Something To Laugh About In The Midst Of A Deadly Pandemic!

Señor Trumpanzee doesn't listen to advisors much, does he? What if Michael Spicer was called on to snazz up the White House's daily coronavirus press briefings a little and make Trump sound... well, worth listening to? I think you'll enjoy the video above. And... a bonus, my old pal Roy Zimmerman-- from The Foremen-- did a musical presentation you'll probably enjoy too:




OWNING THE LIBS!

Yesterday, Trump suggested that MAGA-people-- who are generally as functionally illiterate as he is-- inject themselves with "the disinfectant that knocks [coronavirus] out in a minute." If MAGA-people run around without masks refusing to social distance in churches and barbershops, many will get sick and some will die. Sounds good-- except when they get sick, they will infect normal people, so that's a bad way to kill off the MAGA-strain. But this bleach drinking thing... This is the best of all worlds. They basically just commit suicide and its a mitzvah for society and, ironically, a step towards making America great again. And since they don't read, they are likely to read this statement from the company that makes Lysol:

As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).

As with all products, our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information [The company believes it has a] responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts.

Hours after he spoke, Trump's own EPA issued a simple statement for his simpleminded followers: "Never apply the product to yourself or others. Do not ingest disinfectant products."

Chip Proser, the artist responsible for the poster below, calls it a Darwin Award Celebration. I just think of it as COVID-palooza... for Trump's America.

Not everyone thinks this is funny. Brandy X Lee, the author and Yale psychiatrist who has been warning about Trump's deteriorating mental state for a few years, wrote that "the office of the U.S. presidency has become a locus of grave psychological dysfunction. Seldom do we see our warnings realized in real life with such recurrent, precise confirmation, as if on schedule. The president’s latest suggestion that injecting bodies with disinfectant, or irradiating them with ultraviolet light, could help with COVID-19 is only the latest, blatant example of his malady: His boundless willingness to place the nation in harm’s way for his slightest gain. Given our track record, the world should know that we were not speaking frivolously of his dangerousness and that, were  Trump to continue in the presidency, not only the United States but the world would see vast, unnecessary increases in suffering and death."

She brought up what many people are thinking but what you almost never hear in the mainstream media: "We will never know to what degree the COVID-19 pandemic could have been attenuated or contained altogether, like other near-pandemics in the past, had Trump not disbanded the nation’s global pandemic response system two years earlier, out of pathological envy of his predecessor, President Barack Obama. It was a system that experts lauded throughout the world and voiced outcry for when it was dissolved... We should recognize the president’s behavior for what it is: a mental problem... His pathological drive to deflect blame and to attribute his errors to an outside 'enemy' will continue to exert greater emotional force than any rational planning, as well as to have a powerful, hypnotic effect on his followers, as is the characteristic of pathology. As his other mismanagements contribute to what seems will be a Great Depression-level economic devastation, he has called for armed insurrection against Democratic governors who are unwilling to reopen the economy."

These are truly frightening developments that likely foreshadow potentially catastrophic international crises to come. Amid a worldwide economic depression on top of major misery and death from the pandemic, geopolitical confrontations that this president has already brought to a brink are likely to explode.

While it is likely he will use his presidential powers and the current health crisis to try to postpone the November elections or to annul the results, it is also likely that he will turn to creating new crises if this does not seem workable in his mind. We simply cannot risk these greater dangers while a seriously mentally compromised person is wielding the powers of the presidency. Past behavior is a reliable predictor of future behavior, and the remaining nine months of his presidency are looking to be the most dangerous of all, for the United States and for the world.

Because these patterns are familiar in mental health settings, thousands of mental health professionals have tried to fulfill our professional responsibility to protect society by speaking up. Recently, a giant in our field, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, has joined us in stating that the president is “crazy.” We believe that prevention is important, and we have issued a prescription. Just as we can choose whether to coordinate our fight against the novel coronavirus or stubbornly stay with a lethal course, we can choose whether to address the greatest mental health emergency of our time or not. The healthy choice seems clear.

Devin Nunes Still Needs A Hug-- And Not The Kind Of Anaconda Hug That Devin Nunes' Mom Wants To Give Him

For some reason I could never understand, no one on Twitter ever pointed out that Devin Nunes is a hermaphrodite. OK let that go by. But we really do need to ask ourselves if Nunes is a shameless partisan hack-- someone who abuses power and the legal process to injure his political opponents, who plays fast and loose with the truth to advance partisan goals, and who’s prone to conspiratorial thinking on the flimsiest of grounds. That either is or isn't the case. Please-- a yes or no answer!

I couldn't resist a quickie post about Nunes on Tuesday after his attorney lamented about how "he endured an orchestrated defamation campaign... that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life." God, it sounds almost like someone made him work for wages that couldn't sustain a family or like someone took away his family's healthcare. Poor Devin! The terrible mocking must end-- or else! His ridiculous lawsuit is, as Matt Ford put it in the New Republic, a masterpiece of Republican Grievance. Nunes has done the impossible and surpassed even the short-fingered vulgarian in hypersensitivity, even claiming that the defendants in his absurd lawsuit are "part of a grand conspiracy to cripple his political career." The GOP has no issues with broad appeal... so now they're depending on this kind of crap to entice the aggrieved among us to vote for them.

Who’s leading this dastardly plot? Nunes doesn’t quite say. Maybe it’s the Democratic Party, he suggests. Or unnamed liberal donors. Or even hostile foreign adversaries. Whoever these hostile actors are, they’re not only causing him grievous harm; they’re contributing to “the corruption of American democracy and society.”

What the lawsuit really demonstrates, though, is the stunning vindictiveness of a powerful elected official who would use the legal system to punish his critics. If the lawsuit was intended to vindicate Nunes and his reputation, it has achieved precisely the opposite.

Nunes rose to national fame over the last two years as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, a perch he used to undermine the Russia investigation and defend Trump. In the complaint, he depicts himself as an honorable public servant who’s been wrongly maligned by his powerful opponents-- only one of whom, longtime Republican political operative Liz Mair, is explicitly named. The others are unknown to him: the Twitter users responsible for anonymous parody accounts such as “Devin Nunes’ Mom,” “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” “Fire Devin Nunes,” and “Devin Nunes’ Grapes.”

Nunes obliquely implies that Mair is in cahoots with these accounts’ owners, but offers no proof to support the theory. Either way, like a high school teacher hit from behind with a spitball, he’s determined to find out who’s responsible. “The identity of those behind the Twitter accounts is a matter of great public concern,” Nunes told the court. “Whether the accounts are controlled by wealthy Democrats, the Democratic National Committee, an opposition research firm, such as Fusion GPS, the ‘Russians,’ the ‘Chinese,’ or some other foreign government or non-governmental organization, the corruption of American democracy and society by intentional falsehoods, fraud and defamation must stop.”

What horrible things did these accounts say about Nunes to warrant the judiciary’s intervention? The account named “Devin Nunes’ Mom” receives the most attention in the complaint. Its owner frequently posted caustic remarks about him and his actions toward the Russia investigation. One tweet said that Nunes was unfit to run the House Intelligence Committee, while another joked that he was “voted ‘Most Likely to Commit Treason’ in high school.” Some tweets are indistinguishable from legitimate political criticism. Others are more puerile, implying that Nunes wanted to commit sexual acts with Trump and other top Republicans.

“In her endless barrage of tweets, Devin Nunes’ Mom maliciously attacked every aspect of Nunes’ character, honesty, integrity, ethics and fitness to perform his duties as a United States Congressman,” Nunes wrote in the complaint. Twitter apparently suspended the account this month for impersonating a real person, but not before he “suffered substantial insult, humiliation, embarrassment, pain, mental suffering and damage to his reputation as a result of the unprecedented personal and professional attacks on his character.”

Why did these tweets wound Nunes so deeply? The accounts’ jibes resemble much of the political commentary on Twitter—including the president’s. Nunes’s real grievance appears to be with Twitter itself. “Twitter represents that it enforces its Terms and Rules equally and that it does not discriminate against conservatives who wish to use its ‘public square,’” he told the court. “This is not true. This is a lie. Twitter actively censors and shadow-bans conservatives, such as Plaintiff, thereby eliminating his voice while amplifying the voices of his Democratic detractors.”

Twitter has denied that it uses shadow banning-- making a user’s posts visible to themselves but invisible to others-- but that hasn’t stopped Republican lawmakers, including Trump, from making the claim as part of a broader narrative that Silicon Valley is censoring conservative voices.

Nunes’s claim for damages also doesn’t hold up. He says that Twitter bears legal responsibility for any defamatory posts made on its platform. In reality, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act generally shields websites from civil liability related to third-party content on their platforms. Nunes himself should be pretty familiar with this: As Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown pointed out, he and his colleagues have been working to change Section 230 for this exact reason.

Nunes adopts a patriotic mien when it comes to the broader free speech issues at stake. “Access to Twitter is essential for meaningful participation in modern-day American Democracy,” he told the court. “A candidate without Twitter is a losing candidate. The ability to use Twitter is a vital part of modern citizenship. A presence on Twitter is essential for an individual to run for office or engage in any level of political organizing in modern America. This is because Twitter is not merely a website: it is the modern town square.”

This paean to civic speech might be more convincing if Nunes didn’t ask the court to force Twitter to “reveal the names and contact information” behind four of the pseudonymous accounts. What’s more, he also wants the court to “permanently enjoin and order Twitter” to suspend Mair and the other accounts. Twitter is a vital part of modern American citizenship, Nunes says, and he wants the government to strip people of access to it for being mean to him.

But Americans have every right to mock and insult their elected officials. During the election of 1796, the first contested presidential race in the nation’s history, Alexander Hamilton wrote a pseudonymous pamphlet that accused Thomas Jefferson of having an affair with an enslaved woman he owned. (The allegation later turned out to be true.) Jefferson’s supporters jeered at John Adams as “His Rotundity” and called him a hermaphrodite, while Adams’s camp accused Jefferson of supporting prostitution and incest. Adams later arrested one of Jefferson’s pamphleteers during the election of 1800 and tried to prosecute him under the Alien and Sedition Acts. The American tradition of salacious and spurious political attacks is alive and well in the Trump era.



The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, a Supreme Court case from 1964, set a formidable threshold for defamation claims by public figures like Nunes. The justices cited a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” even if it includes “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” The tweets against Nunes appear to fall well within those bounds. But Nunes ignores that landmark ruling (perhaps because, like Justice Clarence Thomas, he would like to see Sullivan overturned). Instead, he cites a smattering of other cases to defend his “fundamental constitutional interest and entitlement to the uninterrupted enjoyment of his reputation.” One of his longest citations isn’t from law, but a passage from Shakespeare’s Othello in which Iago bemoans that “he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”

So why embark on what appears to be a doomed legal endeavor? Perhaps Nunes genuinely believes he’s the victim of a conspiracy theory by Democrats and America’s foreign adversaries. If there’s evidence to support this, Nunes doesn’t offer it. “The full scope of the conspiracy, including the names of all participants and the level of involvement of donors and members of the Democratic Party, is unknown at this time and will be the subject of discovery in this action,” he noted in the complaint. In other words, Nunes wants to go on a fishing expedition to satiate his political grievances, and he wants the courts to light the way.

Or maybe Nunes is trying to use the legal system to get revenge on his political opponents. Defending oneself against litigation is onerous even for those with the financial means to fight back. (Mair urged her Twitter followers on Monday night to donate to her legal defense fund.) The rich have always wielded the American legal system as a cudgel against critics, as Peter Thiel did in financing the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that ultimately killed Gawker. That a member of Congress would attempt to do so is deeply disturbing.

Nunes’s largely anonymous Twitter critics cast him as a shameless partisan hack-- someone who abuses power and the legal process to injure his political opponents, who plays fast and loose with the truth to advance partisan goals, and who’s prone to conspiratorial thinking on the flimsiest of grounds. They say he lacks the temperament and honor to serve on the House Intelligence Committee and safeguard the nation’s secrets. His lawsuit only proves them right.

The headline in the most widely read newspaper in Nunes' district, the Fresno Bee, was By suing Twitter and parody account @DevinCow, Nunes makes himself a laughingstock. Reporter Marek Warszawski wrote that "unless the Tulare Republican plans to undo the Constitution, his lawsuit will never get out of the barn" and reminded readers that Nunes had been a co-sponsor of a piece of legislation by Tom Rice (R-SC) in 2017 called the "Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act."

Nunes’ antics would be tolerable, at least somewhat, if he were good at his job. Which is to serve the people of his district, not act as President Trump’s mole. Unfortunately, after eight terms on Capitol Hill, his list of legislative accomplishments looks up to an earthworm.

Little wonder Nunes hasn’t held a public forum around these parts since 2010. (And, no, those chummy radio appearances and speeches at Republican fundraisers don’t count.) He doesn’t care to engage anyone, besides those in lockstep with him, on air quality, water, immigration, nothing.

Despite the doltishness of the conspiracy theories he propagates, Nunes is no dummy. He knows what he’s doing is legally bogus. The only reason to file it is for attention it gets him.

Since Democrats took control of the House, Nunes’ national status has shrunk. This lawsuit, and those he threatens to file, is nothing but a politician grasping at paper straws to stay relevant.

Nunes will use the headlines and Fox News appearances to raise even more money among like-minded Republicans. Thanks to his staunch defense of Trump, our congressman raised $12.6 million (and spent $11.5) on his re-election campaign.

Now the coffers need replenishing, so why not pull a stunt that will only ingratiate him with right-wing hearts and minds? Especially those with deep pockets to go with their persecution complexes.

And, by the way, the very small and numerically insignificant Nunes' Cow twitter account (about 1,200 followers before Nunes filed his frivolous suit), is about to overtake has now overtaken Nunes' own Twitter account in terms of followers. Nunes has 397,000 followers as of this writing, and Devin Nunes' Cow now has a rapidly expanding 574,000 followers. As you can see, on Tuesday after the brouhaha had already begun, the Cow account had barely 70,000 followers. Thanks to Nunes' whining, the Cow account can reach almost 500 hundred times as many people as it used to-- sharing everything Nunes' wishes no one was thinking about or talking about. Still no declared candidates against him... yet.

Nunes Claims He "Endured An Orchestrated Defamation Campaign... That No Human Being Should Ever Have To Bear And Suffer In Their Whole Life"

Yesterday, Fox News broke the story that reviled Central Valley Republican, Devin Nunes, a Trump/Putin appendage is suing... suing... suing. The doesn't like being mocked and he's probably one of the most-mocked members of Congress-- after Gym Jordan. Who knew he was such an advocate for political correctness though?

Nunes, who has 390,000 Twitter followers (a lot for a Republican), wants a quarter billion dollars in compensatory damages-- and another $350,000 in punitive damages-- from Twitter, several parody accounts, like DevinNunesCow and DevinNunesMom and from Republican strategist Liz Mair, for what amounts to... making him feel badly and upsetting his days. This has got to be the silliest lawsuit ever filed.

He accused Twitter of "of 'shadow-banning conservatives' to secretly hide their posts, systematically censoring opposing viewpoints, and totally 'ignoring' lawful complaints of repeated abusive behavior.

In a complaint filed in Virginia state court on Monday, obtained by Fox News, Nunes claimed Twitter wanted to derail his work on the House Intelligence Committee, which he chaired until 2019, as he looked into alleged and apparent surveillance abuses by the government. Nunes said Twitter was guilty of "knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory-- providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers-- thereby facilitating defamation on its platform."

The lawsuit alleged defamation, conspiracy and negligence, as well as violations of the state's prohibition against "insulting words"-- effectively fighting words that tend towards "violence and breach of the peace." The complaint sought not only damages, but also an injunction compelling Twitter to turn over the identities behind numerous accounts he said harassed and defamed him.

“Twitter is a machine," Nunes' personal attorney, Steven S. Biss, told Fox News. "It is a modern-day Tammany Hall. Congressman Nunes intends to hold Twitter fully accountable for its abusive behavior and misconduct.”

Although federal law ordinarily exempts services like Twitter from defamation liability at all levels, Nunes' suit said the platform has taken such an active role in curating and banning content-- as opposed to merely hosting it-- that it should face liability like any other organization that defames.

"Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon," Nunes' legal team wrote. "Twitter is 'responsible' for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content."

Additionally, as the complaint stated, Twitter has a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid hosting outwardly defamatory content because of its increasingly important role in current affairs.

"Access to Twitter is essential for meaningful participation in modern-day American Democracy," the complaint stated. "A candidate without Twitter is a losing candidate. The ability to use Twitter is a vital part of modern citizenship. A presence on Twitter is essential for an individual to run for office or engage in any level of political organizing in modern America. That is because Twitter is not merely a website: it is the modern town square. Twitter is equivalent to the private owner of a public forum who has fully opened its property to the general public for purposes of permitting the public’s free expression and debate. That is, in fact, what Twitter has always claimed to be."

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has testified previously before Congress that his platform is a kind of "digital public square," although he has insisted that Twitter, as a private company, retains the right to censor speech.

In large part because of Twitter's actions, Nunes "endured an orchestrated defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life" in the past year, according to the complaint.

The complaint also named specific Twitter accounts that spread allegedly defamatory material about Nunes. One defendant, identified as "Liz" Mair, purportedly published tweets that "implied that Nunes colluded with prostitutes and cocaine addicts, that Nunes does cocaine, and that Nunes was involved in a 'Russian money laundering front,'" according to Nunes' lawyers.

The complaint quoted a June 22, 2018 tweet from Mair that implied Nunes invested in a winery that "allegedly used underage hookers to solicit investment."

Mair did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. Fox News has also reached out to Twitter for comment on the lawsuit, and was told only that "we're not commenting at this time." (The lawsuit seeks joint and several liability, which permits plaintiffs to recover from one defendant, and then leaves the defendants to sort out what each owes.)

The complaint also named "Devin Nunes’ Mom," "a person who, with Twitter’s consent, hijacked Nunes’ name, falsely impersonated Nunes’ mother, and created and maintained an account on Twitter (@DevinNunesMom) for the sole purpose of attacking, defaming, disparaging and demeaning Nunes."

Nunes lawyers' wrote, "In her endless barrage of tweets, Devin Nunes’ Mom maliciously attacked every aspect of Nunes’ character, honesty, integrity, ethics and fitness to perform his duties as a United States Congressman."

One tweet from the account, cited by the complaint, contained a crude drawing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump, and Nunes in a physically linked, symbiotic arrangement like the characters in the horror film "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)."

The complaint goes to allege that the account gave factually false and defamatory information, mixed in with impermissibly "insulting" fighting words.

"Devin Nunes’ Mom," the complaint alleges, "stated that Nunes had turned out worse than Jacob Wohl; falsely accused Nunes of being a racist, having 'white supremist friends' and distributing 'disturbing inflammatory racial propaganda'; falsely accused Nunes of putting up a 'Fake News MAGA' sign outside a Texas Holocaust museum; falsely stated that Nunes would probably join the 'Proud Boys', if it weren’t for that unfortunate 'nomasturbating’ rule'; disparagingly called him a 'presidential fluffer and swamp rat'; falsely stated that Nunes had brought 'shame' to his family; repeatedly accused Nunes of the crime of treason, compared him to Benedict Arnold, and called him a 'traitor.'"

As of Monday afternoon, the @DevinNunesMom account was suspended by Twitter when Fox News tried to access it. The complaint stated that "Twitter only suspended the account in 2019 after Nunes’ real mother, Toni Dian Nunes, complained. ... Twitter permitted @DevinNunesMom, for instance, to tweet and retweet with impunity throughout 2018."

However, according to the complaint, "Twitter did nothing to investigate or review the defamation that appeared in plain view on its platform. Twitter consciously allowed the defamation of Nunes to continue" despite reports and purported reviews by Twitter's content moderators.

"As part of its agenda to squelch Nunes’ voice, cause him extreme pain and suffering, influence the 2018 Congressional election, and distract, intimidate and interfere with Nunes’ investigation into corruption and Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election, Twitter did absolutely nothing," the complaint stated.

Another account named as a defendant was "Devin Nunes' Cow," or @DevinCow, which purportedly called Nunes a "treasonous cowpoke" and an "udder-ly worthless" criminal.

The timing and substance of the tweets, according to Nunes' team, suggested that Mair was working jointly with @DevinCow and @DevinNunesMom accounts. Mair's LinkedIn profile, the complaint notes, contains the boast: "What do I do for [my] clients? Anonymously smear their opposition on the Internet."

In response to the lawsuit, the @DevinCow account-- which was still active as of Monday evening-- posted numerous tweets mocking Nunes. "I’m not quitting my day job," one read.

Nunes of Napa by Chip Prosser of Agitprop.us

I suspect what triggered Nunes was how close he came to losing his congressional seat last year. A third rate Democratic opponent-- in an R+8 district-- came incredibly close to beating him: 117,243 (52.7%) to 105,136 (47.3%). No one has officially declared for 2020 yet, but this suit will make Nunes look like an even better target than he was last year when he had beclouded himself as an apologist for Trump and Putin.

Trump-Branded Shit

-by Dorothy Reik

Never one to bypass a branding opportunity, Donald Trump has decided to increase and extend his presence in the heroin production capital of the world, Afghanistan. Under the rubric "Make Afghanistan Great Again" Trump promises to create jobs, and provide quality Trump brand Afghan heroin at a lower price. Trump will identify his heroin, packaged in reusable bindles created by Ivanka Trump's own designers, with the golden "T" so that buyers can be sure to get the superior heroin produced under Trump family supervision. "Be sure to insist on Trump Brand Heroin when you go out to score-- or when you order your product delivered. Remember, Trump brand heroin supasses War Lord Heroin and Terrorist Heroin in strength and purity. Trump Brand Heroin is certified organic by Donald Trump himself." While it has proved difficult to "take their oil," in Iraq, Trump seems certain that "taking their heroin" in Afghanistan will be easy.

Last week Trump also threatened a small competitor in the heroin trade-- Pakistan. Stay tuned.