ policies “hiccups.” The organization also endorsed 14 anti-LGBTQ Republicans during the 2018 midterm elections and 12 anti-LGBTQ+ extremists in 2020, including Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and a woman who thinks pedophiles are part of the LGBTQ+ community.

More recently, Texas LCR members joined armed extremists to protest a drag show. The national organization continues to praise Trump, and never condemned his incitement of the January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The group compared the 2022 FBI raid on Trump’s Florida residence to the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn, which sparked the modern American LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The group also held its 2021 Spirit of Lincoln Gala at the residence Mar-a-Logo and honored former First Lady Melania Trump with a “Spirit of Lincoln” award even though she never publicly opposed her husband’s numerous attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.
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ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

It's probably sexist of me to point this out but if you click on Scooter's link you see a picture of Ms Moody and she looks very much like the love child of Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green and has the facial expression to match. (And there is certainly a passing resemblance to Trump.)

I had no idea the log cabin republicans had gone down this road. I had previously seen them as a collection of individuals for whom their political and economic views did not fully comport with their social views and for whatever reason had chosen to identify with the former. No problem with that, its a free-ish country.

They challenged 'don't ask don't tell' in the military which I think was probably a good idea (the challenge, not DADT) at the time.

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

I never had much use for LCR; I always thought that their attempts to find a place for LGBTQ people within the Republican Party to be delusional. But for decades they appeared to have a libertarianish bent that made them committed to pursuing equal rights for LGBTQ people. I can't point to when they became so devoted to Trumpism that they completely lost the plot and now appear to oppose any moves toward equality, indeed, now openly making common cause with the most extreme elements of the GOP in demonizing LGBTQ people. It's as if there were a group in Nazi Germany called Jews for Hitler who were actively promoting the Final Solution.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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Burning Petard
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Burning Petard »

Confusing specifics with generalities. How many cases of teachers getting fired for sexual molestation of students with the same gender as the teacher?
How many cases of teachers fired for having sex with student of the other gender? I think a logical case could be made that schools (and churches) are grooming children to be abused by heterosexuals.

snailgate

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I think Trump probably prefers crims who have not been captured. Just sayin' . . .

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by Scooter »

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Um, yeah, that's what being in prison means, serial rapist.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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ex-khobar Andy
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Scooter wrote:
Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:25 pm
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Of course Ms Boebert's idiocies don't stop here (will they ever stop? Enquiring minds want to know.) and I came across this piece from the Cato Institute who are not famous for their pinko commie-ness. Boebert and people like her - which unfortunately these days means most of the Republican Party - use the fact that much of America's supply of fentanyl comes over the Mexico border as ammunition in their fight to get a wall built. I don't think they are still saying that Mexico will pay for it.

The headline to the piece says it all, really:
Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers
And here's the opening paragraph and summary bullet points:
Fentanyl overdoses tragically caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths last year. Many politicians who want to end U.S. asylum law claim that immigrants crossing the border illegally are responsible. An NPR‐​Ipsos poll last week found that 39 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Republicans believe, “Most of the fentanyl entering the U.S. is smuggled in by unauthorized migrants crossing the border illegally.” A more accurate summary is that fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled by U.S. citizens almost entirely for U.S. citizen consumers.

Here are facts:

- Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.
- In 2021, U.S. citizens were 86.3 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—ten times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.
- Over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.
- The location of smuggling makes sense because hard drugs at ports of entry are about 97 percent less likely to be stopped than are people crossing illegally between them.
- Just 0.02 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.
- The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest‐​to‐​conceal drug).
Just to repeat - the Cato institute is not staffed by NYT and WaPo types. I didn't know that last bullet point.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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This is an age old damned if you do, damned if you don’t of the justice system. If you catch more criminals than the last lawman, you can be hailed as a hero - or condemned as a failure because crime is rising. No good deed goes unpunished.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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Lauren Boebert trashes sex-ed — then announces teen son is making her a “36-year-old grandmother”

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., announced that her 17-year-old son will be making her a "36-year-old grandmother" in April.

Boebert, who called to cut funding to schools that teach students comprehensive sex education at last week's CPAC, announced at a Moms for America event that her son Tyler and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy.

Boebert during the announcement took at dig at LGBTQ Americans, saying that she and her husband are raising their four boys "to be men before liberals teach them to be women."

Boebert then revealed that "come April, I will be a Gigi to a brand new grandson."

"Now, any of you who have young children who are giving life, there's some questions that pop up. There's some fear that arises," Boebert said in a video posted by Patriot Takes.

Boebert said that when she approached her son and told him that he is making her a "36-year-old grandmother," he reminded her that she was a teen mother herself.

"He said, 'well didn't you make granny a 36-year-old granny,'" she said. "I said, 'yes I did.' He said, 'well then it's hereditary.'"

Boebert went on to claim that there is "something special about rural conservative communities."

"They value life," she said. "If you look at teen pregnancy rates throughout the nation, well, they're the same, [in] rural and urban areas. However, abortion rates are higher in urban areas. Teen moms' rates are higher in rural conservative areas, because they understand the preciousness of a life that it's about to be born."

A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that teen pregnancies in rural areas tend to be unintended and may be higher because teens may be vulnerable to "local conditions that limit unintended pregnancy management options."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that only about 50% of teen mothers receive a high school diploma by 22, compared to 90% of women who do not give birth during high school. "The children of teenage mothers are more likely to have lower school achievement and to drop out of high school, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, give birth as a teenager, and face unemployment as a young adult," according to the CDC.

The CDC recommends providing teens with sexual education and other resources to prevent teen pregnancies.

Boebert at CPAC called to cut funding to schools that provide comprehensive sex education because there are schools "that are teaching worse than just gender ideology."

"They have comprehensive sex ed. They're teaching kids how to have and enjoy sex, and even same-sex sex, how to pleasure themselves," she said. "This is not something elementary students should learn, nor any student in a public school...These are the things that we need to go after and cut their funding."
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Scooter
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Re: You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

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Afroman put home footage of a police raid in music videos. Now the cops are suing him

After police in Ohio raided Afroman's house last August, the rapper — known for early aughts hits including "Because I Got High" and "Crazy Rap (Colt 45 and 2 Zig-Zags)" — decided to make something out of it.

Law enforcement had searched his home on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping, but found no evidence and filed no charges against him. He says they kicked down his door, broke his video surveillance system, stole money from him and frightened his family.

Afroman, whose real name is Joseph Foreman, told NPR in a phone interview that what he did next was his "smartest, most peaceful solution."

"I asked myself, as a powerless Black man in America, what can I do to the cops that kicked my door in, tried to kill me in front of my kids, stole my money and disconnected my cameras?" he says. "And the only thing I could come up with was make a funny rap song about them and make some money, use the money to pay for the damages they did and move on."

He released an album with songs about the raid and made music videos out of the surveillance footage. He created merchandise and social media posts calling out the officers who had been involved.

Now, some of them are suing him, his label, and a Texas-based music distribution company for invasion of privacy.

Four deputies, two sergeants and one detective from the Adams County Sheriff's Office are accusing the rapper of profiting from the unauthorized use of their likenesses, at their personal and professional expense.

In a complaint filed in an Ohio pleas court last week, they say it's been more difficult and dangerous to carry out their duties "because of comments made and attitudes expressed toward them by members of the public" who have seen the videos.

They say they have received death threats, and also suffered "humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation."

The plaintiffs are seeking all of Afroman's profits from the use of their personas — including proceeds of songs, videos and live events, as well as Afroman-branded merchandise such as beer, marijuana and t-shirts — as well as a court injunction to take down the music videos and social media posts.

"Unless Defendants are restrained, Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury to their reputations, their mental health, and their legally protected rights as Defendants continue to willfully and maliciously violate those rights," they wrote.

The plaintiff's lawyer and the sheriff's office have not yet responded to NPR's requests for comment.

Afroman says his immediate reaction to the lawsuit was "a drop of anger, disbelief and a little anxiety, followed by tons of laughter."

"I was thinking, these big bad cops ... are being beat up and bullied by those little corny rap songs I made about them," Afroman says. "I'm like, 'Oh my god, are you letting me know that my raps are working on you?'"

He says he was already pursuing a defamation lawsuit against the police, and that they have made that process easier because now his legal team just needs to countersue, which they plan to do soon.

"I want to sue them for stealing my money, I want to sue them for writing 'kidnapping' on a warrant and making me suffer financially in my industry because just that accusation makes people raise an eyebrow about you," he adds.

Officers obtained a warrant to conduct a search of Afroman's residence on August 21, 2022, according to the complaint.

A copy of the warrant, obtained by Cincinnati FOX affiliate WXIX-TV, alleged that there were drugs, drug paraphernalia, money and weapons associated with drug trafficking and kidnapping.

Afroman told NPR that he has no idea where the kidnapping accusation came from, and had nothing more in his house than the ends of a few blunts and unused pipes made for him by fans.

In his Wednesday post, he accused a "racist judge" of signing a "fictitious false warrant."

Afroman was out of town on the day of the raid. But his ex-wife and kids, then 10 and 12, live nearby and came over when they saw the police presence. She recorded parts of the raid on her phone, while other scenes were captured by security video cameras around the house.

No charges came from the search, but that wasn't the end of the story.

Afroman says he had to repair his door, an external gate and his security system wiring, which cost him nearly $20,000.

He also accuses police of stealing from him. The officers had confiscated more than $5,000 in cash during the raid, which Afroman says were earnings from performances.

It was eventually returned to him, but with $400 missing. Just last month, an investigation concluded that deputies had miscounted the original amount — a claim that Afroman continues to dispute.

"They became thieves and stole my money," he wrote on Instagram. "After they stole my money they became criminals. After they became criminals they lost their right of privacy."

Afroman released an album called Lemon Pound Cake just a month later. Two of its songs reference the raid and include home footage in their music videos.

One of those songs is the title track, inspired by a moment during the raid in which an officer, walking through the kitchen with his gun drawn, broke his focus to look down at a cake dish on the counter.

It tells the story to the tune of The Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk."

"Mama's lemon pound cake, it tastes so nice, it made the sheriff want to put down his gun and cut him a slice," Afroman sings at one point, before comparing the officer to Family Guy's Peter Griffin.

Afroman's online merchandise store peddles sweatshirts (currently sold out) and t-shirts showing Griffin and a large lemon cake, surrounded by black-and-white images of the officer from the video, with the names Afroman and "Officer Pound Cake."

The video for another number, called "Will You Help Me Repair My Door," is a montage of clips from the raid.

It shows officers standing outside of his house and kicking down his door, as well as combing through his closet, turning over his CD collection and flipping through a wad of cash.

"Did you find what you was looking for?" he sings. "Will you help me repair my gate and door?"

Afroman also created dozens of videos and images of the officers' personas and posted them on social media sites including YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.

The lawsuit points to several of those posts, many of which have since been deleted. Based on descriptions in the complaint, many of them promote the Lemon Pound Cake album and merchandise.

They also disparage the judge and officers involved in the search: comparing an officer to Quasimodo (the Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and the judge to the cartoon character Droopy, accusing the cops of theft and referring to them as "KKKops" from "Adams KKKounty."

He says he didn't set out to make a hateful album; he just wanted to laugh about it. That's brought him a sense of victory, he adds.

"Me laughing at them, making songs about them, is more powerful than their authority," he says. "It's more powerful than their assault rifles, it's more powerful than what they got because I got these big bad tough guys crying and whining about my songs, on my page, in my world."

Afroman says the response from fans and venues has been positive.

"My biggest fear was all of this being a big deal to me but not to my fans — my fans being like, 'So what, you got raided dude, shut up and sing 'Because I Got High,''" he says.

In fact, he says it's only led to more exposure and opportunities. Afroman says he's getting calls from people he hasn't heard from in years — or at least since a few months ago when the raid happened.

"These guys are once again making me a bigger star," he says of the police. "I don't want to pay these guys nothing, but worst case scenario if I had to pay them, off the publicity and fame they gave me it might be fair just to shuffle them a few coins."

He's thinking of working on another album, with a name like Lemon Pound Cake Part 2. Most albums have 7-10 songs, he says, so he would write one about each officer "and see how good I could humiliate them."

Afroman says by making merchandise and cracking jokes, he turned a bad thing into a good thing. And he hopes others can apply that lesson in their own lives.

"I just want people to do the best they can," he adds. "I want to see people look at me and say what a sport, what a good peaceful positive move to make under such bad circumstances."



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