Friday, May 20, 2016

Republicans, magical thinking, and what do you mean by "evidence"?

Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Truth Crusaders, and Freedom Fighters!

I hope you all are doing well...me, I'm STILL still digging out from the tech support ransomware scam incident and the three converging deadlines from hell at work. All I need is a few decent nights' sleep...and I haven't had one in a couple of weeks now. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I'm apparently still not done pissing and moaning about Republicans and their magical thinking.

Here's what's stuck in my craw today...

Here are a very few evidently untrue if not downright crazy things that my Tea Party Christian friend and people like him believe...

--Bible stories like creationism and Noah's flood are literally, historically true despite mountains of scientific, archeological, and historical evidence debunking them

--Evolution doesn't happen, despite mountains of scientific evidence from disparate fields confirming the fact that evolution does indeed happen

--Global warming doesn't happen, despite mountains of scientific evidence from disparate fields confirming that we are headed for climatological deep doo-doo unless we act quickly to reverse man-made carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere

--Women's egg cells are dead (not even dormant but deceased, as in inert) until fertilized by sperm

--Opinion, belief, and desire can change reality because reality is not objective...it's whatever you say it is or want it to be

My friend believes that he is omniscient, just like God.

He has convinced himself that only he and God truly know what everyone on the planet is thinking at all times. He has convinced himself that only he and God know all truth all the time. He has convinced himself that, with his hifalutin GED, he knows more about any and every field of expertise than any and every actual trained, educated, experienced expert. He has convinced himself that he knows more about physics than Lawrence Krauss, more about biology than PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins, more about engineering than real live engineers with doctorates and decades of job experience, more about medicine than doctors, and so on and so on and so on.

What's weird is that my friend believes--or at least claims he believes--that the universe is old, the earth is not flat, the sky is not hard, men and women are equal, and a handful of other sensible notions that fly in the face of what his Bible and his televangelists tell him he needs to believe.

The only reason that society doesn't consider him crazy is consensus...my friend's crazy beliefs stem from his religion, and most Americans are religious. That means that they agree with him on enough of his irrational beliefs not to question his other irrational beliefs.

So, why does he believe these evident untruths?

Magical thinking is where it all starts. Like so many of the Christo-fascists plaguing the country, my friend grew up in an abusive household where he was shamed and treated like he was worthless. Children normally believe in magic until they learn how the world really works--it takes a while to figure out what's possible and what's not. But if you grow up in an environment where you're indoctrinated to believe that the world doesn't really work the way it does and that magic is true, you are far more likely to believe magic as an adult than you would if you'd been given tools to question and investigate. Especially if you're being abused--then the notion that you, the weak and powerless child being hurt by the people you're supposed to be able to trust, have a Big Important Invisible Friend who's very Powerful and who will Punish Everyone who ever Hurt You and who will Reward You and Treat You Like Privileged Royalty becomes irresistible. Of course, there are heritable aspects of conservatism and liberalism that contribute to one's thinking, but it seems to me that the drive to deny the reality in front of one's nose can only come from magical thinking.

Because of magical thinking, my Tea Party Christian friend's sense of what constitutes evidence and what doesn't is way out of whack because he's lost touch with what it means to know and what it means to prove. He believes that some random, untrained, uneducated blogger knows more about biology and climate change than actual scientists trained and working for decades in those fields. He believes that unsubstantiated rantings punctuated with plagiarized Internet memes constitute better proof than actual research consisting of the systematic analysis of hundreds of documents as described in a reputable commuter paper owned and operated by a conservative newspaper that my friend himself claims to respect and to read.

What mystifies me is that my Tea Party Christian friend doesn't believe all the nonsense in the Bible--like the snowglobe model of the universe--any more than Ken Ham or his ilk do, and yet he still loudly claims to believe that the entire Bible is literally true historically, scientifically, and morally, just like Ken Ham and his ilk do. Howzat for some serious cognitive dissonance? If he's willing to believe some of the Bible's obvious nonsense (quite a lot, really), then why doesn't he just bite the bullet and make himself believe the rest of the Bible's obvious nonsense? Given his rather shaky understanding of what the word "evidence" means, why did he pick the pieces he picked to believe or reject? How does he make himself believe that he believes the buybull literally when he clearly doesn't? How does he convince himself that he is fooling God by saying he believes the Bible literally when he clearly doesn't? The magical thinking that drives my Tea Party Christian friend's religious (and political) beliefs bleeds over into his behavior, too. How did he convince himself that God told him to verbally abuse his two ex-wives until they left him, and how does he convince himself that God also tells him to deny it? Wouldn't you think that, if my friend obeyed God's command to destroy both of his marriages, he'd be all proud of himself for being such a good and faithful servant? Why the need to feel commanded by God to deny such good, godly, and moral behavior?

Obviously, my poor benighted friend doesn't believe...in God as he defines him or in the Bible as the literal historical, scientific, and moral truth. He just doesn't know it yet. And, until or unless he does realize the truth about himself and his beliefs, he will continue to vote as if he does believe...and he will scream at anyone who challenges the lunacy of his claims.

Here's the kicker: although my friend is undeniably ignorant, he is not stupid. He is the victim of two very nasty circumstances: he was reared in an extremely religious home, and he dropped out of high school to find blue collar work. He never experienced the kind of education college gives--not just the science classes (which he claims he liked in high school, go figure) but learning about, investigating, and debating other people's points of view--which leads you to examine and refine your own. He never learned to challenge the religion he was indoctrinated into--no seeds of reason were ever planted in that soil when it was still fertile. Today, he is not just proud about his ignorance--he is smug about it. I am probably the first and only person who's ever challenged his beliefs...and I've gotten to the point that it's just not worth getting screamed at by someone with both weak beliefs and a weak ego. He is thoroughly deluded, and there seems to be no way to reach him...but that's not going to stop me from throwing the occasional seeds of truth and reason at him. Who knows--maybe, some day, one of them will stick.

Don't forget to read Dot Calm's shadow's favorite independent sources of news and information:

Daily Kos
AlterNet
Democracy Now!
Conservatives are Destroying our Future
Conservative Clown Car
Americans Against the Republican Party
Americans Against the Tea Party

...And, whatever you do,
VOTE BERNIE!!!!!

Please send him a buck o' five--when people vote, Bernie wins; when Bernie wins, we win. Let's win in California! PLEASE!!!!! I know the numbers are against him, but he's in this for the long haul...and, if anyone needs Bernie's message, it's Hillary. Bernie has started a movement that this country really, really needs right now. All the fascism is not good for us--it is not sustainable. Americans distrust and dislike sustainability in all of its glorious forms, and I personally hope that Bernie's movement to return to the New Deal and a government that works FOR the people can teach us Americans not to be so suspicious of sustainability. Then again, I am one of those weird Americans who isn't suspicious of exercise and vegetables.

Thanks for reading, thanks for being you, and thanks for treating yourselves and your loved ones as beautifully as possible. As for me...I'm sleeping in tomorrow, even if I hafta hit myself over the haid with a hammer like they do in the cartoons! Gratuitous Bugs Bunny quotation because I'm sleep deprAved: "Boy oh boy...oh boy! Rabbit stew at last!" 
- Little Hiawatha

Cheers (and pass the Fireball--I am SOOO ready)!

- Dot Calm's shadow

Blogger disclaimer: please ignore all weird, wonky, and stoopit Blogger formatting, random font colors, random numbers of line spaces, etc. Sometimes, the idiots who program Blogger give it a mindless of its own, and it resists all attempts at sensible formatting. Grrr!

Disclaimer:  
  Not responsible for keys getting in the
      way when headed to the right ones.
  Not responsible for misspellings. Too lazy
      to look up the right spelling.
  Not responsible for initial caps. You know
      where they belong...put them in.
  Not responsible for punctuation or grammar;
      consider poetic license being in effect.

Drive a HYBRID.
Leave a lighter footprint on the planet.

 
********************************************
ATTENTION, REPUBLICANS!
The Kenyan Muslim
liberal fascist
weak dictator
Obama is coming
for your guns 'n' Bibles
November 8, 2016.
DO NOT
LEAVE YOUR HOUSE
THAT DAY
FOR ANY REASON!
The rights you save
may be your own!
********************************************

From the Mailbag

I received this article about the tech support ransomware scam and felt obligated to pass it along. Click the link to see some of the screen captures of the malicious warning pop-ups.
-- Dot Calm's shadow


Softpedia, 18 May 2016: Tech support scammers have been taking inspiration from ransomware operators and have changed their mode of operation by creating malicious software that blocks the user's access to the computer until they contact a call center for support.

For years, tech support scams have used so-called "scareware" tactics, trying to trick users into thinking they needed technical support from an expert. These methods often used warnings and popups telling users they had malware on their computer, or a fault on their hard drive, with the computer ready to fail at any moment.

Later, the same tech support scammers developed clever JavaScript-powered tricks to lock the user into a one Web page, with the same scary messages, aiming to trick the victim into contacting their call centers. In the latest installment of this tech support scam, the crooks have managed to find a way to lock the user's entire computer, not just their browser.

This trick is reminiscent of the early days of ransomware. Back then, ransomware didn't encrypt your files, but merely blocked access to your computer with screens overlaid over your desktop, or by disabling keyboard and mouse input. Security researcher slipstream/RoL discovered one of these tech support scams that lock the user's entire PC. He and the team at Malwarebytes investigated this problem.

According to the two, crooks are distributing a trojan bundled as adware with legitimate programs. Once the user installs the desired software, the adware also gets installed, in the form of the trojan. This trojan waits in hiding until the user restarts their PC. When this happens, it shows a fake Windows update screen, but when it ends, it displays a message telling the user their Windows product key expired and that users should call a phone number to speak to a Microsoft employee.

slipstream/RoL says the call center is located somewhere in India. Malwarebytes claims they've called the number, and the call center operator instructed them to press CTRL+SHIFT+T. This key combo starts a TeamViewer instance, which the call center operator will use to access the victim's computer, and presumably uninstall the trojan. At this point, the call center operator refuses to continue the discussion until the victim makes a payment of $250. By refusing any interaction, the tech support scammers are holding the computer and the user's data for ransom, making them a "walking & talking ransomware."

slipstream/RoL discovered that, by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+S, users can shut down the screen lock, but this doesn't give them access to the computer. He also discovered some hardcoded serials in the trojan's source, which he says can be employed to start a Windows Explorer window that can be used to navigate the user's PC and remove the trojan. These codes are: "h7c9-7c67-jb" "g6r-qrp6-h2" "yt-mq-6w".

This type of tech support variation is not only novel but quite common already, and Malwarebytes has already had at least two users complain on its forum. Additionally, the researchers found this malware peddled with ads on Facebook, meaning more crooks are bound to buy it and integrate it into their tech support scams.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

From Daily Kos: stop Oklahoma's vicious and unconstitutional attack on women

I'm writing to make sure you know an unprecedented attack on women's rights is awaiting approval from Governor Mary Fallin. Senate bill 1552 would charge doctors who perform abortion with a felony.

Last month, thousands of Daily Kos members called and emailed Fallin to urge her to veto SB 1552 when it reached her desk. After several weeks, the bill is on her desk and it's more important than ever that she hear from you.


Please send a strong message to Governor Fallin. Tell her “Stop this brutal attack on women’s health and veto this unconstitutional bill.” Here is her number and a sample script:

Governor Mary Fallin’s office number:
(405) 521-2342
Hello, my name is _______ and I’m calling from _________. Senate bill 1552 violates the constitution. This bill attacks doctors performing perfectly legal services, and denies women the right to choose when to start a family. The nonsense definition of abortion will seriously endanger women who’ve had miscarriages. Veto the dangerous legislation.

After you call, please let us know how your call went.

Can’t call? Then sign and send a letter to Governor Fallin urging her to veto this dangerous bill.

Keep fighting,
Irna Landrum, Daily Kos

********************************************
I wonder what my Tea Party Christian friend
would say if a majority of Christian Scientists
took over the Republican party
and took majorities in the House and Senate...
maybe even took the White House.
 
What would he say if they insisted
on closing every doctor's office,
every dentist's office,
and every hospital
because modern medicine
is against their religion?
 
What would he say if they insisted
that it was or should be against the law
for him to have knee surgery
or to get his sinuses fixed
or to get his teeth fixed?
 
What if they started working to outlaw
his diabetic bestie's insulin...
because science and medicine
are of the devil,
so not only don't they want their taxes
helping pay for it,
but they really want to deny everyone
access to it...
because anyone who perceives any
Problem with their Perfect
God-given bodies
is demon-possessed,
evil,
or simply lacking in faith?
 
Hey...these poor, persecuted
Christian Scientists
just want their
Freedom of Religion.
They just want their
religious rights restored,
like the Constitution says.
 
So...my Tea Part Christian friend
should think this is all great, right?
...RIGHT?
 
Just like he thinks it's great
for some religious people
to deny all women
access to birth control and abortion...
 
The real question is this:
who owns your body?
You?
Or whichever religious faction
happens to be in the majority?
 
If he really thinks it's the latter,
I'd hate to be him
 if Muslim fundies ever took over.
Come to think of it,
I'd hate to be me, too.
********************************************
 
Not from the Mailbag: checklist of what I did when my loved one gave away the store to the tech support ransomware scammers

--Called the company for the credit card number that was given away; had them dispute the ransomware charge, cancel the card, and send out a new one

--Filed a local police report

--Called Experian and Transunion to alert them of the identity theft

--Went to https://www.identitytheft.gov/ and filed an identity theft report there

--Check your mail: if it stops, the scammers may have filed a change-of-address form to route your mail to themselves; in that case, call your local post office to alert them and ask whether a change-of-address has been filed for your address; go to http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_024.htm and file a mail fraud report there

--Signed up for Lifelock; reported the identity theft to them

--Called all banks--had them freeze all accounts since we suspected mail fraud. Then we had to go to our banks and close the old accounts and open new ones since we weren't sure whether our mail had been rerouted and, if so, whether the scammers had obtained any of our banking information. Better to spend a few hours doing this than to have your bank account cleaned out.

--Ran Superantispyware, Malwarebytes, and CCleaner. Since I still saw suspicious behavior--like print commands calling up an e-print feature, meaning that our documents would print somewhere other than the printer sitting on the desk right next to the machine--I put in a call to my favorite local computer repair geek. Again, better to spend a few bucks getting a pro to come out and make sure the machine really is squeaky clean.

Friendly advice:

--Set up an admin password on your machine so that no one and no thing can install software without your knowing about it and agreeing to it.

--Don't click on anything you're not sure about, whether it's a pop-up warning or a link.

--Google any unfamiliar phone numbers before calling them. People are only too happy to report scammers and spammers, and it's better to confirm that the phone number belongs to a legitimate business than to risk getting scammed.

--Download Superantispyware, Malwarebytes, and CCleaner...and run them regularly. Superantispyware caught one of those malicious pop-ups on my machine--it comes with adware, as the article above said--and got rid of it. So, I should be good to go unless I go back to whichever site it was that done the doity deed.

--Don't let computer-illiterate loved ones surf unsupervised. You do NOT want to live through the hell I just lived through. I lost nearly 40 hours to this cluster over the course of the last two weeks...making phone calls, driving to banks, taking my parent to Social Security to change the direct deposit to the new account, ...! And I'm STILL not done yet because I am still unskrooing my own account stuff.

--If you are the victim of identity theft or fraud, pounce. Don't wait even a day to start making these phone calls and filing these reports.

--Check online and see if there's anything in this checklist I may have missed (the FTA site, identitytheft.gov, had some good information).

FSM willin' and the crick don't rise, may this NEVER EVER EVER happen to you or anyone you love!!!!!

********************************************
Reince Priebus says that "people" don't care
about Donald Trump's misogyny.
He says that because, to him,
women don't count as people.
If you believe the polls,
then maybe "people" don't care,
but WOMEN care...
70% of women view Trump negatively...
and, last time I checked,
women VOTE.
********************************************

Democracy Now!
If you check out nothing else, please check out the interviews with Bob McChesney. His information will open your eyes!
-- Dot Calm's shadow
 

Stories

"This has been an all-time low by mainstream corporate media," says media scholar Robert McChesney, who joins us to discuss how the media is covering the race for the ... Read More →

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with top conservative media figures, including Glenn Beck, Dana Perino and Tucker Carlson, after his company was accused ... Read More →

This week Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It's currently legal only in certain states and Mexico City. The announcement ... Read More →

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is reportedly preparing to launch a month-long campaign of raids specifically aimed at rounding up and deporting ... Read More →

We get reaction from media scholar Robert McChesney to news that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is reportedly considering suing The New York Times after it ... Read More →

Headlines →

Stories

Broadcasting from Toronto, Canada, we look at how Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized this week for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident ... Read More →

We host a roundtable discussion in Toronto about how indigenous and Black Lives Matter activists in Canada are working together to address state violence and neglect, and ... Read More →

Headlines →

********************************************
Lather, Reince, Repeat
********************************************

Daily Kos

  • American Airlines on ‘high alert’ that North Carolina lawmakers will retaliate over its HB2 stand
  • Anti-Semitic attacks and death threats on Jewish reporter: Donald refuses to condemn, Melania blames reporter!
  • Sign if you agree with Russ Feingold: We need to create a system of debt-free college for students. sponsored
  • Texas candidate lost her Tea Party support for being too crazy—maybe Obama isn't a gay prostitute?
  • CBS News reports 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer has died, only one week after retirement
  • Louisiana Republican files amendment to regulate the age and weight of strippers
  • Race in America: Ken Burns delivers a remarkable Jefferson Lecture on race
  • Sen. Chuck Grassley: 'I've never heard' Trump accused of 'being a liar'
  • Robert Reich to Bernie folks: 'Don't demonize or denigrate Hillary' and, if she's the nominee, 'work like hell for her'
  • Sign if you agree with Everytown: McConnell and Ryan should support efforts to repeal PLCAA - the law passed in 2005 that gives gun and ammunition manufactuers blanket immunity. sponsored
  • Christian pastor fails to keep Muslim from being picked as Republican precinct chair in Houston
  • Top Democrat calls out Republicans on House floor for using procedural trickery to target LGBT workers
  • The battle against whitewashing and racebending
  • Oklahoma Senate okays most extreme forced-birther law yet: It makes abortion a felony
  • South Carolina joins the 17 other states that have sought to ban abortions at 20 weeks
  • Yellowstone officials are fed up with bad behavior, issue federal criminal warrants for selfie bros
  • Sanders supporters and white entitlement
  • What natural wonders have you visited that are now endangered by climate change? This person wrote about the coral reefs, but there are many others. Log in or sign up for a Daily Kos account, and write a blog post about your experience. Be sure to include photos!
  • Kansas Republicans' war on voters takes a hit!
  • Sign if you agree with the Democratic Governors Association (DGA): We must stop LGBTQ discrimination in the states. sponsored
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell has an opinion, maybe, about Trump refusing to release his tax returns
  • Top Republican Benghazi investigator shoots down Republicans' own Benghazi conspiracy theory
  • WWJD? Church cut ties with homeless non-profit after they tried to help a same-sex couple with kids
  • Trump University 101: How to avoid paying taxes
  • Sanders supporter Sen. Jeff Merkley on supporting a convention battle: 'Absolutely not'
  • Politifact: Allegations of fraud and misconduct at Nevada convention unfounded
  • Sign if you agree with Russ Feingold: We must expand Social Security. sponsored
  • House GOP sacrificing brains of unborn children to score points against the EPA
  • The Sanders revolution is what we make it. Let's not make it disappointing.
  • Deep Trump thoughts: Oakland and Ferguson are 'among the most dangerous' places in the world
  • I disagreed with President Obama, and then I agreed with him #BLM #StDDs
  • The 'war on cops' leads to ... one of the safest years for cops on record
  • There's hope that, maybe, some conservative states will abolish the death penalty
  • Woman with short hair mistaken for trans, is bullied in Walmart bathroom—her response is PERFECT
  • Samantha Bee to anti-choice Georgia GOP state senator: 'Woman, have you lost your f*cking mind?'
  • Did you ever change your beliefs on a given political issue? Did you go from being anti-abortion to pro-choice? Did you "evolve" on same-sex marriage, like President Obama? Or like this writer, did you go from creationist to biology teacher? Log in or sign up for a Daily Kos account, and write a blog post about your journey.

    • ********************************************
    I know there is no God.
    Why else would we have lost
    brilliant, talented, loving, amazing people
    like Dot Calm, David Bowie, and Prince
    but be stuck with scum
    like Trump, Cruz, Fiorina, Carson,
    and the rest of the Republicans
    who ran in the primaries?

    Speaking of Ben Carson,
    he's NOT a real Christian.
    He believes that thought occurs in the brain,
    not the heart, like the Bible clearly says.

    Wouldn't YOU want a True Christian doctor
    who KNOWS that the heart is the seat
    of all thought and emotion,
    just like God says?

    According to the Bible
    which was dictated by God,
    the earth is flat,
    the sky is hard,
    water vapor didn't exist until after The Flood,
    and DNA can't possibly exist at all.
    God created it all,
    so He should know, right?

    Who says we shouldn't teach the Bible
    in science class
    instead of actual science?
    ********************************************

    AlterNet

    By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
    As Sanders fights for a California primary season finale, activists look ahead. READ MORE»
    By Jim Sleeper, AlterNet
    The crisis that has made Trump's victory a possibility isn’t about Trump. It’s about what's happening to the American people. READ MORE»
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    The new law carries a potential three-year prison sentence for physicians who perform the procedure. READ MORE»
    By Phillip Smith, AlterNet
    Marijuana activists are set to protest pot prohibition at the White House Friday. They want Obama to deschedule it, but that's just for starters. READ MORE»
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    While some politicians fear retribution for attacks on Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren is taking the fight to his favorite medium: Twitter. READ MORE»
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    Fear led the Democratic Party to devise a final deciding primary vote instead of listening to the will of the people. READ MORE»
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    We've forgotten the value of food because we throw away so much of it. Cooking with leftovers will help. READ MORE»
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    By Henry Wilde, Huffington Post
    Obama's message matters to children everywhere. READ MORE»
    By Amy Ziering, Kirby Dick, Hot Books
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    The results are in. READ MORE»
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    Trump may want to confirm he hired a press representative and not a robot.  READ MORE»
    By Elizabeth Preza, AlterNet
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    By Michael Arria, AlterNet
    Verizon's CEO makes even more than that. READ MORE»
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    Watch a clip of the new documentary 'Time to Choose' from Oscar-winning filmmaker Charles Ferguson.  READ MORE»
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    By Edwin Lyngar, Salon
    I've been with him loudly and passionately, but won't be part of destroying this party in the fall. READ MORE»
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    How the raid on Malheur screened a future raid on real estate. READ MORE»
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    The Koch brothers have already spent at least $400 million of $889 million committed to the 2016 election cycle. READ MORE»
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    By Chuck Collins, OtherWords
    The system is trying to squeeze you harder than any generation before you. READ MORE»
    By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
    A major victory for the Cuban people. READ MORE»
    By Bethania Palma Markus, Raw Story
    Ira Tobolowsky's death may be linked to a case involving a family trust.  READ MORE»

    ********************************************
    When it comes to
    Rafael Cruz and his son, DEFEATed,
    the batshit doesn't fall far from the sphincter.
    -- Dot Calm's shadow
    ********************************************     

    Movies!

    Extractive capitalism...again...too important not to rerun (again)

    Rafael Cruz, Sr., has some 'splainin' to do, now that his "anointed" son is DEFEATed...
    and probably some Xanax to take--looks like he's been off his meds for quite some time now...

    ...do you believe that my Tea Party Christian friend eats this shit up and loves every syllable and every atom of Rafael and DEFEATed Cruz's bodies? He believes that these two loonies are the truth-tellers! Only lunatics like the Cruz family can equate center-right with Marxism.

    I love this girl and her message

    Hitch rewrites the 10 commandments...gloriously

    George Carlin on how the rich divide us, making us fight among ourselves so we won't notice them running off with all the money for themselves

    ********************************************

    donald11


     

    posted by Dot Calm @ 4:52 PM