dumbestthingiveeverheard

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/17/2023

Fifth Place: Ron DeSantis

An internal memo was leaked which revealed what DeSantis's strategy is going to be for the upcoming Republican debate, specifically it notes his four moves are:

Attack Joe Biden and the media

State GRD's positive vision

Hammer Ramaswamy

Defend Donald Trump

I wish to point out that DeSantis is running against Donald Trump--and one of his key plans to win the White House is to defend the man whenever possible. I also want to add that DeSantis plans to act confused and appalled that people running against Donald Trump--are attacking Donald Trump.

Fourth Place: Kurt Schlichter

A bit of an addition to the story mentioned above. You see, Schlichter really wants a Ron DeSantis presidency--and in his column today he not only talks about why he thinks Trump should skip the debates, but also throws this line in:

Now, most of the midget monsters of the kaiju menagerie besides Trumpzilla and King Ron are weak-hearts who will never dare cross Trump, either from fear of his wrath or because they entertain the dream that he will pick one of them as Veep 2.0.

Yeah, some of these Republicans are even writing memos saying they plan to not only defend Donald Trump but also attack other Republicans who are not playing ball.

Third Place: Tim Murphy

I'm just going to let Justin Baragona explain this one:

The guy currently peddling his book "The Christ Cure" on Newsmax and moralizing about trans kids and the LGBTQ agenda resigned from Congress in disgrace after it was revealed he pressured his mistress to get an abortion despite his pro-life stance.

Second Place: Will Hurd

He thinks he will qualify for the debates, how cute.

First Place: Pamela Paul

She wrote an article against sex work and, you know, I was originally going to go through point by point and debunk it--but it's literally the same shit The New York Times published last month, complete with the incorrect claim that most sex work is nonconsensual (only about ten percent of it is).

Pamela Paul, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

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Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/16/2023

Fifth Place: Eric Metaxas

For some reason, Eric decided to spend some time of his show today talking about George Floyd--in order to blame the man for his own death:

What happened with George Floyd was very confusing and difficult for many, many people because when you see someone suffer and die, every human heart ought to be moved by it. But to then say that he was murdered, not to be aware of the background, you know, it's emotion is very, very powerful. But at some point you have to step back and you have to say, so what exactly is it that happened here? Was he murdered? Was it the intention of this policeman to kill this person? How reckless was what he did? It is at least complicated. And then you hear the background of who George Floyd was and you think, wow, wait a minute, this was not some innocent.

First off, Floyd was innocent of the crime he was accused of according to the standards of the United States justice system given he had not been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers. Second off, the thing that got Floyd arrested by Derek Chauvin was his counterfeiting of a twenty dollar bill--which is not a capital offensive.

I should also take a moment to note that a recent report found that Chauvin had a history of engaging in the exact same tactics he used against George Floyd dating back years. The notion that Derek Chauvin engaged in the same police brutality he had been found to have engaged in throughout his entire career against Floyd seems much more likely than the notion that Floyd was actually guilty and big and scary, although maybe that's just me.

Fourth Place: Ali Alexander

I don't even know what to say about this, here is what Ali posted on Telegram yesterday:

Trump will be remembered for 1000 years MINIMUM or until Jesus Christ comes back and saves us from ourselves and these retards.

People remember who Caligula was too.

Third Place: Kevin McCarthy

Another day, another attempt to dig up dirt on President Biden which doesn't exist:

Here’s what we know about Biden Inc: -They opened 20 shell companies, most while Biden was VP -Joe Biden lied when he said he had nothing to do with the family’s business -Biden lied when he said his family didn’t get money from China The House of Reps will get the full truth.

Of course, all of that is utter bullshit, but Aaron Rupar did make it a point to mention that there does exist a different political figure who could be credibly accused of all of those things:

They got nothing on Joe, but the projection is astounding: -Trump benefitted from shell companies while POTUS, including using one for hush payments to Stormy -Trump lied when he said he'd divest from his biz if he won in '16 -Trump had a Chinese bank account *while in office*

Second Place: Linda Yaccarino

A Media Matters report from today confirmed that the Twitter CEO has once again been caught placing ads for major brands on Nazi accounts. Again, the media silence regarding this--especially given YouTube went through months of bad press for similar accusations on shaky evidence--is rather deafening.

Winner: Marjorie Taylor Greene

You know where this is going:

“You have Marjorie Taylor Greene – the very quiet lady from Georgia,” Biden said about the bombastic lawmaker, prompting the audience to laugh. “Well, she’s talked about, ‘What Biden’s doing is what Roosevelt did, what Kennedy did!’ Well, yeah.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/15/2023

Fifth Place: Karine Jean Pierre

What if there's an investigation that everybody involves knows is bullshit? Just today, Biden's Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said the Executive Branch knows for a fact that this investigation will not reveal any important connection between the President and Hunter Biden's business deals. However, one has to wonder, if that is the case, why are they even bothering to investigate this in the first place? I wish to remind everybody that our last President attempted to overthrow the government and end democracy in the United States, and the Justice Department is too busy running nonsensical investigations based on Republican bullshit--which makes one wonder what the point of electing a Democrat even was.

Fourth Place: Ben Shapiro

Here is what Shapiro had to say regarding the Trump indictment revealed last night:

Whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail -- on all sides.

Even ignoring the hypocrisy of this coming from a man who wrote an entire book calling for the prosecution of Barack Obama, this is utterly nonsensical. Running for office does not carry the legal risk of going to jail, breaking the law does--the only difference being now running for office is not a shield from going to jail.

Third Place: Christopher Rufo

Can we just talk about how moronic the right is when it comes to optics? For example, if you want to do something regarding the institutions of this country and push them to the right--maybe you shouldn't compare yourself to one of the most hated politicians in United States history.

Finally, the next conservative administration must mobilize federal law enforcement against the left-wing radical organizations that engaged in political violence during the summer of George Floyd. What Nixon did to the Black Panther Party, the next president must do to the violent factions of our time. 

I'm half reminded of when J.D. Vance tried to convince Donald Trump to channel Andrew Jackson's response to the Supreme Court--however, it is impossible to stress how bad of an idea something like that would be. Seriously, comparing yourself to the personification of everything most people hate about politics--the man who nearly destroyed the Republican Party--is quite possibly the dumbest thing a person could do.

Second Place: Sebastian Gorka

I don't even know what to say about this one:

President Trump said what? He said, "I just want to find 11,780 votes." That's like saying, "I just want to have vanilla ice cream for dessert."

No it isn't--not in any way.

Winner: Charlie Kirk

Again, this is another one I don't really have a comment for--I guess other than Kirk saying that Trump's indictment is "an attempt to nullify the Constitution" shows that he hasn't actually read it.

Charlie Kirk, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/14/2023

Fifth Place: Dean Phillips

Another day, another Democrat trying to push for somebody--anybody--to come out and primary President Biden for reasons that never make any fucking sense. Of course, Phillips is a "moderate Democrat" (read: Republican) who clearly wants Biden out of the way because of how progressive the President is--and honestly, I think Biden should welcome the hatred of people like this. I also cannot believe we live in a world where Joe Biden of all people is too progressive for some Democrats, but here we are.

Mind you, Biden is much more well liked not just among the insiders of the Democratic Party but also among the rank and file members who actually would vote in a primary. Meaning any chance of a primary against him is unlikely to be successful, but the fact that these idiots keep trying to run to Biden's right while assuming that's what the Democratic voter base wants (a large chunk of Democrats are too the left of Biden) is just sad. And that's not even getting into how Biden is seen as some sign of the status quo by these people--while they constantly want alternatives who are too his right and would more than likely continue the status quo, albeit with a younger face.

Of course, this fear about Biden being old is a totally manufactured concern by the political class. The average voter doesn't care how old a politician is--in fact, back in 2016 and 2020 the youngest voters went for Bernie Sanders, who is even older than Biden. This is all just bullshit designed to scare Biden into not running for re-election, and I am very happy he has not fallen for it.

Fourth Place: Kurt Schlichter

Speaking of primary challengers that have no chance of going anywhere, Ron DeSantis is still running for President--and Kurt over at Townhall firmly believes he'll be the nomination. You see, according to Kurt, the real reason why DeSantis isn't leading in the polls is because nobody has heard of him yet:

Remember, this is a primary race, not a Twitter popularity race. The simple fact is that the polls in July 2023 do not reflect the real situation on the ground in 2023, much less 2024 when the actual voting happens. You know who are active right now? The activists. And those aren’t polls of activists. Those are polls of regular people living regular lives who think “Yeah, I like Trump and Trump’s getting a raw deal from the scumbag prosecutors, and he’s the only guy I really know about, so I’m going to put his name down.” They haven’t had to think hard about it yet. They haven’t had to weigh the facts. They haven’t really looked at Ron DeSantis’s record – if they’re looking at Twitter, they’re going to think that he parties with Paul Ryan over at George Soros’s crash pad. That kind of dumb lie is easy to dispel, and when people see that they’ve been lied to, they’re going to look deeper to find the truth. 

You mean four years of the media shoving him down our throats hasn't been enough time for the average person to know his record? And none of this is even getting into the stupidity of assuming that people who are political enough to vote in the Republican primary also haven't taken the time to know who DeSantis is.

Mind you, more exposure to DeSantis does not seem to be helping him--if anything, the opposite seems to be the case. Remember two years ago when DeSantis was seen as the 2024 frontrunner? Some were even predicting that he'd replace Donald Trump as head of the Republican Party by the midterm elections--and that never happened. That is because people saw exactly who Ron DeSantis was, and they didn't like it.

Third Place: Ron DeSantis

A short follow up on my last entry, it seems like Ron has trouble keeping the attention of the people who already know of him. Here's some reporting from Mediaite:

Donald Trump literally overshadowed Ron DeSantis — with planes – at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, flying over the event and prompting the throngs of GOP voters to chant “we want Trump!” while the Florida governor was flipping burgers and trying to woo support.

This man seriously thinks people want him to be President.

Second Place: Karl Lake

The former Arizona candidate for Governor challenged somebody to "milk a bull" in order to prove that there are only two genders. Of course, given people aren't steer--and people assigned male at birth can produce milk if they have enough estrogen in their system, by the way--this comparison was seen as really dumb, because it is.

Winner: Merrick Garland

I talked Friday about Merrick's choice to create a special council to investigate Hunter Biden, which was little more than an attempt to appease Republicans--and said attempt has failed as many Republicans, including ones who asked for the exact special prosecutor Garland picked, are still upset with him.

So Garland has lost all Biden supporters and Biden critics--this is the most Merrick Garland move of all time.

Merrick Garland, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/11/2023

Fifth Place: Charlie Kirk

It's always refreshing to see Republicans go back to their old talking points, like Charlie Kirk saying on his show today that Democrats--gasp--want the government to improve the lives of the people:

The Democrats, they are a temporary coalition between permanent, resentful, government addicted minorities and people that want government benefits, Xanax and chardonnay wine moms, and resentful college educated white, liberal women who complain about everything with single women, and oligarchs. That's the Democrat Party. 

I know, how dare people want a government which gives them benefits. I always love how the Republican attacks on Democrats so often come down to "They believe this institution that we pay taxes too should represent us in some way." Yeah, that seems like the entire point of having a government in the first place, honestly.

Fourth Place: Jesse Watters

Vivek Ramaswamy is currently proposing a Constitutional Amendment which would require those between the age of eighteen and twenty four to pass a civics test before voting (one wonders why it should be those ages specifically, but that's another topic). Jesse Watters of Fox News has endorsed this idea, and I remind everybody one of my favorite facts of all time: Those who get their information from Fox News have been found to be less informed than those who watch no news at all.

Third Place: Anthony Sabatini

Yes, Sabatini is running for Congress again, and The Daily Beast has a rather interesting report about his college thesis: It turns out large chunks of it were plagiarized from Wikipedia. The main reason it wasn't caught is because the thesis is so filled with typos that checking if Sabatini actually wrote the lines himself became much harder.

I should also note that his thesis is just--really bad. It's a grand total of forty typo filled pages, and is about as good as a piece of scholarship as the doctoral thesis of Kent Hovind. Although, given Neil Gorsuch plagiarized large chunks of his doctoral dissertation--you don't think--nah.

Second Place: Michael Knowles

A new diet pill was recently announced, and this angered Michael Knowles because of Aristotle or something:

Quacks have sought quick fixes to the ills wrought by concupiscence since time immemorial. Wise men since at least the days of Aristotle have understood that a quick fix will never work because the natural remedy to vice is virtue. Natural happiness, then, comes by way of excellent rational activity in accordance with virtue. 

People in his time also believed there were only five elements, things fell at a speed determined by how much they weigh, and that the sun orbited the Earth as opposed to the other way around. Nothing against Aristotle, the dude was pretty smart and certainly said a large amount of intelligent things--but he was flawed, like all men of throughout all of history, and I highly doubt he would have taken issue with diet pills of all things.

Winner: Merrick Garland

The fact Joe Biden allows a man who just announced a special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden because of a nonsensical scandal thought up by Republicans to remain his Attorney General is evidence of either his generosity or stupidity. The Hunter Biden "crime" claim is utterly nonsensical and if the Department of Justice wants to turn a blind eye to the much bigger crimes of Donald Trump while doing this--well, one has to wonder if Garland isn't just working for Trump's re-election campaign.

Merrick Garland, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/10/2023

Fifth Place: Joe Manchin

Once again, Senator Manchin is threatened to leave the Democratic Party and become an independent. Of course, Manchin has been talking about doing exactly this for months--even throwing around the idea of a possible Presidential run at several points--and one simply has to wonder: Why doesn't he just do it? Nobody in the Democratic Party thinks particularly highly of the man who spent two years trying to stop President Biden's agenda with the same adamancy of the average Republican, and his only actual friends seem to be a handful of moderate Republicans to whom the only concern is stopping Biden. Manchin hasn't even managed to keep the people of his state happy with his moderation, hence why he has kept doing worse each election, which is especially striking given Manchin replaced Robert Byrd, the longest serving Senator in US history and somebody way to the left of Manchin.

Fourth Place: Cal Thomas

Two years after the fact, Thomas has not forgiven Biden for withdrawing American troops from the disastrous war in Afghanistan, easily the bravest move of his Administration. Of course, although the stories of the death of soldiers from the  Kabul Airport bombing are tragic, it is important to remember that it was Biden who put a stop to them through getting the troops out of Afghanistan! Had Biden not withdrawn from the nation, thousands of military men would still be in harms way.

Third Place: Jake Tapper

Sometimes, I see a question so moronic in a political interview I just have to stop and think "Wow, did Jake Tapper ask it?" Hence his recent one on one with Senator Elizabeth Warren, where he says regarding the Hunter Biden controversy "That can’t be something that you’re comfortable with as a phenomenon." Mind you, exactly what bearing the comfortability of Elizabeth Warren has on the story is not explained, nor did Tapper bother to give a reason as to why he's asking a sitting Senator about a serious political scandal questions that sound more like he's trying to sell her a pillow.

Or did I forget the Constitution says a President can be impeached "on high crimes and misdemeanors or if they personally make Elizabeth Warren uncomfortable"?

Second Place: Asa Hutchinson

While everybody is making fun of Donald Trump for possibly skipping the first Republican debate, Hutchinson defended Trump because "we want to talk about the issues." Said issues being--what exactly? Wokeness? Cancel culture? Transgender athletes? Asa, I hate to tell you this, but your party doesn't care about issues--it cares about cartoon boogeymen and Donald Trump, and that will be what these debates are about regardless of if Trump is on the debate stage or not.

Winner: Ron DeSantis

Do you know who's ahead of him in some polls now? Chris Christie! How does this man think he is going to be President?

Ron DeSantis, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/9/2023

Fifth Place: Ann Coulter

Did you know that The New York Times is plotting against Ron DeSantis? If not, then you didn't read Ann Coulter's new column, where she writes:

Right now, nothing would help the Democratic Party more than somehow blocking Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida from becoming the Republican presidential nominee.

The Democratic Party doesn't have to block DeSantis, the Republican base has already done that for them. As established, DeSantis has been polling a distant second to Trump the entire race--and even that's starting to get rather difficult for DeSantis to maintain. The New York Times doesn't need to plot against him anymore than they needed to plot against Bill Weld in 2020.

Fourth Place: J. Michael Luttig

The retired right-wing judge was on CNN today, where he said the following:

Frankly, I don’t care about the Republican Party at all, except to the extent that the two political parties in America are the political guardians of democracy in our country. American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties. So, today, in my view, there is no Republican Party to counter the Democratic Party in the country. And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.

This notion that we somehow have to bail out the Republican Party because having two parties is needed for democracy is utter nonsense. It would be no different than somebody making the same comment about the Whig Party, the Federalist Party, or the Democratic Republicans. The Anti-Masonic Party dissolving did not turn us into a one party state, nor did the end of the Know Nothing Party.

In truth, we already have multiple political parties outside of the main two--the Libertarians could take a chance in Congress, as could the Green Party, and the Reform Party, and the Right to Life Party, and the Socialist Party, and tons of others. The end of the Republican Party will not mean perpetual Democratic rule, it will mean a new party will finally have the chance to rise from the ashes.

Third Place: Mike Pence

Did you know Joe Biden launched a war on gas? That's what Mike Pence declares in a new video where he badly attempts to look like he's filling a pickup truck. Of course, the rise in gas prices since 2020 has to do primarily with the fact that people are--you know--actually driving now and weren't back then, the COVID-19 pandemic caused people to travel much less. (One person told me the roads were so clear a previously hour and a half long car trip took them fifteen minutes.) It's this thing called supply and demand, when demand increases and supply doesn't prices go up because the amount people are willing to pay goes up.

Oh, and if Biden is declaring some kind of war on energy, somebody should really consider telling the President given he has approved more oil and gas drilling permits on public land than Trump--wrongfully in my opinion.

Second Place: Nick Akerman

If you're like me, you think the Donald Trump trial should be televised--that is not the opinion of Nick Akerman, who wrote an article from The New York Times with headline of "Why Televising the Trump Trial Is a Bad Idea." You see, although the media has felt the need to televise every trial it thinks it can sensationalize that it comes across, it seems like the one which would actually change the lives of the American people needs to be behind closed doors. Public transparency is only for OJ Simpson, not for the former President.

Actually, the article mentions the OJ trial, and Akerman says:

A major lesson from the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which gripped the nation when it was broadcast starting in 1995, is how the impact of television can undermine a trial when the judge, the lawyers, the defendant and the witnesses play to the viewing audience, as they did then. This turned a grave murder trial, with Mr. Simpson’s guilt or innocence hanging in the balance, into daily entertainment.

Given how OJ Simpson is now one of the most hated men in America as he had been since the start of the trial, it seems rather surprising that Akerman is saying televising this trial would somehow help Donald Trump.

Winner: Matt Walsh

White people are not going extinct, despite what Matt Walsh will tell you. A recent article in The Hill did find that white people might not be a majority in this country come from twenty years from now, but that does not mean we will be losing white people. In spite of that, Matt did a long rant on his show today about how white people could be going extinct in the near future.

I will not be reprinting that rant, because it is nothing short of the rantings of a deranged racist--but I will say it is based on a total misunderstanding of data, one I do not believe was unintentional.

Matt Walsh, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/8/2023

Fifth Place: Frank Luntz

"This is not the party that I that I joined 40 years ago," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz on the topic of Donald Trump, specifically in reference to his strong support of Russia. Of course, Luntz seems to want us to forget that he got his start in politics working for the campaign of the nationalist and self-described neo-isolationist Pat Buchanan back in 1992, who has also been a stern defended of Putin throughout his life.

Fourth Place: Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis is not going to be President, I am certain of that--and I knew it from day one. The people who want somebody with his policies want Donald Trump and the people who want somebody who isn't Donald Trump don't like how similar he is to Trump, it's the same issue Warren had back in 2020 (anybody to her left went to Sanders and anybody to her right went to Biden).

This was confirmed once again today through a Mediaite article which documents that DeSantis has now fallen behind Vivek Ramaswamy in terms of betting odds! Ramaswamy, of course, also has no shot at the Republican nomination, let alone the Presidency as the polls have constantly made it clear that the only person who can win the primary is Donald Trump. Still, this is yet another piece of bad news for DeSantis, and nothing about his campaign has shown he has any chance at getting the nomination short of Donald Trump dropping out--and even then, that wouldn't be guaranteed.

Third Place: Tommy Tuberville

Did you know that a sitting United States Senator isn't a politician? Because that's what Tommy Tuberville said on Laura Ingraham's show last night! I don't even have a joke for this one, it's just really dumb.

Second Place: Matt Walsh

Media Matters caught this line from Matt's show today where he proves he is, quite literally, panphobic:

This is just creepy. I gotta say. It's made up, obviously. That's the main thing. Pansexual is not a thing. It's not real. It's also creepy. I'm able to be attracted to anyone, he says. Ew. Like, calm down. That -- I can walk into a room and just be attracted -- just the way he phrases it, to me, makes it creepier. I am able to be attracted to anyone. Like, this is some sort of superpower that he has. I can walk into a room and be attracted to anyone or anything. Okay? Just watch me. You don't think I can? Not something to be proud of, man. That's -- the fact that you're in a constant state of arousal is not something you want to brag about in the news. It's not open minded. It's just weird.

Matt goes on like this for awhile, not getting that being attracted to people regardless of their gender identity--which is what pansexuality actually is--is not the same as literally being attracted to all human beings everywhere. Matt, it seems, does not understand that if a pansexual says they're "attracted to anybody" they're speaking metaphorically.

First Place: Jack Goldsmith

Another New York Times opinion piece, this time by a member of the George W. Bush Administration who is warning against prosecuting Donald Trump, most likely because that means they might also go after the Republican Administration he worked for.

You see, according to the article, if Donald Trump is convicted of a crime--that means Republicans won't trust the same justice system they stopped trusting when it refused to allow Donald Trump to remain President despite losing the 2020 Presidential Election.

Jack Goldsmith, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/7/2023

Fifth Place: Kurt Sclichter

Just today, Kurt published a column on Townhall with the headline "Will The Biden Administration (sic) Let Trump – Or Any Republican – Take Office In 2025?" As if it was Democrats and not Republicans who tried to stop the last President from taking office through everything ranging from nonsensical legal theories to a downright coup. This article even sees Kurt predicting that Kamala Harris would personally do one of the tactics Trumpers proposed to keep Trump in office:

The Democrats own the Senate, so watch Kamala Harris show up to do what Mike Pence – before he became an insufferably prissy collaborator with the narrative over the last few weeks – properly refused to do and try to interfere with the Electoral College count.

Fourth Place Steve Deace

If you want to see partisanship taken to a new extreme, Steve Deace over on BlazeTV is a good example. Steve thinks Trump "helped them poison all of us, and is unrepentant about it," regarding vaccines, but still felt the need of him "I'll vote for him if he is the nominee."

Third Place: John Lauro

The Donald Trump lawyer was on Meet The Press over the weekend, where he said the following:

The defense is quite simple. President Trump believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election, and as any American citizen, he had a right to speak out under the First Amendment.

Yeah, that's great and all make no mistake--that has quite literally nothing to do with the charges against Donald Trump. He could have said anything he wanted, he couldn't have conspired to overturn a federal election to keep himself in power, which is what he's actually being accused of.

Second Place: Julie Banderas

The Fox News anchor had this wonderful defense for Trump:

So it is not a crime to tell lies. Being a narcissist is not a crime. Hatching schemes to stay in office is not a crime. And claiming you won an election you know you lost is not a crime. With all of that said, how do you see this playing out in Georgia?

Hatching schemes to stay in office when the law says you have to leave is a crime, you moron. Also, although lying on its own is not a crime, it can be used as evidence for fraud--such as if you go around fundraising on the basis that you won an election you know you lost and get millions of dollars from that.

Winner: Fabian Marta

You know that Sound of Freedom movie the right loves so much despite the fact that's utter dogshit? Well one of its funders was arrested recently for child kidnapping!

Fabian Marta, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/4/2023

Fifth Place: Asa Hutchinson

As Asa Hutchinson continues his Presidential run, the writing on the wall--which was always against him--has become so clear that the only person who doesn't think he should just drop out is, well, Asa Hutchinson. However, another reminder of his failure of a campaign can be found on The Hill, which today ran the headline "Hutchinson says he’s ‘close to halfway there’ in reaching GOP presidential debate threshold." If he is in a race for the presidency or a race against Spongebob is currently unclear.

Fourth Place: John McWhorter

His New York Times column "One Sentence Does Not Define a Curriculum" goes after the critics of Ron DeSantis's recently approved educational standards in Florida, noting that much of this complaining is about a single sentence.

However, from the tone of coverage of this passage, one might suppose that it was a central plank in the curriculum. Instead, it was but one passage amid hundreds of others, which constitute an almost exhaustive coverage of the gruesomeness of slavery in the United States. Taken together, they are such an informed recitation of our racist past that it is almost surprising DeSantis would approve them.

This is an amazing rebuttal of the people who believe that sentence is the only thing in the entire curriculum, although given I have yet to see anybody make that claim I would call this nothing more than strawmanning. Unless something about the wider context of that statement changes its meaning, bringing up that most of the document is fine (as if we'd accept an A for effort regarding how children are taught about history) is just nonsensical. To put it another way: Although he is right that this one sentence being bad does not make the entire curriculum racist (something which nobody is claiming), that does not make said one sentence any less racist.

McWhorter also makes this note:

It’s important also to note that the principal purported gaslighter was himself Black. The person responsible for the infamous passage, according to fellow group members, was William Allen. He is an academic and also a Republican, but, as challenging as it can be to perceive this in our times, that party affiliation does not automatically render him suspect on matters of race.

Although it is true that Allen's political party does not make his statements on race any less correct by default, the mention of him being black seems to come with the implication that his race adds validity to his statements, which is equally untrue. People of color can have stupid, uninformed, and bigoted opinions on issues related to racial minorities just as everybody can, because idiocy knows no race.

Third Place: Mark Levin

Speaking of idiotic things said about slavery, Levin made a rather moronic comment about the Trump indictment yesterday:

We were reminded last night by an Israeli, Caroline Glick -- born in America -- who said one of the great legal minds in Israel who she spoke to said, you know, in the United States, the Dred Scott decision, which was decided in 1857 - the impact of that decision took a few years to really settle in. It served as the foundation for the Civil War.

And here I was thinking it had to do with the South--who agreed with Dred Scott v. Sanford--attempting to leave the union after the election of an abolitionist President.

This is one political party trying to destroy another. This is one political party trying to monopolize elections, federal law enforcement, and the entire justice system. And if they get away with it, it's over. It's over.

Of course, nobody is trying to destroy the entire Republican Party, what they are attempting to do is imprison Donald Trump because, you know, he broke the law.

Second Place: Mike Huckabee

Mother Jones has an article out on his recent children's book The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change, and although I will not cover every error they documented, I will show you my personal favorite:

The visuals used in the guide are even more blatantly misleading than its text, [Glenn] Branch [deputy director of the National Center for Science Education] noted. One graph, titled “Thousands of Years of Carbon Dioxide Levels,” spans 400,000 years ago until “present day,” and is summarized with the conclusion, “looking back in time, carbon dioxide levels have always gone up and down.” But the data the graph labels as “present day”—peaking at a little over 280 parts per million—actually represents levels from 2,300 years ago, around 391 BC, Branch pointed out. The vast majority of the carbon dioxide driving climate change has been emitted only since the Industrial Revolution, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations currently over 420 parts per million, higher than any data point included on the graph, which has a scale that only goes up to 300 parts per million.

This man seriously confused 391 BC with the present day.

Winner: Marjorie Taylor Greene

Regarding the Trump indictment, Greene said this "feels like communism" which is an economic system that has nothing to do with the ability to charge one's political leaders and usually results in authoritarian states where such a thing is impossible.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/3/2023

Fifth place: Twitter user @eyeskewer

This is a little older than the stuff I normally cover on this blog, but I feel like this is worth highlighting as it perfectly shows my issue when many who make conspiratorial claims about transgender medical care:

my "informed consent" was my doctor I had just met handing me papers telling me my voice would drop soon, I could freeze my eggs, I might get acne, and whatever else. I probably didn't even hear everything she said, I just told her I wanted the shot. so I got it. I just turned 18

So you were told you wanted something medical done to you, were told about the risks and consequences, and then got it. I really don't see what the big deal is here.

Fourth Place: Marco Rubio

Elon Musk's time as CEO of Twitter has been far from perfect, but easily the best addition he has made is the community notes feature. For just one example, here is a Tweet from Marco Rubio:

Also, those claims about the 2016 Presidential Election were never proven to be fake--just wanted to add that real quick.

Third Place: Scott Lively

The deranged homophobe who wrote an entire book blaming the Nazis on homosexuality wrote a column a couple of days back with the headline "Leftist lawfare and the abuse of power." A decent chunk of it is spent defending Russian President Vladimir Putin, but here are some highlights:

In all my years of watching corporate U.S. news about Russia and Putin, I have never seen a single counter-argument ever being offered in defense of President Putin (coverage of him is even worse than that of Trump). It's been more than a decade since Obama restarted the Cold War to punish the Russians for banning "gay" propaganda to children, when every story began to paint him as a "brutal monster" – to the point that even many conservatives (who have zero reason to trust that same media on anything) seem to agree.

The hatred of Putin on an international scale has nothing to do with the anti-homosexuality laws he has put in place while President of Russia--although, don't get me wrong, that didn't help matters, but several countries with anti-homosexuality laws are still seen in a positive light by the international community (wrongfully so, in my opinion). It was more his imperial ambitions--starting with his invasion of Georgia in 2008--that caused the international community to move away from him.

Second Place: Abby Johnson

I've mostly been ignoring the story about a handful of far-right Christians refusing to support the fringe Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy because of his Hinduism, however given Abby Johnson was sold to us a few years back as a a reasonable anti-abortion activist--an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. And she has decided to take a stance against a Hindu President, saying:

Do not be a victim of Satan’s confusion right now. This is an important time for us to have clarity of mind as we are going into an election cycle. So please discern. Please use discernment right now because God hates those who are willing to put up idols over him, and he will not be mocked.

All I wish to say is that if you really want a President that's a dedicated Christian--can I recommend you a guy named Joe Biden? Oh who am I kidding, if Ramaswamy does get the nomination it's going to be just like when Billy Graham took Mormonism off his list of cults so he and his followers could vote for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Winner: Ben Shapiro

This man, considered by many to be serious political commentator, does not know the difference between eating and drinking:

[Trump] would face a whopping 641 years in prison. Which I assume means he would not survive prison. Although he is 70% preservatives at this point because he eats so much McDonalds and Diet Coke.

He eats Diet Coke? Ben, do you know how Diet Coke works?

Ben Shapiro you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/2/2023

Fifth Place: Bret Stephens

Yesterday, Bret Stephens published a New York Times piece with the headline "The Hard-Drug Decriminalization Disaster." Highlights include him attempting to tie drug decriminalization in Oregon with anecdotes of crimes that have happened in that state--including somebody doing an inappropriate act in public which the author does not even attempt to tie to drug use and a person shooting up on a playground--which also happens in every other state in this country. This is not even mentioning Stephens attempting to draw a correlation between this measure and the increase in violent shootings in Portland from 2019 to 2022--even though violent crime increased as a whole from 2019 to 2022.

Of course, the article does nothing to argue the point that it is not the right of the government to determine if an adult decides to do drugs or not, and its attempts to discredit Portugal's drug experiment sees him admitting the problems Portugal is having now only exist because of funding cuts--only to then talk about how evil drug addicts are:

Here, too, defenders of the system point to funding shortfalls, especially for treatment. But the sticky fact that proponents of decriminalization rarely confront is that addicts are not merely sick people trying to get well, like cancer sufferers in need of chemotherapy. They are people who often will do just about anything to get high, however irrational, self-destructive or, in some cases, criminal their behavior becomes. Addiction may be a disease, but it’s also a lifestyle — one that decriminalization does a lot to facilitate. It’s easier to get high wherever and however you want when the cops are powerless to stop you.

Mind you, although I am not going to say that no addict is like this, I will say that the generalization is--at best--rather misleading. Even in our current system, people acknowledge that addicts are not "often" irrational people who need to be thrown in prison to deal with their issues--hence why we have things like rehab clinics in the world already.

Fourth Place: Allysia Finley

This is one I'm a tad late on, but the fact that one writer for The Wall Street Journal felt the need to publish an article with the headline "Climate Change Obsession Is a Real Mental Disorder" says everything you need to know about the newspaper.

If heat waves were as deadly as the press proclaims, Homo sapiens couldn’t have survived thousands of years without air conditioning. Yet here were are. Humans have shown remarkable resilience and adaptation—at least until modern times, when half of society lost its cool over climate change.

So the fact that people have died of intense heat all throughout history is--what exactly?

“Extreme Temperatures Are Hurting Our Mental Health,” a recent Bloomberg headline warns. Apparently every social problem under the sun is now attributable to climate change. But it’s alarmist stories about bad weather that are fueling mental derangements worthy of the DSM-5—not the warm summer air itself.

For the record, the article in question used--you know, actual science to explain how environmental factors can impact mental health. Of course, one could criticize this conclusion but the evidence for it appeared to be rather solid. However, why even bother to attempt an actual response when you could make fun of the headline? Even her response to this quotes a section from the study Bloomberg cited which said that further adaption could mitigate this effect--but in order for an effect to be mitigated, it has to exist in the first place.

Third Place: Rudy Giuliani

I don't even know what to add to this, Media Matters published an article today with the headline "Rudy Giuliani: “'If I'm a conspirator, I was a conspirator in performing completely legal acts.'” The problem is that doesn't make any sense, a conspiracy is a plot by two or more people to do something illegal, charging somebody of engaging in conspiracy means you are already charging them of being a conspirator in a crime.

Second Place: Ron DeSantis

Both sides went after him for this one, yesterday he tweeted:

As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans. While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts.

So Ron is basically saying that he's using an inditement as a jumping off a point to push for his policies--despite never having read it.

Winner: Michael Tracey

This man has the greatest defense for Donald Trump ever thought up, the law they indicted him on is really old:

This latest indictment is completely insane. They have literally charged Trump under the Civil Rights Act of 1866

Wait until he hears about this even older document called The Constitution, which we still have as law to this day.

Michael Tracey you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/1/2023

Fifth Place: Asa Hutchinson

Despite being the only Republican running for President who I have any respect for, people need to face a rather important fact: Asa Hutchinson is not going to be President. Since the start of the 2024 race, it has been obvious that if Donald Trump entered he was going to be the nomination--and Trump has entered. This was demonstrated perfectly when Hutchinson was on CNN last night and we saw this graphic:

He couldn't even break half of one percent in any of the eight groups listed--seriously think about that.

Fourth Place: Laura Ingraham

Can we just admit that Fox News is a neo-Nazi network at this point? For fuck sake, last night brought us yet another example of a host pushing the horribly racist Great Replacement theory, with Ingraham saying:

Now, this is what Democrats have always wanted though, isn't it? An open border that would help usher in a new America. And this is what we're getting: Millions upon millions of illegals who fanned out across America with their free cell phones and dubious intentions.

I don't even know what to say about this outside of--well, this is the same thing Fox has been doing for years, and it seems like barley anybody, including the people whose job it is to monitor the right for things like this, barley notice it anymore. Media Matters barley took notice and from the looks of it no other media watchdog even mentioned it, it takes something especially offensive--like Greg's recent comments on the Holocaust--to even cause people to notice that Fox is engaging in the same rhetoric that actual fascists do.

Third Place: Steve Benen

MSNBC is easily the best out of the three cable news networks, but even they sometimes fall into the trap of not framing the story correctly. For example, Steve Benen's article on the website ran the headline "Dems slam Justice Alito’s latest claim as ‘stunningly wrong.’" However, this headline should make it a point to note that it's not merely the Democrats "slamming" Alito for saying Congress has no authority to regulate the Supreme Court, but it is them pointing out that what he said was, in fact, incorrect. This would be like claiming a teacher "slammed" a student who incorrectly answered a question on a test--except the student was also one of the nine most powerful people in the country.

Second Place: Michelle Goldberg

Her column "The Radicalization of the Young Right" falls into the typical liberal trap of having nostalgia for the terrible conservatives of the past because maybe they weren't as bad as those on the right today. The article sees her giving the benefit of the doubt to Nate Hochman, the DeSantis campaign staffer who was fired for putting fascist symbols into campaign ads, by writing:

Though the video’s imagery is clearly fascist — the sonnenrad, or sunwheel, is flanked by two rows of marching soldiers — Hochman has said that he didn’t know what the symbol meant. Given that he is Jewish, I’m inclined to believe that rather than being a covert Nazi, Hochman is simply a callow young man immersed in a milieu in which fascist idioms are so commonplace they can be picked up inadvertently. 

And honestly, who here hasn't accidentally put a fascist symbol into a video? (Or made their crossword puzzle look like a fascist symbol on the first day of a Jewish holiday?)

As Hochman clearly recognized, these days, young reactionaries find their inspiration not in the adolescent superman fantasies of Ayn Rand but in the nihilistic Joker energy of 4chan.

And how exactly are those two things different? Ayn Rand wrote stories about how everything was bad in mainstream society and those on the sidelines need to take over and get rid of all of those who disagree, and that's the motto of the modern right-wing. Of course, Ayn Rand was never a source of inspiration for reactionaries, who were primarily conservative, because Rand was not one--William Buckley, the person behind the post-World War Two conservative movement, even hated Ayn Rand and pushed her out of his new right.

Winner: John O'Connor

It's not everyday you see somebody attempt to defend Richard Nixon, but O'Connor did just that in his Townhall column "How Watergate Journalism Sowed the Seeds of Today’s Toxic Division." Even ignoring the silliness of the claim that Bob Woodward, a registered Republican, would do something like take down a sitting Republican President, and that The Washington Post would use Watergate as nothing more than an attempt to take down Nixon but wouldn't release most of the information on it until after the 1972 Presidential Election (George McGovern changing running mates was covered far more than Watergate during 1972) is nonsensical, but O'Connor is here to tell us what really happened:

But what was so patently false about the Washington Post Watergate journalism?  From the first days of the burglary arrests of June 17, 1972, the Post knew facts strongly showing that this had not been a White House campaign operation but, rather, was a small part of a widespread, long-lasting CIA program of surveilling prostitutes and their Johns.  Inveigling seeming White House approval from lower aides, the CIA hoped to gain a get out-of-jail-free card if later exposed.

And the fact that the organization which did this was called the Committee to Re-Elect the President is--what, a really bad coincidence? For those curious, O'Connor shows no evidence for this claim--instead he just spends the rest of the column insulting Mark Felt and modern journalism.

John O'Connor, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/31/2023

Fifth Place: Erick Erickson

On 7/30/2023, Mr. Erickson tweeted the following:

Starting to see more and more progressives demand public swimming pools. Get ready for the next entitlement program.

Not public swimming pools! Anything but public swimming pools!

By the way, the top reply is somebody pointing out that the city Erickson lives in--has multiple public swimming pools:

I'm sorry, I can't get over this: Erickson is seriously concerned that progressives are going to--what exactly? Use tax payer dollars to make the community better? That's really something you view as a concern? As one Twitter user put it:

i like that the worst thing this guy can imagine is americans collectively deciding to use the wealth they produce and the taxes they pay to give themselves something nice

Fourth Place: Stephen Strang

Right-wing watch posted a clip of him on Friday talking about allowing drag queens to read to children, he says "They would not let someone dressed up in a Nazi uniform go in and read stories to children."

First off, who exactly is the "they" in this case? Second off, there is obviously no comparison between the ideology of the most genocidal and murderous regime of the twentieth century and people dressing in drag, and the fact that you think these two things are on even remotely the same level shows there is something wrong with you.

Third Place: Donald Trump

NBC reached out to forty-four of Trump's former cabinet officials to see how many of them would support his 2024 run for re-election--only four did. Those four, for those curious, are Mark Meadows, Ric Grenell, Matthew Whitaker, and Russ Vought. A Tea Party holdover who played a key role in the Freedom Caucus until he was made Trump's Chief of Staff and who appeared in a debunked creationist propaganda film, a small time ambassador who once got into a fight with Nick Fuentes over if he was immoral for being a homosexual, a failed Congressional candidate turned Attorney General, and a man who is only known for hindering Biden's transition to the Presidency, respectively.

What I find funny though is not that this group of nitwits have endorsed Trump's re-election, but that they are the only ones who worked with Donald Trump to have done so. If so few of the people who were around Donald feel comfortable giving him a second term, what should that say to the rest of us?

Second Place: Jonathan Chait

What's wrong with this picture?

If you said the fact that it implies the corruption of a Supreme Court Justice is on the same level as the corruption of the son of the President despite one actually having the power to impact people's lives and the other not, you'd be correct. However, this false comparison is the entire basis of New York Magazine's article "The Sleaze Problem: How Democrats can clean up the Supreme Court and address the Hunter Biden affair." Why Democrats need to address the Hunter Biden affair--which is little more than trumped up charges against a private system--I'm not sure.

The column even sees its author admitting that nothing Hunter Biden did was illegal while also accepting the incorrect notion that nothing Clarence Thomas did was illegal.

The article proposes that Democrats should propose an ethics code for the Supreme Court while aiming for Republican support through also creating a stricter ethics code around the actions of family members of politicians. Of course, Chait admits this wouldn't actually work because doing so would indict the Trump kids even more than Hunter Biden--but on the bright side, at least the Democrats now have an answer for the irrational and nonsensical charges against Hunter Biden. If only Democrats would play into GOP talking points, that would show them.

Winner: Samuel Alito

Did you know that nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court? Well that's what Samuel Alito thinks--of course, it isn't actually true. Congress specifically has the power to stop courts from ruling on specific issues, to determine who is on the Supreme Court, and various other forms of regulation--but Alito doesn't want to mention that, because that could get in the way of his power grab.

Samuel Alito, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/28/2023

Fifth Place: Elon Musk

It seems like every day Elon has done something worthy of getting a spot on this list. Just today, Media Matters published an article with the headline "Elon Musk reinstated a Twitter account that shared child sexual abuse imagery as the company desperately attempts to attract advertisers." You see, Musk decided to reinstate the account of a right-wing conspiracy theorist named Dom Lucre, who was suspended for posting images of child sexual abuse?

Musk has previously promised to take a zero tolerance policy against those who post the abuse of children on his platform--unless you have the right political views, that is.

Fourth Place: Josh Hawley

"Josh Hawley’s Immediate Reaction to New Charges Against Trump? Demanding Biden ‘Tell Us Whether or Not He’s a Crook’" ran a headline on the website Mediaite today. Even ignoring the blatant changing of the topic by Senator Hawley from Trump to Biden, it's not as if Hawley would believe Biden if he were to declare he isn't a crook. Richard Nixon did exactly that in 1973, and the majority of people who thought he was a crook before that speech still thought he was one after--in fact, the amount of people who had a negative opinion of him actually increased after he declared he wasn't the thing he was being accused of.

Third Place: Marjorie Taylor Greene

Congressman Robert Garcia correctly pointed out the issue with her call for decorum during a hearing yesterday by simply tweeting "Marjorie needs to remember she showed us a dick pic last week." A naked picture of the son of the President, to be exact, which she was using to make some point that was not understood by anybody except her and her insane supporters.

Let's not forget that this is the same woman who has called the entire Democratic Party pro-grooming. This is the same woman who has shared Q-Anon posts accusing powerful people of being pedophiles with no evidence and the woman who said that Nancy Pelosi should be hanged for treason. The notion that this woman has any right to talk about either decorum or decency is utterly laughable at best and insulting to the intelligence of the American people at worst.

Second Place: Mike Huckabee

Speaking on Fox and Friends today, Huckabee defended Trump by saying:

People look at this and they say, wait a minute, let me see if I get this right. You do a raid on his home over some pieces of paper.

Well--yeah, if those pieces of paper are top secret documents the person who has them kept refusing to return to the point where that's your only option, that actually sounds like a pretty smart idea. What are you expecting them to do, just forget about the documents because actually attempting to retrieve them might look silly if you boil them down to such a simplistic degree?

Winner: Christopher Rufo

This man somehow got an article in the New York Times yesterday with the headline "D.E.I. Programs are Getting in the Way of Liberal Education." In it, Rufo makes this terribly moronic statement:

The most significant question looming over this debate is one that, unfortunately, has rarely been posed by either critics or supporters of D.E.I. programs: What is the purpose of a university? For most of the classical liberal tradition, the purpose of the university was to produce scholarship in pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful. The university was conceived as a home for a community of scholars who pursued a variety of disciplines, but were united in a shared commitment to inquiry, research and debate, all directed toward the pursuit of the highest good, rather than the immediate interests of partisan politics. Today, many universities have consciously or unconsciously abandoned that mission and replaced it with the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion. Many D.E.I. programs seem to be predicated on a view radically different from the liberal tradition: namely, that the university is not merely a home for the discovery of knowledge, but also a vehicle for activism, liberation and social change.

This is a false dichotomy if I have ever heard one: Hey Chris, what do you think scholars are supposed to do with the truth? Use them to figure out if society needs to be changed and in what way, and be willing to take active part in that process. This is why so many academics end up as aides to major politicians or as commentators, because the entire point of having the truth is to spread it around as much as possible--a truth not worth spreading is not worth knowing.

Christopher Rufo, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/27/2023

Fifth Place: Elon Musk

Remember back in 2017 when shaky evidence of ads appearing on neo-Nazi and racist content caused YouTube to have take a much stronger stance on who they do and don't monetize? Well it looks like Twitter could reach the same problem soon, given Media Matters posted an article today with the headline "Twitter placed ads for USA Today, National Women’s Soccer League, and other major brands on a terrorism-linked neo-Nazi account." One such group is quite literally called the National Socialist Network, a play on the National Socialist German Workers Party, or the Nazi Party. This is especially notable because Musk has had a hard time getting advertisers to invest in the platform ever since he bought, even resigning as CEO specifically in hopes of making the process of finding advertisers easier.

Fourth Place: Isaac Schorr

Hey Isaac, how has selling your soul to Ron DeSantis been? Today, our old buddy Isaac published an article with the headline "AP African American History Includes Similar Lesson to Controversial Florida Curriculum Blasted by Kamala Harris." The article parrots a claim by DeSantis's Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern showing a line from the AP African American History course that Florida opposed--which I guess makes it okay in the mind of these two.

Of course, just because this AP class does something, that fails to make it okay--especially when, again, this same group of people opposed said AP class in the first place. Academics can hold racist views and pass said ideas down to their students--eugenics was an idea supported largely by academics, remember.

Also, what's with that headline? If your citation for this is a tweet from the Press Secretary, shouldn't it be something like "DeSantis Press Secretary Fires Back Against Kamala Harris's Claims, Points Out AP African American History Course Includes Similar Material." Or do you not want to admit that somebody else is DeSantis's Press Secretary given your desire to turn Mediaite into nothing more than his biggest supporter website?

Third Place: Allie Beth Stuckey

I would like to thank Justin Horowitz on Twitter for finding these tweets from Stuckey, regarding the aforementioned controversy of DeSantis's history courses:

The argument boils down to "It wasn't a good thing, but a lot of people did benefit from it." But wait--if so many people benefitted from this or that event, why exactly was it a bad thing?

Also, I love the use of the phrase "skills learned there," as if Japanese-American Internment Camps had free sewing classes or something along those lines.

Second Place: Pamela Paul

Yes, the famously transphobic New York Times columnist gets an entry today through her article "Don’t Call Her ‘Karen.'" Most of the article is fine, correctly pointing out that misleading video is what led to the campaign of Sarah Comrie, but instead of blaming this on people being too damn willing to believe short videos about interactions they weren't present for, she blames the word Karen or something.

And there’s something else I know for sure: Once publicly labeled a “Karen,” Comrie was placed in a no-win situation. There is no doubt that the violent history of white people making false accusations against Black people should give anyone pause when making an accusation against a group of Black teenagers. But it cannot be the case, morally or logically, that it’s impossible for a white woman to have a justifiable complaint and impermissible for her to speak up if she thinks she’s been wronged. Yet that is what the term “Karen” implies: that if you are a white woman, your relative privilege renders suspect any complaint you might have; if you try to defend yourself, you thereby prove the case against you.

For the record, I have never seen the word "Karen" used in this racially charged context like Paul claims. It's describing the behavior of a certain strain of white women through comedic hyperbole, and although the term did originate among black people, it has since been used rather race neutrally in reference to who somebody labeled it can effect. The term is often used in reference to people who ask to speak to the manager at a store at the slightest provocation, but that has nothing to do with the race of the people involved.

I also found this part of the article rather interesting:

The Karen trope reflects a pervasive strain of misogyny in our culture. “Karen has become synonymous with woman among those who consider woman an insult,” Helen Lewis wrote in The Atlantic in a detailed anatomy of the slur. The journalist Nina Burleigh has also observed the term’s distinct tilt toward white women over 40, long a punching bag in popular culture: “White middle-class women of a certain age are among the last groups one can hurl targeted abuse online without being canceled.”

Can somebody--anybody--tell me what separates this from the vaguely white nationalist writings you find on most conservative websites across the internet? Declaring any group of white people "the last group you can make fun of" (which is utterly nonsensical for a number of reasons) is the basis of the vast majority of white victim complex pieces in existence, and that is the basis for modern western white nationalist thought. Although I am not going so far as to say that Paul and these two other women are white nationalists, I am saying they are publishing their talking points and they--along with The New York Times--should be fucking ashamed of themselves for allowing this to go unchallenged.

Winner: Chip Roy

I'll just allow this Mediaite headline to say it all: "Chip Roy Condemns Fellow GOP House Members Not Wanting To Impeach Mayorkas: They’re ‘Hiding Behind The Constitution.’" You mean the document they're sworn to uphold as members of Congress?

Chip Roy, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/26/2023

Fifth Place: Elon Musk

Remember Elon's rather confusing move to change Twitter to "X"? Well Mediaite reports today that "There Is a ‘100 Percent Chance’ Twitter Will Be Sued Over New X Branding, According to Trademark Expert." You see, it turns out that nine thundered different companies use the "X" on their brand in some form or another, including both Microsoft and Meta. Meaning Elon not only decided to change one of the most highly recognizable logos on the internet to something present on my keyboard, but he also did so in such a way where he could get sued because it turns out everyone else had that same idea.

You know, there's a lot of speculation that Elon bought Twitter specifically to run it into the ground, I'm not going to say I believe it--some rich people are just crazy (Google Marville sometime if you want evidence of that)--but I see why so many people believe it.

Fourth Place: Ben Shapiro

I talked about Greg Gutfeld yesterday, whose comments have been condemned by other staff at Fox News, a Holocaust survivor, and the White House since yesterday's post. However, one person was perfectly willing to defend what Greg said, Ben Shapiro:

No one said there was anything good about slavery or the Holocaust. They said that resilient human beings sometimes are capable of making the best of their horrific situations. Which, of course, is true. That, of course, is true. That's the story of the heroism of the slaves making the best of one of the world's worst situations in human history. Same thing with Holocaust survivors. Like, trying to survive, trying to cultivate a skill set while undergoing the worst horrors a human being can imagine. But, of course, they have to lie. They have to lie. 

Here's the problem: That's not what Gutfeld said. He didn't say that human beings used their already existing cleverness to survive this situation (although that would still be offensive due to the implication that those who died were somehow just less intelligent than those who did not) but that this gave them the chance to learn new skills which helped them in life.

And by the way Ben, you yourself say you have family members who died in the Holocaust. Are you telling me they just weren't clever enough and that's why they died? In that case, fuck you.

Third Place: Matteo Cina

Media Matters gave Ben Shapiro sometimes new to defend tomorrow with their reporting today "Fox News staffer: 'It is hard to talk about the Holocaust and rising anti semitism without discussing Jewish presence in banking.'" Specifically, the article takes aim at things the assistant for Fox News Digital and former writer for Texas Governor Greg Abbot has previously written on TikTok.

This is just nonsense: Antisemitism in Europe in the twentieth century had nothing to do with the amount of Jews who controlled the banks or whatever, it had to do with the longstanding tradition of that same bigotry which existed in Europe since its inception, largely due to the belief that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. The fact is, what this man said could only be seen as apologetics for antisemitism and it should be condemned by everybody who sees it.

Second Place: Glenn Beck

I think this headline from The Daily Beast sums up this situation perfectly: "Glenn Beck Demands Target, a Store He's Actively Boycotting, Sell His Book."

First Place: Ron DeSantis

Remember that ad a member of a DeSantis campaign retweeted with the fascist symbol on screen? It turns out a member of the DeSantis campaign also made the ad in the first place, said person being Nate Hochman who is also a contributor to National Review and a fellow at the Claremont Institute.

I talked yesterday about how DeSantis seems to be using the same platform as other second place religious right zealots, but I want to point out that he is the only person running a campaign with this problem. No other campaign--from either side of the isle--has had this many issues with fascists entering and spreading their views on the same level Ron has. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was beaten up by the media--rightfully so--for one antisemitic comment, but DeSantis's constant fascist problem is seemingly being ignored. This is, hands down, the friendliest Presidential campaign to fascists I've ever seen, and I think that anybody has ever seen if you look at post-World War Two American history and exclude openly fascist parties. Trent Lott was forced out of his role of Senate Majority Leader for praising his segregationist friend Strom Thurmond just two decades ago, now we have people running for President using openly fascist symbols and nobody seems to notice.

Ron DeSantis, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.