Month: July 2022

Categories
Abortion Elections GOP

Powerful Abortion Ad Aimed At Greg Abbott Goes Viral As His Poll Numbers Slide

Unless you live in the state of Texas or happen to be a political junkie who regularly follows campaigns in other states, you may not have seen the hottest political ad of the 2022 midterm elections.

The ad, which is aimed at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), has quickly gone viral, and is being shown all over cable television and online, where it is quickly earning the reputation as the most brilliant political ad in years.

Newsweek notes:

The Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC posted the ad on Twitter on Monday, where it has since amassed more than 3 million views.

It begins with a nervous couple waiting in a doctor’s office. When the doctor enters, he solemnly tells them their baby has a “catastrophic brain abnormality.”

Nancy Thompson, the founder of the Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC, explained the purpose of the ad:

“(It shows) the absurdity and horror of the government making a deeply personal decision – a decision which should be made between a woman and her health care provider. The video has been well received… We’re getting donations, and we’re not going to stop.”

Could a political ad in deep red Texas actually manage to turn the tide against the incumbent Abbott, who is facing a challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke? That depends on who you talk to, but the polls suggest that Abbott is indeed vulnerable and facing the political battle of his life, according to Axios:

In December, after the well-known Democrat announced his campaign, 54% of voters supported Abbott, compared to 37% who supported O’Rourke, a Quinnipiac University poll showed.

This month, 48% of voters support Abbott compared to 43% who support O’Rourke.

What, you may ask, is happening in Texas, long thought to be a conservative stronghold? In a word, pessimism:

Texans think Texas is on the wrong track and have expressed pessimism about their personal finances and the national economy.

Abbott’s approval rating has slipped to 43%, and 26% of Texas Republicans disapprove of the governor’s handling of the electric grid, according to the latest polling figures from the Texas Politics Project.

Additionally, following the money shows where the momentum is in the last three months of the race, with O’Rourke outraising Abbott since February.

Will Beto pull off one of the great political upsets in electoral history? It’s too soon to say definitively, but if it does happen, a viral campaign ad may well prove to have been the beginning of the end for Greg Abbott.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Social Media WTF?!

Trump Shows Up Looking Like ‘Emperor Palpatine’ At Saudi-Backed Golf Tournament And People Have Questions

If you’re keeping track at home, failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump isn’t at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida today. Instead, he showed up for the LIV Golf pro-am at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The Washington Post filed this report from Bedminster:

Trump teed off to a clattering of cameras to start the tournament’s pro-am competition, but the course was otherwise mostly silent as he moved down the first fairway, with Thursday’s event closed to the public.

Trump, an avid golfer whose loose adherence to the game’s rule book has been scrutinized, rarely plays in public. His midmorning round came days after news reports that the Justice Department is questioning Trump’s associates about his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection

Asked by a reporter on the first tee box if he intended to announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, he said, “You’re gonna be so happy … we’ll let you know pretty soon.”

The LIV tournament, you may know, is very controversial because it’s bankrolled by Saudi Arabia:

This week marks the third event of the controversial LIV Golf series, and its second in the United States. With its Saudi benefactors bankrolling the enterprise and poaching golfers from the PGA and European tours with lucrative contracts and signing bonuses, the new tour has faced heavy criticism. This week, with three days of golf taking place on a Trump-owned course less than 50 miles from Manhattan, promises a new level of scrutiny.

Already, family members of 9/11 victims have called on Trump to cancel the event and had two news conferences planned for this week in Bedminster in an effort to shine a light on Saudi involvement in the attacks — which involved 15 Saudi nationals — and make sure golfers are aware of what they’ve signed up for.

But it was a photo of Trump at the golf tournament that set off a great deal of social media chatter. Here’s the image shared by The Daily Mail:

Holy shit! Is that Trump or a mangled shoe? Granted, he’s buck ugly, but he looks worse than ever. Maybe it’s the heat, but then again, maybe he forgot to wear his makeup. That, or it all melted off in the sun, which is one of the problems with trying to desperately to hide your real age and physical condition, which was shit to begin with.

It didn’t take long for Twitter to weigh in, and some of the comments were both spot-on and hilarious.

https://twitter.com/GaryLegum/status/1552706467450478592?s=20&t=i3_kA-jPLxyhVfeR2hE7Lg
https://twitter.com/PhoBurns/status/1552695980050489345?s=20&t=bXHXP2dM5HwUX1X7H1612A
https://twitter.com/JoyousPanther/status/1552681132096987139?s=20&t=bXHXP2dM5HwUX1X7H1612A

https://twitter.com/WalshJackMD/status/1552739342216568832?s=20&t=bXHXP2dM5HwUX1X7H1612A

This guy is planning to run for president again in 2024. At the rate he’s going, he’ll turn into a zombie long before then.

Categories
Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump Ivanka Trump

Don Jr. And Ivanka’s Eulogies At Their Mom’s Funeral Show The Trump Family Is More Dysfunctional Than We Thought

The funeral for Ivana Trump — failed, one-term former president Donald Trump’s first wife — was held last week, and while such occasions are naturally bittersweet, people generally use the occasion to say kind and tender things about the deceased.

Unless, of course, you happen to be a member of the Trump family, and then the entire affair turns into a surreal sendoff that must have felt more like a celebrity roast than a fond adieu.

According to Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian, the so-called eulogies given by Ivana’s two oldest children, Don Jr. and Ivanka, suggest that the level of dysfunction in the family is even more pronounced than any of us ever imagined.

Let’s start with the eldest: Donald Jr. The warm memory of his mother that he chose to recount at her funeral? The time she disciplined him so hard she had to stop from exhaustion. Once, when they were kids, said Donald Jr, his sister Ivanka accidentally destroyed an expensive chandelier. Ivanka – it will shock you to hear – lied and said it was her brother’s fault; Ivana then pulled out a wooden spoon to teach Donald Jr a lesson. He kept insisting that Ivanka was the responsible party, but, by the time he had finally convinced his mother of his innocence, she was “too tired to deal with Ivanka.”

Even stranger was what Ivanka chose to reveal about her late mother:

Ivanka’s eulogy, meanwhile? She talked about her mother telling her to wear shorter skirts. A bit odd, but not nearly as weird as the contribution from Dorothy Curry, a former nanny to Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric. In a very dark speech, Curry talked about Ivana’s life becoming a “sinking swamp [of] parasites.”

Parasites? When you think about it, that’s the perfect description of what has been taking place inside the Trump family ever since Donald was born back in June of 1946, which suggests that when it comes time to eulogize him, the kids may just skip the event and go home to count what’s left of the Trump “empire” after daddy nearly flushed the entire thing down his gold-plated toilet.

Categories
Capitol Insurrection GOP January 6

Stephen Colbert Has A Hilarious New Nickname For Josh Hawley – And It’s Absolutely Perfect

The five days since last Thursday’s public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating January 6 have been especially bad ones for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who was exposed as a coward by the panel when it aired new video of him running away from rioters like a little boy who thinks he’s just seen the boogeyman.

That scene took place just hours after Hawley had given a raised fist salute to protesters as he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

As you’d expect, reaction to the video of Hawley, especially when compared to his tough guy salute, has set off plenty of laughter on social media.

And now Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show,” has joined the mockery, giving Hawley a nickname that will likely stick with him for the remainder of his life and help assure he is never elected president, despite his reported ambitions to run for the White House in 2024.

HuffPost reports:

“This weekend, at the right-wing Turning Point USA Summit, we heard from Missouri senator and star of the new film ‘Fascist Gump’ Josh Hawley,” Colbert said Monday.

Colbert then played a clip of Hawley’s speech at the summit in which he proclaimed:

“I just want to say to all of those liberals out there and the liberal media, just in case you haven’t gotten the message yet: I do not regret it. And I am not backing down. I’m not going to apologize. I’m not going to cower. I’m not going to run from you.”

That led Colbert to counter:

“Yeah. He is never going to run from his enemies. In fact, here he is on January 6 bravely moonwalking into danger.”

 

Categories
GOP Religion

Marjorie Greene Has A Meltdown After Rachel Maddow Exposes The Racist Roots Of ‘Christian Nationalism’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) absolutely loves saying wild, outrageous, racist, and disgusting things, but she gets livid when anyone dares to point out the wrongness of the things she’s said.

For example, Greene has recently proclaimed that she is a proud “Christian nationalist,” remarking:

“Republicans really need to recognize the people they represent, ok? Their voters, not the lobbyists donors, not the corporate PACs, not those people. That’s not who the Republican Party should represent. We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and, I say it proudly: We should be Christian nationalists.”

That led MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to examine the history of the Christian nationalist movement in the United States, and what she discovered is absolutely terrifying, Mediaite reports:

On Monday night, Maddow dove into the history of the term “Christian nationalist,” bringing the term back to Gerald L.K. Smith, the controversial founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade. Maddow played audio of Greene’s call for her party to be “Christian nationalists,” and then aired various audio of Smith taking issue with Jewish organizations, mixing races, and more.

Again, this is history. It is documented fact. And yet Greene had a hissy fit/meltdown on Twitter Tuesday, suggesting that Maddow was part of the “Godless lying left” who wants to portray her as a “Nazi.”

Since she’s from the South, I’ll share a Southern expression that Marjorie Insurrectionist Greene will be familiar with: A hit dog always hollers.