Top 10 Conservative Idiots #11-10: Cyber Ninjas II: The Secret Of The Ooze Edition

[Top 10 Idiots]

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #11-10: Cyber Ninjas II: The Secret Of The Ooze Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Yo!!! What’s up Denver? How you guys doing? You doing fucking good? It’s good to be back in the Mile High City! And hey since marijuana is legal here, it’s the Really High City! Am I right? OK yeah I’ll file that one. And folks need I remind you that we are only two short weeks away from the series premiere of Holy Shit: The Sunday Sermons! It is getting very exciting around here! Be sure to follow our Twitter account at @10Idiots and @churchoftop10 for more! Do we have time for the thing? Of course we do! OK so do we really need more spam? I know I sure as shit do not! I get what, 200 e-mails a day. I throw away maybe 199 of them, and there is usually a +- 1 e-mail margin of error there. So yeah fuck spam. But Texas is about to make it worse. And Texas usually makes everything worse don’t they? Yeah one guy in the back yelling “boo”! Thank you sir, I got the message. But maybe it’s not so much Texas as it is the Texas GOP . Because they passed a social media censorship bill, and we may delve into that next week. But it has an unintended side effect: you get more spam! Yay! Even more reasons not to open my inbox. The people who authored this bill can really just go fuck themselves. Either play by the rules or get out. Don’t attempt to rewrite them. Because you’ll just make things worse.

Thank you sound effects guy! Key to comedy is timing! OK enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to, but first John Oliver is back and I have to play what he did to get duck stamps made, because it’s freaking hilarious:

Well where do we begin this week? Well our number one entry goes to Cyber Ninjas (1)! Yes, the shady auditing firm that was running the Arizona election recount proved what we all already knew – they were completely full of shit! But that hasn’t stopped Former Guy (2) or the MAGAs – oh no! They are hopping mad! And now they’re taking the recount fight to… Texas? Why are they auditing states where they won an overwhelming majority, like Texas and Montana? Well they are batshit crazy! In the number 3 slot this week is the UN General Assembly (3), or our highlights from it. Thank god we have competent leadership back in the White House, am I right? Taking the number 4 slot this week is our old buddy Steve Bannon (4)! Did the white supremacist in chief basically admit to planning the Capitol Riots? Oh yeah he did! And his buddy Alex Jones might go down with him! In the number 5 slot this week, we have a new Top 10 Investigates (5)! China is putting the hammer down on crypto currency trading, could this mean the death of fun for blockchain bros? Yeah probably! 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, we’re doing a deep dive into the world of evangelical conspiracy theories! They’re getting extremely weird and increasingly violent – our resident pastor will take a look at the best (and worst) of them! In the number 7 slot this week we have a new segment debuting – “The Pride Files” (7) – our first ever segment dedicated to the LGBT community and taking a look at the LGBT news of the week! In the number 8 slot this week, we have a new edition of Conspiracy Corner (8) – after 20 years, has worship of the events of 9/11/2001 become a cult? We take a look at both sides of the issue! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week is a new I Need A Drink (9) and this week we’re going to have some drinks and discuss the issue of Cast Shaming – particularly with Nintendo’s new Mario Movie and some other instances of fanboys being fanboys! Finally this week in “Road To Recall” (10), we give our final thoughts on the MAGAs getting their asses beaten again and talk about how this can be prevented in the future! Plus we also have some live Rush music for you from Primus! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Cyber Ninjas
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Excuse me for a minute while I engage in a colossal gut laugh here. But here it goes! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!! Wait… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Ok… ok… I’m done. This is the first laugh like this I’ve had on the show in a long ass time, but when I saw last week that the auditing firm known as the Teenage Mutant Cyber Ninjas had completed their counting of the ballots of the 2020 election, and found even more votes for Biden, all I could say was “LOSER!!!”. And they are the biggest losers of them all. Of course Former Guy is attempting to steal the 2020 election with all the same finess as the Acme branded weapons of destruction that Wiley Coyote uses to catch the Road Runner. So how did this happen and why was it allowed to happen in the first place?

The long-awaited and repeatedly delayed report of the Senate’s purported “audit” of the election in Maricopa County featured a plethora of unsubstantiated allegations that files were deleted, equipment was improperly connected to the internet, signatures weren’t properly verified and ineligible voters may have cast ballots.

The county vehemently denied all of the allegations, and said the election review team’s ignorance of election laws and procedures led them to make false claims.

What effect the “audit” will have remains to be seen. The hand-recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots reached the same result as the official tally: Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Maricopa County and in Arizona. (The “audit” concluded that Biden actually won by about 260 more votes than the official election results.)

Lead auditor Doug Logan, head of the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, presented the audit’s findings along with former Arizona Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen, CyFir CEO Ben Cotton, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett and Shiva Ayyadurai, an engineer and promoter of conspiracy theories, during a three-hour presentation at the Senate on Friday afternoon.
https://www.azmirror.com/2021/09/24/arizona-audit-a-multitude-of-unsubstantiated-claims-and-no-proof-of-fraud/

Does anyone get the irony of this? The guy who’s the head of Cyber Ninjas is a MAGA conspiracy theorist and even he can’t say that Trump won Arizona! I already got the gut laugh out of my system here. But Cyber Ninjas might want to consider some rebranding. How about: Cyber Ninjas II: The Secret Of The Ooze? Or maybe Cyber Ninjas: Out Of The Shadows? Oh wait, terrible movie. But there is some bad news is that this madness is spreading to other states.

What if the audit of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, ordered by the state Senate had not confirmed the certified results? Or go a step further: What if the contractors hired to do the work, Cyber Ninjas, had claimed to discover at least 10,458 missing votes for former President Donald Trump, enough to overcome President Biden’s November victory in the Grand Canyon State?

They did not, instead releasing a report that alleges Trump lost the county by 360 more votes than the official returns show. But let’s try the thought experiment: What if, after hauling around and manhandling more than 2 million ballots for counting by untrained volunteers—likely sympathetic to the cause—at a former NBA arena, the Cyber Ninjas came forward with claims of election fraud massive enough that it could have shifted the state’s 11 electoral votes to Trump?

In terms of making Trump president, of course, it would mean nothing. Leaving aside the fact that Trump would still have lost his re-election even with Arizona in his column, there’s no legal or constitutional means to take back a presidential certification. That would be true even if somehow the kooks and charlatans—Trump chief among them—who claim that massive fraud in Arizona and at least two other states robbed the former president of a second term were proven right. In some bizarre alternate universe where Rudy Giuliani was credible and correct in his claims, Congress could only impeach and remove the sitting president and vice president if they wouldn’t resign. That would make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi president for the next three years. There’s no means by which Congress could just appoint a former president into power like a Roman dictator.
https://thedispatch.com/p/arizona-audit-result-no-cause-for

Donald Trump: Electionus Stealicus. And yeah like I said he’s attempting to steal the election with all the finesse of the Acme branded products that Wiley Coyote uses. So why does he keep doing this if it keeps backfiring on him? Well there’s no clear explanation for this. Think of it this way – the people who are actively pushing conspiracy theories may be the same people behind said conspiracy theories. It’s a really fucked up episode of Scooby Doo we’re watching. Zoiks, Scoob!

Before the Arizona Senate decided to begin its review of ballots, Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno was working to gather alleged evidence of election fraud in Antrim County, a small county in northwest Michigan that Trump won easily.

Antrim County quickly became a focal point for election fraud claims on election night because of an initial reporting error of unofficial results that was soon corrected. The mistake by an election worker, led to election fraud conspiracy theorists descending upon the state and accusing Dominion Voting Systems, the company that made Antrim’s election machines, of switching votes.

Maricopa County, the focus of the Arizona Senate’s “audit,” also uses Dominion machines.

DePerno has been a key player in pushing debunked election fraud claims about Antrim and has continued to fight for them in court, despite them being thrown out multiple times. In those court filings, DePerno claimed both Logan and Hayes were “expert witnesses” who could support his fraud claims.

The surfer and former clothing company owner was listed as an expert on “application security, systems, process, generally accepted programming practices, standards of care, as it relates to application development of sensitive systems.”
https://www.azmirror.com/2021/09/08/conan-hayes-the-former-pro-surfer-and-stop-the-steal-supporter-connected-to-the-arizona-audit/

Come on, we have qualified people on our side. They have underwear models and clothing hawkers on theirs, yet they have more followers. What do we have on this thing? A Cuisinart? Seriously the other side is a clown show. They’re a fucking joke! Which is why even though they are losers in the 2020 election, we still have to deal with these dipshits. But the even worse news is that audit madness is coming to a state near you!

Arizona’s spurious election “audit” concluded on Friday, confirming yet again that President Joe Biden won Maricopa County and the state of Arizona — but not putting an end to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, which are now fueling similar efforts to relitigate the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas.

The results of the “audit” — a haphazard GOP review of ballots with no legal force behind it, done by a group called Cyber Ninjas in Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix — found the vote totals virtually unchanged from the actual election results, which were certified by Arizona officials in November of last year.

That outcome isn’t a surprise: There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which US elections officials said last year was “the most secure in American history.” Every recount requested by Trump and his supporters has upheld the results of the 2020 election.

While the ballot review didn’t turn up Trump’s nonexistent election fraud, the process has caused a legion of problems for Arizona elections officials, who are currently facing death threats and will now have to spend millions to replace voting machines in Maricopa County.
https://www.vox.com/2021/9/25/22692965/arizona-audit-finished-other-states-getting-started

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[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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If you will notice, since season 10 and 11 of the Top 10 began, in the Joe Biden era, I have not been referring to our 45th president by name. I’ve been referring to him as “Former Guy”, “Loser 45”, or my personal favorite – “The Slobfather”. But like a fly on the wall or a bad weed, we just can’t seem to get rid of this inhuman monster. So of course you know that one of the biggest Trump ass kissers is Texas governor Greg Abbott, and really with all of the problems you think would be bigger issues in Texas to fry such as their crippling power grid crisis. But instead the hill that Abbott chooses to die on is…. The 2020 election! In Texas! In a state that voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Slobfather! Just this is absolutely insane. We all know what a spectacular fail the Arizona audit was. Let’s hope that the Texas audit produces the same results!

Former President Trump is pressuring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to back a bill to launch an election audit in the Lone Star State, signaling an expanded effort to throw his broader 2020 election defeat into question.

While Trump won Texas handily in November, he issued an open letter to Abbott on Thursday repeating his unfounded claims of voter fraud and other irregularities "in some" counties in the state and urged the governor to back the election audit bill in the Texas Legislature's upcoming special session.

“Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit! You know your fellow Texans have big questions about the November 2020 Election,” Trump said.

“Texas needs you to act now. Your Third Special Session is the perfect, and maybe last, opportunity to pass this audit bill,” he added. “Texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. Let's get to the bottom of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam!”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/573629-trump-demands-abbott-back-election-audit-in-texas

That’s about the same reaction I have to this. I mean seriously… what questions are they asking? And who’s asking this? Alex Jones? Tucker Carlson? Any of the other right wing dipshits we hear on a daily basis? I mean Trump’s lifeline whispering sweet nothings into Sean Hannity’s ears every night has been cut off, so he needs to find a new megaphone with which to amplify his stupidity and insanity. And really he’s quite batshit insane.

Donald Trump’s letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanding he pursue an “audit” of the 2020 election set off a “mad dash” in the governor’s office as aides sought to figure out just how serious the former president was, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

In the letter, Trump called on Abbott to hold a “Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election" and pass HB 16, a bill recently filed in the Third Special Session of the Texas legislature, which would allow for an Arizona-style “audit” of the presidential election.

"Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit!" Trump wrote in a public letter addressed to Abbott on Thursday. "Texas needs you to act now. Your Third Special Session is the perfect, and maybe last, opportunity to pass this audit bill. Time is running out."

Just hours after Trump released the letter, a statement was put out by Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, who said the office had “already begun the process” of reviewing 2020 votes in the state’s two largest Democrat and two largest Republican counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Trump only won Collin County, and Biden won Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties in 2020.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/28/trump-texas-audit-abbott-scramble-514454

I’m guessing he most likely doesn’t. Even Abbott’s offices themselves weren’t sure what to make of this latest insanity. Now you might be asking – what the fuck are they trying to accomplish with this? And I answer you, sir or madam – the answer is well… something. And they’re doing this because… reasons. I don’t really have any explanation other than that. But I am guessing it’s a bullshit fueled conspiracy that is causing this and we probably won’t hear the end of it.

The Texas Secretary of State's Office announced Tuesday the details of a "forensic audit" of the 2020 election it launched last week, a day after former President Donald Trump suggested that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) order the audit.

The Secretary of State's Office says the audit ensures "Texas voters have confidence in the elections system" and addresses things election officials could face "that undermine the integrity of our elections."

Trump won Texas in 2020 by 5.5 percentage points and there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. Still, it was the closest margin of victory by a GOP presidential nominee in Texas in decades.

The Secretary of State is appointed by the governor in Texas but has remained vacant since Ruth Ruggero Hughs stepped down in May.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/lone-star-politics/texas-announces-details-of-forensic-audit-of-2020-election-results/2753747/

Yeah definitely! So why now? Why almost a year after it was announced that Biden won and all the votes have been counted, certified, and counted again? What’s that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, 100,000 or more times, you must be a member of the MAGA cult! And the most infuriating thing about the MAGA cult is that they fall for scammers and con artists every time. Well could it be that they elected a con artist in chief? Yes! And he continues the con!

Officials in the Texas secretary of state's office have launched a "full and comprehensive forensic audit" of 2020 general election results in four of the state's largest counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin.

The state agency announced the audit late Thursday in a short statement, hours after former President Donald Trump asked Gov. Greg Abbott to add an election audit bill to the agenda for the current special legislative session.

More:Trump asks Abbott to add 2020 election audit legislation to special session agenda

The statement said the agency has the authority under existing state laws to conduct election audits and that officials had "already begun the process." It did not say what prompted the audits. State elections officials told lawmakers earlier this year that the 2020 election was "smooth and secure," and data show that voter fraud is rare in the state.

In a public letter to Abbott, Trump repeated unfounded claims of voter fraud that he has advanced since he lost his reelection bid. He continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him, despite an investigation by his own Department of Justice that determined that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud during the election.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/09/23/texas-audit-2020-election-results-four-major-counties/5838556001/

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[font size="8"]Highlights from the UN General Assembly
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You know thank god we have competent leadership back in the White House. This week marked the return of the United Nations General Assembly. Now if you don’t know what this is, it’s basically a meeting where the leaders of the free world can meet and basically air their grievances or introduce new ideas to the world. You might have seen this at the end of the Marvel flick Black Panther. Well the UN general assembly is exactly like that. But of course while the world may be much freer than it was decades ago, is it really? Especially when everyone has a problem child. That problem child happens to be North Korea. Which of course as you know is run by a criminally insane mad man with access to nuclear weapons and has the entire world afraid of him. Oh wait, that’s Trump. And… wait, that’s also Trump. But that said here’s what the world’s problem child is up to.

Minutes before North Korea's representative addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday, South Korea's military chiefs said Pyongyang had fired an "unidentified projectile" into the Sea of Japan.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador did not mention the incident during his address on the final day of the annual debate, which draws world leaders to New York.

Instead, Kim Song spoke about the bad relations between Pyongyang and Washington, attributing them to the United States' "anachronistic hostile policy" toward North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, for the past 70 years and the fact that the Korean War has never officially ended.

"The possible outbreak of a new war on the Korean Peninsula is contained not because of the U.S.'s mercy on the DPRK," Ambassador Kim added, using the abbreviation for his country’s official name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. "It is because our state is growing reliable deterrent that can control the hostile forces in their attempts for military invasion."
https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-myanmar-skip-un-general-assembly-/6247496.html

God I love that movie! So what else happened during this meeting? Well North Korea isn’t our only problem child in the world because there’s also Afghanistan and Myanmar – both of which are at the beginning of what will possibly be a very long and painful Civil War. But we definitely don’t want our far right terrorists to get any ideas from those guys. But it’s still pretty troubling that neither country made an appearance this year.

The UN representatives for Afghanistan and Myanmar were dropped from the list of speakers who were to address world leaders on Monday, the last day of the UN General Assembly in New York City.

Both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the military junta in Myanmar had written to the UN secretary-general to say their representatives to the United Nations were appointed by governments that were no longer in power.

Diplomats told news agency AFP that Washington, Beijing and Moscow appear to have brokered the move to drop each of the countries' representatives from speaking at the general debate session.

The three countries are part of a nine-member committee that decides on whether an appointed person has the credentials to represent the country at the global body.

Afghanistan's ambassador to the UN was on the speakers list until late Sunday evening. He was dropped Monday morning.
https://www.dw.com/en/un-general-assembly-ends-with-no-speeches-from-afghanistan-or-myanmar/a-59333811

Yeah that’s pretty much what it’s like there. But at least with a competent president at the helm, we get a speech like this. Could you just imagine Trump at this forum? I mean of course if he’s even invited? He would accuse half of the room of being losers and then talking about building walls and rage tweeting on the toilet. But enough about that asshole. The thing is we’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to get this planet back on track so the next several generations can enjoy it.

When President Joe Biden mounts the iconic green marble rostrum inside the hall of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, he will face an audience skeptical he really is as different from his predecessor as he likes to claim.

For world leaders who were alternately addled and amused by former President Donald Trump -- who once encountered mocking laughter from the UN crowd in the middle of his big speech -- Biden represented hope for a different era in American foreign relations. He spent his first foreign trip in June declaring across Europe that "America is back."

He continued that message in his first appearance in New York when he met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"The strong partnership between the United States and the U.N. is based on common values and principals, and at this moment, those bonds are more important than ever. America's back and we believe in the United Nations and its values," Biden said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/joe-biden-united-nations-donald-trump/index.html

Excuse me a minute… damn I love that movie! But you know what the biggest highlight of the 2021 UN General Assembly was? It wasn’t Biden, or COVID, or civil war, or any of the other horrifying things facing our planet. It was Korean boy band BTS. That’s right – the insanely popular Korean group that gets 1,000,000,000 hits on social media if one of the group members breathes, was the big hit at this year’s assembly. Seriously, they’ll take over the whole world at this rate!

Fans around the world look to their favourite stars for guidance and inspiration, and some K-pop stars are taking up the mantle of advocating change.

Global leaders have turned to BTS and Blackpink to share their intentions with the world.

On September 20, BTS took the floor at the United Nations
to discuss, among other things, their hope for a world where the Covid-19 pandemic is less debilitating and one where climate change
isn’t a monumental threat.

“Every choice we make is the beginning of change, not the end,” said band leader RM, during the band’s third speech to the UN since 2018. They accompanied the delegation of South Korean president Moon Jae-in, and were sworn in as presidential envoys and given diplomatic passports ahead of the trip.
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/k-pop/article/3150216/bts-blackpink-un-assembly-covid-19-bts-talk-about-vaccination

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[font size="8"]Steve Bannon and Alex Jones
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It's been 267 days since the attempted coup and attack on the US Capitol and every day I am asking the same damn question – why the hell haven’t Alex Jones and Steve Bannon been hauled before the Congressional committee to answer for their crimes? And look you can point out that the Former Guy pardoned Bannon for some of his crimes, but he didn’t pardon Bannon for any new ones he might have committed during his administration. And don’t think we’re letting Alex Jones off the hook either. No, both of these scumbags are knee deep in their own conspiracy theories and while the shit hasn’t quite hit the fan yet, it definitely will. I hope. So of course the representatives of the former administration are trying to keep their involvement in the events of that horrible day a secret. But it’s going to very quickly backfire on them.

In the days leading up to the January 6 riot at the US Capitol that left five people dead and more than 100 police officers wounded, one man may have been whispering in Donald Trump's ear more than any other: Steve Bannon.

In the waning days of December, Bannon was on the phone with Trump, urging the President to make January 6 -- the date of the official certification on the Electoral College vote by Congress -- a sort of final stand in his war on (nonexistent) voter fraud.

As authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa recount in their book "Peril":

"'You've got to call Pence off the [expletive] ski slopes and get him back here today. This is a crisis.' Bannon said, referring to the vice president who was vacationing in Vail, Colorado.

"Bannon told Trump to focus on January 6. That was the moment for a reckoning.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/23/politics/steve-bannon-january-6-capitol-riot/index.html

I’m with the kid on this one. But the good news coming out of DC right now is that the committee is planning to investigate people connected with the Former Guy. The second round of hearings is coming up in the middle of October, but expect in the next round that Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, and Steve Bannon will be hauled before the committee. Why aren’t these guys in jail yet? That should be the bigger question here!

The committee investigating the Capitol riot has issued its first subpoenas of President Trump's allies - including Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon.

The Democratic-led committee has demanded documents and called them to testify in mid-October.

A letter written by the committee's chairman suggests they were involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election that led to the deadly unrest.

Lawmakers are after information on Mr Trump's actions leading up to the riot.

The committee's first four subpoenas were issued to Mr Meadows, former White House chief of staff; Mr Bannon, Mr Trump's former advisor; former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino; and Kashyap Patel, a former Pentagon chief of staff.

"The committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power," the committee said in a letter on Thursday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58673755

I’m with you on that, sir! But where is Alex Jones? Is he currently holed up in his Infowars bunker hawking cheap merchandise? Well the good news there is that the Infowars dominos are starting to fall and we could see some very interesting information coming about Jones’ involvement in the riots very soon. Bonus points if Owen Shoyer squeals before the committee if he’s called to testify! Yeah get the popcorn and the beer ready!

A Texas talk show host for the far-right website InfoWars was arrested last month in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according the the Department of Justice.

Jonathon Owen Shroyer, the host of "The War Room with Owen Shroyer," was charged with knowingly entering a restricted building and two counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. The FBI arrested him Aug. 23 in San Antonio.

The Austin-based website features videos promoting conspiracy videos that have been banned from other online and social media sites for hate speech and misinformation, including false theories about 9/11, the Sandy Hook massacre and the coronavirus.

According to the FBI, there is livestream footage showing Shroyer marching to the Capitol with a crowd of people. Once inside, Shroyer is seen standing above the crowd on the west side of the building near the inauguration stage, the FBI said.
https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/InfoWars-Owen-Shroyer-arrested-Capitol-Riot-16430977.php

So Steve Bannon and Alex Jones could potentially be in some very deep trouble. We’ve been keeping close tabs on the riots since it happened and we will continue to do so. But what we do know is that two Infowars hosts have been arrested in coordination with the attack. And that’s two too many! So could Alex Jones potentially be arrested? Well he absolutely should answer for his crimes but in what capacity certainly remains to be seen. But we also do know that the Oath Keepers are in some real trouble!

Court records show that of the more than 500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, no one was more coordinated in their efforts to disrupt the congressional certification of the U.S. electoral votes than individuals like these.

The people in the Capitol steps formation were Oath Keepers, militarily-trained people who spoke with one another about commitment to their "oath" — one to "uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Their ranks included active-duty military, veterans and some with law enforcement experience, people who had joined up with the organization since its founding in 2009. The group’s motto, "not on our watch," emphasized a level of vigilance against a perceived threat that could strike at any time.

Their leaders sent top-down messages ordering members to protest and fight. Some trained before they came and brought armor, tools and weapons. They raised money for protective gear and travel to D.C. Some attacked police. In many cases, prosecutors say, members of far-right groups helped escalate the rally into a full-on attack.

Of approximately 40 people facing conspiracy charges as of early September, 19 were associated with the far-right Oath Keepers militia, according to PolitiFact’s review of court files. Another 17 were affiliated with the Proud Boys extremist group. As part of PolitiFact’s ongoing look at how misinformation fueled the events of Jan. 6, we examined the case files of defendants associated with Oath Keepers and found they tell a story of preparation, communication and structure.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/sep/23/everything-we-trained-how-far-right-oath-keepers-m/

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[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: China’s Cryptocurrency Ban
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It's time to investigate beyond the headlines! This is Top 10 Investigates!

The cryptocurrency boom has created some interesting characters. Most notably a group that calls themselves “the Blockchain Bros”. But recently the Chinese crackdown has created a huge bust for burgeoning cryptocurrencies around the globe. So could the fun be over for the Blockchain Bros? Yes probably. How is the internet world scrambling to keep up with what’s been going on in China? Well there’s been a lot of speculation about the cryptocurrency ban. And what its’ doing to the markets, and it's going to bring a world of hurt to crypto miners. But just like in the gold rush of 1890, in the end, the people who are really getting rich off the crypto mining boom are the ones who are selling the mining equipment. So how is the fun going to end for mining firms and blockchain bros? Well let’s just say we’ve only just begun.

Cryptocurrency exchanges and providers of crypto services are scrambling to sever business ties with mainland Chinese clients, after Beijing issued last week a blanket ban on all crypto trading and mining.

In a culmination of years of efforts to rein in the sector, 10 powerful Chinese government bodies including the central bank said overseas exchanges were barred from providing services to mainland investors via the internet – a previously grey area – and promised to jointly root out “illegal” cryptocurrency activities.

“While this is not a surprise as China has ‘banned’ crypto many times in the past, this time there is no ambiguity,” said Henri Arslanian, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) crypto leader and partner, on Twitter. “Crypto transactions and crypto services of all kind are banned in China. No room for discussion. No gray area.”

Huobi Global and Binance, two of the world’s largest exchanges and popular with Chinese users, have stopped new registrations of accounts by mainland customers. Huobi also said it would clean up existing ones by the end of the year.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/27/with-chinese-ban-final-on-crypto-firms-scramble-to-sever-ties

So is China going to finally finish the job or not of banning crypto currency? The logistics of it are complex but could it do long lasting damage to the economy? Part of the problem with crypto currency is that there’s no central governing bank backing the money, like there is for printed currency. And the other part is that crypto currency can be very easily stolen. But that said, China is getting very serious this time around.

China's central bank has announced that all transactions of crypto-currencies are illegal, effectively banning digital tokens such as Bitcoin.

"Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities," the People's Bank of China said, warning it "seriously endangers the safety of people's assets".

China is one of the world's largest crypto-currency markets.

Fluctuations there often impact the global price of crypto-currencies.

The price of Bitcoin fell by more than $2,000 (£1,460) in the wake of the Chinese announcement.

It is the latest in China's national crackdown on what it sees as a volatile, speculative investment at best - and a way to launder money at worst.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58678907

So crypto currency is a hot bed for underground illegal activity, which is part of the reason why China wants to ban it. Not to mention some of the people who’ve got really rich off crypto mining are people who you wouldn’t trust with 15 cents, let alone 15 million dollars. Also just like the Gold Rush. But China’s crackdown on Crypto mining is having an effect on Bitcoin and other coins all around the globe, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

China's most powerful regulators on Friday intensified a crackdown on cryptocurrencies with a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, hitting bitcoin and other major coins and pressuring crypto and blockchain-related stocks.

Ten agencies, including the central bank, financial, securities and foreign exchange regulators, vowed to work together to root out "illegal" cryptocurrency activity, the first time the Beijing-based regulators have joined forces to explicitly ban all cryptocurrency-related activity.

China in May banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions, and issued similar bans in 2013 and 2017.

The repeated prohibitions highlight the challenge of closing loopholes and identifying bitcoin-related transactions, though banks and payment firms say they support the effort.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-central-bank-vows-crackdown-cryptocurrency-trading-2021-09-24/

So the door is closing and the fun might be over for the blockchain bros and crypto miners and all of the other insane things to come out of the crypto mining craze that have made life both interesting and miserable at the same time. Go ahead live it up with your Lamborghinis and your lavish lifestyles because when this thing goes bust, your life will go with it. But then again the ban could have the reverse effect that China is hoping for, and it might not have anything to do with greenhouse gases.

Last week, the Peoples’ Bank of China made an unprecedented move, declaring all cryptocurrency transactions in the country illegal. Crypto exchanges are reportedly scrambling to drop Chinese users before the ban comes into effect, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether dropped as much as 7% when the ban was announced. (They have since largely recovered, on which more below).

China’s robust cryptocurrency mining market — which was responsible for 53% of Bitcoin mining worldwide as of February of this year — is effectively dead in the water. Chinese companies have reportedly ceased to sell cryptocurrency mining hardware, with major players like Alibaba blocking new sales. The reasons behind China’s cryptocurrency ban are complex. Ultimately, however, the country’s move is great news for cryptocurrencies — politically, economically, and environmentally.

China’s ban might feel sudden, but it’s actually been a long time coming. According to Business Insider, China banned banks from handling cryptocurrency transactions as early as 2013, reiterating the ban in 2017. In June of this year, the country cracked down on cryptocurrency miners, forcing many to move overseas. Viewed in that light, China’s blanket ban is perhaps surprising in its comprehensiveness, but it’s not exactly unexpected. Indeed, the speed with which crypto prices recovered following the ban’s announcement suggests that crypto investors were expecting it, and had already priced the ban into their coin investments.
https://onezero.medium.com/chinas-ban-is-great-news-for-cryptocurrencies-17233acdba22

That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

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[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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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! Now I notice a great many of you happen to be wearing tin foil hats today. That is because conspiracy theories are running a foul with our brothers and sisters on the right side of things. Now let me ask you this – why are religious people so prone to believing in insane conspiracy theories? Well there’s no real answer for that but it seems like the crazier they are the more likely they are to believe them. But when you have pastors and podcasts that they listen to who are peddling these theories, they’re part of the problem. And I’m sure that’s not what our good LAWRD JAYSUS would want now is it? But let’s take a look at some of the insane theories that they believe in and there’s plenty of them to pick from. Well for starters let’s start with our old buddy David Barton who is a religious “historian” that gets it wrong every single time. Well wait until you hear his latest piece of claptrap! This might be one of his most insane theories yet!

Religious-right activist David Barton is currently traveling the country as part of the Faith Wins “American Restoration Tour,” spreading his right-wing pseudo-history in churches in an effort to mobilize conservative Christians heading into the 2022 midterm elections.

On Monday, Barton spoke at Mountain View Baptist Church in Cowpens, South Carolina, where he claimed that the Bible instructs religious leaders to take responsibility for recruiting candidates to run for office.

“If you go to Exodus 18:21, the Bible is very clear,” Barton said. “The Bible says, ‘Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.’ OK, guys, let’s have elections. Let’s have local, county, state, and federal elections.”

“But how do you get those [candidates]?” Barton asked. “Who does that providing? It’s interesting: the spiritual leader. Moses says—and he repeats this in Deuteronomy 1 and Deuteronomy 16—he says, ‘I went and recruited from among you good people, and I brought them before you and set them before you, and you chose from among those good people.’ In other words, ‘I recruited candidates for office, and then you elected the candidate you wanted to office.’ So what happens is there’s a recruiting effort going on in the background. Moses is the one who did it.”

As we have noted before, Barton intentionally misrepresents this passage from the Bible in order to promote his own right-wing political agenda.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-barton-says-the-bible-instructs-religious-leaders-to-recruit-political-candidates-for-office/

That is most certainly true, Fluffy! But you know that part of the problem is that today’s active religious fundamentalists think that they’re waging a spiritual war, and that war is digital. It’s not being fought on a battlefield, it’s being fought on your Facebook and Instagram accounts! So when you have most of the religious body being convinced that they’re soldiers fighting a war, and that war is being waged on conspiracy theories, this is what you get!

QAnon conspiracy theorists have long fancied themselves “digital soldiers” whose skills at posting dank memes and owning libs on the internet plays a key role in former President Donald Trump’s purported operation to take down the global network of satanic pedophiles that supposedly secretly runs the world.

Dave Hayes, who built a reputation as a leading “decoder” of Q posts under the handle “Praying Medic” until he was booted from most major social media platforms for spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation, takes his role as a “digital soldier” very seriously. Appearing on fellow QAnon conspiracy theorist Greg Harvey’s livestream program Monday, Hayes said that he and other QAnon activists are the online equivalent of the special forces in the military who have been trained to overcome any obstacle in order to achieve their objective.

“The thing that we have to realize as anons is that we went through a three-year course of training and equipping to detect, expose, and help wake other people up to the realities of corruption through Q,” Hayes said. “Q’s operation … was a training course to teach us how to do research in such a way that we could detect corruption and then find a way to make that information available to the public.”

“We have been trained for years to do exactly what we’re doing,” he continued. “Even though we don’t necessarily know what’s coming in the future, we have been trained to deal with whatever comes. It’s like being in the special forces in the military. Special forces groups don’t necessarily know what plans, what attacks, what kind of opposition they’re going to face when they go into a certain territory. When they’re doing an operation, they don’t necessarily know the troop strength that’s going to oppose them, they don’t know how well armed their enemy is, but they rely on their training, they rely on the fact that they are trained and equipped, and they’re able to overcome whatever obstacle is set in front of them.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-hayes-says-being-a-qanon-conspiracy-theorist-is-like-being-in-the-special-forces/

Now here’s where it gets weird, because you know it was going to! One of the strangest people ever elected to Congress is the bizarre Madison Cawthorn, who is firmly on the side of the unholy, ungodly Dark One! I of course speak of a man who is so foul, vile, and disgusting that his name dare not be spoken in my church! But as I have stated, when you have people convinced they’re fighting “spiritual warfare”, these are the kind of crackpots that are going to come out of the woodwork!

Several Republican members of Congress, North Carolina state legislators, various candidates for office, and radical religious-right activists gathered at Temple Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, last weekend for the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Salt & Light Conference.”

Among the politicians in attendance was Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who used his time in front of his home state crowd to declare that he is waging a “spiritual battle” in the supposedly “evil and vile” Washington, D.C., against people like Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her “cold, evil eyes.”

“I believe that the power of prayer will save this country in the coming decades,” Cawthorn said. “When I’m in Washington, D.C., I know a lot of you consider the place to be evil and vile, and I am here to tell you with first-hand knowledge, it is evil and vile. But I will tell you when I’m there, I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of darkness as if the devil has complete dominion of that area because I feel a spiritual battle going on on Capitol Hill. And patriots like all of you in this room, on your knees, praying that we have the cover within the spiritual fight is what it will take to save this country.”

“I have to look Nancy Pelosi in her cold, evil eyes every single day,” he continued. “She just passed a bill yesterday trying to say that we can abort babies on demand all the way up until right before the day of birth. When we hear this, when we hear the fact that if a baby comes through a botched abortion alive, sitting there on the table, they then still have the right to murder that child, we realize that when I quip and say, ‘I look her in her cold, evil eyes,’ it’s not a joke. These people hate us.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rep-madison-cawthorn-is-waging-a-spiritual-battle-against-evil-and-vile-washington-d-c/

Yes, high fis and boob tubes are great, Reverend! But you know what’s not great? Having to deal with insane conspiracy theorists on a daily basis! I do love talking about conspiracy theories because a lot of times they’re stranger than fiction, and the people who actually believe them are even stranger! Now what happens when Christian nationalist theories are put into practice? Well let’s just say these people actually believe this stuff and they’re not going away!

Rick Scarborough, a self-described “Christocrat,” strident anti-LGBTQ activist, and longtime critic of public education, is raising money for his group Recover America to help elect right-wing candidates to school boards in three Houston-area school districts, which are among the nation’s largest.

Right Wing Watch has reported that an array of right-wing political groups are mobilizing this year to take over local school boards in an effort to reverse LGBTQ-inclusive policies, stifle teaching about racism, and more. The Leadership Institute, one of the groups that is encouraging and training right-wing activists to take over school boards across the country, held campaign workshops in Houston and Temple, Texas, on Sept. 18.

Recover America’s website says its purpose is to work “for a revival in America resulting in a nation where Biblical values are embraced, and decency is restored” and that its mission is “to mobilize Pastors and Church Leaders to use their influence to register, educate and mobilize values-based citizens to vote their Biblical values on Election Day.” The group’s vice president, Hunter Kelly, is a former staffer for Republican Sens. Tim Scott and Josh Hawley.

Scarborough discussed his group’s plans this week on two episodes of his podcast, “Mixing Church and State God’s Way,” which is promoted via the Charisma podcasting network, an arm of Steven Strang’s Pentecostal-oriented media empire. On a Sept. 20 episode of the podcast, Scarborough claimed it is a “tragic reality” that “the church is so absent in the current moral conflict our country’s found itself in.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/christian-nationalist-rick-scarborough-targets-houston-area-public-school-boards/

Probably or maybe not depending on how these crazy people act on their beliefs! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! But before you do, just remember that we are but 10 short days away from the premiere of Holy Shit: The Sunday Sermons! Sunday October 10th at 4:00 PM. Now you may go in peace! That’s it this week for:




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[font size="8"]The Pride Files
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Welcome to our first ever segment on the ongoing issues that are affecting the LGBT community, the Pride Files! And we picked quite the insane week to kick things off. I want to start with movies. I’m really excited that things are getting back to where we were before this nightmare pandemic happened. But one movie specifically has people up in arms, and that’s Marvel’s upcoming film The Eternals. It’s a movie that was originally supposed to be released last year, but got delayed because of the you know what. But that’s not the controversy. Oh no, my friends! The controversy is – wait for it – the evil gays because Marvel put a gay superhero in their movies. But this once again proves the sheer and utter ridiculousness of LGBT representation in cinema. And I don’t blame Marvel one bit for wanting to please everyone.

Marvel's Eternals gets saddled with a mature rating in Russia because of its openly gay superhero. Following the blockbuster success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the MCU will once again return to theaters in November with Eternals. The millennia-spanning film was originally scheduled to premiere last year, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed it to 2021. Just like Shang-Chi, Eternals will receive a theaters-only release and hopefully continue to further the domestic box office's recovery. Aiding the movie's prospects are its star-studded cast and director, Chloé Zhao, who made history earlier this year by winning Best Director at the Oscars.

Eternals stands to be among the MCU's most diverse projects yet, between its inclusive ensemble and its firsts. In addition to having the franchise's first deaf hero in Lauren Ridloff's Makkari, Eternals holds its first openly gay character. Brian Tyree Henry plays Phastos, one of the Eternals who creates the team's weapons and tech. He's confirmed to be married to another man, and the two will reportedly share a kiss onscreen. After years of fans calling for genuine LGBTQ representation in the MCU, Eternals has the potential to be a major step forward.

And yet, it's receiving some slight pushback from Russia over this. According to Kino Metro, a Russian film site, Eternals has been rated 18+, which is the country's mature equivalent and considered to be "prohibited for children." For comparison's sake, per The Direct, most MCU films receive a 12+ (The Avengers, Ant-Man and the Wasp) or a 16+ (Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow) in Russia, making Eternals the first to go higher. The country has done this before over gay content in movies, as it gave Power Rangers an 18+ rating as well in 2017.

Whether this also means Russia will cut some of the scenes from Eternals that outwardly depict Phastos' sexuality remains to be seen, though there has been precedence for this in other countries. For example, the brief lesbian kiss in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was removed in countries like the United Arab Emirates back in 2019. Censorship like this or rating a movie higher simply because it includes LGBTQ content is disappointing, particularly since projects with heterosexual romances never get the same treatment.

https://screenrant.com/eternals-mcu-movie-rating-russia-phastos-gay/

Yeah yeah think of the children think of the children. Right. I’ll tell you who’s not thinking of the children is Tennessee moms! So here’s the thing – two women kissing on a parade float – would that be cause for outrage in 2021? No? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But then again this is rural Tennessee we’re talking about here. And really people, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Because in 2021 there’s far worse things to be outraged about!

A contentious school board meeting was held in Tennessee on Monday night after a video released on social media by a local chapter of Moms for Liberty showed two girls briefly kissing on a Pride float in their local high school’s homecoming parade. The conservative group also accused folks on the float of groping and even exposing a breast. Indy Pride, the local LGBTQ+ group responsible for the float, said the parents were overreacting to the kiss and denied the other allegations.

“WCS parents, did you know yesterday’s Independence High School’s homecoming parade included an LGBTQ+ float, that was paraded in front of Thompson Station Elementary & Middle School students, featuring two girls kissing?” the Moms For Liberty chapter in Williamson County, Tennessee tweeted last week.

The post went on to suggest a youth in the parade was handing out bisexual “recruitment” cards, though those just ended uo being information pamphlets about Bi Week.

Sophomore student Spencer Lyst, the president and founder of Indy Pride, denied the allegations.
https://www.out.com/news/2021/9/24/two-girls-kissing-homecoming-float-enraged-right-wing-moms

Good point, Moe! Next up – international LGBT news! You know it’s not just America’s LGBT community that is facing insanity coming from the Christian right. As we keep saying on this program it’s a global phenomenon and these assholes are literally the same no matter where you go. Except for maybe New Zealand, they might actually have a handle on the volatility of the Christian right. So yeah if you’re thinking of relocating, maybe relocate to New Zealand.

More than 100,000 people have sent in submissions on New Zealand’s plan to ban LGBTQ conversion practices – more than have ever been made on a piece of legislation.

“We’ve already made history with this movement and we’re not even done,” said Shaneel Lal, an activist and organiser in the movement to ban conversion practices. “People really and truly care about this because in 2021 it is not appropriate to erase queer identities.”

The government received a total of 106,700 submissions on the bill, which will make it a crime to conduct conversion practices – or attempting to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity.

It is more than double the submissions received on other recent controversial legislation, including the End of Life euthanasia bill, which Stuff reported was the previous record-holder at 40,000 submissions. It was close to five times the number of submissions received on the bill legalising same-sex marriage in 2013.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/113755683

OK yes! Think of the children! Think of the children! But you know I want to end with some good news, don’t want you to think this segment is all fearmongering and doom and gloom. How about we end with this story out of Iowa where this teacher was placed on leave after admitting that he’s bisexual, so you won’t believe what these students did next. I went all Buzzfeed there on that sentence, didn’t I? Well here's what happened next!

Cora Smith walked out of Winterset's High School Tuesday with a bisexual pride flag draped over her shoulders.

The 10th grader was among more than 100 students who walked out a in protest over the school district placing seventh-grade literacy teacher Lucas Kaufmann on leave.

Kaufmann was placed on leave last week following a presentation about himself to his class featured the LGBT Pride flag, according to a www.change.org petition. When asked by students, Kaufmann said he was bisexual.

Nearly 1,500 people have signed the online petition. "We're hoping that this will help Mr. Kaufmann," Smith said.

Winterset Community School District Superintendent Justin Gross confirmed Kaufmann was placed on leave after concerns were raised following his presentation, but declined further comment. State law prohibits employers from firing employees based on sexual orientation and gender identification, which Gross acknowledged.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/07/iowa-students-lucas-kaufmann-administrative-leave/576377500

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[font size="8"]Conspiracy Corner
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Welcome back to our segment that attempts to explain the unexplainable, Conspiracy Corner! We are coming to you live of course from our underground doomsday shelter deep in the New Mexico badlands – undisclosed location of course. Let me just adjust my tin foil hat for maximum government interference and… ah there we go! This week we’re taking a look at conspiracy theories surrounding vaccines and vaccine mandates – of which there are many to choose from! And you know those right wing lunatics who are crashing school boards and city council meetings? Oh you’d better expect that to get worse before this nightmare is finally over. But not quite! There are anti-vaxxers everywhere! It doesn’t matter if you are in the military or the NBA. But you will encounter one of these cretins at least once during the day. And calling them “deplorable” is a bit of an understatement – these morons are utterly despicable!

Kyrie Irving was not present for the Brooklyn Nets pre-season media day at Barclays Center, where city law requires athletes to have at least one dose of Covid vaccination to participate in team activities.

Appearing from his house for a brief press conference with reporters, Irving declined to answer directly four separate questions regarding his vaccination and playing status, after this story raised questions of whether he might skip home games to avoid public-health regulations. “Living in this public sphere, there’s a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie,” he said, “and I would love to just keep that private and handle that the right way with my team and go forward with a plan.”

Irving’s teammates dodged questions on Monday about what such a plan might be. San Francisco city officials removed religious and medical exemptions from their policy on Friday, emboldening the NBA’s decision to deny an application from the Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins. A league source said any comment on further applications for exemptions in New York would make too clear who had applied; the New York Knicks have said their team is 100-percent vaccinated, but the Nets, this season’s prohibitive championship favorite, have at least one elusive holdout.

One by one, the basketball players — non-vaccinated star here, fully-inoculated veteran on mute down there, a full-on anti-vaxxer front-and-center — logged into the video conference. The annual summer meeting of the powerful NBA union had gone virtual again on August 7, and high on the agenda for the season ahead was a proposed mandate from the league office that 100 percent of players get vaccinated against Covid-19.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/nba-anti-vaxxers-covid-1231988/

Dude, seriously – the NBA is the last place where this shit should be pushed around. I mean come on you have guys in close contact breathing on each other and sweating all over the place, that’s not a place for infectious diseases to arise! Thank you audience! But if that’s not enough, the king of conspiracy theorists – our old buddy Tucker Carlson – is kicking his bullshit into overdrive over the military’s vaccine requirements. Does he not know that active duty military get injected with literally every other vaccine known to man?

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been spouting conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine—and COVID in general—since the topic first graced the nightly news more than a year ago. But now that Joe Biden has issued a mandatory vaccination order for federal employees, he’s kicking things into high gear. This week, Carlson trained his eyes on the U.S. military—which in the past he has accused of promoting feminist ideology and critical race theory—suggesting that the mandate is a White House power grab. “The army is essential for political control,” he said, adding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has manufactured “a new political purity test. One designed to separate the obedient from the free.”

In that vein, he continued: “The point of mandatory vaccination is to identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the free thinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who doesn’t love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately.” He did not mention that the Department of Defense has had vaccine requirements in place for years, or that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the vaccine reduces testosterone levels.

He then proposed a red herring, pointing to veteran suicide rates as more worthy of attention than COVID. “Only 46 members of the entire U.S. military have died from the coronavirus over the last year and a half. Suicides, by contrast, kill many, many times more,” he said. “So, military suicide is an actual crisis that the Pentagon might want to address. Lloyd Austin might want to look into that. But, no, that would get the Democratic Party nothing.” (As recently as July, Austin addressed the veteran suicide epidemic during a press conference at Eielson Air Force Base. “I’m deeply concerned about the suicide rates, not only here but across the force,” he said. “One loss by suicide is too many. While we’re working hard on this problem, we have a lot more to do.”)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/militarys-covid-vaccine-mandate-tucker-carlson

Yeah probably! So what do you call it when it’s not suicide and people are voluntarily dying from a now preventable illness? I personally call it “VDBP” – Voluntary Death By Propaganda! You know since this segment began last year – which currently feels like it was 15 years ago – we’ve gone over literally every conspiracy theory in the book. But what’s driving this madness? Well for one thing being isolated at home has really done a number on Q Anon nuts who are driving this crap.

When Sarah Wildes, a seventh grade teacher in Alabama, was asked by a student about the mass confusion surrounding the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, she knew she had a big job in front of her.

“I have to tread lightly, but I pointed out that we do know,” said Wildes, a science and technology teacher at Sparkman Middle School in the small town of Toney. “There are facts. There have been committees who reviewed the election. The numbers show us a truth, but the social media bubbles confuse us about that truth.”

Wildes and teachers across the country face a vexing and evolving challenge as the new school year begins and students return to the classroom following a roughly 18-month hiatus from normal in-person learning. Since the last time full classrooms congregated, a whole industry of misinformation has exploded online, spreading conspiracy theories on everything from the alleged steal of the presidential election, which Joe Biden won, to the prevalence of microchips in Covid-19 vaccines.

It’s bad enough that kids are exposed to dangerous untruths across their favorite social media apps like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. An equally large problem is that, while stuck at home during the pandemic, many students had their days of virtual schooling interrupted by screaming parents, who themselves had fallen deep into the internet’s darkest rabbit holes.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/04/qanon-and-anti-vaxxers-brainwashed-kids-stuck-at-home-during-pandemic.html

Ah yes it’s the classic red pill – blue pill dilemma. The people who’ve taken the red pill should fail to realize that this movie was written by two trans women and is actually a metaphor for how trans people are treated in society. But getting back to my point, staying at home for the last year and a half really amplified how much social media propaganda is screwing with people’s brains. This shit isn’t anything new either, it happened 100 years ago too. But now that people are emerging from the basement Zoom calls, so is the propaganda!

A controversial billboard advertising against COVID-19 vaccination mandates has been making the rounds across Texas and the U.S., and now Houston is its latest host.

The billboard, best recognized by its bold message, "DON'T BE BULLIED" was spotted this week along Interstate 45, near 9000 North Freeway.

A Minnesota organization, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, is the group behind the nationwide campaign and aims to build resistance to the vaccination mandates that the organization claims are currently being used as an effort to coerce Americans into getting the “jab.”

"The vaccination mandates and the associated bullying of those who choose not to get the shot is '...a power grab in the name of public health,'" said CCHF president and co-founder, Twila Brase.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/coronavirus/article/Don-t-Be-Bullied-anti-vaccination-mandate-16482449.php

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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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Hey everyone I don’t know about you but I could really use a drink!



So of course you know the idea behind this segment is that we have some drinks and we literally talk about anything in the news as long as it doesn’t involve politics. Because there is some seriously dark shit out there, so why not take a look at the lighter side of the news while indulging in our favorite beverages? That’s one of life’s few remaining pleasures! And I’m so happy I get to drink in front of an audience again! Safety protocols first, of course. This week, you know I love a good beef. And right now this is one of the beefiest beefs to ever beef. Tell me bartender, what goes well with a story about a music beef? A meat juice cocktail? What’s in that? No thanks I’ll just stick to my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. So who’s beefing this week? In this corner, we have heavy metal demi-god Corey Taylor, leader of the band Slipknot! And in this corner, we have failed rapper turned movie star turned Blink 182 protégé Machine Gun Kelly! Trust us, this one’s gonna get real weird real quick!

If you're a rock or metal fan, chances are you've heard at least something about the feud that's been going on between Slipknot's Corey Taylor and Machine Gun Kelly recently. In case you need a concise explanation of what the heck is going on, we've got you covered.

While it may appear that Kelly started the drama unprovoked earlier this month when he dissed Slipknot during his set at Riot Fest, the saga actually publicly started in February of this year with an interview that Taylor did. The 'Knot frontman insulted Kelly's change in musical direction from rap to rock without directly saying his name, but he certainly didn't hide his sentiments about it.

As the musicians started going back and forth at each other on social media, it was revealed that the quarrel actually began back when Taylor recorded a verse for MGK's 2020 album Tickets to My Downfall, which ultimately didn't make it on the album.

Back in February, Taylor did an interview with Cutter's Rockcast where he indirectly referenced Kelly's change in musical direction. They were discussing genres and trends, and Taylor said, "I am the worst old, fogey dude shaking his cane ever. And I hate everything, I hate all new rock for the most part — well, the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock. And I think he knows who he is, but that’s another story.”

https://loudwire.com/summary-corey-taylor-machine-gun-kelly-feud/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

Yeah keep ‘em coming! So it started with Taylor doing a verse on Machine Gun Kelly’s album from last year called “Tickets To My Downfall” and the verse didn’t make it onto the album. But here’s the thing that we’ve learned about the world of the beef – don’t throw shade at someone and then keep throwing shade at them! You know when you’re in a hole, the last thing you want to do is to keep digging. Yeah… dig up, stupid! Gotta love Chief Wiggum! But here’s how that went and it totally backfired in his face.

UPDATE (9/21): Machine Gun Kelly and Corey Taylor have taken their bickering to the final frontier — Twitter. On Monday, September 20th, MGK explained his side of the beef, saying Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor had recorded a verse for a song on Tickets to My Downfall, but “it was fucking terrible, so I didn’t use it.” MGK added: “He got mad about it, and talked shit to a magazine about the same album he was almost on. Y’all’s stories are all off. Just admit he’s bitter.”

About an hour later, Taylor replied: “I don’t like people airing private shit like a child. So this is all I’ll say: I didn’t do the track because I don’t like when people try to ‘write’ for me. I said NO to THEM.” Taylor proceeded to produce some “#receipts” in the form of an email exchange between him and Tickets to My Downfall co-producer, Travis Barker. Barker’s initial email included some notes from MGK — among them, “Can u tell him he fuckin killed it and I’m so stoked and HONORED he is even on it wtf !!!!” and “fuck yea tell him he rocks” — but in his reply, Taylor admitted that he wasn’t feeling some of the musical changes MGK was suggesting.

“I listened to the ideas and to be honest, I don’t think I’m the right guy for the track,” Taylor wrote. “Nothing personal, I just think if this is what MGK is looking for, someone else is the guy to do it. It’s ALL good, and I’m stoked for him — I hope you guys find the right fit for it. Hope you understand and I wish you guys the best with it. If I can help in any way, let me know.”

Machine Gun Kelly, hot off his red carpet “bout” with Conor McGregor at the MTV Video Music Awards, kept his fighting spirit alive by taking a few shots at Slipknot during their competing sets at Riot Fest in Chicago Sunday night, September 19th.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/machine-gun-kelly-who-dyed-tongue-black-thinks-its-weird-slipknot-wear-masks-1229255/

Oh man nothing beats a good aged whisky… ah! OK the Corey Taylor beef I get… but why would you go after Conor McGregor? You know that dude is a loose cannon. And you can’t have a black tongue and think it’s weird to wear masks! At least the masks you can take off! Now here’s where it gets weird and I told you it was going to. Of course MGK went and took things a bit too far, and don’t do that without getting shit thrown back at you in return!

Machine Gun Kelly has sure been getting into some scrapes recently. First, the rapper-turned-pop-punk hopeful got into a scrap with Conor McGregor at the VMAs, before using his spot on the Riot Fest bill to very publicly diss Slipknot while on stage.

The latter altercation led to a whole internet shit-storm which saw aggrieved metal fans and Maggots – as well as Corey Taylor himself – pile on to take swipes at Kelly online. But the ill-feeling wasn't contained to the internet, and carried on throughout the duration of his performance at this weekend's Louder Than Life festival in Kentucky.

As the vocalist took to the stage at the event – which mostly billed artists of the heavier persuasion – MGK found himself face to face with a sea of booing punters and middle fingers. Obviously, a lot of Slipknot fans were there in attendance.

Later in the set, MGK made his way to the photo pit, and was confronted by two fans jumping the barrier. As the evening's hostility reached boiling point, MGK was seen taking a swing at one of the fans, resulting in security stepping in to separate them. Seriously MGK, ever heard of Yoga? Meditation? Not giving a fuck? Perhaps not.
https://www.loudersound.com/news/machine-gun-kelly-throws-punch-at-fan-gets-booed-by-audience-and-dissed-by-triviums-matt-heafy

Somehow I don’t think that’s not nearly enough! Now this is the point in the beef where the manager of one side usually tells the person that they might want to take a step back and reevaluate things. But seriously, Machine Gun, you might want to do that. You’re clearly on the losing end of this fight because Corey Taylor is just too powerful of a voice in the metal community. So really… yeah take my advice and you might want to get away for a while. Even Tracy Jordan knew when he got crazy and pretended to be a Jedi that was where he hit rock bottom, so…

Following a week of beefing with Slipknot, Machine Gun Kelly was greeted with a chorus of boos throughout the singer-rapper’s Saturday set at the metal-leaning Louder Than Life Festival.

Last weekend, Machine Gun Kelly launched into a tirade at Chicago’s Riot Fest against Slipknot — who were playing at the same time on a neighboring stage — calling the group “old weird dudes with masks.” It was later revealed that there was some residual animosity over a nixed collaboration between MGK and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor.

MGK — an artist who, as Taylor hinted, “failed in one genre and decided to go rock” — brought his new punk sound to the metal-purist Louisville, Kentucky festival Saturday, and the reception was not welcoming: According to reports and video from the gig, after every song that Kelly performed, a serenade of boos and middle fingers rose up from the crowd.

At one point, Kelly got into verbally with a festival-goer, even threatening him with a Star Wars light saber that was onstage for some reason:

“I see you dude, I see you mad as fuck in your weird fucking outfit. I’m here for the same shit you’re here for, so it’s all good. Clearly, I’m not going nowhere, so just enjoy.” he told the audience member. “You keep fuckin’ with me, homie? Trained Jedi, bitch!”
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/machine-gun-kelly-booed-louder-than-life-fest-1232585/

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[font size="8"]Road To Recall: The Final Chapter
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Welcome back to our very last and final edition of Road To Recall! And I really hope that this is the last time we have to talk about conservatives attempting to steal elections from liberal politicians. Because this is just McCarthyism gone berserk. Look, I know that we’re all tired of these shenanigans and I know they must stop. So the question remains – how do we prevent this from happening again? Well that has been the talking point for most of the last couple of weeks here in The Golden State. And really unfortunately there’s no good answer. But you know what Newsom’s real success was? Larry Elder. Yup that’s right! His biggest opponent in the election was also the key to his success. Because Larry Elder is one of those guys who tries to impress people with his knowledge, but really, he comes off looking like an idiot.

Earlier this year, when California Gov. Gavin Newsom was searching for the right message to convince disengaged Democrats to vote against the effort to oust him in Tuesday's recall election, it would have been impossible to imagine a more perfect foil than conservative talk radio host Larry Elder.

In this deep blue state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 and only one governor has successfully been recalled, few progressive voters had viewed the recall of their governor as a real possibility until late July, when the polls tightened. The Delta coronavirus variant was taking hold, angering many vaccinated Californians, who had thought the worst was behind them. And Elder, who had announced his candidacy earlier that month, emerged as Newsom's chief opponent, promising that one of his first acts would be to eliminate the governor's mandate for state workers to get vaccinated or else face weekly testing.

Many Democratic voters in a state that President Joe Biden won by nearly 30 points had not engaged or paid much attention as Newsom made an amorphous argument that the recall was an attempted Republican takeover by acolytes of former President Donald Trump and a symbol of the enduring hold of "Trumpism."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/14/politics/larry-elder-covid-newsom-recall/index.html

Yeah there’s a lot of losers this week. A couple of winners, but mostly losers. And while this victory may be sweet, the war is just beginning. As I said last week there’s lots of recalls happing in other parts of the country and some of those could succeed. But the question here in California is how do we prevent the next partisan power grab? Is it a sign that democracy is failing or is it a wake up call to how badly conservatives want to gain power? It’s about 50/50.

An ominous four-word message issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign on the morning of Aug. 5 served as the shock Democrats needed to take seriously a recall election that could remove him from office: “This recall is close.”

Newsom’s warning in a fundraising email came just days after a poll indicated the once-popular Democratic governor who was elected in a 2018 landslide was facing the unthinkable prospect of losing his job in a state that hadn’t elected a Republican in a statewide race in 15 years.

The race is “close enough to start thinking about what it’d be like if we had a Republican governor in California. Sorry to put the thought in your head, but it’s true,” Newsom’s campaign wrote.

The alarmist message was quickly incorporated into Newsom’s remarks on the campaign trail – he was in serious trouble, he warned. The sequence of events combined to create a turning point in the race and helped energize California’s dominant Democratic voters, who until then appeared to be greeting the contest with a collective shrug.
https://apnews.com/article/california-recall-how-newsrom-turned-tide-94ec35b222a529e8ef97a023e342af41

Though the one thing about this recall election – besides revealing how many truly awful people live in California – is that it’s very eye opening about the changing demographics of the state. Will this be a model of what to watch in 2022? Because the midterms are coming and it’s a chance to give Joe Biden and the Dems their grades. But one alarming statistic out of the recall election is Riverside County, which went hard MAGA in this election. And they’re one of the largest in this state.

Riverside County is poised to become the largest county in California where voters favored recalling California Gov. Gavin Newsom in this month’s special election, according to an updated ballot count posted Monday afternoon.

Newsom easily survived the recall attempt at a statewide level, however the “yes” side in Riverside County is ahead with 50.5% of the vote, out of a total of more than 717,000 ballots cast in the county.

Only a few hundred ballots remain to be counted in Riverside County, and the next round of results will be posted upon the election's certification Thursday, according to the county registrar of voters. Once all county officials have reported their official tallies, the California Secretary of State is expected to certify the election results Oct. 22.

The “no” side was initially leading in Riverside County on Election Night and in a few subsequent updates, but a majority of the county's voters ultimately decided to support the unsuccessful recall attempt.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/09/27/california-recall-riverside-county-votes-yes-removing-newsom/5892215001/

Yup! And here’s the thing you have to realize about elections – they’re all about star power! And the closest thing that they had to a star? Larry Elder! The reason why Arnold Schwarzenegger won in 2008 was because he had star power! Who did they have? Talk radio hosts… executives… car dealer owners… retail clerks. You think any of them had a chance? Hell no! Which leaves us with Caitlyn Jenner. Sorry, but you lose. And the GOP is more divisive than it’s ever been. You chose this path, you live with it!

Caitlyn Jenner said Tuesday she would run for political office again following her participation in California's recent gubernatorial recall election, which she said "opened my eyes to political life."

Jenner, a reality-TV personality and former Olympic athlete, was one of 46 candidates who campaigned to replace California Governor Gavin Newsom in the state's September 14 vote. The recall was ultimately unsuccessful in ousting Newsom from office after a majority of California voters decided to keep the Democrat for the remainder of his term.

Jenner addressed the election during a Tuesday appearance on The View and was asked if she would consider running for political office again.

"Would I run again? Yes," Jenner said. "I want to stay involved. It really opened my eyes to political life."
https://www.newsweek.com/caitlyn-jenner-says-failed-california-recall-opened-my-eyes-political-life-1633619

This concludes our 4 part mini-series! Back to Red State Diaries next week! The end! We did it!




[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Primus[/font]



My next musical guest are touring paying tribute to one of the greatest progressive rock bands of all time, Rush! You can see them on the “A Farewell To Kings” Tour with Wolfmother through October 30th which includes a stop here in Denver October 21st and 22nd! Playing the Rush classic Xanadu, give it up for Primus!

Thank you Denver! We’re off to Long Beach next with the famous Wheel Of Corruption and live music from Pearl Jam! Also don’t forget next week is the taping of the series premiere of Holy Shit: The Sunday Sermons!

See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded At: Comedy Works, Denver, CO
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