Author: Michael A. Ventrella

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8th Annual War on Christmas Contest

Merry War on Christmas, everybody!

Anger drives ratings, as Fox News is well aware. And that’s why they created the War on Christmas. Those poor Christians, being attacked and persecuted and treated terribly — how awful it must be to be a discriminated against majority. All those laws requiring people to never say “Merry Christmas” …  oh wait.

cartoon by Rob Tornoe

Every example Fox News gives for a “War on Christmas” always boils down to something like “They won’t let us force kids to sing our religious songs!” or “They say ‘Happy Holidays’ which acknowledges that not everyone is a Christian and therefore they are attacking us!” or “They are refusing to allow us to use their money (taxpayer dollars) for a religious display.”

So for eight years now, I have challenged anyone to give me an example of a real “attack on Christmas,” because every one of these examples is, in reality, fought in defense. You wouldn’t even hear about them if these particular Christians weren’t trying to require everyone to obey their beliefs.

Acknowledging other beliefs by saying “Happy holidays” does not diminish the belief in Christmas one bit. Those who complain are just mad that you aren’t treating them special. That’s hardly a war — it’s the temper tantrum spoiled kids get when you give attention to someone else.

Or else they’ll point out one misguided grinch who complains about a decoration or something as if that was evidence of a vast, coordinated attack. Last year, they trotted out an elementary school principal who, in an effort to avoid controversy, banned even secular representations of Christmas such as Santa Claus and Christmas trees. She changed her position once people complained, but that was hardly a “war on Christmas” as much as it was someone who understood that religion does not belong in a public school but mistakenly went too far.

And this in no way prevented any family from celebrating their religion in any way they wanted to on their own.

So there’s my yearly challenge: find me one example of anyone trying to prevent people from celebrating a religious Christmas. Just one.

I have a feeling I know what the result will once again be.

EDITED TO CLARIFY: I’m talking about the US only; clearly there is a war against various religions in other countries

(And yes, of course, just to clarify: #notallChristians)

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Definition of insanity

Mike Luckovich
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Why Trump-appointed judges have ruled against him

Donald Trump knows nothing about how government works, and was clearly under the impression that all the judges he appointed would be loyal to him.

But now his lawsuits have had more than fifty losses and only one procedural win early on (having to do with forcing Pennsylvania to do something it was already doing, so it’s kind of moot). Judges from every state have ruled against the GOP’s attempt to destroy democracy. The Supreme Court twice (and swiftly) refused to hear the appeals and not one Justice filed a dissent.

And many of these judges were Trump-appointed.

And here’s why that happened:

The GOP has been filling the courts for years with right-wing ideologues, many of whom are deemed “unqualified” by the American Bar Association. These radical judges have done a great job in destroying many of our basic civil liberties and bending over backwards to give corporations wins.

But these people were nominated in the first place because they are (what I call in my Constitution book) “Constitutional Fundamentalists.” Like religious fundamentalists, they believe there is only one interpretation of their holy document and lo and behold, they know exactly what it is and it matches their own views perfectly.

Justice Scalia was one of the prime movers of this idea on the Supreme Court, believing not only that his view of what the Constitution was correct, but that everyone who disagreed with him was not only wrong but very likely evil as well. Fortunately, he no longer does this, primarily because he is dead, but his views live on.

These fundamentalist judges honestly believe that they are being fair in their decisions and are fanatics to the fantasy document that exists in their head. They don’t think they are interpreting the Constitution in any way, ignoring the fact that every decision a court ever makes about the Constitution is an interpretation. (If the Constitution was as clear as they believe, there would never be a need for a judge at all.)

This mindless refusal to acknowledge that other people’s views may be valid is typical of conservatives who are not known for their tolerance of anyone different, but it’s important to consider now — because these judges think they are doing the will of the founders in the same way religious fundamentalists believe they are doing the will of their god.

And that’s why these judges are never going to ignore that Constitution like the Trump lawsuits require. These suits have no basis in our laws, are completely frivolous, and ask the courts to ignore democracy and our system of elections completely and just hand over the presidency to the loser who wants to be a dictator.

These judges are fanatics for the Constitution, not for Trump. And that’s why he keeps losing.

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Pardon?

Clay Jones
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The stupidest election lawsuit yet

Yesterday, the Trump election deniers lost their 50th case in their ridiculous quest to destroy democracy.

Here’s why it is so laughable.

The legislature here in Pennsyvania — which is still run by Republicans — last year passed the law allowing mail in ballots. Many of the GOP candidates urged their voters to use them. Not one complained about it or claimed the law they had passed was unconstitutional.

Suddenly they lose the state.

“The mail in ballots we passed and didn’t complain about for an entire year are unconstitutional!” they suddenly discovered. “Clearly, the only solution is throw every single one of these ballots out even though there was no fraud whatsoever and literally millions of voters would be disenfranchised.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court laughed that out of court, pointing out that not only was the lawsuit untimely but was clearly blatantly political. Not only that, even if the complaint was valid, the resolution suggested (throwing out all the mail-in ballots) was not reasonable.

The Trumpies appealed to the Supreme Court and within an hour, the case was denied with a one sentence statement and no dissenting comments from the court. (It should be noted that in order for the Supreme Court to decide to accept a case, you need at least three judges to agree — so at least one if not all three of the justices appointed by Trump voted to not take the case).

Of course, as I stated earlier, the real reason for all these cases is to raise money from the rubes. It has nothing to do with real law in any sense, which is why real lawyers have either refused to take these cases or have resigned as Trump’s attorneys — leaving us with Guiliani and his crew of slapstick-comedy rejects.

The latest attempt comes from Texas, whose motto is apparently “Don’t mess with Texas, but it’s perfectly fine for us to mess with you.” The Texas Attorney General has filed this case trying to throw out the results in only states Trump lost, with another vague accusation of something-wrong-but-no-one-seems-to-have-any-evidence-or-idea-exactly-what-it-is.

Since Republican ideology never actually stands for anything except money and power for them and their donors, the claim of “state’s rights” gets thrown right out the door in this blatant attempt for one state to interfere with the elections of another.

The Solicitor General of Texas — you know, the one who is supposed to argue these cases in the Supreme Court — has refused to participate, leaving Texas AG Ken Paxton to do all the work. You remember Paxton, right? The guy who is supposed to uphold the law who has been indicted for security fraud? Yes, that Paxton, whose real goal with this lawsuit is to impress Trump into giving him a pardon.

These criminals are so used to getting their way that they are astounded that the law is being applied to them.

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Somebody’s poisoned the water hole!

Stuart Carlson
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Keeping the cultists happy

Despite not winning one serious case of voter fraud after filing over 50, the Trump camp is continuing in its ridiculous quest to try to negate an obvious huge loss to the president. Judges, on the other hand, are loving it because they can write scathing decisions with the same sort of glee that a film critic has in panning an awful movie. The incompetence of the lawyers filing these things is fun to destroy.

And they’re not even pretending this is about fair elections any more, are they? They only file suits and claim there was something wrong in states Trump lost. And note that none of these lawsuits ever uses the word “fraud” because the lawyers know it isn’t.



They’re just filing these frivolous lawsuits so the rubes will keep contributing and they can con them into believing in outrageous conspiracy theories. Gotta keep the cultists loyal.


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The MAGA Carta

Brian Carroll

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A Matter of Priorities

When we need to go to war; when Wall Street needs a bailout; when billionaires want tax cuts that cost us trillions; when we’re buying planes and tanks the army doesn’t want or need — you never hear these people saying “But how will we pay for it? Think of the deficit!”

But whenever we want to spend money on health care or education or things that will literally improve people’s lives, suddenly it’s all “Not with MY tax dollars!”

We’re the richest country on the planet. We can afford it. Countries much poorer than us do it.

This is like having a family budget and saying “Sorry kids, we can’t afford to take you to the doctor or send you to school, because we gave all our money to our rich uncle and bought all these limousines.” It’s all a matter of priorities.

So here’s the prediction: Not once during Trump’s administration did we hear Republicans scream about the deficit, which has now grown almost to a trillion dollars. As soon as Biden takes office, that’s all the Republicans will talk about.

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Underminers

Robert Ariail