Top 10 Conservative Idiots #12-12: I Wanna Dip My Balls In It Edition

[Top 10 Idiots]

Last edited Thu Apr 28, 2022, 06:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #12-12: I Wanna Dip My Balls In It Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up San Diego? How are you guys doing? You doing fucking good? Great! So we are midway through Stupidest State 2022 and we have just four – count them – 4 editions left in season 12! Man, this first half of the year just flew by! So to recap Stupidest State – that means we have just four editions left – 2 more in Round 2, then the Final Four, then the Championship! And we’ve had lots of twists and turns and I did not see our two favored states leaving early, right? OK do we have time for the thing? Of course we do. I make no mistake that I love music and rock music in particular. But remember that scene in Dr. Strange when he’s in the operating room and he’s having a debate with his physician’s assistant over which playlist will help him get the bullet out of the patient? It turns out – that’s actually a real thing! Surgeons actually do have playlists of music that they pipe into the operating room during surgeries. So researchers at Heidelberg University in Germany did a study of this and they found that listening to loud music like AC/DC for instance, helped improved the time actually spent on operating procedures! And you know what did not? When they played calming music like the Beatles. That’s right – it had the opposite effect! The next time you want your surgeon to be accurate, suggest they play something like AC/DC or Iron Maiden instead of something like the Beatles! Because… metal! OK enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first John Oliver is back and he delves into the subject of police interrogations:

So where do we begin this week? In the number one slot this week goes to the GOP (1). When you get publicly embarrassed in a national debate like in 2020, where do you go? Well you pull out of the debate caucus, because that’s what perfectly sane people do. In the second slot this week is premiere Russian warlord Vladimir Putin (2). So the Ukraine sank the famous Russian battleship known as “Moskva” – that ship behind the “F-U” Ukraine middle finger that was recently minted in a stamp! In the number 3 slot this week is Elon Musk (3). Yes, the mastermind behind Telsa and Space X is plotting a hostile takeover of Twitter – and his motives for doing so aren’t good. We see through you, Elon! Taking the number 4 seed is Greg Abbott (4). Yes, the governor of Texas is certifiably batshit insane and he’s going nuclear at the border – and this is mainly to appease Tucker Carlson fans. Fox News is calling the shots here. Taking the number 5 slot this week is the Florida GOP (5) who spends way too much time watching Fox News because they decided to ban math textbooks that teach critical race theory, because they really are that brainwashed. In the number 6 slot this week is our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” (6) and this week, our resident pastor is increasingly alarmed at what might be one of the most batshit insane off the wall conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen yet. it’s indescribable how crazy this theory is, and that people believe it! At slot #7 this week is a brand new People Who Somehow Got Elected and this week, we’re finally adding Georgia’s batshit crazy Q Anon friendly Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to that ever growing list! In slot #8 we have a new edition of Conspiracy Corner (8). What is Tucker Carlson’s obsession with being the manliest man who’s ever manned? Well we delve his bizarre new documentary “The End Of Man” and whew, when Kid Rock calls you out for being crazy, that’s pretty fucking crazy! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week, we have a new “I Need A Drink” and this week we are having some drinks and discussing why a zoo in Britain is hiring a Marvin Gaye impersonator to serenade the zoo’s macaca population into mating, and it’s quite the bizarre story! Finally this week it’s time for Stupidest State Round 2 Week 2! Which means that it’s the Family Values Conference championships! Indiana. Tennessee. One of these two will move on to face Missouri in the Final Four! Plus to cap things off, we have one of the best punk bands currently touring, taking a break from Coachella – IDLES are here! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Congressional Republicans
[br] [/font] [br]

History, time, boys and girls! Gather around, don’t be shy! Let me tell you a tale. It’s only been 2 years, but the nightmare year that was 2020 feels like an eternity ago, doesn’t it? So why do I bring it up? Well you might remember when former vice president and guy who the MAGA crowd wanted to hang on January 6th, Mike Pence, not only got his ass kicked in the vice presidential debates, he also got publicly humiliated by a fly (see: Idiots #9-14 ), anyone remember that? It never gets old!

Oh my god… that is still hilarious. So when you’re the GOP and you get your ass kicked like that, where do you go? Well you pull out of the debates entirely! So instead of attempting to find common ground, and hold debates like civilized adults, the GOP instead decided to act like the spoiled children that they are and say “fuck you” to the debate process entirely! So yeah you know the old saying if you cant beat them, join them? Well, in today’s GOP , if you can’t beat them, tell them to go fuck themselves! Yeah that’s their mindset right now.

The Republican National Committee voted unanimously Thursday in favor of withdrawing from the Commission on Presidential Debates. "The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage," RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in a press release.

"Today, the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people," she added. "Debates are an important part of the democratic process, and the RNC is committed to free and fair debates."

The Republican Party for nearly a decade has complained that the nonprofit debate commission — which has described itself as nonpartisan — has favored Democrats, according to the New York Times. Last year, McDaniel warned CPD that the RNC would advise future Republican candidates against participating in CPD-hosted debates unless "significant reforms" were made. In January, the RNC reiterated their position by sending a letter to the CPD threatening to block future GOP presidential nominees from sanctioned debates if "meaningful reforms" are not made.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/rnc-vote-withdraw-president-debate-55487e0f-1a72-4242-8f5b-5cea225f9ea0.html

So apparently the old saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” has been replaced by “if you can’t beat ‘em, then fuck you!”. Because that’s what civilized adults do. I mean come on there was that picture of 10 year old kids waving their middle fingers in front of a “Fuck Biden” flag being carried by strippers (and that’s a real thing, BTW), so that’s the kind of class and dignity that we’re dealing with here. But you know they won’t come up with any solutions of their own, they just keep causing chaos. That’s all they are good for.

The Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying the group that has run the debates for decades was biased and refused to enact reforms.

“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” the committee’s chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement.

The RNC’s action requires Republican candidates to agree in writing to appear only in primary and general election debates sanctioned by the committee.

The non-profit commission, founded in 1987 to codify the debates as a permanent part of presidential elections, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Democratic National Committee, the RNC’s counterpart for the party of President Joe Biden, was also not immediately available.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/14/republican-party-withdraws-commission-on-presidential-debates

Oh shut up! Come on, you’re not going to find a newer and better platform. Yeah maybe in the same way OJ Simpson attempts to find the real killers. What? Too soon? Sir, give it a chance, we just got up here. For those of you watching at home there’s people already leaving! But really the GOP has no options. They have no better platform. You know I used to compare MAGA fans to Insane Clown Posse fans. They have their own brands, their own identifying marks, the same boorish behavior, I could go on. So it’s no surprise, at least here, that they’re telling those that want to debate to go fuck themselves.

Republican candidates are shying away from the debate stage as the midterm elections approach.

Over a half dozen GOP candidates in crucial state and federal races have either skipped out on or not committed to primary debates.

Joe Lombardo, a gubernatorial candidate in Nevada, turned down a chance to debate in January. In Nebraska, Jim Pillen, another gubernatorial candidate, turned down offers to debate his opponents in March, telling ABC News debates amount to "political theater."

In Pennsylvania, Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz did not take part in the first GOP Senate primary debate in January, citing a "prior commitment."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-candidates-battleground-states-skip-debates/story?id=83785574

Oh come on, sure, you’ve even got old ladies telling you to fuck off. You know, when you get your ass kicked, as was completely evidenced by the 2020 elections, you go do some soul searching to find out where you went wrong. But no, today’s GOP doesn’t do that. Instead they went full on authoritarian with their thumbs up their asses, acted like spoiled children and attempted to overthrow an election, and are now whining and moping about. So will there be debates in 2024? Not if you’re going full on authoritarian, and it looks like we’re headed that way. We’re in for some scary times ahead, folks!

The Republican Party took a step closer Thursday to eliminating presidential debates in the fall of 2024, voting to stop working with the foundation that has organized such debates since 1987.

"The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates," said Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.

The move underscores how former President Donald Trump reshaped and continues to reshape the GOP, with his complaints about debates in 2016 and 2020 laying the groundwork for the possible withdrawal of Republican candidates in the future.

McDaniel and other party members who voted unanimously to withdraw from cooperation with the commission said they want "freer and fairer debate platforms." But it is unclear who might organize a new set of debates and whether the Democrats and their presidential candidate would agree to a new sponsor.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/14/republicans-presidential-debates-2024/7319314001/

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Vladimir Putin
[br] [/font] [br]

The Ukraine – Russia war is still unfortunately still a thing. Or as we’ve been calling it, Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine. I’m being told that actual Ukrainians don’t like it being referred to as “The Ukraine”, so we’ll just call it “Ukraine”. But it seems that Ukraine is getting the upper hand against Pooty. Last week – the Russian warship known as “Moskva” was sunk by Ukrainian missiles in the Black Sea. Now for those of you who have been following the war from the beginning, you might remember that as the warship that Ukrainian boats gave the middle finger to, and that famous scene has recently been immortalized in stamp form. So now what exactly happened in the hours leading up to and including the destruction of the ship? Well there’s a lot to take in here and we will do our best to try to explain everything. But the truth is that Ukraine got the upper hand here and sank a very powerful Russian warship that could have done some major damage.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Thursday confirmed an explosion aboard the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — which Ukraine said was the result of a missile strike and Russia said was caused by an internal fire detonating ammunition.

Kirby later appeared to also back reports that the damaged Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva, which he said is one of three cruisers in the Russian fleet, had sunk. The Pentagon press secretary still couldn’t confirm conflicting claims from the Russians and Ukrainians about what ultimately led to the ship’s demise. While the Russian side claimed there was a fire on board and a storm sank the ship, the Ukrainians said the damage from their Neptune missiles sent the ship underwater.

“We’re not in a position to officially confirm, independently, what exactly led to the ship’s now sinking,” Kirby told CNN on Thursday afternoon. “But we’re also not in any position to refute the Ukrainian side of this. It’s certainly plausible and possible that they did in fact hit this with a Neptune missile or maybe more.”

Earlier Thursday, Kirby said the Moskva was operating roughly 60 miles south of Odesa — a Black Sea port city in southern Ukraine — at the time of the blast.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/14/pentagon-explosion-russian-warship-00025243

Well there’s nothing really funny about that, although it is kinda funny. But yeah the thing about this war is that Vladimir Putin was laughably unqualified to carry out such an occupation. And not only did he underestimate the number of troops needed to secure and occupy Ukraine, he also underestimated the number of troops needed to maintain this illegal occupation. But at least Ukraine has a sense of humor about what’s going on even though it’s really hard to, because they’ve immortalized giving the Russian battleship the finger in stamp form!

"Russian warship actually went and f***ed itself as recommended," wrote the official Ukraine Twitter account, referring to the recent sinking of the ship that seized Snake Island, and was the subject of the now-famous phrase. "Ukrposhta dedicated a famous postal stamp to this historic phrase. Now a complete set with envelopes signed by the phrase’s author is up for auction."

The auction will be held on Friday at 2 p.m. Kyiv time, and registration is open until Thursday evening.

In addition to the signature of the Ukrainian marine Roman Gribov who cussed at the now sunken Moskva, the collection will also feature the signature of the general director of Ukrposhta, Igor Smilyansky.

"The lot is unique in that it contains a complete set of products produced by Ukrposhta within this theme," said the auction page.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-704692

So getting back to the war, of course if you’re Vladimir Putin and you’re receiving news of this, naturally your first step is to flat out deny it ever happened, right? No, instead you go the Jesus route! Because – this is allegedly true – is that the sunken ship might have been carrying an extra large piece of the true cross. Because sure you have to go there with Putin’s white Christian nationalist base, right? Of course you do.

The Russian warship that sunk during the military operations against Ukraine last week may have been carrying what is claimed by some Christians to be a fragment of the cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva — which helped seize Snake Island in an infamous incident at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War — sank on Thursday after being seriously damaged following an explosion that a Ukrainian official said was the result of a missile strike.

In 2020, it was decided that a Christian relic, a piece of the "True Cross," would be carried on the Moskva, archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Sevastopol District Sergiy Khalyuta told Russian state media outlet TASS.

The True Cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on was supposedly found by Roman Emperor Constantine's mother, Empress Helena, and the alleged fragments of the cross have over the centuries been dispersed among different sects and churches. Khalyuta emphasized to TASS that fragments of the true cross are very rare and of great religious importance for all Christian denominations.
https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-704498

Holy crap, there really is a Simpsons scene for everything! So what’s next for Ukraine? Well this war ain’t over and as they say, we’ve only just begun. OK so I can’t sing. But you get the idea. So if you’re the Ukraine, you keep fighting. Because that’s what you gotta do. But if you’re Vladimir Putin on the other hand, how do you deal with this? Well at least be thankful of one thing – the nuclear option is not on the table. Although really, the entire world right now is trust Pooty about as far as we can throw him. It is good to know that they draw the line somewhere in their quest for world domination.

Moscow is not considering using nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

In an interview with India Today, Lavrov said his country's forces would use "conventional weapons only," according to state news agency Interfax.

Although he is not directly responsible for military decision-making, his comments are among the most direct so far on the prospect of Russia escalating the conflict into a nuclear one.

Western intelligence officials had warned that Russia might resort to tactical or other limited nuclear weapons if its invasion continues to face setbacks.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapons-sergei-lavrov-1698909

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Elon Musk
[br] [/font] [br]

Last week we reported on Elon Musk, you know him best as the CEO of Telsa and Space X, that he has purchased a controlling share of Twitter with the intent of “transforming the platform”. Of course he has a much more sinister underlying motive – he’s been questioning “big tech” censorship and many are believing that he would let Trump back on the platform if given the chance. Which in all honesty would be an absolutely terrible idea and no good would come of it. And of course by “big tech censorship”, he wants people to be free to say racist and sexist stuff without fear of consequence. Which also, nothing good would come of that. Well since last week, he’s escalated his hostile takeover bid to control Twitter and we have no idea what will come of this, but we can rest assured one thing – something really awful could be brewing. But that said, given Elon’s track record for being an internet troll, MAGA stooge, and a “red pill truther”, whatever that is, we can only be certain that he will not use his new powers for anything even remotely good, only bad.

Watching the richest person on the planet try to take over one of the most influential social networks is a head-spinning experience.

Smooth and orderly are not exactly what the world has come to expect from mercurial billionaire Elon Musk. He relishes moving markets with his tweets as much as he loves sharing duck memes with his more than 82 million Twitter followers.

The drama over Musk's $43 billion takeover bid for Twitter is heating up, not just because the company's board is resisting him, but because other players are starting to appear on the scene.

So will the billionaire's bid succeed, or will he back down? And what important factors are still in flux?

Here's a rundown of where things stand and what could happen next.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/19/1093408513/twitter-elon-musk-explainer-investors-shareholders

Ok so you might be wondering – what’s the “poison pill” option? Well it basically means that in the event of a hostile takeover, they can release as much stock as possible to potential investors in order to prevent the hostile takeover. Not only that, people are waking up to what could happen if Elon’s hostile takeover were to succeed. Because, like I said, letting Trump back on the platform – as angry as he is now? If he were given a free pass to be as racist and sexist and threaten violence as much as he wants to, he would be that much bigger of an asshole! This is nothing to celebrate. It’s disturbing.

Elon Musk on Saturday posted a cryptic tweet that said “Love Me Tender,” suggesting he was either listening to Elvis or possibly considering a potential tender offer to Twitter shareholders to take control of the company.

A tender offer would be the latest in the saga over his dramatic bid to take control of Twitter. Another tweet suggests that Musk believes shareholders should decide the future of the company, not the board.

Shares of Twitter were up more than 3% in premarket trading.

“Wow, with Jack departing, the Twitter board collectively owns almost no shares!” he also tweeted Saturday, referring to former CEO Jack Dorsey, who will step down from the Twitter board this year. “Objectively, their economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders!”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO last week offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, which would value it at about $43 billion. On Friday, Twitter adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan, often referred to as a “poison pill,” in an effort to fend off a potential hostile takeover.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/musk-tweets-love-me-tender-days-after-twitter-takeover-offer.html

Yeah so how does Elon respond to this? By tweeting out lyrics to Elvis songs. We shit you not. What happens when the troll takes over the platform? It’s going to be like when Bane takes over Gotham at the end of The Dark Knight Rises. Seriously, imagine what would happen if that courtroom scene were to come to life on the internet. And in case you’re wondering, why yes – Elon does plan to screw over Twitter’s board members. Of course that was also part of his master plan. So he’s your ultimate dirty dealer – with him, he’s the house, and the house always wins.

Twitter is currently trying to block Musk's $43 billion bid to take the company private.

Musk is the social media platform's biggest individual shareholder after building up a large stake in the company this year, equating to 9.1% of the firm. He was also briefly the company's biggest overall shareholder, until investment firm Vanguard upped its stake to 10.3% of the firm, according to an SEC filing first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, Twitter announced the billionaire would join its board of directors — but said a few days later Musk walked back the decision.

Twitter's board has since said it will deploy a "poison pill" defense — also known as a shareholder rights plan — to fend off Musk's takeover bid. It works by increasing the total number of a company's shares, making it harder for any interested party to buy up all of the stock.

Musk is the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of $255 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-twitter-board-045034643.html

That’s literally exactly what it’s going to be like. Imagine if Elon gets his way and all the racist and sexist trolls – Trump included – are let back onto the platform. It will be unimaginable chaos. And that’s what Elon is – he’s an agent of chaos. Shit, even the Tesla shareholders think that he’s gone too far with this one. But yeah keep pissing off your own customers, Elon. Let’s see how far that gets you, because in the end, you’ll eventually get screwed.

Elon Musk wants everyone to believe he really did have the money secured to take Tesla (TSLA) private back in 2018. But a group suing him over that claim say he didn't have it, and that the SEC and a federal judge agree.

Musk is making the claim as he faces a shareholder lawsuit about a now infamous tweet in which he said he had "funding secured." At the same time, he's also bidding to take another tech company, Twitter, private, with a source of funds he has yet to disclose.

The Tesla shareholders who are suing Musk for fraud aren't happy about his comments. In a court filing on Friday they asked the judge in their case to muzzle the tweet-happy CEO.

The shareholders also said a federal judge found that Musk's 2018 tweets in which he claimed to have the funding to take Tesla private were false and misleading. Musk eventually settled with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over the tweets, stepping down as Tesla chairman and agreeing to oversight of his social media use.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/business/elon-musk-judge-tweets/index.html

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Greg Abbott
[br] [/font] [br]

If you were to look at Texas’s Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, both members of the Q – Batshit party, it’s almost like they’re in some kind of warped, stupid arms race to see who can be the worst governor in the country. Like 90% of the country’s governors you couldn’t name because they don’t do the kind of batshit crazy things that these two do. And they only do this to please their Fox News loving fan base and that’s about it. It’s a truly scary thing when Greg Abbott is doing the evil bidding of Fox News and literally kidnapping migrant people at the border – and it’s not the number one story this week! This is a jaw dropping, stunning level of evil that one cannot just simply comprehend. Because if you were to begin to comprehend it, it would cause your head to explode and the rest of your surrounding area to catch fire. That’s right you would go nuclear. Now before we get into this – please kindly hold your boos. Save them for after! But really what kind of shithole governor kidnaps people based on what the TV tells them to do?

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is taking migrants who have scheduled immigration appearances without their consent or the knowledge of the federal government and busing them to Washington, DC.

Chris Magnus, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPD) commissioner said that Abbott is acting without consulting the federal government:

As individuals await the outcome of their immigration proceedings, they are legally obligated to report in for the next steps in their immigration process and permitted to travel elsewhere. CBP’s close partnerships with other government and non-governmental stakeholders are essential to this effort, and to ensuring fairness, order, and humanity in the process.

Governor Abbott is taking actions to move migrants without adequately coordinating with the federal government and local border communities. CBP has always worked closely with and supported border communities in Texas, many of which CBP personnel call home.

Governor Abbott is basically kidnapping migrants and busing the to Washington, D.C. because he is worried about running for reelection against Beto O’Rourke.
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/04/15/greg-abbott-is-essentially-kidnapping-migrants-and-busing-them-to-d-c.html

Holy shit! There’s some serious human rights violations being committed here, and all for the sake to please Rupert Murdoch’s massive ego. It’s truly disgusting what is happening at the border and Greg Abbott needs to be raked over the coals for it. But is he going to be punished for it? Well as we learned from the Kyle Rittenhouse trials, you can get off for just about any crime you can think of if you have a judge who votes the same way you do! But the truth of the matter is that Gov. Abbott stepped in it big time and it’s going to cost the people of Texas big time.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's short-lived policy of requiring state troopers to conduct secondary inspections of trucks crossing into Texas from Mexico cost the United States almost $9 billion in just 10 days, Axios reported Tuesday.

The policy, which Abbott enacted on April 6, snarled truck traffic at the border and led to a protest by Mexican truckers that stopped trade at some major crossings. On April 15, Abbott ended the double inspections, for which he'd received withering criticism from both sides of the border and the aisle, after striking deals with the governors of the four Mexican states that border Texas.

Per Axios, Abbott implemented the policy "in response to the Biden administration's announcement that it would lift Title 42," a Trump-era public health policy that denied migrants entry into the United States.

An analysis by the Perryman Group showed that the U.S. lost an estimated $8.97 billion in GDP due to delays at the border, while Texas alone lost $4.23 billion.
https://news.yahoo.com/abbotts-border-policy-cost-u-214650405.html

OK… OK let’s extract the underlying irony of this whole thing. Here we have Mr. Fiscal Conservative himself, Greg Abbott, literally costing the state BILLIONS, and it’s all just a massive publicity quid pro quo stunt designed to win him points with the Fox News crowd for his potential 2024 run. Good freaking god these people suck. And Fox News certainly knows how to pick ‘em, don’t they? And you know the even crazier thing – they’ll inspect trucks carrying suspected migrants. But they won’t inspect trucks carrying Trump signs and MAGA flags even though you know they are committing crimes, because reasons.

Texas governor Greg Abbott has made an about-face on his policy of tighter inspections of trucks entering Texas from Mexico, a week after he implemented the policy which led to Mexican truckers blockading border bridges in protest and holding up food supplies to the US as a result.

He reversed course on Friday night after a week of intensifying backlash and fears of deepening economic losses.

Abbott, a Republican, announced that he reached an agreement with officials from four neighboring Mexican states including Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Tamaulipas on improving border security and was thus lifting the controversial policy that were part of his stepped-up efforts against human and drug trafficking, he had said.

“As we are speaking this moment, all these bridges are opened back up to normal trafficking. And so, all the goods that used to go from one country to the other at a very rapid pace, they are moving at that rapid pace as we speak right now,” Abbott announced during a news conference on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/16/greg-abbott-texas-mexico-truck-inspection-policy

Oh by the way remember what I said about Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis? Well add Arizona’s Doug Ducey to the mix, who’s another proud card carrying member of the Q-Batshit party to the mix and you’ve got some sort of stupid governor trifecta. Wait, here me out - maybe add Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Alabama’s Kay Ivey and you’ve got Vultron! Yes, five batshit crazy governors come together to create one super batshit crazy governor! That’s right – they’ve announced the creation of their own Border Strike Force! And I do feel like any time you name a government task force for something that sounds like it comes out of a children’s cartoon, you should be very alarmed!

Twenty-six Republican governors, led by Arizona's Doug Ducey and Texas's Greg Abbott, announced the creation of the American Governors' Border Strike Force.

In a news release, the Republican Governors Association describes the strike force as "a multi-state partnership designed to disrupt and dismantle the transnational criminal organizations taking advantage of the chaos Joe Biden has created along the border."

In the memorandum describing the strike force, the Governors say they can serve as a force multiplier to target cartels and criminal networks financially and operationally by partnering across state lines.

To read the memorandum click here.

The task force's creation follows Abbott's call for enhanced safety inspections in Texas to reduce migrant and drug smuggling across the border.
https://kvia.com/news/2022/04/19/governor-abbott-announces-creation-of-new-american-governors-border-strike-force/

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Florida GOP
[br] [/font] [br]

You just know that Florida Man Ron DeSantis (Q - Fox News) is one of those guys where every time you look into his eyes, you know he’s going to do something ridiculously dumb that’s meant to score points with his Fox brainwashed fanbase and that’s about it. And you might think this is an isolated incident, but hell no. It’s part of a long standing ridiculous pattern with him. And it’s only going to get worse. His latest blunder? The Florida GOP is going after math textbooks that they claim are teaching the dreaded Critical Race Theory! Yes, you heard me! They are going after math textbooks because of Critical Race Theory. It just sounds so stupid. Especially when you extrapolate this and realize that they are banning textbooks because the loud angry white guys on their news network of choice told them that this is what they should be outraged about. OK people it’s time to turn off Fox News and come back to the real world, OK? Really they just get nuttier and nuttier and nuttier.

In its latest attempt to be the nation’s leader in restricting what happens in public school classrooms, Florida said it has rejected a pile of math textbooks submitted by publishers in part because they “contained prohibited subjects,” including critical race theory.

The Florida Department of Education announced on Friday that Richard Corcoran, the outgoing commissioner of education, approved an initial adoption list of instructional materials for math, but 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were rejected — most of them in elementary school.

Some were said not to be aligned with Florida’s content standards, called the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking, or BEST. But others, the department said, were rejected for the subject matter. “Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics,” it said in an announcement on the department’s website.

Although the department described the textbook review process as “transparent,” it did not mention which textbooks had been rejected or cite examples from the offending passages.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/16/florida-rejects-math-textbooks-prohibited-topics/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

OK seriously… how the hell do you teach “woke math”? What the hell is that? I don’t speak Fox News so I don’t know. But if you want an example of Woke Math, how about this? 2 height-challenged transgender Latino Eskimo destroy 2 statues of Confederate Civil War generals. How many statues are left? The correct answer to that problem is 2 – 2 = 0. And the people in charge of the Florida school system are a bunch of zeroes, all right. Just when I think I have seen the end of their insanity, they reach new depths of depravity on a daily basis!

The Florida Department of Education announced Friday the state has rejected more than 50 math textbooks from next school year's curriculum, citing references to critical race theory among reasons for the rejections.

In a news release, the department stated 54 out of 132 of the textbook submissions would not be added to the state's adopted list because they did not adhere to Florida's new standards or contained prohibited topics.

The release said the list of rejected books makes up approximately 41% of submissions, which is the most in Florida's history.

Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to critical race theory, "inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics," the release states.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/17/us/florida-math-textbooks-critical-race-theory/index.html

Uh oh… you can’t have an independent thought when the cult is running the show! You know that cults don’t like independent thought! But here’s the most bizarre part of this – not only can the Florida Dept. of Education not provide any examples of “Woke Math”, but they’re not showing us any examples of problems that they find “objectionable”. So here’s the thing – they say there’s a problem with these books, but they won’t tell you what it is, or they won’t tell you what their solution is! You want to know why? They have none. None whatsoever.

The Florida education department has rejected 54 mathematics textbooks for its K-12 curriculum, citing reasons spanning the inclusion of critical race theory to Common Core learning concepts.

The rejected books make up a record 41% of the 132 books submitted for review, the Florida Department of Education said in a statement.

Of them, 28 were rejected because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including [critical race theory]," the statement said.

Critical race theory has been described by scholars as an examination of racism and its impact through systems, such as legal, housing and education. However, it is typically not taught in K-12.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/18/1093277449/florida-mathematics-textbooks

Yeah that’s pretty much exactly how I feel. That’s what happens when you let a news network with a dangerous agenda control your thought process. You tend to think 100% irrationally. But the thing is people really need to turn off Fox News and come back to the real world. Because, I’m going to let you in on a little secret – outside of Fox News viewers, nobody gives a shit about this stuff!!! Only people who watch Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity do! And the only reason they’re mad about this is because they lost one of their playthings now that their boy is no longer in the White House!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday defended the state’s decision to disqualify dozens of proposed math textbooks for broaching critical race theory and other “impermissible” topics while fending off demands from Democrats to release examples of allegedly “indoctrinating” information.

“We want kids to learn to think so they get the right answer,” DeSantis told reporters Monday at an event in Jacksonville.

The Florida Department of Education on Friday rejected some 54 math books from state classrooms, a move that drew national attention when DeSantis claimed that the proposals from publishing companies contained lessons on “indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism” for elementary students. The move was just the latest example of Republicans, including DeSantis, scrutinizing what students are learning and how issues like race and gender orientation are being taught.

Asked on Monday what a critical race theory math lesson could look like, DeSantis said “there’s a number of reasons” the state turned down the textbook proposals aside from that issue. The majority of rejected textbooks were for kindergarten through fifth grade.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/florida-critical-race-theory-math-textbooks-00025918

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Holy Shit: Cobra Venom & Satan’s DNA
[br] [/font] [br]

Gather around my fair brothers and sisters! It’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate, for the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened and it’s time to remind you that the holiest among us are the most full of:



My fair congregation! Please be seated! You know… you know I’ve been around. I’ve seen every crazy conspiracy in the book. But this one might be one of the craziest theories I’ve seen yet in my many days on this planet. But when you have the children of this fair planet of ours even afraid to drink the water supply, that’s about as far out there as it gets. I mean, I was completely dumbfounded when this story came across my desk. When someone who believes in a conspiracy theory as out there as the fact that the water supply contains cobra venom and the COVID vaccine contains Satan’s DNA? Well the short answer is you don’t. Also, why is there no metal band yet called Satan’s DNA yet? I feel like that should be rectified! But the simple fact of the matter is that we cannot deny that their theories are getting weirder and nuttier, and there seems to be no end in sight! Oh and expect things to get much worse before they get better. That you can count on, because it says so in our Good Book!

Wherever QAnon goes, Batsh*t is right there alongside him. But even by wacky conspiracy theory standards (Trump-JFK Jr. 2024, anyone?), a new documentary called Watch the Water is jaw-droppingly insane. Or, as NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins describes it: “It is even more insane than usual.”

Among the many claims made in the documentary, according to Raw Story, are that the COVID “vaccines contain a mixture of magnets and snake venom with the goal of transferring ‘Satan’s DNA’ into human bodies.”

Satan’s. DNA.

According to Collins, the movie and its inane theories are gaining quite a bit of traction in QAnon-following circles. In it, so-called “experts” claim that getting jabbed means injecting yourself with metal bits which will magnetize you. (What that has to do with Satan, we’re not sure.)

In the trailer, where the sound cuts out several times so as not to reveal the total bullsh*t being spewed, we hear some pretty dire warnings from Dr. Bryan Ardis—a very vocal critic of Remdesivir, the drug that has been used to shorten the lifespan of the COVID-19 virus in many hospitalized patients (including Donald Trump when he was hospitalized with COVID in 2020).
https://uproxx.com/viral/watch-the-water-qanon-documentary-satan-dna/

That’s right – in a world where batshit crazy theories and people who reject what is actually reported on the real news exists, these theories seem to be getting nuttier and nuttier! But I’ve never heard of anything this flat-out absurd before. So what is this theory? And why is it important? I feel like it’s important to know these things because this is who we are dealing with. We are dealing with people who are completely out of their minds! And they do not worship the good LAWRD JAYSUS! No, they worship the unholy, ungodly Dark One! I of course speak of a man so foul and depraved and disgusting that his name dare not be spoken in my church! Really this is beyond the pale, even for them!

The world of COVID deniers is, more or less, a marketplace, where a variety of ambitious hucksters loudly rattle their wares and hope someone, somewhere, will take them home. This can be challenging, since the COVID- and vaccine-skeptical have often promoted uniquely unpalatable advice on how to deal with the ongoing pandemic. They’ve advised their followers, for instance, to take up an antiquated faux cure-all that can turn you permanently blue, or else drink bleach, or your own urine, or choke down an anti-parasitic with no proven effectiveness against COVID. Even when the advice isn’t overtly bad, it can be contorted and hard to follow, as anyone who’s followed along with fringe medical groups and complicated theories about 5G technology knows. But at last, something has come along that even some of the most diehard conspiracy peddlers can’t swallow. That something is snake venom.

A faux documentary is quickly circulating throughout the conspiracy-verse, claiming to be an exposé revealing that COVID and COVID vaccines are derived from snake venom. More specifically, the theory claims that king cobra venom is being pumped into the water supply to sicken and envenomate us and imbue us with Satanic, anti-human DNA. Meanwhile, the government is suppressing monoclonal antibodies, which are really anti-venoms that could end the pandemic. (Even this extremely general summary lends the theory a level of coherence that it does not actually possess). The documentary, titled Watch the Water, was produced by a far-right podcaster and COVID conspiracy theorist named Stew Peters. The sole expert cited is a retired chiropractor named Bryan Ardis, who claims to have discovered this dastardly plan, which he ultimately pins on Dr. Anthony Fauci and, of course, the Pope. “I actually think the Roman Catholic church and Pope Francis is over this entire thing,” Ardis told one interviewer. “I think he’s manipulating and controlling the entire narrative.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vdkp/bryan-ardis-watch-the-water-snake-venom-covidv

You know, that’s what happens when you worship the unholy, ungodly Dark One! For he will lead you off the cliffs of depravity! Instead you should follow the good LAWRD JAYSUS! For the shepherd can lead his flock astray, it says so in our Good Book! But of course they will tell you that they aren’t sheep. They are lions, don’t you know? And that doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense. When have you ever seen a lion eat a sheep? They could but they don’t coexist in the wild! But then again, facts and logic do not matter to this crowd! Only fake outrage does!

For weeks, extremist right-wing broadcaster and radical COVID-19 conspiracy theorist Stew Peters has been hyping the release of an “explosive” documentary that he claimed would finally reveal the “truth” behind the COVID-19 pandemic. After some delays, that documentary, called “Watch The Water,” was finally released Monday night.

Peters, who regularly hosts far-right activists, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, GOP congressional candidates, elected officials, and members of Congress on his eponymous show, has an audience primed to believe such radical theories. As of writing, his “Watch The Water” documentary has already garnered more than 640,000 views and has even been trending on Twitter.

Featuring nothing more than unsubstantiated assertions put forth by fellow COVID-19 conspiracy theorist and “chiropractor, acupuncturist, and medical researcher” Bryan Ardis, Peters’ documentary alleged that COVID-19 is not a virus at all but rather a synthesized form of snake venom that is intentionally being spread via drinking water, COVID-19 treatments, and vaccines, possibly as part of a plot by the Catholic Church to turn everyone into “a hybrid of Satan.”

“The Latin definition historically for virus—originally and historically, virus meant, and means, venom,” Ardis said. “So, I started to wonder, ‘Well, what about the name ‘corona’? Does it have a Latin definition or a definition at all?’ So I actually looked up what’s the definition and on Dictionary.com, it brings up 13 definitions: ‘Corona, religiously, ecclesiastically, means gold ribbon at the base of a miter.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-king-cobra-venom-pandemic-stew-peters-unveils-a-new-covid-19-conspiracy-theory/

Wow. Just… wow. You know I never take the GOOD LAWRD’s name in vein but I feel like I have to take an exception to this one. Jesus. That’s your whole definition of why we shouldn’t be in a pandemic is because of the literal Latin definition of Corona? I swear it’s like any time you think you’ve seen the bottom of the Q stupidity, new depths are reached on an almost daily basis! You know, how insane do you have to be to make a documentary like this? And not only that, how insane do you have to be to *BELIEVE* a documentary like this? So many questions!

A new anti-vaccine documentary ridiculously claims that the coronavirus is not a virus, but a synthetic version of snake venom that evil forces are spreading through remdesivir, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and drinking water to "make you a hybrid of Satan."

The 48-minute film, released April 11, is the latest in an expanding genre of mega-viral, conspiracy-laden videos made in the mold of the "Plandemic" video from May 2020. Its title, "Watch the Water," is a nod to a favorite refrain of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which is centered around the belief that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is running a global sex-trafficking ring.

The video is an interview between far-right radio host Stew Peters, who has a history of using inflammatory rhetoric and spreading COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and Bryan Ardis, a former chiropractor who built a brand around claiming that the drug remdesivir is killing people.

It showed Ardis, who sells acne products and is now using the film to sell what he calls "anti-v" supplement kits online, invoking the Garden of Eden story and a fictional TV show plot as he outlined an elaborate mass-murder scheme that he claimed involves even the pope.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/19/watch-water/stew-peters-film-watch-water-ridiculously-claims-c/

Holy crap. This might be one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen done by and to the religious right, and that’s saying a lot in all of the years we’ve been doing this! That’s it this week for:




[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]People Who Somehow Got Elected: Marjorie Taylor Greene
[br] [/font] [br]

Politicians at the state and local levels who are so toxic, you wonder how they’re able to get away with the things they get away with. This is:



This week: Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q – Batshit). Look, there’s your normal, average every day batshit crazy politician, and then there’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who takes your normal , average, every day batshit crazy politician and elevates that level of crazy to Mt. Everest levels of crazy. Yes, when she’s not complaining about being booted off of essential House committees because of her boorish behavior, she’s going on right wing podcasts like Steve Bannon and Alex Jones to complain about how her coworkers are disrespecting her. Because that’s what perfectly sane and rational people try to do. But her bizarre and extremist behavior could get her barred from future elections. And that’s only a good thing, because Marjorie Greene does not have America’s best interests at heart, especially if her recent voting agenda is any indication of where her loyalty lies. But there is a movement to get her blocked from the ballot to be able to run for reelection again and that could potentially be a good thing.

A group of Georgia voters on Thursday asked state officials to block Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for re-election, alleging she is unfit for office because of her support of rioters who attacked the United States Capitol.

In a legal challenge filed with the Georgia secretary of state, the voters claim Greene has violated a provision of the US Constitution known as the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause”.

The clause, passed after the 19th-century American civil war, prohibits politicians from running for Congress if they have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States, or “given aid or comfort” to the nation’s enemies.

The Georgia voters are represented by Free Speech For People, a Texas-based advocacy group that had brought a similar challenge to Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn’s qualifications for office.

A federal judge dismissed the Cawthorn case on March 4, but Free Speech for People has urged North Carolina officials to appeal that ruling.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/24/lawsuit-seeks-to-prevent-marjorie-taylor-greene-from

Yeah so Marjorie Greene and Madison Cawthorn might be in big trouble for their role in the January 6th Insurrection. But the sad thing is that the MAGAs don’t get fired or punished for anything. But the fact that Marjorie Greene has this campaign against her only proves that she shouldn’t have been elected to Congress in the first place. When you’re that toxic, that’s pretty toxic. So the question now is how do you solve a problem like Marjorie Greene? Well the only solution really is to bar them from ever holding office and that’s what this lawsuit seems to do.

A federal judge has indicated that an attempt to stop the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene running for re-election will be allowed to proceed.

The challenge from a group of Georgia voters says Greene should be disqualified under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, because she supported insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

A similar challenge in North Carolina, against Madison Cawthorn, another prominent supporter of Donald Trump, was blocked.

But on Friday Amy Totenberg, a federal judge in Georgia, said she had “significant questions and concerns” about the ruling in the Cawthorn case, CNN reported.

Totenberg said she was likely to rule on Greene’s attempt to have her case dismissed on Monday, two days before a scheduled hearing before a state judge.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/11/marjorie-taylor-greene-judge-ruling-far-right-republican-reelection

And on another note, you know how whenever the entire world is against something, then maybe you shouldn’t do that thing? Well, Marjorie does that thing. Because the entire world is against Russia and Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Ukraine, and most of the entire world is against it, Marjorie’s votes are sticking out like a sore thumb. At this point, a vote for Marjorie is literally a vote for Putin and his evil regime. So yeah maybe don’t vote for Marjorie Greene, because you enable her bidding and Putin’s as well.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene defended voting against the investigation of potential war crimes being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, suggesting that allowing for a probe from an international court would open floodgates for the prosecution of American service members.

"HR 7276 would hand over authority & our intelligence to the ICJ & ICC - international courts that could put our military on trial," Greene said in a Thursday statement. "I will not vote for globalism & the slow slide to become a one world government. I will only vote to protect America, our military, & our borders."

Greene was one of only seven Republicans who voted against the House bill this week, known as the Ukraine Invasion War Crimes Deterrence and Accountability Act, which would "collect, analyze, and preserve evidence and information related to war crimes and any other atrocities."

There have been growing calls from the international community to put Russian nationals on trial in the days following the revelations from Bucha, where hundreds of Ukrainians were killed in the Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb. President Joe Biden and members of Congress have been among those who are pushing for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-voting-against-ukraine-war-crimes-probe/ar-AAVY7hN

Yeah so defending Putin and supporting the January 6th insurrection, plus being a Trump superfan is enough to get Marjorie Greene demoted and kicked out of most of her Congressional duties, and of course she’s playing the victim, despite being the bully. Which is a typical MAGA talking point. They talk trash but when they so much as get a mere tap on the shoulder, they scream and run in the opposite direction. But this might be the most egregious of Marjorie’s many misdeeds – speaking at an event hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes – despite that there’s a picture of her standing right next to him!

Republican leaders are facing fresh demands to expel the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, after she spoke at a conference of white nationalists and sympathisers with Vladimir Putin.

Related: Poll: US majority believes no Russian invasion with Trump as president

The event in Orlando, Florida, on Friday night was organised by the far-right extremist Nick Fuentes, who told attendees: “Now they’re going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin is Hitler – they say that’s not a good thing.”

He burst into laughter as he added: “I shouldn’t have said that!”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/calls-to-expel-republican-marjorie-taylor-greene-after-speech-at-white-nationalist-event/ar-AAUlwVC?ocid=msedgntp

So going full Nazi, praising Russian warlord Vladimir Putin, and being too toxic for Congress. That’s Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, yet another one of the unfortunate examples of:




[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Conspiracy Corner: Tucker’s Testicle Tanning
[br] [/font] [br]



Welcome back to our segment where we attempt to explain the unexplainable, Conspiracy Corner! Yes, in a time when everyone questions the news, people turn to conspiracy theories to explain what the news can’t. We of course are coming to you live from our underground doomsday shelter deep in the heart of the New Mexico Badlands, undisclosed location, of course! Just let me adjust my trusty tin foil hat for maximum government interference. You know, they are trying to read yours and my thoughts, after all! This week we have to talk about an absolutely bizarre new documentary from our old buddy Tucker Carlson. The documentary is called “The End Of Man”. You know, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never seen a group of people more insecure about their sexual identity more than white males who watch way too much Fox News than they probably should. You know what? Can we roll the trailer for that because it’s truly indescribable how insane this is.

Link to tweet

What……. And I cannot emphasize this enough…………. The fuck??? Dude, seriously is this a list of Tucker’s insecurities or his fanbase in general? Anyway this raises way more questions than it answers and it’s going to get real weird real quick.

Tucker Carlson has a new special on Fox Nation, the streaming platform where Fox News tries to hide some of its more extreme content.

There are jacked, shirtless men wrestling. There are jacked, shirtless men chugging raw eggs. There are jacked, shirtless men obliterating bottles of canola oil with assault rifles. There are jacked, shirtless men milking cows. There are even jacked, shirtless men standing on rocks, posing like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man as a mini monolith illuminates their nether regions.

It’s hard to know where to begin with all of this. We’d probably need a therapist to really get into it. We can at least say this particular special, “The End of Men,” doesn’t seem like it’s going to claim that the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6 was a false flag, like last year’s “Patriot Purge” did. So that’s good.

We also now know what’s going on with the guy on the rock exposing his private parts to a wash of red light. He was tanning his balls. Carlson endorsed the practice in the special as one of several ways men can return themselves to testosterone-fueled dominance, which the special argues is necessary for society to “reestablish order” after collapse.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tucker-carlson-end-of-men-testicle-tanning-1338944/

OK I have many questions here. And the first and most important one is: why? But really, testicle tanning is a thing? And also why is there no punk band called “The Testicle Tanners” yet? I feel like putting your balls up to a UV light would have the opposite effect of what it’s supposed to do, am I right? I really can’t wait for the inevitable CDC report where they tell you that you’re a fucking idiot if you try this. Maybe not the official words that the CDC will use in their report but it gets the point across! Although if you tell the MAGAs that you shouldn’t do something, they will do it anyways, because, fuck you, that’s why! But really Tucker is going to get mercilessly mocked for this and he totally deserves every bit of it!

The documentary covers the "total collapse" of testosterone levels in men, which has been noted in medical studies but has been attributed to an aging population and other comorbidities.

The trailer also speaks of unexpected tough times that will inevitably create "men who are strong enough to survive" and "reestablish order." Carlson and other Fox News hosts have lately referenced manliness and the idea that men are less "manly" now in various segments of their shows.

Carlson even suggested, falsely, in an interview that COVID-19 would emasculate men and that vaccine mandates in the US military were meant to weed out and dismiss men with high testosterone levels.

Twitter users were quick to suggest the trailer – which focuses a lot on the men's bodies and the close contact between them – appeared homoerotic in nature.
https://www.insider.com/tucker-carlson-promo-video-sparks-reaction-homoerotic-undertones-testosterone-fox-2022-4

Yeah not only is it homoerotic, I got some serious 2001 vibes from that trailer. And come on isn’t that scene called “The Dawn Of Man”?

Oh I’m playing around enough. But is this really the answer to America’s masculinity crisis? The short answer is: no. The longer answer is: what masculinity crisis? America is not being run by the dude bros right now and that’s a good thing. But don’t think for a minute that we’re not letting Tucker get away with what has to be one of the craziest things we’ve seen since we started this segment! But come on, let’s let white insecure males run the show, what could go wrong?

Are there three words in the English language that can strike quite as much trepidation into the hearts of the sane and rational person as “Tucker Carlson original”? Yes, the documentary strand that brought you such titles as Hungary vs Soros: The Fight for Civilization and Patriot Purge, a BS-laden fantasy about the January 6 riots that contained so many bonkers claims about false-flag operations that it forced a tranche of Fox News veterans to quit the network, has returned.

The latest addition to the Carlson oeuvre is called The End of Men and its Magic Mike-style trailer just dropped.

It begins with a familiar Make America Great Again-style montage, centering on a John F Kennedy speech in which he extols the virtues of strength and exercise and berates America’s “soft, chubby fat-looking children”. Quickly, Kennedy’s reasonable-for-the-time approach to childhood obesity is equated with a precipitous decline in sperm counts and testosterone over the last 50 years.

And then what could only be described as a series of money shots. As the booming timpanis of a Richard Strauss piece from 2001: A Space Odyssey swell – we see huge buff topless men, cutting wood, milking cows, firing guns, barbecuing, fighting, drinking egg yolks and most strikingly, tanning their genitals. This supposed sequence of real red-blooded males is perhaps the campest thing Fox News has aired since Glenn Beck doused a handsome model in gasoline.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/18/tucker-carlson-masculinity-crisis-testicle-tanning

Well so my question now is this really the solution to the end of man or is this an informercial for a testicle tanning booth? Excuse me a minute…. Thank you graphics department, that’s exactly how I pictured a testicle tanning booth to look! But really this is one of those things when you hear it, you immediately drop what you are doing and just go “What the serious fuck????”. Because that’s the only thing that can prepare you for something as absurd as testicle tanning. But when even Kid Rock gives you a WTF look, that’s when you really need to stop and question your life choices. And, I got to be honest, I side with Kid Rock on this one!

Tucker Carlson and good pal Kid Rock had another friendly conversation on Fox News on Friday, with one topic of discussion being “testicle tanning.” The subject had been raised earlier in Carlson’s show by Andrew McGovern, an Ohio-based fitness professional who was brought on to help answer Carlson’s question, “How do you reverse the effects of falling testosterone?” One of the solutions McGovern offered was red light therapy, which, when Carlson asked, he said includes “testicle tanning.”

Rock had apparently been listening along, because when Carlson addressed him minutes later, the first thing the musician said was, “Dude, stop! Testicle tanning? Come on. I haven’t heard anything like that in a long time.” The Fox News host replied, “Open your mind, Bobby!” He then asked, more seriously, “Don’t you think at this point when so many of the therapies, the paths they’ve told us to take, have turned out to be dead ends that really hurt people, why wouldn’t open minded people seek new solutions?” Rock demurred: “I don’t know what the hell is going on in this world. I’m not even sure if I understood that question. But some days you just want to stop this planet and let me off.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-and-kid-rock-talk-about-testicle-tanning

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
[br] [/font] [br]

Hey San Diego, I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink!



So of course you know by now that the idea of this segment is that we have some drinks and talk about anything in the news as long as it doesn’t relate to politics. This week? We’re going to talk about monkeys. That’s right – monkeys. So tell me bartender, what goes well with a story about monkeys mating? A banana daquiri? Interesting choice. Though I think I will stick to my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. I call it the “Double Jack”. So this week there’s a bizarre story coming out of Bristol – that’s in the UK don’t you know? Well apparently they are having trouble getting their monkey population to mate. So what’s the natural solution to this? Why you hire Marvin Gaye to serenade the monkeys with love songs! Well, Marvin Gaye wasn’t available, because he’s um, what you might call “deceased”. That means of course you get the next best thing which is a Marvin Gaye impersonator – and on a zoo’s budget I can’t imagine they would be hiring for quality. Needless to say, that backfired on them big time.

The music of Motown's Marvin Gaye is legendary for getting folks in the mood for some "Sexual Healing."

So, approaching Valentine's Day, a British zoo wondered if it could lead endangered monkeys to say, "Let's Get It On," too.

The furry residents of The Trentham Monkey Forest in Stafford, England, got some soulful encouragement from a Gaye impersonator. David Largie performed some of Gaye's classic hits inside the Barbary macaque habitat to put them in the mood for breeding.

"We thought it could be a creative way to encourage our females to show a little affection to males that might not have been so lucky in love," Park Director Matt Lovatt said on the zoo's website.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/monkeys-mating-season-marvin-gaye-trnd/index.html

OK… OK… OK. I have many questions here. And probably all of them, I’m guessing none of them, will get answered. First off, the most important question I have is… why? Second, what’s more romantic than a badly sung version of a Marvin Gaye classic? And why go the janky route? At least they didn’t go with the Whitney Houston classic “I Will Always Love You”, we want the monkeys to mate, damn it, not attack the zookeepers and fling their poop! But there is definitely more to this story than you might think. They had good intentions, but they were poorly executed.

Staff at Trentham Monkey Forest in Stoke-on-Trent invited the Marvin Gaye impersonator, Dave Largie, to sing some of the late soul legend's greatest hits to the Barbary macaques - a species of ape.

A zoo spokesman said they wanted Dave to 'help boost the monkey love this mating season. ''

Fewer than 8,000 Barbary macaque monkeys are left worldwide, 140 of which roam freely around Trentham Monkey Forest.

Park director Matt Lovatt said they wanted to offer a "creative way" to encourage the female monkeys to show "a little affection" to the male monkeys, which he says have not been so lucky in love.

Lovatt added that "'Monkeys being serenaded by Marvin Gaye – who'd have thought it!"

'Females in season mate with several males, so paternity amongst our furry residents is never known.
https://10play.com.au/theproject/articles/a-zoo-has-employed-a-marvin-gaye-impersonator-to-help-monkeys-get-it-on/tpa220211kmwvh

Well, duh, no wonder the monkeys are having a hard time mating,. Shit, if you’ve got free reign to choose whatever partner you want and aren’t in a committed relationship, of course the bachelor monkeys are going to rule the forest! Think of it like when you go to a bar to meet women and there’s 15 other dude bros attempting to ask out the one cute girl who’s there sitting at the end of the bar with her friends. But you know this isn’t the first attempt that scientists have had attempting to resurrect a previously endangered species to healthy population levels.

Past news has taught us that some endangered species can be brought back to a healthy population level by the efforts of at least one or two particularly horny individuals. But some, like super uncool frogs and Barbary macaques, need a bit of encouragement to get down to the work of saving their kind from total extinction.

To help out the latter group of animals, Stafford, England’s Trentham Monkey Forest sanctuary has realized that no creature, regardless of its low libido, can resist feeling something stir deep within them when encountering the Motown Sound. And so, quite naturally, it’s hired a Marvin Gaye impersonator to serenade its Barbary macaques until they get into some species-saving monkey business.

Gaye impersonator Dave Largie stopped by Trentham Monkey Forest last weekend to, as the sanctuary’s website puts it, “help boost the monkey love this mating season.” A video of this guest appearance shows Largie in a white suit doing his best to get the primates all horned up by singing, of course, “Let’s Get It On” while a few members of the audience climb a fence in the distance. (There are also a handful of excellent photos available that capture the concert in higher quality.)
https://www.avclub.com/marvin-gaye-impersonator-animal-sanctuary-monkey-sex-1848522433

Ah yeah there’s the stuff! But come on, what’s more romantic than telling a bunch of sex obsessed monkeys with multiple partners “Let’s get it on”? And again – really glad they didn’t choose “I Will Always Love You”. So how did the monkeys respond to the mating ritual? Well the one thing is that the macaque gestation period is 8 months from now, so we won’t know the answer to that until that happens, and when it does you can bet we’ll drink to it! But the monkeys were actually receptive to the music, so the next time your partner questions your choice of love songs, you can tell them that it’s a natural response!

A Marvin Gaye impersonator has been hired to help an endangered species of monkey 'get it on' and mate.

The novel seduction tactic was used at the Trentham Monkey Forest in England, with vocalist Dave Largie employed to serenade a colony of 140 Barbary macaques.

Initially, the idea was er, conceived as a publicity stunt, but it turns out that some of the monkeys did in fact respond positively to Largie’s soulful performance.

A statement on the conservation's website reads: “As every new addition is so important for the protection of the species, special guest Dave Largie was invited into our beloved forest to serenade the primates… to help inspire them to ‘Get It On'.

"David, a highly experienced love-song guru, sang several Marvin Gaye classics to the monkeys whilst in amongst them, and they seemed very relaxed and full of love! Some classic Barbary macaque ‘lovey-dovey’ behaviour was on display during the performance such as grooming and teeth chattering.
https://www.loudersound.com/news/marvin-gaye-impersonator-hired-to-help-endangered-species-of-monkey-get-it-on

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]
[font size="8"]Stupidest State 2022
[br] [/font] [br]

16 states will enter and only one state will become the new Top 10 Conservative Idiots Stupidest State!



Folks, last week was one for the ages! We were in Kentucky for the Gun Nut Conference championship when Missouri stunned longtime conference favorite and last year’s champion Texas and secured our first spot in the Final Four! This week it’s the Family Values Conference finals! The winner will go on to challenge Missouri for a spot in the championship round! The loser will go home! Who will it be this time around? Will it be red hot underdogs Tennessee or will it be North Carolina who defeated the #1 seed Alabama to advance to the finals? We’re live in the capital of Missouri, the University of Missouri for all the action! Let’s go live to the floor, shall we?

[font size="4"]Family Values Conference Finals: North Carolina Vs Tennessee [/font]

[font size="2"]North Carolina [/font]


The Tar Heel State shot to the top of the Family Values Conference because they are home to some serious crazy. Outside of Raleigh-Durham, rural North Carolina is nothing but small towns which means their only social life is the church. Which means that it’s a melting pot of right wing religious whackjobs and ultra-far right white nationalists. So put them together and you have some of the craziest politicians in the game. I give you a man who wants to be the Glen Youngkin of North Carolina, Mark Robinson who we have covered in past seasons. But this dude is fucking nuts, like completely off his rocker insane. And these are the exact kind of people who shouldn’t be leading.

In June, Robinson spoke at Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove, North Carolina, where he ranted that Christians must take control of public schools because children are being abused by being taught “filth.”

During that same speech, Robinson also claimed that guns are a gift from God given to humans so they can protect themselves, just as garden slugs produce certain enzymes that prevent them from being eaten by predators.

“To every animal, God has given the ability to defend yourself,” Robinson said. “God didn’t even leave the garden slug out. Garden slugs have little enzymes in it that make it unappealing for folks to eat. Certainly we wouldn’t want to eat them. But even some animals look at garden slugs and find them unappealing because there’s an enzyme in them that gives off something that drives creatures away. And there’s even an inside enzyme in some of them that if creatures eat them, they automatically spit them out.”

“God gave the garden slug a way to defend itself,” he continued. “Now, if God gave the garden slug a way to defend themselves, what makes you think he didn’t give man, who he created in his own image, a way to defend himself? Those AR-15s and Glock 9mms and .45 calibers; where do you think they came from? Who do you think inspired them? God knew the world he was putting us into, so he formed in our mind the ability for us to be able to defend ourselves from anybody who may threaten us.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/north-carolina-lt-gov-mark-robinson-says-guns-are-a-gift-from-god/

Yeah but this conference isn’t about nationalism or Christian nationalism, is it? Well that does explain a lot about what’s driving these “family values”. Its’ about abortion and while you’re not looking, the Tar Heel State passed a whole bunch of laws on the subject. And none of them are what any sane individual would call “good”. They are all bad. In fact they could decide the outcome of the 2022 elections in the Tar Heel State. So that being said…

The “most important election of our lifetimes” seems to happen every other year. But with reproductive rights hanging in the balance, it’s nearly impossible to overstate the importance of the 2022 midterms.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this summer on a Mississippi law that could overturn, or at least significantly weaken, the precedent set by Roe v. Wade in 1973. Such a ruling could, in effect, give states the ability to decide whether to outlaw abortions, which could be catastrophic in states that have long sought to restrict it.

Already, a number of state legislatures have passed anti-abortion laws of varying severity. States like Arizona and Florida have opted to ban abortion after 15 weeks, while Oklahoma passed a law that would eliminate it almost entirely.

North Carolina lawmakers have tried in recent years to pass various bills that restrict access to abortion, but they haven’t had enough votes to override the veto of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has refused to sign any of them. Without a legislative supermajority or a Republican governor, future attempts to undermine abortion rights will likely continue to be unsuccessful. And, unlike some states, North Carolina doesn’t have an abortion “trigger law” in place that would automatically ban or severely restrict abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article260208220.html

Yeah what happens when they overturn Roe V Wade? Which is where we all know this movement is heading. And leave it to Family Values states like North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, and Arkansas to lead the way. But that said the GOP is going all in on the abortion issue and don’t expect it to go away no matter what happens in the 2022 or 2024 elections. Because things are getting very scary out there. And well they could propel the Family Values Conference to the top of the NFFSA!

When three red states finalized severe restrictions on abortion over consecutive days last week, they highlighted the GOP's rising militancy on the issue -- and the political and legal calculations underpinning it.

Separate actions last week in Oklahoma, Florida and Kentucky made clear the red state drive to retrench, or eliminate, access to abortion is escalating as the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority nears a decision, expected in late June, in which it is widely anticipated to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.

The abortion restrictions these states approved last week all denied exceptions for victims of rape or incest -- a provision that was once a common feature of conservative anti-abortion proposals but has been jettisoned almost completely in the wave of new restrictions approved since 2021. The Oklahoma legislation banned nearly all abortions from the moment of conception and imposed severe penalties on doctors who perform them, including up to 10 years in jail. The Kentucky bill, continuing an offensive already underway in several other red states, prohibited state residents from obtaining medication abortion through the mail, as the federal Food and Drug Administration authorized late last year.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/abortion-laws-red-states-republicans/index.html

[font size="2"]Tennessee [/font]


Since we do encourage gambling here at the NFFSA, let’s show our official Bet MGM meter from the last match when Tennessee was in it. OK it goes from a win probability of 24% in the first half, to a win probability of 97% in the second half. They scored a whopping 25 unanswered points. And how did they do it, you might ask? Well they passed a new law that overturns the basic legal age at which one can get married. That’s right – Tennessee just enabled child brides! If you think that’s fucked up, you are not alone on this one! So to extrapolate this, the party that’s accusing their opponents of being perverts and pedophiles, is actively enabling perverts, rapists, and pedophiles! And this law is not going away any time soon!

Amid several bills introduced in Tennessee that have attracted national attention this year, none has sparked as much alarm among both Republicans and Democrats as a proposal that would create a new marriage contract specifically designed to exclude same-sex couples.

Supporters argue the measure is needed to give religious officials, couples and others opposed to gay marriage an option that wouldn’t conflict with their beliefs.

Critics say it’s a deliberate effort to circumvent the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing gay marriage and could lead to costly legal battles. Many have noted that the bill initially failed to include a minimum age — an omission that has opened the door to widespread mockery. Some worry the move helped reinforce stereotypes regarding Tennessee as backward.

The bill’s Republican sponsors have downplayed concerns that the age omission would result in a wave of child marriages, but they’ve since introduced an amendment that would incorporate an age requirement of 18 years old or older.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/tennessees-anti-gay-marriage-bill-sparks-bipartisan-criticism-rcna23840

So let me get this straight – you’re now walking back the proposed law that would over turn the 18 year legal requirement for one to be on this earth for marriage? Well you think the backlash was uncalled for on this one? Yes, we do too! And let me also get this straight – gay marriage wrong. Child marriage, perfectly OK! Well that’s the morals and values crowd for you! A dash of racism, a dash of nationalism, a cup of some hardcore religious insanity – yeah it’s a cake recipe! But unlike cakes, this one isn’t delicious at all!

The latest legislative outrage from Tennessee is worth watching because it’s likely to turn up here.

The party of pedophile fighters wants to allow child marriage, for one thing. (It’s a crime to have sex with a 10-year-old unless you marry them first.) But this article suggests the real objective of the proposal is to make it possible to declare marriage without government licensing, but only for man-woman marriages. Thus, the theory goes, it would effectively become impossible for same-sex couples to marry. But they’d be barred without a legislative act explicitly rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages.

It is, like the Texas bounty hunter law to stop abortions, a way around inconveniences such as the Constitution, equal rights and all the rest.

This Supreme Court isn’t standing in the way of the abortion trickery so who knows what would happen with this latest scheme?
https://arktimes.com/news/2022/04/06/tennessee-legislation-aims-to-legalize-child-marriage-and-not-incidentally-make-same-sex-marriage-impossible

OK so we’ve shit talked this bill enough. But what about that other bastion of family values elected officials – abortion? Yes, if they can’t overturn Roe V. Wade, they’re doing everything in their power to suppress what people can actually do under the ruling. But have anti-abortionists and hardcore right wing religious nuts gone too far in this one? Well it’s tricky to answer that question, but we’ll definitely be monitoring this madness until the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential elections. Of course no one will debate this issue, since conservatives get their ass kicked on it. So…

If Roe v. Wade is overturned this summer by the Supreme Court, a number of state lawmakers' abortion ban bills could become law.

12 states have already ratified bills that would go into effect immediately if Roe v. Wade is reversed, Insider previously reported. In addition to these existing "trigger laws," as they are colloquially known, state legislators continue to propose new anti-abortion bills.

Idaho's governor signed a Texas-style abortion bill into law Thursday, banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.

Though some have yet to be accepted, abortion advocates say bills proposed by states like Missouri, Tennessee, and Ohio are some of the strictest they've seen.
https://www.insider.com/abortion-rights-anti-abortion-bills-no-exception-for-rape-incest-2022-3

[font size="2"]And The Winner Is: [/font]

Was there any debate about this one? Well Tennessee had some strong competition from North Carolina in the second half, but has since pulled it out. They are ahead – 89 – 86 with 30 seconds left to go. Tennessee for 3… YES!!! Oh a foul! Now Tennessee has the ball… they shoot, they score! And that’s the game, folks! Tennessee moves on! Final score: 93 – 86!



[font size="4"]Next Week: [/font]

It’s Round 2 Week 3 which means that it’s the Batshit Conference Finals! Georgia vs Arizona, one of these states will advance to the Final Four! We’re live in the Windy City at the University Of Illinois for all the action!



[font size="4"]And Now This: [/font]
[font size="4"]IDLES[/font]

Folks, my next musical guest are one of the best punk bands out there right now, they have a great new album out called “Crawler”! You can see them at the Outdoor Theater at Coachella next Friday! Playing their song “The Beachland Ballroom”, give it up for IDLES!

Thank you San Diego! We’re back at our old home at Flappers in Burbank next! See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
IDLES Appear Courtesy Of: Partisan Records
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded At: SOMA Theater, San Diego, CA
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
Legal: Top 10 Legal Department
Advertising: Top 10 Advertising Department
HR: Top 10 Human Resources Department
Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
Wheel Of Corruption By: Studio 1 Stage Props, Burbank, CA
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 On Twitter at: @10Idiots
Follow The Holy Church Of The Top 10 On Twitter: @churchoftop10
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Hate mail? E-mail The Top 10 at: [e-mail]


Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

[SergeStorms]

1. Woohoo!

We're back to the original TOP 10 format! Love it!

Now, if we can coax Bob Boudelang out of retirement I can die a happy man.

Now I can go back and actually read the Top 10.

Thank you !

[Top 10 Idiots]

2. We've got a huge backlog of Top 10s too!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216216353

[SergeStorms]

4. Excellent.

I have an entire weekend's worth of Top 10s to catch up on now.

Gracia.

[Top 10 Idiots]

5. Please! We are here to entertain!

[malaise]

3. Welcome back

Rec

[Top 10 Idiots]

6. We haven't gone anywhere, LOL!

[underpants]

7. I'd never heard of Stew Peters

Now I know why

That Trentham Monkey Forest??? That’s awesome.