F**king Mondays: "Sex Is A Gay Act"
And other bonkers tales from the interwebs...
Welcome to this week’s edition of “F**king Mondays!”!
In our round up of the best stories to start your week off, we have some real gems. Never let it be said that the summer months in politics is boring:
Cruz the comedian?
Ted Cruz is in many ways the epitome of the modern Republican Party. He’s a deeply unlikeable, spineless hack who sold his soul to the MAGA wing of the party to stay relevant. There is no cheap shot Cruz isn’t willing to take, and he’ll leap on every idiotic Republican talking point and beat it to death with a hammer. But every now and then, the Senator from Texas can be pretty funny:
(For reference: during the GOP primaries in 2016, Donald Trump promoted a conspiracy theory that Rafael Cruz (Cruz’s father) was seen with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, just before John F. Kennedy was assassinated).
The tweet almost makes Cruz likable. Not quite, but
Speaking of RFK Jr…
The anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist presidential candidate tweeted out a quote from his father’s speech at the University of Kansas in 1968 with this accompanying summary:
My father’s words to students at the University of Kansas in 1968 at the start of his presidential run are equally applicable today. Like me, my father was running against a war waged by a Democratic incumbent President of his own party and the entire ferocious infrastructure of the Democratic Party, the liberal establishment that despised him, and the corporate media led by the New York Times, which was indignant at his candidacy.
Here is the quote from his father:
Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that — that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
One might point out that RFK Jr. isn’t actually running against a war waged by a Democratic incumbent President of his own party. He’s running against a war instigated by a brutal Russia dictator that threatens to destroy democracy in Europe. But never let the facts get in the way of some emotionally manipulative screed against “establishment Dems” and the “corporate media”.
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Ditching Mitch McConnell
What would the GOP look like without Mitch McConnell? Apparently the party wants to find out. Reports the Guardian:
Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has suggested her fellow Republican Mitch McConnell – the longtime powerful US Senate leader – should step aside after an episode in which he physically froze and was unable to speak at the Capitol this week.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley was asked by the host Margaret Brennan whether she still had confidence in McConnell’s ability to lead after the episode.
“I think Mitch McConnell did an amazing job when it comes to our judiciary, when we look at the judges, when we look at the supreme court he’s been a great leader,” said Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ex-United Nations ambassador during the Donald Trump presidency. “But we’ve gotta stop electing people because they look good in a picture and they hold a baby well.”
Haley went on to say that “we’ve gotta stop electing people because we like them and they’ve been there a long time”.
Presumably Haley wasn’t implying McConnell looked good in a picture, holds babies well, or that anyone likes him (McConnell is about as photogenic as the Grim Reaper, would cause permanent psychological damage to any baby he held for too long, and is about as likable as influenza). Haley has taken swipes at both Trump and Biden for their age, so this looks like a familiar theme for the presidential hopeful. Kick out the oldies so the new generation can change things up, etc.
Unfortunately for the GOP, much of their legislative success over the past decade or so is because of Mitch McConnell. The Senate minority leader is one the last serious politicians in the party, and is probably the only reason the establishment and the MAGA nutjobs have been able to work together. McConnell is a ruthless operator with an extraordinary knowledge of the Senate, making him a formidable opponent for anyone who comes up against him. Despite his personal misgivings about Trump, McConnell calculated early that he could use him to further the GOP’s agenda, so expended significant political capitol protecting him. The Trump fanatics have long despised McConnell, but they owe their political fortunes to him.
McConnell is an uncompromising power operator unconcerned by his public image, or whom he offends. If the party moves to oust him, there are few figures left with his aptitude for political warfare. A Republican Party without Mitch McConnell is a party driven by Donald Trump with no safety belt. So they should be very careful what they wish for.
“Sex is a gay act”
Nick Fuentes, the holocaust denying, racist misogynist friend of Donald Trump has some advice for his male followers: don’t have sex because it will make you gay:
For the future of humanity, one hopes Fuentes takes his own advice.
See you next week!
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“But we’ve gotta stop electing people because they look good in a picture...”
So Haley just shot down her own main selling point.
I refuse to go on Twitter, ahem, "X", because I refuse to give Elon Musk the website traffic. Is that loony Fuentes video clip posted anywhere else? I don't see it on Threads, unfortunately.