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Marc DB's avatar

Bill Maher is cleverly trying to play both sides of the fence. But he’s lying. That’s right, “lying” not “misinformation”. He’s lying. There were many people who knew exactly what was going on what what to do about it. And there were not “people guessing”, but respected medical doctors who said this vaccine was bad, medical professionals who did not want to take an experimental vaccine rushed through an empty gesture of useless testing. Medical professionals who saw that isolation of young children would be very detrimental to their learning & growth. That improperly wearing masks as most people who wore did provided no protection at all against this virus. That it did originate in a germ warfare lab in Wuhan, that has a record of sloppy work & escaped pathogens, not a farmers market. Lies & he continues the monologue of lies to protect his interests by pretending to be the political gadfly. Liar!

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

This is the closest anyone in his cohort is going to admit the disaster that was Covidmania. American liberals see themselves as being highly intelligent and compassionate (certainly more than anyone not in their tribe) and to admit they were wrong on every aspect of the pandemic—that it was a danger to everyone, that examining its origins was "racist", that schools, beaches restaurants needed to be closed, that Fauci was some sort of infallible and altruistic "public servant" etc—is impossible for them, not to mention admitting that these former vehement opponents of Big Pharma demanded everyone submit to an experimental product crafted by Pfizer—or else!—only as a way to attack and punish dissenters is something they could never acknowledge.

Much of what we're living through is grounded in liberals' becoming everything they claim to hate and the distractions and lies they craft to hide this (from themselves and others).

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Secret Squirrel's avatar

When they arrested a guy on a surfboard alone in the ocean that should have told everyone that this was not for our protection. It was to control us.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

i went to Venice Beach right around that time and was shocked to see that the world-famous skate bowl had been filled in by sand—a really petty act committed by really petty bureaucrats.

but even more shocking was that in this place of self-styled rebels and radicals who never let a chance go by to tell you how much they hate cops, capitalists, tech bros etc, no one raised a peep of protest and everyone silently stood around in their stupid masks (despite being young, healthy and outside in the warm sun).

tribalism can get so strong it short-circuits almost every brain, which is the only way I can explain how people can denounce "capitalism" one day then demand you roll up your sleeve for Pfizer the next day.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

I too was shocked about many things.

But the one that got me pretty hard emotionally was that before we left for Florida the community HOA spray foamed two playgrounds in the neighborhood.

The cruelty is totally lost on these people.

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Secret Squirrel's avatar

I was horrified by the sand in the skateboard place. Just pure spite. Cruelty for spite. Evil. Can there be any other reason? No. And yet people went along. i no longer wonder how the Germans went along with the Nazis. Humans are weak. What is the antidote?

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

I was horrified too, but also because like I said, having lived there, I'd seen people join an angry protest at the drop of a hat (for things as trivial as a proposed tech co's headquarters building, the cops having moved some bum's suitcases, even the boardwalk being steam-cleaned (!)), and yet all the rad hippies, punks and skaters dumbly watched this obvious mass hysteria take away the West Side's main outdoor amenity and dutifully obeyed.

I have no antidotes besides knowing that humans in crowds are not to be trusted, professed principles are mere adnorments until they're tested by circumstances, politicians are compulsive liars, and that 9 out of 10 people will obey their peer group no matter what—wisdom is the best antidote.

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Blair's avatar

Yeah, there is no doubt Bill is a coward and a liar.

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Marc DB's avatar

To be fair to someone who earns their living by this sort of public presence, he sees a very possibly that Trump will be reelected & this will be a president on a second term without any need to appeal for reelection. He’s not certain which way the wind will blow. By straddling the fence, metaphorically, he hopes to continue afterwards. But his lies stand out clearly as the fence is not a place to stand.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

I think Maher is actually honest about the Covid situation, perhaps that's the bit of honesty that makes some people trust him when he's being dishonest. A lot of Trumpers seem to forget that a good deal of the Covid stuff including the rushed development of the Jabs happened under Trump on his watch.

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Alan Devincentis's avatar

He does keep himself relevant by actually not taking any particular stance. So many are duped by that.

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Valerie's avatar

Every week I’m surprised by how surprised I am. I really thought I couldn’t be surprised by these quotes anymore. And yet, here they are, the crazies outdoing themselves week after week.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

I think Louise Perry is on to something there, I'm not sure if this is just about social standing or about unfulfilled maternal urges. I think it's a bit of a general trend that administration both in government and the private sector (e.g. HR departments) is slowly morphing into a toxic matriarchy where every aspect of behavior has to be micro-managed and everyone is treated like a child with no agency. Everything has to be nice and safe, feelings have to be protected at all cost. It's no secret that a lot of those administrative jobs are filled with (often childless) women who seem to act out their maternal instincts in an unhealthy way.

At some point you'll be fined for not putting on a coat when it's cold outside or when you didn't finish your vegan supper. ;)

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

Social Justice dogma is stupid and malevolent but its tactics are usually brilliant. By piggybacking on the Civil Rights movement and claiming all their social schemes are just about "compassion" and "fairness" they immediately grabbed onto the Achilles' Heel of most Westerners, most esp the educated class and especially secular women. It has pushed a new egg into its nest, this one called the Marginalized Victim, that it knew they'd fight to protect like an angry mama.

So much of modern Leftism tracks pretty well w Munchausen by Proxy: tell some poor child (usually either black, gay or now Trans) that those wicked Other People want to hurt them, that all of society and history is designed to injure them, but that Mama is here now to protect and nurture them.

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Alan Devincentis's avatar

Read the lyrics to “mama” from “ the wall”. “Mama’s gonna help build the wall”

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DMC's avatar

its like maybe the people who said "they were never gonna stop with masks" were on to something.

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David Burse's avatar

"At some point you'll be fined for not putting on a coat when it's cold outside "

Wear a wrap or take the rap!

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Apr 5, 2024
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Ministry of Truth's avatar

And I think a lot of people also remember the excesses of the religious right, there is still this frame of reference where the mean religious fundamentalists won't leave gay people alone. Most people haven't noticed that the fundamentalists are now on the other side and their goal no longer is to be just left alone and keep the government out of their pants and bedrooms.

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Alan Devincentis's avatar

I don’t remember the excesses of the religious right. I pretty much remember your sexuality is your problem. It’s why we wear clothes. And no, we don’t give a rats patootie what you do in your bedrooms amongst adults. Try to indoctrinate kids,well then we’re entitled to vaporize your ass. No problem. But now, now, every public school in the country is telling children it’s normal to want to cut your parts off. Yeah, no. That’s a line they crossed. It’s over.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

Look at e.g. Rick Santorum for an example of the kind of person I'm talking about. Of course he wasn't as successful as the woke left but there are a lot of people on the right as well who don't just want to live and let live and mind their own business.

The left seems to be more successful at this mainly because they have an easier time of concealing it in either the language of caring/compassion or liberty and control most of the legacy corporate media as well as social media platforms.

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Alan Devincentis's avatar

Last sentence is so key. I’m personally not super religious. I just know that you can turn off the fools that follow those slick money grabbers, and their unbelievable clown shows to fleece the sheep. But the prongs own everything else. All of it. Unions. All of them. Press. All of it. Bureaucracy, 90% of it. It’s become impossible to be a thoughtful conservative. No, if you have guns, believe in free unrestricted free speech, and tiny honest governance, you are a right wing extremist radical domestic terrorist. End of story. Throw in a bible, you’re a veritable nazi.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

Of course believing in limited government is an affront to anyone in government, that's one of the things they all seem to agree on.

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Frank Lee's avatar

"• “I’ve lived in New York City all my life. I know what the problem is. And believe me, front and center is what happened the other day. This doesn’t have to do with politics, this has to do with race.” — Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, regarding members of the New York City Fire Department "

LOL. He in New York City all his life and thus owns the upper-class, liberal-elite, status-craving, bubble sickness called woke neoracism. Right... those firefighters, many of them whom are minorities, would have a problem with a black female conservative AG that stayed out of national politics and did her job to keep New York safe from crime. Right.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

This article is also interesting: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/08/how-chinese-students-experience-america

They were concerned about the economic and political situation in China, but they also often felt out of place in Pittsburgh. American racial attitudes sometimes mystified them. One engineer had taken a Pitt psychology class that frequently touched on race, and he said that it reminded him of the political-indoctrination classes at Sichuan University. In both situations, he felt that students weren’t supposed to ask questions. “They’re just telling you how to play with words,” he said. “Like in China when they say socialism is good. In America you will say, ‘Black lives matter.’ They are actually the same thing. When you are saying socialism is good, you are saying that capitalism is bad. You are hiding something behind your words. When you say, ‘Black lives matter,’ what are you saying? You are basically saying that Asian lives don’t matter, white lives don’t matter.”

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David Burse's avatar

Thanks for the link. It was not paywalled, so I read the whole article. Good read.

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Frank Lee's avatar

It has been fascinating to watch Matt Taibbi emerge from his campus and journalism culture fog where he defined himself as a liberal progressive to see the light for what the left and Democrats really are... and what conservatives are fighting for and against. The only downer for me is to see how difficult it has been for him... how much time and effort he has had to put into his own salvation.

This is why I think we are blowing it by dismissing the criticality for taking back the education system from the collectivist woke radicals. Once ideologically imprinted, it is nearly impossible to change a worldview. The problems with our corrupt and biased media are multifaceted, but I see the primary root cause as being the education system pumping out ideological clones that believe their role is as an activist and not one of a traditional ethical journalist... like Matt strives to be.

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Brigid LaSage's avatar

Absolutely agree. Revolutionary socialists are brainwashing an entire generation on our dime, and a Maoist-style cultural revolution is already happening. We have to take back education by requiring institutional neutrality for anything getting public funding.

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Graham Cunningham's avatar

“When is ‘Trans People Give It A Rest For Five Goddamned Minutes Day’ this year?”

What if we run a story that Hitler was Transgender.....would THAT shut them up? You heard it here first.

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David Burse's avatar

"would THAT shut them up?"

No. Progressives have changed their views on Hitler, and have come to now understand he was simply fighting Zionism. Trump will no longer be Trump-Hitler. He will transition into Trump-Bibi.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

That whole transgender visibility thing is a typical example of a hyped up story, it fell on Easter this year by coincidence, last year no one gave a shit. But it's great for either side to score more points in a rather stupid culture war, never mind all the more important shit going on let's keep our eyes on the trannies.

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Becoming the Rainbow's avatar

Oops -- I just said much the same thing before I read your post but you said it better. It´s all a bunch of hyped up nonsense.

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David Burse's avatar

Perhaps they should declare a "no one gives two fucks about trannies" day? But, that would be everyday for me. I'm also losing interest in caring about kids deciding to neuter/mutilate themselves, and "adults" saying "as you wish." Maybe this is just nature's way of culling the herd.

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DD's avatar

Love the Ann Coulter quote!

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Becoming the Rainbow's avatar

I hesitate to say anything remotely positive about Biden, especially here, but I recently read that Biden did not declare Easter "Trans Day of Visibility," or at least he was not the first to do so. Trans Day of Visibility has been on the same calendar date for years now, including when Trump was president. Easter has nothing to do with it. Criticize Biden, by all means, but criticize him in ways that make sense. There´s plenty of material if you look.

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Brad's avatar

Didn't realize that, apologies

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

i love watching more signs of the New Faith eclipsing the Old Faith...confirms all my priors!

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Kutsen's avatar

Whitehouse (dot) gov:

"NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility."

You're right that it's been around a while (it's been a day since since 2009), but he did step forward as president to "proclaim" it on Easter Sunday.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

Who knows, maybe pissing off Christians and the Fox News crowd was just a bonus. I think Biden made those proclamations in the preceding years as well.

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Cynthia M's avatar

My understanding is that he made the proclamation for the first time this year. It may have been considered Transgender Day of Visibility in other years, but I don't think you make a proclamation about something more than once. I could be wrong...

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

Here is last years proclamation: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/03/30/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility/

Biden might have forgotten he already did it last year ;) It's also on the same day as César Chávez day (Biden also made a proclamation about that in 2023), so a belated Hail César to everyone. Although celebrating a guy named Caesar on Easter might also be offensive to Christians.

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DMC's avatar

the calculus is there. The nominal christians voting for Biden will ignore this and the chance to put a thumb into the eye of the above is seen as a win. Pathetic as victories go but you gotta work with what you got.

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Ministry of Truth's avatar

I'm not even sure this is intentional. There are loads of presidential proclamations that go out and I bet a guy like Biden who doesn't even know how or when his son died probably doesn't know that Cesar Chavez day and Transgender Visibility Day is on March 31st. There were 11 total proclamations/actions on March 29th. I think that's just a civil servant on autopilot.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/

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DMC's avatar

fair point. but the staff who thought it was a good idea probably thought the same. and they are not wrong

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Heyjude's avatar

While I agree that there are plenty of other reasons to criticize Biden, I think it’s a mistake to slough this off as no big deal.

There’s a difference between activists proclaiming a Trans Day of Visibility, apparently starting in 2009, and the President issuing a proclamation on Easter (and I am not religious). In past years, trans people have cavorted topless on the White House Lawn. To me there’s no doubt this was done as a deliberate affront to those he knew would be upset by it.

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Becoming the Rainbow's avatar

You´re right that Biden seems to be in favor of trans visibility like no president before. If that´s a demerit in your eyes then so be it. But he "proclaimed" Trans Day of Visibility to be March 31 on several previous years. The only difference this year was the date happened to fall on Easter.

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Bill Heath's avatar

It’s been many years since I thought about Ann Coulter. She has always had a talent for articulating our worst thoughts

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Alan Devincentis's avatar

Reading that article in the New Yorker regarding a school in a place that is literally a parody of humanity, I think I threw up in my mouth a little. Hole fuck, are those people ill! I think I know where the problem lies. Its progressive retards allowed to run amok. You people in Amherst should be given any firearm you want, so y’all can kill each other. Yikes, what a fucked up state is Mass.

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David Burse's avatar

Dreyfus = Dufus.

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DMC's avatar

He seems to be a person who is pretty sure that his kid is going to go to whatever college he/her/they/xim.... want to go to and does not understand why the proles are so unhappy after the chocolate ration went up again.

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David Burse's avatar

IDK whether he has kids. It would be Karma if he had a daughter in a high school sport who lost out (or was injured - not that I want that to happen) by a male pretending to be a girl. Th comment was super belittling and ignorant as to the whole reason that we have female-only sports to begin with.

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DMC's avatar

Id add condescending to that. he's telling the people complaining that they are not enlightened like him. he's the same guy who votes against 2A and police funding who has armed private security.

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