In their latest attempt to undermine President Joe Biden, right-wingers are claiming that a series of four photos showing the president and First Lady Jill Biden talking to each other are proof that she’s actually the one running the country.
Yep, you read that correctly: Four photos are all the conservative dunces need for their latest conspiracy theory.
The photos were shared online by Jake Schneider, who just so happens to be a member of what’s known as the GOP Rapid Response team. Translation: The Republican hit squad who take everything out of context and never miss an opportunity to take a cheap shot at anyone they disagree with.
The Bidens have been married for 45 years, and for readers who are or have been married, it’s safe to assume that you never agreed with your spouse 100% of the time and that you had more than your share of spats. If you say you didn’t, then you’re either being dishonest or your marriage was so vapid and loveless that you can’t tell the difference between fictional marital bliss and what a real marriage looks like.
As you’d expect, other right-wing dupes on social media were only too happy to join the debate and suggest that we’re living in sad times based on four photos taken completely out of context.
Jill: “Joe, we can’t get ice cream today, I’m sorry” Joe: “What? Not fair! We always get ice cream on Friday” Jill: “It’s Tuesday” Joe mumbling: “I hate that lying bitch, I know it’s Friday she’s just tricking me. I’m calling Hunter he’s always up for ice cream”
His dementia makes him look like a toddler being scolded by his mommy. It is elder abuse, and If I didn't know what kind of man he's been all his life, I would feel so sorry for him. This photo would be heartbreaking. What an evil era in the world we're living through.
Dr Jill rebuking Brandon: “Joe, I’m the fking President of the United States. Just go out there and read what I told you to read, and don’t fk it up! How many times do I have to say it?”
If you’ve ever listened to Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene speak or read one of her tweets, you’ve probably wondered: How did someone this completely unfit and unprepared for office ever get elected in the first place?
The answer, of course, is that Greene’s constituents in her North Georgia district elected her, and talking to some of them makes it painfully clear that they support her because they’re just as deranged as the person they voted for.
Stephanie McCrummen of the Washington Post recently paid a visit to the 14th congressional district of Georgia, and what she found is like something out of a novel written by Carson McCullers or Flannery O’Connor, filled with oddball characters and a level of Southern gothic that borders on absolute insanity.
Angela Rubino goes by the moniker “Burnitdown” in her online postings, and McCrummen spent some time with her while in the 14th, reporting:
Six years into the grass-roots movement unleashed by Donald Trump in his first presidential campaign, Angela Rubino is a case study in what that movement is becoming. Suspicious of almost everything, trusting of almost nothing, believing in almost no one other than those who share her unease, she has in many ways become a citizen of a parallel America — not just red America, but another America entirely, one she believes to be awash in domestic enemies, stolen elections, immigrant invaders, sexual predators, the machinations of a global elite and other fresh nightmares revealed by the minute on her social media scrolls.
Rubino, to put it simply, all but worships Greene:
In Greene, she did not see what much of America saw — a person willing to do almost anything to keep emotions running high, whether that meant perpetuating lies about election fraud, harassing a victim of a school shooting, speaking at a white nationalist conference or casting fellow citizens who disagree with her as ‘domestic terrorists.’ Instead, Rubino saw a person like herself: a political outsider who shared the same sense of urgency about the same dystopian America, one that required a popular uprising to save it.
Oh, and the people Rubino associates with are (as you’d expect) just as demented as her, as McCrummen discovered when she joined a vote canvas:
There was a military contractor who said he’d been reading a Russian book about CIA-sponsored regime change operations, which he believed included the last U.S. presidential election. There were women who believed public schools were indoctrinating children with left-wing ideology. Retirees who believed the coronavirus was a bioweapon. A mechanic who wore ear buds all day streaming ‘War Room,’ a podcast in which former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon was urging people to take over local Republican parties.
But perhaps the most disturbing thing Rubino said during the time McCrummen was with her is this tidbit she shared with a friend of hers, Melissa Smith:
“Did you ever see that clip about Hillary Clinton where she cut a girl’s face off and she wore it?” said Rubino, referring to one of the fake videos of the type always coming across her social media scroll. “I could hardly watch.”
How did Greene respond to Rubino when they met at a primary night event for the congresswoman? The encounter was a bit like two visitors from space as they bonded in mutual admiration:
Greene smiled and told people that instead of giving an off-the-cuff speech, she had written one out for once. And so in the more careful and polished manner of a leader on the rise, she began describing the America that Rubino believed in more and more, one at war with “globalists” and the “democratic communist agenda” and elites who “look down on us” and “hate us.”
She listened as Greene spoke of an “American revival.” She nodded along as Greene said, “It is we who will set the public agenda for the next decade.”
How did Marjorie Taylor Greene get elected? By pandering to people even more deranged and profoundly ignorant than she is.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg made it clear Sunday that the Biden administration does indeed see the mass shooting that took place in Buffalo on Saturday as a hate crime and that some right-wingers have helped spread the sort of hatred that allegedly led Payton Gendron to shoot and kill 10 people, most of them black.
Buttigieg was a guest on “Face the Nation,” and was asked by host Margaret Brennan if there needs to be a new law that would make domestic terrorism a crime. The secretary replied:
“This would be a good day for every politician in this country — left, right and center — every media figure in this country — left, right and center — to come out and unequivocally condemn white nationalism, so-called ‘replacement theory’ and any other hateful ideology that could have contributed to something like this.”
.@margbrennan: Should there be a federal law criminalizing "domestic terrorism"?
Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg says "whether it's called that legally or not, this was terrorism" and every politician should come out and "unequivocally condemn white nationalism.” pic.twitter.com/Zv51WSKKLm
“Replacement theory” asserts that white Americans are being replaced by immigrants and minorities as some sort of master plan by Democrats to create a permanent hold on government. Among the most vocal proponents of this bogus theory are Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.
Under the guise of the First Amendment, many on the right have been saying for years that there’s a massive conspiracy afoot to take political power away from whites in the United States. But that change has been taking place for decades as demographic changes happen and many whites have fewer children. It’s not a conspiracy, however. Despite what loons such as Tucker Carlson or his ilk say, the world is not out to get them.
Here’s a thought: If Carlson and others who push replacement theory are so worried, why don’t they start having bigger families? Carlson has four children, but maybe he and his wife should have several more.
Or perhaps Carlson and others on the right need to sit down and stop spreading dangerous lies that inspire people to kill others.
The so-called “People’s Convoy” of truckers and other right-wing nutjobs opposed to COVID restrictions (the vast majority of which have been lifted) decided to take their protest to California, but they picked the wrong neighborhood and were quickly dispatched by residents who tossed eggs at their vehicles.
Convoys of truckers shut down the Ambassador Bridge connecting Canada and the United States back in February, but attempts to mimic those protests here in the U.S. have been met with apathy and anger, as commuters quickly grew tired of seeing big rigs blocking the highways as they attempted to make their way to work on time.
On Friday, a group of protesters took their trucks to a San Francisco suburb to show disapproval of Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ support for an abortion bill and were run out of town, according to the San Francisco Gate:
Livestreams posted by convoy participants show police arriving to protect Wicks’ home, which eventually prompted the group to move on. It was here they made their mistake, driving onto busy, one-lane College Avenue on the Berkeley-Oakland border. There, slowed down by the usual Friday afternoon traffic, they were sitting ducks outside the Safeway. A large group of kids, armed with eggs purchased at the grocery store, began pelting the convoy.
Even better was that some of the truckers were stupid enough not to take proper precautions and literally wound up with egg on their faces:
A few ill-advised convoy drivers had their windows rolled down, resulting in eggs splattering the insides of their vehicles. Passersby watched in confusion and amusement, with some adults stopping to cheer on the kids. Furious truckers then drove out of town, heading back on the highway toward their base in Sacramento. According to CB radio captured by the livestream audio, truckers complained about needing to wash their vehicles and seemed shocked at how poorly received they were by locals.
Karma is a wonderful thing when it slaps people who are richly deserving of being taken down a few notches.
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy as the weight of multiple lawsuits against him is causing severe financial stress, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Companies owned by far-right radio host Alex Jones are getting advice from restructuring advisers and considering options including a potential bankruptcy filing after being hit by lawsuits over Jones’s conspiracy theories, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
A Chapter 11 filing would aim to allow Jones’s businesses, such as Infowars and Free Speech Systems, to keep operating while pausing civil litigation against them, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Just last year, Jones and his companies were found liable of defamation in a lawsuit brought by relatives of the 20 children who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Jones labeled the shootings fake and a hoax, suggesting they were part of a “false flag” operation that would allow the U.S. government to impose new gun control regulations. The full value of the damages that will be imposed on Jones has not yet been decided, but could well total in the tens of millions of dollars.
Attorneys for Jones have asserted that their client’s First Amendment rights are being violated and that he had an absolute right to make the comments about the Sandy Hook massacre.
However, legal experts have noted that no one has a right to spread outright lies and bogus conspiracy theories in order to get ratings and raise money. Such actions are clearly beyond the scope of the protections afforded by the Constitution.
Jones has also been accused of transferring money from his company in an effort to hide his assets. According to attorneys for the Sandy Hook families, Jones began those transfers shortly after they filed their defamation suit in 2018. He allegedly transferred $18 to an entity called PQPR, which is said to be controlled by Jones or members of his family.