Thu Nov 10, 2022, 06:00 PM
Top 10 Conservative Idiots #13-14: The Secret Life Of Chief Twitty Edition
Top 10 Conservative Idiots #13-14: The Secret Life Of Chief Twitty Edition Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Yooooooooooooo!!!! What’s up, Riverside! How are you guys doing? You doing fucking good? Great! So I do have some Top 10 news – December 1st is our anniversary. But we’re not doing a 6th anniversary special this year. Why? Because Top 10 #300 is very quickly approaching! How about that? We have done 300 of these! Yes, the 300th edition will be edition #14-9 on March 16th of next year will be edition #300 and we will have a major celebration planned! So we will be making some announcements of what to expect relatively soon! Do we have time for the thing? Of course we do! What… no! I’m not going to congratulate the Astros on winning the World Series. Fuck the cheaters. Make me. OK. I’m having a sit in. What? I’m not going to tell the affiliates that we’re running late. OK fine. My producer is making me. Yeah I know we have a lot of Dodgers fans in the audience here. This is Riverside after all! Though there is one thing that made me chuckle with sheer delight about the Astros winning the World Series. And before we show the clip, I’m going to say that we do not encourage this sort of thing at all. but can we show that clip? OK so my official stance is that I can’t stand the Astros because of that whole cheating scandal. But I am going to side with the fans who booed Ted Cruz and threw the beer can at him. So I guess that means that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? OK enough nonsense, we have a lot of idiocy to get to! But first in the election, John Oliver spells out the dangers of voter intimidation around the world: Yes the midterms are finally over! Thank fucking god!!!! So we survived…. barely! But seriously if I had to watch another CA proposition advertisement I was about ready to chuck my TV out the window! Trust me if you live here, you know! So where do we start this week? in the number one slot is the Election Results (1)! Who are the big winners and losers this week? We’ve got a long list of them and we honestly don’t know which way this is going to go! In the second slot this week is of course our old buddy Elon Musk (2). Yes, the Tesla and Space X CEO, or as he’s now known – “Chief Twit”, is predictably turning Twitter into the flaming mess we all knew it would be if he took over. Speaking of flaming messes, the Brazil elections are over, and Jair Bolsonaro (3) goes down swinging! But as predicted, his supports are making a total mess of things! In the number four slot this week, we’re going to talk about something very unique to my home state of California – the propositions (4)! Yes, if you live here, you’re probably sick of them too. But we are going to talk about the big winners and losers of this election! In the number 5 slot this week is a new “We’re All Gonna Die” (5)! So is the UN correct about getting countries to join their international, non-partisan climate accord? Oh yeah and things are going to get way worse in the coming years if they don’t! in the number 6 slot this week is our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” (6) and this week it’s a rare two part sermon! We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the Christian right’s Great Schoolboard Takeover because there’s so much out there and it’s happening all over the country! Don’t let it come to your city! In the number 7 slot this week we have a new Beating A Dead Horse (7) and Harry Potter author JK Rowling finally got called out on her anti-trans bullshit by the guy who played Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, and this is definitely a fight years in the making, and we’re here for it! In the number 8 slot this week is a new Conspiracy Corner (8). Yes, Mr. Creepy Pillow Man himself, Mike Lindell is at it again, this time claiming that Brazil’s election was stolen, but he’s got a “hotline” and an “insider”. I’m personally calling bullshit on that! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week, is a new “I Need A Drink”! San Francisco is the land of wealth and excess, but do we really need a Michelin starred restaurant for your dog? Why does Rover get a $200 meal while I’m paying $10 to eat at Popeye’s? Madness! Finally this week, it’s the continuation of our World Tour 2022! And this week we’re heading to the land of the Great Wall and a communist dictatorship, China (10)! Plus to close things out, we’ve got some live music from the legendary Mars Volta! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key! [div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"] 
[font size="8"]2022 Election Highlights  [br] [/font] You like everyone else, at 9:00 on Tuesday, I was about ready to throw in the towel with everyone else watching the election results. But you know what? Thank god the midterm election to end all midterm elections is finally over! And we can reveal what we all hoped was going to happen: freedom wins and fascism loses! That’s right! But you know what? Can we at least let the dust settle on 2022 before we begin the circular firing squad that will be the 2024 elections? I mean shit come on media, let us have this one! So we still don’t know the outcomes of the senate and governor races in Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona and we probably won’t until next week. Same with CO-4, the largest district in Colorado which is currently being held by Infowars’ favorite Congresswoman, Lauren Boebert. But there are things we do know that are giving us massive hope for the outcome of the midterms. The first is that we can say that we are extremely happy that Pennsylvania is still blue! That’s right – John Fetterman and Doug Nazi Mastriano were both sent packing! Yeah how about that??? Democrat John Fetterman won Pennsylvania's pivotal race for U.S. Senate, flipping a Republican-held seat as he recovered from a stroke during the bare-knuckled campaign and giving Democrats hope they can retain control of the closely divided chamber to boost President Joe Biden's agenda for two more years.
Fetterman, Pennsylvania's towering and plainspoken lieutenant governor, who became a progressive hero as mayor of a downtrodden steel town, defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz, the smooth-talking and wealthy heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity who had just moved to the presidential battleground state to run for Senate. Fetterman credited his "every county, every vote" campaign strategy, in which the tattooed and hoodie-wearing candidate sought to bring the Democratic Party back to predominantly white working-class areas that have increasingly rejected it, even as he ran on a progressive platform. "And that's exactly what happened," Fetterman, 53, told a cheering crowd early Wednesday at a concert venue in Pittsburgh. "We jammed them up. We held the line. I never expected that we would turn these red counties blue, but we did what we needed to do and we had that conversation across every one of those counties." Read more: https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-senate-race-2022-midterm-elections-93709b5b7ab4cef658f45751cd76c090 
Fuck yes!!! How about that??? You know we had a much different entry planned where we weren’t as optimistic. But now that Fetterman sent Dr. Oz packing we are celebrating like there’s no tomorrow! So how is Der Trumpenfuror taking this? Well he’s not taking this particularly well. But is right wing America’s love of Trump getting stronger or have they had enough? Well judging from the exit polls, people have had just about an ass full of his nonsense. But of course he is whining on his own social media shit hole site and it’s about as predictable as possible! Former President Donald Trump posted on social media on Tuesday to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the midterm election in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. “Here we go again!” he wrote. “Rigged Election!”
Trump’s supposed evidence? An article on a right-wing news site that demonstrated no rigging. Rather, the article baselessly raised suspicion about absentee-ballot data the article did not clearly explain. In 2020, Trump and his allies made a prolonged effort to discredit the presidential election results in advance, spending months laying the groundwork for their false post-election claims that the election was stolen. Now, in the weeks leading up to Election Day in 2022, some Republicans have been deploying similar – and similarly dishonest – rhetoric. Trump is not the only Republican trying to baselessly promote suspicion about the midterms in Pennsylvania, a state that could determine which party controls the US Senate. After Pennsylvania’s acting elections chief, Leigh Chapman, told NBC News last week that it could take “days” to complete the vote count, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has repeatedly promoted false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, said on a right-wing show monitored by liberal organization Media Matters for America: “That’s an attempt to have the fix in.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/politics/trump-midterms-casting-doubt-pennsylvania/index.html Thank you Nelson! So why was the “Red Wave” such a whimper? Well, the tradition generally is that the midterms go to the opposite party of who’s in the White House. But that hasn’t been the case since about 2015, when we launched this program. Everything has been entirely unpredictable and nothing is off the table. This latest round of midterms definitely is not the same as it was throughout history. And that’s mainly because of the changing demographics of this country. This country is getting younger and more diverse than it was and the days of old, rich, white religious conservative males deciding elections through AM and Fox talking points is over! Trump is still the dominant figure in the Republican Party, and he’ll be the favorite to win the GOP nomination for president if, as expected, he runs again.
But Trump’s place in the party is far weaker after Tuesday. Truth is, if not for the former president’s interventions, the night could have been a lot better for the GOP. Just look at how the most Trump-y candidates fared in states where more traditionalist Republicans were on the same ballot. In Georgia, Herschel Walker was locked in a neck-and-neck contest with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Gov. Brian Kemp, whose resistance to overturning the 2020 results infuriated Trump, easily defeated his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams. In New Hampshire, Republican Don Bolduc lost to Sen. Maggie Hassan in a race that didn’t even look close, while Gov. Chris Sununu, who once referred to Trump as “fucking crazy,” cruised to reelection. Trump’s preferred candidate in Ohio, J.D. Vance, did better, beating Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan by a comfortable margin in that state’s U.S. Senate race. But he came nowhere close to the margin that incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine, a more traditionalist Republican, put up. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/2022-election-results-analysis-and-takeaways-00065878 
You know, speaking of demographics, let’s talk about it for a minute. Some states are still dominated by older, white, Christian conservative males ( *COUGH* Texas *COUGH* ). And because of that, states like Texas are still red because of that. Yeah we’re pissed off that Beto didn’t take the Texas governorship away from the Christian right. Because once again, if the exit polls are anything, then white Christian males still dominate the southern states. Which is why we’re nervous about Georgia, come on Warnock! But this is hardly the least surprising news of the night! The GOP’s success in Texas, even as it fell short of expectations nationally, signaled voters’ endorsement of Abbott following a second term marked by aggressive actions on the border and immigration, conservative positions on LGBTQ and other social issues and a near-total ban on abortion. And it was another rebuke of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke, who lost his third election in four years.
“Voters seem to be fine with the status quo,” said Drew Landry, assistant professor of government at South Plains College in Levelland, west of Lubbock. If Democrats have anything to show for this election, it’s that they won two of three congressional seats up for grabs in South Texas — denying Republicans their hopes of statement victories in a heavily Hispanic region. Hispanic residents now represent the largest ethnic group in Texas, surpassing non-Hispanic white residents earlier this year in a census estimate. The state’s shifting demographics had given Democrats hope, as margins at the top of the ticket have shrunk in recent years. In Abbott’s first bid for governor in 2014, he won by more than 20 percentage points. In 2018, he won his second term by just over 13. And Donald Trump won the state by less than 6 percentage points in 2020. Tuesday night, that Democratic progress seemed to halt. Abbott appeared likely to win by a similar margin as in 2018 — possibly larger. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/09/texas-election-results/ 
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[font size="8"]Elon Musk      [br] [/font] [br]
For those of you who are not familiar with Norse mythology, there’s a mythical being known as Surtur who is a giant flaming monster. When Surtur’s skull is placed atop the eternal flame in Asguard, it turns into a giant flaming monster that destroys the entire planet. Well, I’ve often compared Trump to Surtur, but now I think that designation might be more suited to Elon Musk. That’s right – he’s become a giant flaming monster that is ripping Twitter apart at the seams. Users are leaving, communities are being ruined, and it’s all because he feels the need to be Chief Twit. Well, Chief Twit is doing a hell of a lot of damage to the platform since he took it over. He’s basically turned the entire thing into a laughing stock and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. You know, it might be interesting to see who’s lost more money in the last two months by siding with right wing extremists – Ye or Elon? I think Elon might be the winner in this. Especially if his proposed Twitter Blue platform ever has a chance of getting approved and it will be a bloodbath! The new Twitter Blue, which now costs $7.99 per month and gets you a blue verified check mark, is officially available in its app for iPhones and iPads. Twitter owner Elon Musk began hyping the new Blue just days after taking over the company at the end of October, promising features like verification, priority in replies, mentions, and search, and “half as many ads,” and now you can actually get the new subscription.
Right now, for people who subscribe to the new package, their account instantly adds a verified check, but the other new benefits aren’t available yet. According to a support page, “only accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue on iOS on or after November 9, 2022 are eligible for the blue checkmark moving forward.” It’s unclear when the new subscription will become available for users on Android, Twitter web, or in countries where Twitter Blue wasn’t already available. And new Twitter accounts created on or after Wednesday aren’t eligible to sign up for Blue “at this time,” Twitter says. On the signup form on iOS, the $7.99 per month price is positioned as a “limited time offer.” For the moment, you can’t sign up on the web — you have to sign up on iOS. And some users already subscribed to Blue are reporting they have to subscribe again and specifically to the new tier. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23448317/elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-live-ios So Elon, or Chief Twit, is the giant flaming monster that is destroying Twitter and his platform is losing big time. What is this? The Secret Life Of Chief Twitty? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Oh man another awesome one! But here’s the thing – even the advertisers are starting to worry! I mean come on, they endorse Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s hate speech every night. So what was the final straw to get them to leave Twitter? Well as Kanye showed, being a Nazi is bad for business, so it’s only natural that Twitter could follow suit. Elon Musk held a giant conference call for advertisers and more than 100,000 other people today. He sounded thoughtful about his plans for Twitter, unsure about how it was all going to work out, but solicitous for feedback. “I only got the keys to the building last Friday,” he said, adding later: “I’m open to ideas.”
The problem for Musk is the advertisers he has spooked since buying Twitter for $44 billion are unlikely to be swayed by any of this. They tell me they don’t mind what Musk says in outreach calls like this. They’re concerned about what he does and what he tweets. This is a new problem for Musk, who became the world’s richest man by selling electric cars and building rocket ships, and not by caring about what other people think about him. Or, at least, not caring what controversy-hating advertisers think about him. But now he very much has to. At the moment, advertisers are Twitter’s entire revenue stream, and they aren’t happy with Musk. If he can’t turn that around, he’s in very big trouble. https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/9/23450150/twitter-elon-musk-advertising-problem-conference-call-peter-kafka-column So get ready everybody, Elon is about to do some ridiculously dumb stuff. And that’s not already in addition to the bloodbath that he caused earlier. But if you’re like me and you’re watching with sheer horror the damage that one man can do to a multi-billion dollar corporation like Twitter, you’re not alone. Remember that you can spend a lifetime or two building a business and reputation, and then some jackass with a wrecking ball can ruin it literally within seconds. It’s truly insane what is happening and don’t expect things to get better any time soon. But it’s also affecting Elon’s other businesses too, and it’s the stuff of insanity. Elon Musk sold $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock since completing his purchase of Twitter late last month.
Musk’s Tesla stock sales, totaling 19.5 million shares, have been widely anticipated ever since the Tesla CEO reached a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk had sold blocks of Tesla shares worth a total of $15.4 billion earlier this year since his deal to buy Twitter was announced. Twitter confirmed Musk bought the social media company October 27, but he waited until November 4 to start selling additional Tesla shares. He also sold blocks of Tesla stock on Monday and Tuesday this week, according to filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday night. It’s not clear if the money Musk raised went toward the Twitter purchase, or to support losses at Twitter since he took over. Musk disclosed last week that Twitter has seen a “massive drop in revenue,” as a growing number of advertisers pause spending on the platform in the wake of his takeover of the company. He blamed “activist groups” pressuring advertisers for the loss of ad dollars. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/08/business/elon-musk-tesla-stock-sale-twitter-purchase/index.html 
Yeah so Elon is basically Surtur for Twitter. You know what would make things even worse than they already are? Well you enjoy browsing Twitter for free? You soon won’t be able to anymore. Hope that doesn’t give any other platform owners like Zuckerberg any ideas! So while right wing trolls may miss their social media accounts, if they have to pay, they won’t be able to wreak havoc on social media for free anymore. Between Elon owning Twitter and Ye soon to be owning Parler, who’s going to be the bigger loser in the loser patrol? My money is still on Elon. If Friday brought massive layoffs to Twitter, Monday brought fresh evidence that the company will never be the same. Elon Musk has discussed putting the entire site behind a paywall, Platformer has learned. Meanwhile, the company is scrambling to lure back employees who it laid off mere hours ago, and some workers say the economics behind its soon-to-relaunch Twitter Blue subscription could actually lose the company money.
All of this took place against the backdrop of a company that still has yet to hear anything official from Musk, via email or a companywide meeting. As Monday began, after losing thousands of their colleagues days earlier, many employees didn’t know who their managers are. Meanwhile, Musk’s increasingly erratic leadership, coupled with his habit of tweeting in eye-watering bad taste, gave many current and former employees I spoke with a sinking feeling about the future of their company. Today let’s talk a bit more about how the company botched its layoff process, what happened inside Twitter on Monday, and what that paywall might look like. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/7/23446262/elon-musk-twitter-paywall-possible 
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[font size="8"]Jair Bolsonaro [br] [/font] [br]
We at the Top 10 occasionally like to check in with our friends overseas, because as is our motto and mission statement here – conservative idiocy isn’t just a uniquely American problem. It’s become a global problem, and far right fascists and conspiracy theorists are no different no matter what country you visit. Case in point: Brazil. Their current president Jair Bolsonaro was elected by far right conspiracy theorists from Brazil with help from America’s far right conspiracy theorist activists like Steve Bannon and Alex Jones. But that’s not to say that the election between Jair Bolsonaro and Lulu Da Silva was incredibly close. And for those of you watching America’s elections – just beware that your vote absolutely does matter! Don’t throw it away! Because when the election comes down to a million or so votes, don’t think for a minute that your vote doesn’t matter. You absolutely can make a difference, because just look at how close the two parties were in Brazil. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he would “continue to fulfill all the commandments of our constitution” in a short speech at the presidential palace in Brasilia, after days of silence following his election loss to the leftist former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
He did not explicitly concede defeat, though the event appeared to signal his intention to cooperate with the transfer of power. Taking the podium after the President, chief of staff Ciro Nogueira said that he would work with the new government and is waiting for Lula da Silva’s transition team to begin the handover. “President Jair Messias Bolsonaro authorized me, when it is time, based on the law, to start the transition process,” Nogueira said. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-elections-protests-intl-latam/index.html 
Yeah so Lula won the election, how about that! But the transition of power considering this unstable lunatic at the helm, is probably going to go about as well as the transition of power here did. See, the world’s far right leaders are learning lessons from Trump about what *NOT* to do and it’s going to get scary and worse. But Bolsonaro’s systematic destruction of the Brazilian rainforest and his gross mishandling of COVID is what did him in. Yeah that’s right – that virus that conservatives called a hoax and acted like a massive death toll wasn’t happening. When Brazil elected Jair Bolsonaro as its president four years ago, this journal was among those that feared the worst. “The election of Jair Bolsonaro is bad for research and the environment,” we wrote (Nature 563, 5–6; 2018).
A populist and a former army captain, Bolsonaro charged into office denying science, threatening Indigenous peoples’ rights, promoting guns as a solution to security concerns and pushing a development-at-all-costs approach to the economy. Bolsonaro has been true to his word. His term in office has been disastrous for science, the environment, the people of Brazil — and the world. This weekend, Brazilians will go to the polls in the second round of one of the country’s most important elections since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. Bolsonaro is standing for re-election for the Liberal Party. His opponent is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Workers’ Party leader who was president for two terms between 2003 and 2010. In the first round of the election, held on 2 October, Lula beat Bolsonaro into second place, but by an unexpectedly narrow margin. He failed to win an overall majority, forcing the two into a run-off election. Bolsonaro’s record is eye-popping. Under his leadership, the environment has been ravaged as he rolled back legal protections and disparaged Indigenous peoples’ rights. In the Amazon alone, deforestation has nearly doubled since 2018, with yet another increase expected when Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research releases its latest deforestation data in the coming weeks. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03388-y 
Yeah people, seriously! Vote for science and logic and against fascism! They did it in Brazil, we can beat the right wing pundits here! But that being said, Lula is not getting off easy. There was some ridiculously shady shit going on in the Tropics. You know how we have the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and III%ers and 1776ers here? Well, Brazil has their own share of far right groups. They have their own organizations like the Federal Highway Police, which while it is a completely stupid name and they are probably not real police, they did cause some real trouble. Citizens denounced these checkpoints are taking place mainly in the Northeast, a region that has traditionally supported Lula da Silva.
A few hours before the conclusion of the Brazilian runoff on Sunday, democratic social and political forces denounced events that could be hindering the electoral process. In response to the complaints, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) asked the Federal Highway Police (PRF) for explanations for carrying out operations that are hindering the free movement of citizens. TSE President Alexandre de Moraes summoned PRF Director Silvinei Vasques to ask why the police are carrying out checkpoints, despite the fact that the electoral authority expressly prohibited any police action that could hinder the transportation of voters. The tweet reads, "Using the police, Bolsonaro is preventing people in the Brazilian northeast from being able to vote freely. In other cities, buses full of voters remain stopped in precincts near voting centers." Through social networks, citizens denounced the checkpoints are taking place mainly in the Northeast, a region that has traditionally supported the Workers' Party presidential candidate Lula da Silva. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazilian-Police-Make-Checkpoints-Hindering-Movement-of-Voters-20221030-0011.html 
Seriously for all of you thinking what could possibly go wrong in 2024? Don’t think for a minute that what happened in Brazil couldn’t happen here. Trump is that batshit fucking crazy and the GOP will do anything to attain power again. Which is why they’re resorting to extremism. But going forward, we could see absolute chaos in elections around the world if world leaders adopt Trump’s election denying tactics. So thankfully Brazil decided to choose freedom and democracy over fascism and authoritarianism. For now. Let’s hope they don’t come back. The party of Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, recently defeated by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will be the main opposition to Lula when he takes office on Jan. 1, its leader, Valdemar Costa Neto, said on Tuesday.
The right-wing Liberal Party (PL) emerged from elections last month as the largest party in the Brazilian Congress, riding the unexpected rise in support for Bolsonaro, who narrowly lost his re-election bid to Lula. Bolsonaro will be the party's candidate for president in the next elections in 2026, and will be named the party's honorary president, Costa Neto said. "Bolsonarismo (his conservative movement) is growing a lot. It's getting bigger than Bolsonaro," he told a news conference. https://news.yahoo.com/bolsonaros-party-gears-lulas-opposition-180414111.html [div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"] 
[font size="8"]California Propositions    [br] [/font] [br]
For this entry, we’re going to do something different from what we originally planned. We’re going to talk about something that’s unique to living in my home state of California. If you are a Californian, then you know what we’re going to talk about – the propositions. As part of our election system, every year Californians get a number of propositions to vote on. But beware – the advertising on all of these propositions gets worse and worse every single year. If you see sports or any show on TV worth a damn, you know that every single year, the advertising blitz that bombards your TV will make you want to throw things at it up to and including the night of the election. One of the biggest propositions is one that seemingly occurs every year. But this year it lost, and all I have to say is fuck all y’all who listened to the advertising on this one. This was one that basically said that your corporate masters own you. I mean come on, we all know that Davita is an evil corporation and only cares about its’ bottom line and doesn’t give a shit about you. And you know what? Not having on staff doctors at their facilities is going to hurt you while they laugh all the way to the bank. If you’re on dialysis, and you vote so Davita doesn’t have any accountability, and you die because of them, well it’s your own fault. And they will be laughing all the way to the bank! Because they are psychopaths. For the third time in three straight elections, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have mandated major changes to the operations of dialysis clinics that provide life-saving care to 80,000 people with kidney failure.
Proposition 29 failed after nearly 70% of Californians voted “no” in returns late Tuesday. The measure would have required a doctor, nurse practitioner or physicians’ assistant to be present during treatment at the state’s 600 outpatient dialysis facilities. Dialysis clinic companies said that under the mandate, between two and three doctors would be required at every facility because most are open at least 16 hours a day. That would have created a financial burden that could lead some clinics to close, making it harder for patients to find treatment, they said. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Californians-get-third-chance-to-alter-dialysis-17567417.php 
Come on people, three times in three elections and you still vote to reject that shit? I mean I know I’m sick of the ads too… but damn it! Davita is an evil corporation and they only care about profits, not whether you live or die. Moving on, another big loser this week was legalized gambling. Yes, we were actually supportive of the SCOTUS decision to allow legalized gambling in the United States. But that being said, it could have the potential to have a serious dark side to it. And yes, we do understand the risks of addiction before anyone points that out! California residents who want to be able to bet on sports received bad news on Tuesday night. The state's residents voted against the most expensive ballot proposition sports betting bill in United States history, refusing initiatives by Native American tribes and the gaming industry that were attempting to legalize sports betting in the state.
Nearly $600 million had been raised in an effort to legalize sports betting in California, but voters didn't want to make that concept a reality. A bill that would've allowed adults to bet on mobile devices and online only received received just 16 percent of the vote in its favor. Meanwhile, a proposition that would've legalized sports betting at tribal casinos and horse tracks received less than 30 percent support. Currently, 30 states allow sports betting either at brick-and-mortar sportsbooks or via mobile devices. https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/california-voters-reject-bill-that-wouldve-legalized-sports-betting-in-state/ https://www.tdpri.com/attachments/gifwhatcouldgo-wrong-gif.540525/ Yeah let’s turn every cell phone in the country into a microtransaction betting device, what could possibly go wrong? Though unlike in app purchases, spending money on betting will actually give you real rewards as opposed to virtual, non-monetary ones. But yeah don’t expect an MGM Grand property to be constructed in Newport Beach anytime soon. Besides, who could afford the rent there? Moving on, the other big loser this week was the flavored tobacco industry. Yeah flavored tobacco and vapes for people with an addictive personality, again, probably not the best idea! California voters on Tuesday passed a ballot measure to uphold a 2020 law that banned the sale of most flavored tobacco products, giving anti-tobacco advocates an expected victory in a multiyear fight against the industry to mitigate a youth vaping crisis.
Proposition 31 was placed on the ballot soon after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 793, the Legislature’s bipartisan effort to crack down on e-cigarettes and other products popular with kids. The law banned the sale of certain flavored tobacco products in stores and vending machines, including menthol cigarettes, but with exceptions for hookah, premium cigars and loose-leaf tobacco. The Associated Press called the race, though official results will take longer to finalize. “In California’s battle against Big Tobacco, voters have overwhelmingly decided to protect kids from being lured into a lifetime of addiction to nicotine,” Lindsey Freitas, regional advocacy director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-08/2022-california-election-prop-31-ban-flavored-tobacco-results Probably the most controversial of all the propositions was Prop 30. Here’s the thing – the official Top 10 stance on the electric vehicles is that we support them. Even if one of the companies is run by an egomaniacal mad man (Musk). Though right now unless you’re making 6+ figures getting an electric vehicle like the Lucid Air or Mercedes EQS is probably unattainable for you. Prop 30 would have taxed higher cost models in order to make people who can’t necessarily afford them. But come on, we go to do something about emissions! Just wait until the next entry! California voters on Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have raised taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to accelerate the sales of electric cars, particularly for low-income residents.
The measure, Proposition 30, was meant to help the Golden State meet its aggressive clean air and climate change ambitions. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. In August, California’s Air Resources Board cemented a ban on the sales of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035. The state passed a law in September that requires it to cut its emissions 40 percent relative to 1990 levels by 2030 and zero out its contributions to climate change by 2045. Legislators also approved close to $54 billion to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation. “There is just no feasible path to meeting our climate, air quality, and equity goals without zeroing out tailpipe pollution,” said Max Baumhefner, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups backing Prop 30. To help meet this goal, Prop 30 aimed to subsidize electric cars, charging stations, and fund wildfire protection. The money was slated to come from a 1.75 percent tax on incomes above $2 million. Advocates estimated that it would raise $100 billion over 20 years, with more than half of the money earmarked for low-income and disadvantaged communities. The vote came on the anniversary of the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/23447268/prop-30-california-ev-electric-car-tax-newsom-lyft [div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"] 
[font size="8"]We’re All Gonna Die: UN Climate Accord  [br] [/font] [br]
Hey everyone guess what? We’re all gonna die! Woooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Woooooooooooooooo! Woooooooo. Woooooooo. Woo. So what’s going to kill us all this week you might ask? Well I answer you: Climate change! So remember way back in the before times in 2019 when that guy who we inexplicably used to call president gave that absolutely bonkers rambling speech at the UN on climate change and Greta Thunberg got called a Nazi (see: Idiots #7-14 )? Well, shocker, it turns out that the UN was right and America’s conservatives are dead wrong! Because if you haven’t noticed, we had our hottest summer on record this year and it’s only gonna get hotter! Pack your best short shorts and mini-skirts, folks! Also be sure to stock up on sunscreen because sunscreen is definitely going to be a rare commodity when next year’s summer gets even hotter! But we got to get moving on fixing the climate change problem because also, if you haven’t noticed, our lakes are drying up! So conservatives, you love your boats and jet skis? Tell us how climate change is a threat again and we’ll tell you that you can’t use your toys in the lake when they dry up! OK enough of my rambling, but the fact is that the UN is right about this, and we have to do something about it or it will be too late! Rich countries must sign a “historic pact” with the poor on the climate, or “we will be doomed”, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has warned, as a deepening gulf between the developed and developing world has put climate talks on the brink.
The stark warning comes as world leaders start to gather for the UN Cop27 climate summit, which opens on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, but which even the hosts admit will be the most difficult in at least a decade. Cop27 is taking place amid the worst geopolitical tensions for years, over the Ukraine war, a spiralling global cost of living crisis, and deepening economic gloom. But the gulf must be bridged if humanity is to have a hope of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown, Guterres said. “There is no way we can avoid a catastrophic situation, if the two [the developed and developing world] are not able to establish a historic pact,” he told the Guardian in an interview on the eve of the summit. “Because at the present level, we will be doomed.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/04/un-chief-antonio-guterres-climate-crisis-cop27 
No we’re all not gonna die, just yet! But the UN Chief is right – this shit is serious and it’s no longer a joke, and conservatives can’t deny this problem exists anymore. But if you dig into this report, it gets worse – so much worse! Look, you’d think the gradual transition to all electric vehicles would help the planet, right? Well some people are expecting the opposite will happen. And in fact it’s not really doing all that much to help curb emissions, at least not in the current state! And it’s definitely not stopping the change in temperature! U.N. Climate Change said its new report also showed that countries’ pledges, as they stand now, would see emissions jump by 10.6% by the year 2030, compared to levels in 2010.
“Last year’s analysis showed projected emissions would continue to increase beyond 2030,” it said. “However, this year’s analysis shows that while emissions are no longer increasing after 2030, they are still not demonstrating the rapid downward trend science says is necessary this decade.” In a statement Wednesday, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, pulled no punches about the current position the world finds itself in. “We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” he said. “To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years,” he added. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/emissions-reductions-pledges-nowhere-near-whats-needed-un-says-.html 
Uh… Mr. Stiell? You’re obviously not from America, so allow me to America ‘splain some things to you about this. We have this network called “Fox” and they are run by a megalomaniacal Australian billionaire with a messianic world domination complex named Rupert Murdoch. He employs these two commentators – Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, both of which, are very actively involved in persuading the American people to systematically deny climate change and have been doing so for over 20 years now! This is serious, we have to ignore Fox to move forward. Even the tiny nation of Tuvalu makes more sense than Fox. The island nation of Tuvalu has become the second country in the world to call for an international Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Modeled after the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the international mechanism would stop the expansion of fossil fuels, phase out existing production, and create paths to renewable energy development.
Announced at the United Nations climate summit, known as COP27, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the Non-Proliferation treaty would complement goals set by the Paris Climate Agreement. “We all know that the leading cause of the climate crisis is fossil fuels,” Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano said. “Tuvalu has joined Vanuatu and other nations in calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to steer our development model to pursue renewables and a just transition away from fossil fuels.” In September, the Republic of Vanuatu became the first country to call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty at the United Nations General Assembly. The European Parliament, the Vatican, the World Health Organization, and a number of major cities across the globe have also called for the treaty in the last year. https://grist.org/global-indigenous-affairs-desk/at-cop27-tuvalu-joins-call-for-an-international-treaty-to-stop-fossil-fuel-expansion/ 
In case you’re wondering how small of an increase we’re currently at right now before the proverbial shit hits the fan, let me explain. On a scale of 1 to 100 of how much we’re doing in order to stop the devastating 1.5’C number, it’s not enough! Shit, it’s barely a registerable number on the scale. It’s like 0.00000001/10th of 1%. We’re not doing enough. Especially when giant clouds of pollution from China are visible from space! We’ve got to get our shit together. Or the proverbial shit is going to hit the fan and when that happens and people start dying in the streets because it’s too hot outside, well guess what conservatives? There’s no vaccine for that. Long-term climate goals will be jeopardised if we fail to achieve one gigatonne emission reduction from forests by 2025, warned a new report.
The world is not on track to achieve forest goals of ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, which is critical for a credible pathway to the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming by 1.5°C. Emission reduction must be achieved every year post-2025 for the 2030 goals to remain within reach, added the report published November 7, 2022. The report was published by the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Green Gigaton Challenge. Only 24 per cent of the necessary commitments for emissions reductions have been made so far, the analysis showed. “There is no Paris Agreement and no sustainable development goals without forests. As UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report reminded us once again, the window is closing,” said Susan Gardner, director of the ecosystems division at UNEP. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/less-than-a-quarter-of-emission-targets-from-paris-climate-agreement-met-in-7-years-85870 
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[font size="8"]Holy Shit: The Great Schoolboard Takeover Pt 2  [br] [/font] [br] B
Gather around my fair brothers and sisters! It’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate, for the Holy Church Of The Top 10 has convened and it’s time to remind you that the holiest among us are the most full of: 
My fair congregation! Please be seated! You know I couldn’t help but think, jumping to my inevitable conclusion last week, about how batshit insane and off the deep end our brothers and sisters on the Christian right are. They’re engaging in some serious Nazi-esque tactics and that definitely won’t end well for them. You know, last week, we barely scratched the surface of the Christian right’s planned “Great Schoolboard Takeover” because it’s happening all around the United States. It’s truly scary to think that the church has gone off the deep end and has begun to embrace full fascist authoritarian beliefs. That’s not what GAWD and JAYSUS intended! No, these are the wishes of the unholy, ungodly Dark One! I of course speak of a man so foul, so depraved and disgusting that his name dare NOT be spoken in my church! But here’s the thing – when you elect a bunch of psychopaths who support the Dark One unequivocally, you’re going to see the proverbial shit hit the fan, and if it comes to your city you’d better be prepared! Employees of Chattanooga’s Bess T. Shepherd Elementary School blasted a prayer meeting over the school’s exterior loudspeaker during the night, although district officials said it was an accident.
An unidentified neighbor who could hear the praying from inside his or her home Monday night posted a video on the Reddit website that recorded about two minutes of a speaker praying over the intercom, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. “This went on for 45 minutes,” the video caption said. The video included a woman’s voice repeatedly saying, “We need you in this school, God. We need you in every school, God.” She spoke of casting the things of hell “back to the abyss” and said, “You cannot rule in this school. You cannot rule in the hearts and minds of the children.” The speaker also prayed over staff members. https://www.wbbjtv.com/2022/10/22/tennessee-school-staff-accidentally-broadcast-prayer-meeting/ 
That’s exactly what this is – it’s no longer a church. It’s a cult. The shift from Christian church to full blown cult is complete, my fair congregation! But this lone district in Chatanooga is not alone in their batshit insanity, folks. Take a look at what happened in Austin after far right MAGA fundamentalists took over another school board. Guess what happened? Things predictably went to shit and they decided to do whatever Fox News told them to do! May the good LAWRD strike those down who do their every evil bidding! This will not STAND! School boards are among the smallest building blocks of democracy, the most basic components of our representative government. Their meetings, in a normal universe, can be exceedingly dull. But that is no longer the case in the Round Rock Independent School District. Video archived on RRISD's website shows that screaming, accusations, and meetings that last until 2am have become common – fomented, Harrison says, by a pair of far-right school board trustees, Danielle Weston and Mary Bone, who have served since late 2020.
This fall, five candidates – allies of Weston and Bone – are running to take complete control of the board in the November 8 election. (The Chronicle contacted Weston, Bone, and candidates Linda Avila, Christie Slape, and Don Zimmerman for this article. Weston chose not to speak with us. As of press time Wednesday, we had not received responses from the rest.) Campaign finance reports show that members of what's called the Round Rock One Family slate have received significant funding from billionaires outside the district. As laid out in the CNN documentary "Deep in the Pockets of Texas" and other media sources, these billionaires are evangelicals who believe that Christians should "have dominion" (as in Genesis 1:28) over modern American life, particularly the education of its young people. Harrison, her supporters, and her fellow board members told us that since becoming trustees, Weston and Bone have echoed the values of Christian nationalism. The opposition of the pair to COVID safeguards and the accommodation of LGBTQ students have become focal points of RRISD Board meetings. They've denounced their five fellow board trustees and, several trustees say, tacitly invited the Texas Education Agency to take over the school district. They've transformed school board meetings by encouraging the activism of a loud, rude, and threatening minority of community members. These community members, though small in number, have tried to intimidate those with whom they disagree – in person and, as the "gifts from Tiff" may illustrate, through the mail and online. https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2022-11-04/has-round-rock-isd-hit-rock-bottom/ 
Yes, the devil does walk among us, and if he preaches that he or she is going to “bring family values” to the schoolboard, you should totally beware that they have a far more sinister agenda! Remember a couple of weeks ago we touched on that “Christian” cell phone company called Patriot Mobile that was funneling profits to far right school board candidates (see: Top 10 #13-6 )? Well it turns out that their main provider T-Mobile is facing a lot of shit in the press over their ties to the company. Beware that they are fueling the devil and he sees all! You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a company that leans more right wing than AT&T. The company was a big ally to President Trump and drove most of his telecom policy (which was basically to give AT&T everything it wants). AT&T has a long, long record of supporting politicians who oppose civil rights and supported the January 6 insurrection. They even funded and helped create OAN.
But for some reason, the right wing propaganda echoplex got it stuck in their craw recently that AT&T was too “woke” (read: anything a modern Trump era Conservative does not like, especially if it involves showing empathy to marginalized populations). Apparently AT&T was deemed too “woke” because it owns CNN (they don’t any more, of course, as that property was spun off as part of the Discovery merger). So the right wing grifter and propaganda echoplex has been pushing a wireless carrier alternative dubbed Puretalk, which portrays itself as a small business alternative to big companies purportedly hostile to “Conservative values.” Right wing bullshit artist Mark Levin put it this way: “AT&T customers, your company owns far-left CNN. And T-Mobile, your CEO reportedly advised Democrats how to beat [former President Donald] Trump,” Levin exclaimed this week while reading an ad script during his radio show. “Don’t give your money to these corporatists, these corporatist wireless companies. Instead, choose PureTalk.” https://www.techdirt.com/2022/10/25/right-wingers-fight-att-by-embracing-anti-woke-cell-carrier-thats-just-rebranded-att/ 
Yeah so you’re basically just swapping one “big tech” company for another, morons. Where do you think Patriot Mobile is getting its’ service from? It’s just another way to funnel profits to right wing campaigns no matter how insane the candidates are! But I digress, the Christian right plan to remake school curriculum is fading fast! People are tired of the hateful Murdoch agenda and the fact that they are at the book banning stage is a very scar y and alarming prospect! It’s truly insane how far off the deep end the church has become and I feel like they have truly lost their way. They used to be about helping people and now they’re about hurting them. Insanity. “The path to save the nation is very simple — it’s going to go through the school boards,” Steve Bannon declared on his podcast last May. Parent outrage, opined the former Trump adviser, could be mined by the GOP for electoral gold — from the most local elections to Congress, all the way to the White House.
Suddenly the news cycle was awash in stories of formerly staid school board races transforming into partisan battlegrounds, as Republicans seized on parent discontent over mask mandates, teaching about race and gender inclusion policies. After Glen Youngkin’s upset victory in Virginia and the recall of three school board members in San Francisco, a narrative of Democratic crisis and conservative triumph clicked into place. But what if that narrative is wrong? What if it turns out that even Trump-aligned Republicans happen to like their public schools and support their local teachers? As it turns out, GOP candidates running on scorched-earth education platforms have fared quite poorly in school board elections. In places like Georgia, Montana, New Hampshire and New York, voters have rejected culture warriors running for school board, often doing so by wide margins. A recent Ballotpedia review of more than 400 school board contests in Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin found that race, gender and COVID were indeed influential in determining election outcomes, but not in the way one might expect. As they found, candidates who ran in opposition to a “conflict issue” — sexual education curricula, for instance, or a focus on race in the district — were more likely to lose their races. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3572821-the-gops-school-board-takeover-strategy-is-falling-flat/ 
Well… I’ve said my piece. The Christian right taking over school board is extremely dangerous for this country. It should be a warning that every election is important, no matter what the office! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:
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[font size="8"]Beating A Dead Horse   [br] [/font] [br]
Look… if there’s one argument that is never going to end, it’s the argument between supporters of the LGBT community and detractors of the LGBT community. If there’s one thing we’ve been trying to teach you on this program - unless it’s something that happens directly to them, you will never convert the haters to your side. That we can all agree on right? Well it’s happened again this week when Daniel Radcliffe, the star of Harry Potter and current star of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was being interviewed on TV about his role in the latter movie. So naturally the interviewer asked Mr. Radcliffe what his opinions about JK Rowling’s stance on trans people is. And of course, like any conversation on that subject, it got pretty heated pretty quickly! Yeah once you open that can of worms, it’s hard to close it. At this point, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling’s transphobia is widely known, so vehemently has she used her international notoriety to spew hateful views against the most vulnerable segment of the LGBTQ+ community. Fans of her popular books and films have been blindsided, shocked, and left scratching their heads as to why the author of a seemingly positive fantasy tale about acceptance of differences would become so radicalized against a single marginalized group.
But Daniel Radcliffe, who rose to international fame playing “the boy who lived” onscreen, is most concerned about the young trans fans who have felt betrayed and hurt deeply by Rowling’s dangerous comments. “The reason I was felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing ‘Potter,’ I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that. And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important,” Radcliffe told IndieWire during a recent interview. . https://www.indiewire.com/2022/11/daniel-radcliffe-jk-rowling-transgender-harry-potter-1234778156/ 
So for those of you who don’t follow the entertainment industry, allow me to explain the controversy for you. The LGBT community is desperate to get representation in an industry that would otherwise cast straight white people to fill LGBT roles. It would be like if Chris Pratt played a drag queen character in a comedy. Well yeah he’s fabulous all right! But this controversy isn’t anything new, it’s just another dead horse that’s been beaten to death and set on fire and thrown into the river. But really this entire thing is on casting directors. And JK Rowling definitely isn’t helping things! Just… stop it already!! The controversial author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, says that she has been receiving threats online and that she doesn't believe there is any way to de-escalate the situation.
During an interview on the Graham Norton Radio Show, Rowling was asked about the threats she's been receiving on social media. "You're talking about the threats online [...] How can we de-escalate all of the things that are going on?" Norton asked. "Is there a way that you as this very visible, vocal person can de-escalate the conversation?" "I think, on one level, I'm not sure I can," Rowling replied. "I'm not sure any individual can. I mean, I try and behave online as I would like others to behave... I've never threatened anyone, obviously, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to go to their houses or anything like that. Social media... can be a lot of fun, and I do like the sort of 'pub argument' aspect of it. That can be a fun thing to do. But there's no doubt that social media is a gift for people who want to behave in a malign way." The threats directed toward the author started following an attack on fellow author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed while attending an event in New York. Soon after the assault, Rowling began to receive tweets from anonymous figures online threatening her life. One user wrote, "Don't worry you are next," in response to her concerns for Rushdie's wellbeing. https://www.cbr.com/jk-rowling-social-media-strife-harry-potter/ 
Well you’re not wrong! I mean come on people, if there’s one thing we’ve taught you on this program is that if you’re trying to make an argument, death threats don’t help your case. Like if you say “Star Wars Episode VIII is the best movie in the franchise”, and your follow up argument is “No it sucks, I’m going to kill you motherfucker!!!”, that really doesn’t help, does it? But here’s the thing too – I never in a million years ever thought that the video game industry would be more open and inclusive than the movie and TV industry is! That is an absolute shocker! Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) may have plans for more Harry Potter movies in the future, but will the controversial creator J.K. Rowling be involved?
For many years, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter franchise was among the biggest in Hollywood after eight successful movies adapting the seven-book series. That era came to an end in 2011 with Deathly Hallows Part 2, but recent years have seen an attempt to resurrect the world in several ways. 2016 proved to be the beginning of a return to the Wizarding World as The Cursed Child stage play debuted and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them began a new prequel saga. There have even since been rumors of more blockbuster efforts including bringing the popular stage play to live-action and an HBO Max series. But as everything has been going on, Rowling has been the subject of intense controversy for her anti-transgender comments. Although WBD has continued its relationship with the divisive creator through this as she led the Fantastic Beasts franchise, it appears to have more aspirations to work with her again. https://thedirect.com/article/harry-potter-movies-new-warner-bros-jk-rowling
But on the subject of drag and LGBT roles, there will never be someone as good as Tim Curry in Rocky Horror Picture Show. OK maybe there will be at some point. However, there’s two valuable life lessons that can be learned from this whole shit show. The first is that anyone can be a total asshole on social media, doesn’t matter if you’re a celebrity or you’re just some schmo who hosts a z-grade comedy show in the middle of the afternoon. But the other lesson? Anonymous death threats are just that – anonymous, and anyone can make them. In fact it’s almost a contact sport for some people. Ralph Fiennes has defended J.K. Rowling over her controversial stance on transgender rights.
Fiennes, who played the villainous Lord Voldemort across four Harry Potter films, told The New York Times Magazine that the “verbal abuse” Rowling receives online is “disgusting” and “appalling.” Added Fiennes: “I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But [she’s] not some obscene, über-right-wing fascist. It’s just a woman saying, ‘I’m a woman and I feel I’m a woman and I want to be able to say that I’m a woman.’ And I understand where she’s coming from. Even though I’m not a woman.” The controversy began in June 2020 when the author of the mega-popular Harry Potter books first tweeted about an op-ed piece regarding “people who menstruate” and mocked the story for not using the word “women.” The tweet generated backlash, which prompted the author to repeatedly and ever-more adamantly defend herself, eventually elaborating on her views in a lengthy essay. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/harry-potter-ralph-fiennes-defends-jk-rowling-1235248133/ 
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[font size="8"]Conspiracy Corner [br] [/font] [br]
Welcome back to our segment that explains the unexplainable, Conspiracy Corner! In these dark times when people are too lazy to read through an entire article, they simply make stuff up to fill in the gaps, like some kind of fucked up version of Mad Libs. The trans satellites are using pronouns and Obamacare to kill your grandma! Yeah it’s kind of like that. We are coming to you live from our underground doomsday shelter from deep in the New Mexico badlands – undisclosed location, of course! Let me just adjust my trusty tin foil hat for maximum government interference… they are trying to read yours and my thoughts after all! Ah, there we go! This week, the Brazil elections are in and they voted to fire Jair Bolsonaro, the Trump of the Tropics! Yeah how about that? Bolsonaro, you’re fired! But some here in the States aren’t too happy with the results of the election. And as you can guess, the usual group of MAGA clowns are the culprits! MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell seemed to hint Wednesday that Brazil's presidential election results may not be sound while detailing concerns about the country's voting machines.
In a clip shared on Twitter Wednesday, Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, said on his "The Lindell Report" podcast that he had his "cyber guys" watching the election in Brazil. He did not say who these individuals were, or how they were monitoring the vote. He also spoke about how "corrupt judges" voted down what he said was an attempt to have paper put into electronic voting machines so that it could print out "paper copies" that can be used to conduct an audit. "So they have pure machines, everybody," Lindell said. "When I say pure machines, there's no paper...So whatever that tells you, whatever program is inside, here's who won." Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, was elected as Brazil's new president in a runoff this week after neither he nor current President Jair Bolsonaro managed to secure 50 percent of votes in initial voting early last month. In a short speech on Tuesday, Bolsonaro did not concede the election or recognize Lula's victory but did say that he would follow the Constitution in an apparent indication that he was prepared to leave office regardless. https://www.newsweek.com/mike-lindell-hints-brazil-election-rigged-cyber-guys-watched-race-1756803 
To the idiot mobile! 
But here’s the thing my fellow conspiranoids! The far right lost the election in Brazil. But that hasn’t deterred some of the more insane among them to resort to their favorite outlet: Youtube! That’s right, the right hates big tech and social media, but they need that stuff to spread their hateful messaging! But just like our idiots on the right, Brazil’s conservatives certainly know how to put on a shit show! But there’s no mistake that Brazil’s elections were targeted by some very shady characters and the same who attempted to influence US elections. Yeah our elections are bad enough as it is, we don’t need influencers, damn it! The Carter Center said on Friday that Brazil's presidential election was marked by a proliferation of sophisticated disinformation attacking the voting system and then questioning the impartiality of the national electoral authority.
The U.S.-based non-profit group, a pioneer of international election observation since the 1980s, said that both the winning leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro were targets of disinformation. However, "our analysis of the leading fact-checking organizations indicates that most attacks targeted the Lula campaign," it said in a statement wrapping up its mission on observing the Brazilian election. The Carter Center sent a mission of experts to the South American country at the invitation of the electoral authority, the Superior Electoral Court, or TSE, which invited a record number of foreign observers as a way to tackle repeated criticism by Bolsonaro of the electronic voting system. Bolsonaro has argued without evidence that the system is vulnerable to fraud and, in the weeks prior to the runoff vote, stepped up his attacks on electoral officials. Until the first round of the vote, on Oct. 2, the dominant disinformation narrative centered around flaws of the voting system, the group said, adding that the court provided an extensive set of audit procedures to address the claims. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-election-marked-by-disinformation-networks-says-carter-center-2022-11-05/ 
Dude, seriously, Jair, you don’t need to look around to see that there’s hucksters, fraudsters, scammers and con artists everywhere. Whether it’s your votes or your wallets, they’re coming for you! But one thing I will say is that Brazil’s far right protestors know how to put on a protest! Like seriously the idiot trucker convoy earlier this year doesn’t hold a candle to these guys. But the thing is no matter what country you live in – the right wing is the same no matter where you go. Brazil’s election denying conspiracy theorists are definitely no better than ours. Truckers who support Brazil's outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro escalated their protests on Monday, blocking roads throughout the country in actions that could affect exports in one of the world's top food producers and cause wider economic chaos.
Bolsonaro lost Sunday's election to leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but has yet to concede defeat. He will not publicly address his defeat until Tuesday, a cabinet minister said on Monday evening, amid doubts over whether the far-right nationalist will accept Lula's victory. Video footage showed some truckers at roadblocks calling for a military coup to prevent Lula becoming president, as protests spread from Mato Grosso and Santa Catarina to Parana, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, In Brasilia, police shut off traffic access to the central government esplanade on a tip that Bolsonaro supporters were planning to occupy the square in front of the Supreme Court, which they consider has acted to favor Lula. Brazil's federal highway police said 321 protests had partially or fully blocked roads in 26 states. Truckers - who have benefited from Bolsonaro policies such as lowering diesel costs - are one of the president's key constituencies, and they have been known to disrupt Brazil's economy when they shut down highways...................... Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-famato-says-does-not-support-protestor-roadblocks-could-disrupt-2022-10-31/ 
Yeah so people don’t do this. I know that people can get passionate about the candidates and causes that they support. But don’t be a dick. I think that’s the best thing we can say going forward. Don’t be a Steve Bannon or Mike Lindell or Donald Trump. There’s ways to be a good loser without being a total dick the way these guys are. We’ve had enough political turmoil these last six years and the last thing we want to do is escalate it the way Trump, Fox and the MAGAs are. At least Bolsonaro is proving that he is the better man than Trump is in this case. Can’t say the same for the rest of the loser patrol. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday said he would “follow all the orders and prescriptions of the constitution” during a short and ambiguous speech at the presidential palace in Brasilia, after days of silence following his election loss to the leftist former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
He did not explicitly concede defeat, though the event appeared to signal his intention to cooperate with the transfer of power. Speaking after the President, his chief of staff Ciro Nogueira said that he would work with the new government and is waiting for Lula da Silva’s transition team to begin the handover. “Contrary to what my opponents say I always played within the limits of our constitution,” Bolsonaro said, without congratulating Lula da Silva, who won with 50.9% of the vote, while Bolsonaro gained 49.1%. The President-elect received the most votes in Brazilian history – more than 60 million votes, breaking his own record from 2006 by almost two million votes, according to the election authority’s final tally. Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-elections-protests-intl-latam/index.html 
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[font size="8"]I Need A Drink  [br] [/font] [br]
Hey everyone! I don’t know about you but I could really use a drink!
So of course you know the idea behind this segment is that there’s way too much dark shit in the news right now. So the best course of action is to belly up to the bar with a glass of your favorite beverage and forget about life for a bit! Only rules we have in this bar – no fighting, no cussing, and no politics! OK, we do allow swearing. As long as it’s not at someone. Only with. And don’t worry my sober brothers and sisters, we got ya covered too! This week we’re going to talk about the city of San Francisco. This week a former Michelin chef has ignited controversy with a bizarre new startup that promises gourmet dog food. Yes, that’s right – gourmet dog food! So tell me bartender, what goes well with a story about gourmet dog food? Red Tick Beer? Ha ha ha ha! No thanks! I’ll just have my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. I call it the Double Jack! Well anyway, the gourmet pet food industry is here and it’s really seemed to piss off some folks. So what exactly can you get when you plunk down $75 to give your dog a gourmet feast? A new restaurant in San Francisco is turning heads and wagging tails, promising an experience that some might call indulgent. Others see it as a dog-gone good time.
Dogue opened its doors on Valencia Street on Sept. 25, welcoming four-legged friends and their humans to dine in a café-like setting. The food caters mainly to canines, with items ranging from a $4.95 “It’s kind of a mixing of the dog food sector and the restaurant and hospitality sector,” explained Chef and Co-Founder, Rahmi Massarweh. “At its core, we are a fresh food company for dogs.” Massarweh, who is trained in classical French cuisine, says he was inspired to start the business because of his own pets, which include four dogs. “If you have responsibility over a family member, and you knew your choices affected how long that family member would live, wouldn’t you want to make the best choice possible?” he added. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/san-francisco-restaurant-offers-fine-dining-experience-for-dogs/ 
Oh yeah!! So here’s the thing – I’m a dog person. I have dogs, I’ve had many dogs. But I’ve never understood the concept of “pet parenting”. I think it’s absolutely insane and absurd. Your dog is not your child, though it does seem like they need a lot of taking care. But why should I plunk down $75 so Rover can have a gourmet feast while I am spending $6 for the Popeye’s Big Box? Shit. My dog doesn’t care what he eats, he just eats! I don’t think he would ever consume a pastry and be like “Oh man that’s so good!!!”. When you walk into one newly opened San Francisco restaurant, the first thing you'll notice is its striking color-coordinated selection of French patisserie-inspired pastries. The slightly-bigger-than-bite-sized treats start at $15 each, and include savory options like the green Spirulina and Pulled Pork pastry made with raw unfiltered honey and organic lemon, or the "Red Rose," which includes pastured cream, beetroot powder and, uh, wild antelope heart.
Yes, those pastries — and everything else on Dogue's menu — have been designed with your dog in mind. The San Francisco restaurant, which opened on September 25, offers bespoke meal plans for your pup, a range of "Dogguccinos" and pastries, and a three-course dog-centric tasting menu that is served every Sunday. Rahmi Massarweh, the chef and owner behind Dogue, told Food & Wine that dogs are encouraged to dine-in during the Sunday "Bone Appetit Cafe" service. The current menu — which runs around $75 — includes a starter of pastured chicken and organic chaga mushroom soup; an organic chicken skin waffle with a coconut-charcoal custard; and a main course of grass-fed steak tartare with a quail egg and organic broccoli sprouts. https://www.foodandwine.com/news/dogue-dog-restaurant-san-francisco 
Come on, even Superman needs a drink every once in a while! But seriously, my dog is, and I don’t know how to put this eloquently, a garbage disposal. Most dogs are. That’s why dog food comes in large bags and in cans. But here’s where the controversy comes in. Look, I totally get that people are hurting right now because of rampant inflation caused by Russia’s illegal invasion of the Ukraine. But on the other hand, San Francisco is the land of “fuck you” money. And you know it’s also a good thing that Oprah isn’t on the air anymore because this is one trend we hope doesn’t get picked up! The news of a restaurant for dogs opening in San Francisco was met with impassioned reaction from both critics and enthusiasts.
Some said Dogue, which opened last week with a $75 tasting menu and French-inspired pastries just for dogs, feels emblematic of everything wrong with San Francisco right now — a place where dogs are treated better than humans. Fervent dog owners and supporters, meanwhile, simply see it as a good business idea. On social media, people quickly labeled it as an “only in San Francisco” story. “This signals the collapse,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “As if the rest of the country didn’t hate us enough already,” another posted. Others blasted the idea of a fine-dining restaurant for dogs against the backdrop of the city’s most pressing issues: homelessness, gentrification, drug abuse, the pandemic’s devastation of small businesses. https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/dogue-reactions-17486907.php 
Say what you want about the WWE… but damn that man knows how to drink! But really that’s the collapse? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… apparently 4 years of the previous administration wasn’t enough for you? It’s gourmet dog food? Just wow… some people really need to turn down their hyperbole meters, seriously. But what’s it like to eat the world’s most expensive dog food? These people actually went to Dogue to try it out for themselves. Well, their pets anyway. I can only presume that their food isn’t fit for human consumption. I’ll admit, I’m someone who can appreciate the finer things in life. So when my editors approached me with the idea of visiting a luxury dog cafe, I couldn’t say no.
The canine cafe in question? Dogue (pronounced like “Vogue” with a “D”), a San Francisco luxury dog food business with a recently opened canine restaurant on Valencia Street and a $75 tasting menu. Dogue is the brainchild of professional chef Rahmi Massarweh, who dreamed up the concept in 2015 when he decided his mastiff, Grizzly, deserved seasonal, human-grade food. Dogue has been scrutinized by countless think pieces and internet critics since local news highlighted the cafe earlier this month. Some say that the cafe is emblematic of everything wrong with San Francisco, a city that bathes in Silicon Valley’s riches as a worsening housing and homelessness crisis festers beneath the tech veneer. Others think that this is precisely par for the course for SF, a city that—according to The Standard’s recent voter poll—boasts more dog owners than it does parents. https://sfstandard.com/arts-culture/we-tried-out-sfs-luxury-dog-cafe-so-you-dont-have-to/ 
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[font size="8"]World Tour 2022 Destination #13 - China [br] [/font] [br]
Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is that we view conservative idiocy not just as a uniquely American problem. No, it’s a global problem and conservatives are ruining everything they touch all around the world. Which is why we present to you: 
[font size="4"]Destination #13: China [/font] https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/c/cn!6ptds.gif 
Well we are here in one of the world’s largest countries – China. China is of course the land of the Great Wall and Buddhism. It’s also the home of the Vegas of the East – Macau, and one of the largest cities in the entire world – Hong Kong! But China’s outer beauty hides a very inner ugly. See, China is currently ruled by an egomaniacal mad man known as Xi Jianping, a prime minister with an ego so fragile that by the time we’re finished making fun of him, the Top 10 will probably be banned in China. Oops, too late, that was quick! But China, much like the Los Angeles Angels, have a history of some extremely terrible trade scandals and internal turmoil. But if there’s one thing that we don’t want – it’s an alliance between two megalomaniacal warlords. I’m of course talking about Xi and Vladimir Putin. That’s right – the Russian mad man and the Chinese mad man could team up, and that won’t be good for anybody! The Pentagon says Russia and China appear to be “edging toward an alliance” at a time when Western nations are seeking to isolate Moscow over its war on Ukraine.
Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters on Tuesday that “we should expect the Russia-China relationship to deepen.” Nine months ago China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin signed off on their so-called “no limits” strategic partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. “They’ve really been much more willing to signal this thing is edging towards an alliance as opposed to a superficial partnership,” Kahl said, pointing to their joint military exercises ― which involved more than 50,000 troops for a week in early September. China appears to view Russia as a counterweight to the U.S., while Russia, hemmed in by Western sanctions and export controls, “increasingly has nowhere else to go” and could depend more and more on China “economically, technologically and potentially militarily,” Kahl said. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/11/08/pentagon-xi-and-putin-edging-toward-an-alliance/ Yeah no, these are the last two people on earth who should be forming an alliance! But also too, China’s got a problem in the form of a technology company called Huawei. You’ve probably heard of Huawai, they’re the Z grade Android phone knockoff brand that’s been repeatedly accused of spying on its’ users without their permission. In fact the US has pretty much banned Huawei phones and tablets on the account of them being a possible national security risk. Which of course gives fuel to those right wing conspiracy theorists who were worried that the COVID vaccine had a microchip in it. Yeah. Germany’s self-styled “China City” Duisburg has halted its controversial smart cities collaboration with Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, with city officials saying it was partly due to Beijing’s ties with Russia.
A memorandum signed in 2018 would see Huawei transform Duisburg “from a traditional industrial city into a service-oriented smart city”, modernising its public administration, port logistics, education and traffic infrastructure, using advanced 5G technology. But this agreement expired last month and has since been scrubbed from the city’s website. City officials told the South China Morning Post that it would not be immediately renewed in light of “the current relations between Russia and China”. All cooperation with Huawei is now on hold, said Falco Firlus, a spokesman for mayor Sören Link’s office, pending the federal government’s new China policy, which is due next year and set to recommend a sterner approach to dealing with Chinese entities. “The federal government/EU is currently waiting to see whether an exchange with Huawei can be maintained – also against the background of the current relations between Russia and China,” Firlus said in an email. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3199049/germanys-china-city-duisburg-cuts-ties-huawei-citing-beijings-relations-russia 
It’s also pretty hard to not spy on someone when you’re a giant technology conglomerate that’s been repeatedly accused of spying. Shh, nobody tell them what Google and Apple are up to! Well, remember what we said about China having a history of terrible trade deals, like your favorite sports franchise? So China’s Xi has become, what one might call a bit of a burden. In fact it’s causing the Chinese Yuan to drop dramatically. Though on the flip side it would make a trip to Macau very affordable. Yeah I know that we have an MGM in Vegas, but Macau has nicer weather! China’s producer price index fell in October for the first time since December 2020, dragged down by drops in iron and steel prices, according to official data released Wednesday.
The producer price index, which tracks the price of raw materials and other input costs, fell by 1.3% in October from a year ago. That slightly missed expectations for a 1.5% decline, according to a Reuters poll. The decline comes off double-digit gains last year as commodity prices soared. In October, measures for ferrous metals, which include iron and steel, and the coal industry saw the sharpest declines within the producer price index. Changes in China’s producer price index tend to precede similar changes in that of the U.S. by about one or two months, Francoise Huang, senior economist at Allianz Trade, said in October. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/one-of-chinas-inflation-gauges-drops-for-the-first-time-since-2020.html 
Yeah so if you’re thinking about visiting China, you might want to hold off for now. At least until World War III is over. Wait, did I say that World War III is over? No, it’s just beginning! In fact, Xi has a way of inserting himself into other people’s business, just like the GOP’s favorite president. You know who he is, that guy. That’s right – right wing wannabe military dictators of a feather certainly flock together and they have very similar traits. Is Xi Jianping imitating Trump or is Trump imitating Xi Jianping? Well either way, both spell bad things for China in the near future. Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, has said China has become “increasingly disruptive” on the world stage as she hinted in a speech at a new Indo-Pacific strategy expected to be released this month.
Her comments come ahead of several summits that Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is to attend, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia, the G20 in Indonesia, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Thailand. “China is an increasingly disruptive, global power,” Joly told a Toronto audience. “It seeks to shape the global environment into one that is more permissive for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours. “And China’s rise as a global actor is reshaping the strategic outlook of every state in the region, including Canada.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/09/china-increasingly-disruptive-global-power-canadian-foreign-minister 
[font size="4"]Scorecard: [/font] Tourism: B+ Culture: B Political Spectrum: D- Liberal Appeal: D- Overall: C- Change from 2017: Xi has turned into an insane lunatic, which is hardly surprising. If you’re thinking about visiting, don’t wander too far from the tourist areas. [font size="4"]Next Week: [/font] Next week – we are having some fun and heading to the land of the Sydney Opera House, kangaroos, Australian Rules Football, and boomerangs – Australia and New Zealand! [font size="4"]And Now This: [/font] [font size="4"]The Mars Volta[/font] 
Ladies and gentlemen, playing their song “Graveyard Love” from their album “The Mars Volta”, give up for The Mars Volta! Thank you Riverside! We’re doing our first ever show in Hawaii next week with the famous Wheel Of Corruption! But I will warn that next week’s will be late. Check our official Twitter feed @10Idiots for more information. See you next week!  
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