MAGA and Christian nationalism

Nobody knows more than Trump

Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

From Axios by Haley Britzky

Campaign finance: "I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I'm the biggest contributor." (1999.)

TV ratings: "I know more about people who get ratings than anyone." (October 2012.)

ISIS: "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." (November 2015.)

Social media: "I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost anybody, based on my results, right?" (November 2015.)

Courts: "I know more about courts than any human being on Earth." (November 2015.)

Lawsuits: "[W]ho knows more about lawsuits than I do? I'm the king." (January 2016.)

Politicians: "I understand politicians better than anybody." (no link)

The visa system: "[N]obody knows the system better than me. I know the H1B. I know the H2B. ... Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me." (March 2016.)

Trade: "Nobody knows more about trade than me." (March 2016.)

The U.S. government system: "[N]obody knows the system better than I do." (April 2016.)

Renewable energy: "I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." (April 2016.)

Taxes: "I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world." (May 2016.)

Debt: "I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me." (June 2016.)

Money: "I understand money better than anybody." (June 2016.)

Infrastructure: "[L]ook, as a builder, nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump." (July 2016.)

Sen. Cory Booker: "I know more about Cory than he knows about himself." (July 2016.)

Borders: Trump said in 2016 that Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he was endorsing him for president because "you know more about this stuff than anybody."

Democrats: "I think I know more about the other side than almost anybody." (November 2016.)

Construction: "[N]obody knows more about construction than I do." (May 2018.)

The economy: "I think I know about it better than [the Federal Reserve]." (October 2018.)

Technology: "Technology — nobody knows more about technology than me." (December 2018.)

Drones: "I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have." (January 2019.)

Drone technology: "Having a drone fly overhead — and I think nobody knows much more about technology, this type of technology certainly, than I do." (January 2019.)

Blaming Newsom

Mayor Newsom harassed in 2007

Kevin Drum on Governor Newsom:

 

Blame Gavin Newsom!

The 99 Cents Only chain is closing up shop. LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano headed out to talk to a few customers about it:

“I blame [Gavin] Newsom,” said Rick Juarez, 53, referencing the California governor as he entered the store to stock up on batteries. He had shopped at this location for “at least” 20 years. “Too many taxes, too high the minimum wage. These companies just can’t compete, and so they have to close. And it’s poor people like us who end up suffering.”

I know, I know: this is just one random guy. Who cares? But it's hard to get so many things wrong in such a short comment: California's corporate tax rate is 8.84% and hasn't changed in 30 years. Newsom temporarily lowered corporate taxes in 2021 and swatted down a proposed tax hike last year.

California's minimum wage is tied to inflation. Newsom has nothing to do with it. And anyway, 99 Cents Only operates all over the west, not just in California.

But sure, blame Newsom. Why not? Someone on the radio probably says everything is all his fault.

Rob's comment:

Here in San Francisco, I've posted about Gavin Newsom for years. Mostly I supported him after he tackled the city's homeless problem that helped him become mayor in days of yore.

City progressives never forgave Newsom, a liberal Democrat, for successfully beating them to the punch on an issue on which city residents clearly wanted action from city hall.

Pictured above is a one of the more creative anti-Newsom demonstrations in 2007. 

One thing you can say about Newsom: he can take criticism, which he got a lot of here in Progressive Land, almost all of which came from the city's left.

Daily Kos

Identity Crisis

Buried frescos uncovered

Nice abs, dude

Frescoes buried by volcano uncovered in ancient Pompeii

Where condors soar

From the Washington Post:

Biden will expand two national monuments in California

President Biden plans to expand the boundaries of two national monuments in California in the coming weeks, aiming to bolster his conservation record and increase access to nature for disadvantaged communities, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Biden is expected to sign proclamations expanding the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, both of which were originally designated by President Barack Obama, the two people said. The exact timing and location of the announcement has not yet been finalized, although it could coincide with Earth Day on April 22, they said.

John D. Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy, suggested that the expansions were imminent during a climate summit Thursday hosted by Washington Post Live.

“I worked for President Clinton, for President Obama. They both had tremendous conservation records,” Podesta said. “President Biden is just surpassing that in terms of what he’s able to do in the first term. And I think we’ve got more to come, including better use and better protection of public lands.”

Conservation groups, Native American tribes and California lawmakers have all called on Biden to expand these monuments. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) have championed legislation to enlarge the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, east of Los Angeles, but the measure has stalled in the divided Congress. 

Biden plans to use his executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to bypass the gridlock on Capitol Hill.

Legislation from Padilla and Chu would increase the monument’s size by a third, adding 109,167 acres of Angeles National Forest land to the 346,179-acre monument. It is unclear whether the presidential proclamation would propose the same boundaries as the lawmakers’ bill.

The measure seeks to improve access to nature for Latino and low-income communities in eastern Los Angeles, which lacks parks and other green spaces. The Angeles National Forest is within a 90-minute drive for 18 million people, and it receives more than 4.6 million visitors annually — more than Yosemite, according to Forest Service data. 

On clear winter days, its trails offer stunning vistas of snow-studded peaks for hikers, mountain bikers and campers.

“The national forest provides a critical respite for escaping the urban blight and getting into the outdoors,” said Daniel Rossman, Southern California mountains landscape director for the Wilderness Society, which supports the monument expansion.

In November, the Agriculture Department held a public hearing on the proposed expansion — typically a precursor to a presidential proclamation. Most of the roughly 250 attendees voiced strong support for the proposal, saying it would protect scenic rivers and other sensitive landscapes for generations to come.

“The San Gabriel Mountains are among the most pristine and beautiful public lands in the country, with more visitors annually than Yellowstone, and they are right next to one of the nation’s densest and most park-deprived population centers,” Chu said in an emailed statement.

Chu, who stood beside Obama when he designated the monument in 2014, added that she would be “absolutely elated” for Biden to expand its boundaries and unlock “additional federal support and resources.”

The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and other Native American tribes have spearheaded the campaign to expand the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. They have called for adding roughly 3,925 acres and changing the name of the additional area from “Walker Ridge” to “Molok Luyuk,” which means “Condor Ridge” in the Patwin language.

Molok Luyuk and surrounding lands were part of the ancestral homeland of the Hill Patwin people. Condors once soared in the skies there, but their population has declined due to lead poisoning, habitat destruction and poaching.

Reps. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) have led legislation to enlarge the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and allow for tribal co-management of the site. The measure passed the House in 2022, when Democrats controlled the chamber, but has since stalled.

Biden has set an ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030. He has designated five new national monuments, many of which are on lands that area tribes consider sacred. 

Most recently, the president in August created the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument near the Grand Canyon, safeguarding the site from new uranium mining.

The California Condor: Rescued from the brink of extinction

The eclipse: Who cares?

Okay, I understand why astronomers, astrologists, journalists and those who study the cosmos have to care, but the rest of us? Nope. A big fucking Ho, and a big fucking Hum.

The movement of the planets has never been of any interest to me, since that process has no human significance. 

Landing a man on the moon was a great technical achievement, but, in the humble opinion of this earthling, a cosmic waste of money.

Hitler complains about traffic in L.A.

Buttigieg and electric vehicles

"Monstrous": Israel destroys an aid convoy

Did Israel deliberately destroy an aid convoy?

Kevin Drum doesn't want to believe it:

...I can hardly bring myself to believe it was deliberate. That would be monstrous. On the other hand, Israel's ongoing efforts to starve the Gazan population have been pretty monstrous. What's more, their recent acquiescence to increasing aid shipments has been very much against their will. 

Deliberately destroying an aid convoy would certainly be a very effective way of continuing their starvation policy by the simple expedient of scaring off humanitarian organizations. 

Finally, in addition to all this, it's just very hard to believe that an operation so precisely calculated and carried out was due merely to sloppy intel or a careless fog-of-war mistake....

Did Israel deliberately destroy an aid convoy?

See also The banality of moral and intellectual evil.

Trump Derangement Syndrome.

This guy is pranking his parents who own the place he's plastering with Trump's repellant image while they're not home. So the prank's really targeted at Mom and Dad, who I like to think are Trump supporters.

Very likely that Mom and Dad and Son have some relationship issues. But they have to give him credit for how much work he put into this, which surely is some kind of love, right? That's what he can tell his therapist, anyhow, while he looks for a place to live. 

It's amusing for the rest of us, which is probably why he made the video. while he worked to in effect make the world a little better by making people laugh. He hasn't toiled in vain!

Gaza and the sky-god cults

Philip Munger on Daily Kos last year:

Watching the world come closer to spinning out of control hour by hour is worse than watching it spin out of control week by week.

I have a few friends who are atheists.

I have many, many, many friends who are Christians. Although baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran, I'm not even close to Christianity anymore. 

I came to a point where I couldn't recite the Apostles' Creed or Nicene Creed anymore, because they are false statements. Jesus did not rise from the dead. There's no such thing as the father, son and Holy Ghost, literally or figuratively.

I have many friends who are Jewish. I'm not even close.

I have several friends who are Muslim. I'm not even close.

I regard all your faiths as cults, pure and simple.

That was okay until your hatreds toward one another spiraled into what we are now witnessing. Your superstitions and weird rituals might have once served to advance civilization. The Aztecs and Mayans also built monuments as awesome as the Notre Dame Cathedral, but they were built as platforms to cut out human hearts.

I call Judaism, Christianity and Islam "The three interconnected Abrahamic Vengeful Male Sky God Cults."

The basis of these cults are myths with no more substance in reality than Jason and the Golden Fleece or King Arthur. King David is a myth, yet every day of the week Christians and Jews venerate him as an epochal empire builder. They call the hymns known as Psalms the Psalms of David, yet nobody has ever shown that to be factual. 

Abraham, the interconnecting tissue of these superstitions, is a myth. However, his supposed home, Hebron, is a bedeviled city of warped hatreds between two cults fighting over what that myth means.

Like the Aztecs of 1500, the Christians of 1500 sacrificed people, mostly women who were midwives or healers. Unlike the Aztecs who quickly killed their victims, the Catholic and Protestant executioners watched their victims slowly roast as they screamed. Like the Aztecs, this was all done in front of large crowds to warn them.

Imagine living in Gaza right now. It has been an open air prison since Hamas took over 17 years ago. Not that it was much less of a prison before that. Hamas, which has become a boil on the flesh of every person in that prison, has picked this particular time to put a collective suicide vest on every person living in that hellhole.

And so another branch of the vengeful male sky god cult (Judaism) has convinced the third branch of the cult (Christianity) to accept what's going to happen over the next several weeks live on TV to warn us all.

I'm not blaming one of these cults more than the other. You are all, if you believe these dangerous superstitions, responsible for enabling this, either by rooting for one of the cults or by idly standing by as thousands of kids die without even understanding why they are offered up on the altar of Moloch.

The reality is that your superstitions are keeping us from preventing the entire planet from becoming unlivable. Own it!

Rob's comment:

I took the liberty of doing a little editing of the mostly outstanding original.

Easter message

Freedom From Religion

Stuck on Stupid

History lesson

Daily Kos

Bridge failures in the US

Kevin Drum on bridge failures:

There's no trend either up or down. It's perhaps also worth noting that virtually none of these failures were due to age or bad design. The vast majority failed due to floods, being hit by trucks, being hit by barges, or by construction work.

Rob's comment:

In other words, it's all bullshit. Bridges rarely fail.

Bridges Over Troubled Water – How Waterway Bridges are Built, How They Fail

Joe Biden's State Of The Union

Trump: The Second Campaign

Accident or assault?

SF Streetsblog keeps us informed about the ongoing slaughter on city streets, as drivers---the bastards!---of those darn motor vehicles routinely injure unsuspecting city pedestrians: Driver Hits Pedestrian Just Outside Golden Gate Park. 

And the driver hit that pedestrian---did he get out and hit him with a tire iron?---on a street near Golden Gate Park! No safe place for pedestrians in San Francisco!

The location tagged in Today's Headlines by SF Streetsblog is pictured above in the SF Chronicle story below:

Less than a week after a fatal crash that killed a family of four at a bus stop in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood, authorities were called to the scene of another collision across from Golden Gate Park that sent one man to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

On Saturday at approximately 4:50 p.m., police and firefighters arrived at the intersection of Fulton Street and Park Presidio Boulevard to find a “yield to pedestrians” sign toppled over and a man on the ground near the bus shelter, which services the 5 Fulton route. 

The man, who had reportedly been struck by an oncoming vehicle, was transported to the hospital, and the driver was “cited on scene for multiple moving violations,” SFPD public information officer Robert Rueca told SFGATE in an email.

It’s not clear if the pedestrian has been released from the hospital, and the cause of the crash is still under investigation.

The collision was less than a mile from Fulton Street and Arguello Boulevard, where a 72-year-old man was struck and killed by a car in February — the first pedestrian death in the city this year, according to Walk SF, an organization that advocates for pedestrian safety in San Francisco.

Fulton Street is part of the “high-injury network” identified by Vision Zero SF, an initiative implemented by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to eliminate traffic deaths and injuries in the city, meaning it is among the 12% of streets where 68% of crashes occur. 

Fulton Street from Arguello to 2nd Avenue and Fulton Street from 42nd Avenue to 43rd Avenue are two of the corridors in consideration for 33 speed cameras that are set to be installed by SFMTA by 2025; the agency cited “unsafe speed” as “one of the most common primary collision factors in crashes that result in injuries.”

Anyone with more information on Saturday’s crash is encouraged to call SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411.

A picture of the mishap above shows that obviousy the "driver" was at fault and evidently lost control of the car, though "the cause of the crash is still under investigation" in cop-speak. 

The "cause" may have been a drunk driver, or maybe the driver was distracted during a cellphone conversation. Whatever.

My point: the Chronicle story could have been written by the anti-car Streetsblog, since it shuns the word "accident" in favor of "crash" and "collision." It's clear that this is accurately called an "accident," since it's unlikely the driver deliberately targeted that pedestrian.

Seems likely too that man was not strictly speaking a "pedestrian" but was just waiting for the bus. The poor bastard was trying to do the right thing by riding public transportation and was still mowed down by that driver!

Am I indulging in semantic quibbles here? Maybe, but this is a minor but annoying example of how language has been contaminated here in Progressive Land. 

Okay, slow news day at Streetsblog and the Chronicle---and at District 5 Diary! If it bleeds maybe it doesn't lead, but it's legitimate fodder for all three news/opinion sources.

I can also cite in my defense links in the Chronicle's story to Vision Zero and Walk SF since I've been critical of both that "vision" and that organization in the past.

Republicans: Same old crap

Kevin Drum on the Republican Party:

The Republican Study Committee—which includes nearly every Republican in Congress—released its latest budget proposal today. 

It's getting a lot of attention on Twitter because it includes cuts to Social Security even though Republicans have spent the past year angrily denying Democratic claims that they plan to cut Social Security.

But that's not what struck me. After browsing through it, it's clear that it's just a recitation of greatest hits:

• Cut the pay of federal workers and make it easier to fire them
• Reduce funding for the EPA, SEC, FTC, NLRB, OSHA, and presumably any other agency that annoys the business community
• Raise the Social Security retirement age even more
• Block grants for Medicaid
• A big pile o' deregulation proposals
• Drill baby drill
• Welfare reform cuts
• Fight waste fraud 'n abuse
• Defund the IRS
• Eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Tax cuts for businesses and the rich
• Eliminate the estate tax
• Convert SNAP into a block grant
• More defense spending
• Health Savings Accounts
• Premium support for Medicare
• Block grant SSI
• Balanced budget amendment
• Make tax increases essentially impossible
• Kill Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• Eliminate climate funding wherever it's hiding

Rob's comment:

Republicans can't help it. That's just who they are, who they have always been!  Which is why I never vote for Republicans for anything.

Super Bowl ads and the American Dream

Trump is broke

Trump's big bond problem

No surprise

Daily Kos

$100 billion more for high-speed rail?

in the SF Chronicle:

California’s high-speed rail needs $100 billion to finish — scrapping the project is a possibility

By Ricardo Cano

March 16, 2024

California’s high-speed rail project has teased residents with recent renderings of how its futuristic trains and massive stations would look. But, despite recent progress and the excitement those renderings have produced, the project remains about $7 billion short of the cost to complete the initial segment from Merced to Bakersfield.

The rail project also needs about $100 billion to make the original vision of linking San Francisco and Los Angeles via bullet trains a reality. And some of the project’s watchdogs say state leaders need to decide soon whether to commit to the entire project — or abandon it....

Authority officials say they’re trying to secure $4.7 billion in federal funds to pay for the bulk of the Central Valley segment’s remaining estimated cost....

State leaders agreed to prioritize finishing construction in the Central Valley first, and the rail project’s supporters hope that the launch of interim service there will galvanize public support to finance the rest of the project....

the state’s high-speed rail project, got a combined $6 billion windfall from the Biden administration’s 2022 infrastructure law, and rail authority CEO Brian Kelly told legislators the Brightline West project “will probably affect our ongoing analysis of where we go next.”

...It’s unclear how, when and if the high-speed rail project will acquire the funding required to complete the Bay-to-L.A. system initially sold to California voters in 2008. 

Kelly, who in January announced plans to retire, told lawmakers it would likely take funding “not just from the federal and state (governments), but probably local and regional partners, as well,” to complete the envisioned system.

California’s bullet train project, though, faces other immediate questions.

The project has been mired by rising cost estimates, delays and litigation — “Phase 1” between San Francisco to L.A. is estimated to cost three times the initial cost projection....

Louis Thompson, chairman of the project’s Peer Review Group, said the costs face “considerable risk” in rising further, “because most of the project remains at an early design stage or less, and there is no experience to date with major elements of the project.”

Exacerbating the problem, Kelly and Thompson both said, is the fact that the project continues to face financial uncertainty. Its sole source of ongoing funds, from the state’s cap-and-trade program, expires in 2030. Authority officials want to extend that authorization to 2050.

Even with an extension, that funding alone won’t be enough to finance the complete project, and Thompson said lawmakers should decide soon whether to commit to building the entire project or cut bait....

See also Biden, Streetsblog, and high-speed rail and Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again by $5 billion

Dorothy Kilgallen and the JFK Assassination

The assassination of JFK: Case not closed