Vote Blue No Matter Who My Ass

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has decided to abandon the very competitive race in Michigan, because the wrong sort of candidate won.

The people who gave us Senators like Krysten Sinema have decided that having a real progressive in the Senate with an Arab name is a bridge too far.

Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary has complicated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plans to help Democrats retake the Senate in November, tying his party’s fortunes to a candidate some Democrats in Michigan say they cannot support — even if it means costing Democrats the Senate majority. 

Michigan is crucial for Democrats. The party’s path to a Senate majority relies on holding the state and all of its other current seats, as well as flipping four Republican-held seats — including at least two seats in states that Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024. If El-Sayed loses in Michigan, which Trump carried by less than two points in 2024, Democrats would need to flip a fifth Republican seat in deep-red territory. 

Schumer backed Rep. Haley Stevens over El-Sayed in the primary, saying he thought she had a better chance of winning in November. The New York Democrat endorsed El-Sayed after the primary, and the two men have spoken about working together to hold the seat — but they have pronounced differences about Israel.

………

El-Sayed’s challenges run deep enough that three Democratic donors in Michigan are hosting a fundraiser for his Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, on Tuesday evening, according to an invitation obtained by The Washington Post. One of them, Brian Hermelin, wrote in an email to potential donors last week that El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel and toward Jews meant he could not support him.

………

The race has put Schumer in a tough position. On one hand, he has called out those on the left who are “too complacent or forgiving about those who exhibit antisemitism within their ranks.” On the other, he often describes Democrats as having a big-tent party, capacious enough to include Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) — an ardent defender of Israel — as well as the country’s critics. 

El-Sayed’s public criticism of Schumer — whom he suggested during the primary that he did not want to see remain as the Democratic leader in the Senate — has not made it easier. “If you’re Chuck Schumer, I’m pretty damn dangerous,” El-Sayed said last month.

That fundraising?  It would not have happened without the tacit approval of Schumer.

The whole, "Vote Blue no matter who," thing?  F%$# that.

I'm not suggesting voting Republican if you have another Synema or her ilk running, I voted Republican once and felt dirty afterword, ⃰  but you can always go with the couch, aka JD Vance's girlfriend, instead of the ballot booth. 

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) needs to be aggressively educated about the importance of actually listening to the base.

^*I voted for Bill Weld as Massachusetts Governor in 1990, because his Democratic opponent John Silber was literally insane.

Should Be Permanent

Professionally obnoxious Evangelelist Whitney Lynn has an signature bit of theological masturbation, she stands up and preaches onboard airline flights, which prevents people from walking away.

Well, Alaska Airlines just booted her from a flight, and her self-involved butt-hurt is a site to see.

Florida evangelist Whitney Lynn uses most of her flights as an opportunity to share her faith, a trend that was featured in a recent Washington Post article.

On Thursday, she said, her sermon got her kicked off a San Diego-bound jet before it even took off from Orlando International Airport. She documented the removal in a series of videos she posted on social media, one of which had racked up 3 million views on Instagram by Friday afternoon.

………

In another video, an airline employee can be seen telling Lynn to gather her things and follow him off the plane because the “crews don’t feel safe with you.”

………

In an emailed statement responding to questions about Lynn’s videos, Alaska Airlines said that the flight crew “became increasingly concerned” about a passenger’s behavior.

“The passenger was asked to deplane the aircraft for safety reasons,” the airline said in a statement. “For the foreseeable future, the guest will not be permitted to travel on our flights.”

Lynn, who said she had planned to attend a follower’s funeral in California, said she was able to rebook her flight but later got an email from the airline saying she was not allowed to travel on Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines or Horizon Air while reports about her recent travels were under investigation. She received a flight credit but said there is no way for her to use it now.

Nice to see someone who hypocritically uses religion as an excuse to express rudeness and passive aggression get what is coming to them.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns. 

This is Borgia Pope Sh%$

A particularly abusive order of the Catholic Church, the Congregation of Christian Brothers, have been found to be systematically transferring their assets to an ecclesiastic shell company to avoid having to pay victims.

These assets were transferred to, "Edmund Rice Education Australia," which has taken over their schools in recent years.

Just as an FYI, Edmund Rice was the founder of Congregation of Christian Brothers.

Funny, innit? 

Adam* pauses briefly, his voice catching slightly down the phone line. He’s contemplating how to describe the unprecedented new legal tactic the Christian Brothers Catholic order is deploying against him and hundreds of other abuse survivors.

“It’s not human,” he says. “It’s just not human.”

The Christian Brothers had an oversized role in the church’s industrial-scale abuse of children. A staggering 22% of its brothers were alleged perpetrators – the second highest rate of any Catholic order.

………

Now, the order is telling a court it is broke.

This week, the Christian Brothers applied for a court-ordered moratorium on all remaining civil cases lodged against it by survivors. If granted, it would permanently halt at least 200 civil claims.

This week, the Christian Brothers applied for a court-ordered moratorium on all remaining civil cases lodged against it by survivors. If granted, it would permanently halt at least 200 civil claims.

The order says it wants to instead sell its remaining property portfolio – 36 properties, worth about $216m – and divvy up the leftovers between a range of creditors, including survivors, using a scheme run by retired judges. It has already confirmed the sell-off will not provide enough cash for it to pay creditors all of what they are owed.

But a trove of church property records obtained by Guardian Australia tells another story – one that survivors have not been made aware of.

A Guardian investigation can reveal that the Christian Brothers has spent the last decade transferring large, multimillion-dollar property holdings for amounts of $1 to a separate Catholic church entity which is not part of the proposed sell-off scheme.

The beneficiary of the $1 property deals is Edmund Rice Education Australia, an independent organisation created in 2007 to assume control of schools previously associated with the Christian Brothers like Waverley College in Sydney, Trinity College in Perth and St Joseph’s Nudgee College in Brisbane.

I am not sufficiently proficient in Australian vernacular to properly describe this.  Perhaps my reader(s) could help me herem

Stephen Colbert Must Be Ecstatic About His

For those of you who are not aware, comedian Stephen Colbert is a devout Catholic.

Also, it could be argued that he is the biggest Tolkien/Lord of the Rings geek ever. 

I can only imagine the glee he must have felt when Pope Leo XIV released an encyclical on artificial intelligence that quoted Gandalf

………

In sounding this call to both disarm and to build, Leo turns to “twentieth-century Catholic author” JRR Tolkien. Though he can’t quite bring himself to say that he’s quoting Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, that’s exactly what’s happening.

(The encyclical says only that the quote comes from “the words of a protagonist in one of [Tolkien’s] novels.” Though Pope Francis previously spoke of Tolkien’s work, this appears to be the first time that Tolkien has ever been quoted in the highest levels of the church’s official doctrinal publications.)

Gandalf says, in what is very much a theme of the entire Lord of the Rings:

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

The moral and local action envisioned here, along with Tolkien’s suspicion of the dehumanizing effects of technology, clearly appealed to Leo.

 

Remodeling Hell

In late February, construction finished on the tallest spire of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, Spain. 

It only took 144 years but construction is still not complete.

I know that Rome was not built in a day, but this is a bit much. 

The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.

After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona’s tallest building and the world’s tallest church.

It looks like another 10 years of construction hell for the Catalonian capitol. 

………

The end to the building at the church is expected in about a decade with the construction of a striking south-facing facade.

It was nevertheless a day full of emotion for a city that has lived with Gaudí’s unfinished work for generations and, although there remains much work to do, the temple now defines the Barcelona skyline as much as the Eiffel tower in Paris or the Empire State building in New York.

 

 

Pizza Tastes So Good When Pesach Ends

 There is a reason that matzoh is called, "Bread of Affliction."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

It comes as no secret that Pope Leo is not a fan of  Trump and Netanyahu's war against Iran.

After Leo XIV gave an anti-war "State of the World" speech, Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned to the Pentagon and the Pope and the Church were threatened.

If we are looking for signs of the apocalypse, I think that they found one.

Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

An important note here, the Free Press, formerly Common Sense, is a propaganda rag founded by Bari Weiss, and as such I would not take anything that they write at face value, but I am quoting the New Republic, which has been a reliable source of news ever since Marty Peretz got dumped.

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.

Credit where credit is due, someone knows their European history.

It appears that the threats were so blatant that the Pope canceled his planned visit to the United States,

………

But the blatant intimidation tactic is the first of its kind ever made by American officials to the Catholic Church. There are no public records of any previous meetings between Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon, let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.

Running Around Like a Chicken With My Head Cut Off

Cleaning for Passover.

First Seder is tomorrow. 

A Jewish Joke

Many years ago, a Jew was the most trusted minister to a king.

The king said, "Moishe, I would like to make you my prime minister, but the people would not stand for me appointing a Jew, please convert."

Moishe agrees, and converts to Christianity, and becomes prime minister.

After a few months, he cannot deal with this any more, and with much trepidation, he goes to the king and says, "My king, I am a Jew, and I cannot be otherwise.  Please forgive me, but I must resign from my position and return to the practices of Judaism."

The king understands, and is not angry, and accepts Moishe's decision.

He then goes home to his wife, and says Shoshana, I am no longer prime minister.  I have to be a Jew.

Shoshana smacks him on the head, and says, "Moishe, why couldn't you wait until AFTER Passover?"

My gentile reader(s) may not get this, but all of my Jewish readers do.

I've been thinking about this joke for the past week or so as our hoshold frantically cleans for Pesach. 

 

Mixed Emotions in Action

PZ Meyers, in addition to being an academic is a prominent Atheist. 

As such he exhibits a bunch of chagrin when he felt the need to praise Pope Pope Leo XIV for his advocacy of universal healthcare.

I feel your pain. 

When War Intersects with Eschatology, It is Never Good

The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei is the single greatest strategic blunder in modern US history.

By killing him, the US and Israel didn’t just eliminate a leader; they fulfilled a 1,400-year-old prophecy and created a martyr whose shadow will haunt the West for decades.… pic.twitter.com/AylDxzYjHV

— S͎a͎l͎a͎d͎i͎n͎🇸🇴⚖️🕋✍️ (@InaHassan3) March 3, 2026

Way to create a holy war 

I suggest that you click through to the Ecch (Tweet), but you can also look at this from Juan Cole, where he says much the same thing.

Dr. Cole is one of the preeminent academics on Islam, Shia Islam, and the Arab world.

Basically, the US actions seem almost calculated to check boxes for the Shia vision of end of times. and the return of the 12th Imam 

Short version:

• He was assassinated during Ramadan, just as the first Imam was. 
• He family was killed as well, just as was Husayn at Karbala.
• It feeds into the narrative of the oppressed and the oppressor which is central to Shia Islam.

This gives credibility to a man who was widely loathed and ignored until a few days ago. 

It also turns out that this also plays into more general end of times theology present across all branches of Islam, which is why we are seeing massive protests in predominantly Sunni nations, most notably Pakistan, as well. 

Even if Iran were to capitulate tomorrow, (it won't) in the minds of a significant portion of the world's population, this is the start of a holy war.

 

Snark of the Day

The pogroms are starting. https://t.co/XZx17qwu8V

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) January 25, 2026

Stoller is, of course, making a joke here.

Helping someone dig their car out of the snow does not qualify as a pogrom, regardless of the religion of the car driver or the shovel wielder. 

If you value your sanity, you may not want to look at the comments, where a number of truly dense people or organizations missed the humor entirely. 

Headline of the Day

Please Stop Mailing Butt Plugs to Bahrain

—Boing Boing describing how the US military wants a sex toy firm to stop accepting orders from soldiers who are deployed to the Persian Gulf island nation.

I don't have anything to add to this. 

We regret to inform you that you must no longer ship sex toys to Bahrain, the decidedly conservative island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Thousands of U.S. service members stationed at the base there will have to go without or find a local source. The sad news comes from Grace Bennett, proprietor of Canadian sexual wellness shop Bonjibon. She has framed the letter she received from the U.S. Department of Defense asking her to cease and decist.

"Framing the angry letter the American Department of Defense sent my spicy Canadian toy business on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain tell me to STOP mailing 🍑🍑🍑 plugs to their American soldiers," she wrote, adding "their soldiers are the ones who ordered them in the first place!"

No really.  I have nothing to add to this.

The opportunity for humorous quips is so limitless as to be paralyzing.

I Saw a Shark in a Red Hat Today

 It seems that Santa Jaws is coming to town.

What Happened in Australia

In Sidney Australia today (or maybe yesterday, because of the whole international date line thing) 2 gunmen opened fire on a crowd at a Chabad Hanukah event on the beach,  killing at least 16.

Of note, there was a hero there, Ahmed al Ahmed a fruit stand vendor who tackled and wrestled a gun away from one of the gunmen.

It's important to note here that Ahmed is a Muslim and an immigrant from the Middle East to Australia, and he snuck up to the gunman unarmed and tackled him.

There are additional links if you want to go further, see here, here, here, and here.

Note that anything you read online is likely to contain misinformation, so double check everything, particularly AI slop. 

It appears that Elon Musk's Grok has set a new low in misinformation and bigotry, which should surprise no one.

If you are inclined to excuse this act because of Gaza, go fuck yourself.

Hoist by Their Own Petard

Bigots in Florida are having a major butt-hurt over the fact that Islamic schools are using the state voucher programs to attract students.

They are upset because they wrote the voucher law to divert government funds to Christian schools, not "Heathen" Muslim ones.

Florida Republicans who backed a program funneling taxpayer dollars to private Christian schools are now panicking because some Muslims are taking advantage of those vouchers. They’re claiming—with no evidence, naturally—that the schools in question are promoting Sharia Law, all while their preferred brand of Christian indoctrination is propped up by their own legislation.

The voucher program in Florida began almost 30 years ago, specifically to help low-income families and students with disabilities get access to private schools that could accommodate them. In 2023, Republicans in Florida passed House Bill 1, which expanded the voucher program significantly. Under that bill, pretty much anyone in the state could get a taxpayer-funded “scholarship”—and that money could be spent at private religious schools. Republicans said this would expand “school choice” to all families, though the reality is that voucher proponents have long been trying to destroy public education.

The multi-billion-dollar plan has worked as intended. One report found that over 300,000 students are now using vouchers to attend 2,278 different schools—costing the state over $3 billion a year—and most of the private religious schools are Christian ones. Some of them, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “ban gay students and enforce strict gender-specific dress codes.” In fact, in 2020, the newspaper found that 156 private Christian schools in the state had anti-gay policies, including 83 that outright refused to admit openly LGBTQ students or would expel them if they were discovered.

About two dozen of the participating schools are Islamic. At least a couple of them have policies requiring girls to wear hijabs.

And that is now freaking out powerful Republicans who cannot believe taxpayer money is boosting Islam.

Merciful heavens the 1st amendment is a bitch. 

The bigots are freaking the f%$# out.

Just wait until the Church of Satan starts setting up religious schools in Florida. 

The 9 Billion Names of God

One of the failed former CEOs of Intel is working to facilitate the return of Jesus through AI.

So basically, he's looking to rapture the world using artificial intelligence.

You know, it seems to me that I might see part of the recent problems that Intel has had.

In March, three months after being forced out of his position as the CEO of Intel and sued by shareholders, Patrick Gelsinger took the reins at Gloo, a technology company made for what he calls the “faith ecosystem” – think Salesforce for churches, plus chatbots and AI assistants for automating pastoral work and ministry support.

The former CEO’s career pivot is taking place as the US tech industry returns to the political realm as a major revenue stream. Some of its most prominent present-day leaders have funded Donald Trump’s re-election and renewed their pursuit of government contracts as the second Trump administration has revitalized religious conservatism in Washington DC.

Now Gloo’s executive chair and head of technology (who’s largely free of the shareholder suit), Gelsinger has made it a core mission to soft-power advance the company’s Christian principles in Silicon Valley, the halls of Congress and beyond, armed with a fundraised war chest of $110m. His call to action is also a pitch for AI aligned with Christian values: tech products like those built by Gloo, many of which are built on top of existing large language models, but adjusted to reflect users’ theological beliefs.

“My life mission has been [to] work on a piece of technology that would improve the quality of life of every human on the planet and hasten the coming of Christ’s return,” he said.

This reminds me of an Arthur C. Clarke short story.

I Generally Don't Comment on the Inner Workings of the Catholic Church

But reports that Pope Leo intends to shut down Opus Dei piques my interest.

I am not particularly interested in the Dan Brown tinfoil hat stuff, but considering the organizations long record of supporting right wing despots and aggressively intervening in secular politics, the elimination of the organization is a good thing.

As reported in Christopher Hale (a political operative and writer who ran Catholic outreach for President Obama's 2012 campaign), Pope Leo XIV is weeks away from approving statutes that would vaporize Opus Dei as a unified organization. The group that gave us both Da Vinci Code villains and connections to Spain's Fascist dictator Franco is about to become three separate entities. 

……

Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz scaled the meeting back to "minimum necessary business," church-speak for "let's stall and pray for a miracle." The miracle they got was Pope Leo deciding to finish what Francis started, except with less patience for organizations accused of functioning like cults that exploit vulnerable people through coercive recruitment.

Francis had already stripped them of authority over lay members in 2023 and ordered new statutes in 2022 amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse, labor violations, and demanding celibate numeraries live highly controlled lives marked by labor exploitation. By 2025, Opus Dei still hadn't complied.

None of the above abuses are why I think that their effective abolition, they will be split into 3 parts, with the leadership having authority only over themselves, is why I am interested the internal power struggles of the Vatican.

I will celebrate their abolition because they had a pivotal role in things like the Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.  (also Leonard Leo's Opus Dei affiliated lobbying)

Like the founding fathers, I believe that the influence of religion on government is universally corrosive, and Opus Dei has been even more corrosive than most.

It's שִׂמְחַת תּוֹרָה‎ (Simchat Torah)

It is safe to assume that any subsequent blog posts tonight will be made by while I am intoxicated.

The End of an Era

The Christchurch, New Zealand city council has fired its official wizard.

Said wizard is arguably batsh%$ insane, but what about the spirat that gave us San Francisco's embrace of Joshua Abraham Norton self proclaimed,  "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico?" 

I think that something has been lost.