NOVEMBER 2017 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

NOTE: A-number-of Phronesis readers have requested that because President Trump is a certified ignominious “human,” who would predictably saturate the monthly list of IGGY-worthy statements, I should eliminate him from future consideration. While acknowledging that Trump is indeed an evil, despicable “human being,” I’ve decided to continue to include him, but will limit his monthly absurd expressions to one.


1. President Trump. in the monthly ignominious award Trump lying is nothing new, but lying to politicize a tragedy is disgusting in the extreme. This is what we come to expect from the Donald. Trump’s ignorance, looseness with facts, and insensitivity to the human condition bodes ill for our country.

In the aftermath of the most recent terrorist (i.e., jihadist sympathizer) attack, the President decided to blame Chuck Schumer and Democrats. Using a program that no longer exists, Trump fumed:

“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.” … We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).” … Senator Chuck Schumer helping to import Europe’s problems." … We will stop this craziness!” 

Republican Senator Jeff Flake promptly exposed this lie in a tweet to Trump, while defending Democratic Senator Schumer in the process.

“Actually, the Gang of 8, including @SenSchumer, did away with the Diversity Visa Program as part of broader reforms. I know, I was there.”

And, so it goes . . .

2. Rep. Ed Henry (R-Ala). Henry has some deep thoughts on the revelations surrounding Senate hopeful and all-around Christian hypocrite Roy Moore. Unlike fellow Republican Alabama Marion County GOP chair David Hall, Rep. Henry isn’t simply going to support Roy Moore regardless of whether or not he’s guilty of molesting a 14-year-old girl, he’s going to wonder out loud why these four women accusing Mr. Moore aren’t being brought up on charges. As he tells the Cullman Times, if it’s true that Mr. Moore is a sexual predator, then these four women should be in jail!

“The idea that accusations like this would stop his campaign is ludicrous. If this was a habit, like you’ve read with Bill Cosby and millions of dollars paid to settle cases and years of witnesses, that would be one thing,” Henry said. “You cannot tell me there hasn’t been an opportunity through the years to make these accusations with as many times as he’s (Moore) run (for office) and been in the news.”

Henry said he believes legal action should be considered against Moore’s accusers, finding their story unbelievable.

“If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years. I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can’t be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion,” Henry said.

It’s interesting that Rep. Ed Henry only seems to blame women when it comes to sexual assault—even when he seems to say he believes these women were sexually assaulted. This seems to be the standard GOP response to sexual predators: conservative predators are given a pass, liberal must resign or be fired.  The sexual predator most worthy of firing now sits in the White House.  Wouldn't that be nice?

3.  Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler.  Leave it to an Alabama Republican to offer the definitive justification for Judge Roy Moore’s despicable, sleazy predatory pursuance of young women, one as young as 14-years old. According to Ziegler:

“There is nothing to see here,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”

This would be a salient point if it wasn’t both offensive and against the law for a 30-something year-old person to molest a 14-year-old person.

But there’s more:

“He’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore.

“Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

…. “There’s nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date.”

Maybe Roy Moore should have married his niece and made it super biblical?

4. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl). Democrats didn’t even get a full twenty-four hours of celebrating election day without an extremist Republican doing something to upend the news cycle. Freshman Rep. Gaetz (R-FL) spoke to an almost empty House of Representatives Wednesday in-order-to side with Reps. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ) to demand that Robert Mueller either resign or be fired, because, in Gaetz’ opinion, Mueller’s work amounts to a coup d’etat.

“We are at risk of a coup d’état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected President of the United States,” Gaetz said. “And I would offer, that is precisely what is happening right now with the indisputable conflicts of interest that are present with Mr. Mueller and others at the Department of Justice.”

“I join my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona, in calling for Mr. Mueller’s resignation or his firing,” Gaetz continued. . . . “Moreover, we absolutely have to see the Department of Justice appoint a special counsel to look into the Clinton Foundation, the Uranium One deal, and the FusionGPS dossier.”

Check all the villages in Wingnuttia. One of them is missing its idiot.

5. House Speaker Paul Ryan. Facing criticism for responding to yet another mass shooting with “prayers” but no action, House Speaker Paul Ryan apparently decided to give Donald Trump a run for his money in the say-a-stupid-thing-about-guns sweepstakes:

When asked about the backlash on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show, Ryan said the criticism was “disappointing” and said: “people who do not have faith don’t understand faith,” and claiming the “secular left” is responsible for some of the “disunity” in the U.S.

“It is the right thing to do in moments like this because, you know what? Prayer works,” he said. “And I know you believe that and I believe that and when you hear the secular left doing this think, no wonder you have so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that.”

Riddle me this, Paul: if prayer both works and is the correct response to mass shootings, the one likeliest to get a good result, why does the U.S. have so many mass shootings? Are you praying for the wrong thing? Or do you believe you’re praying to a God who wants the United States to have so many mass shootings? Speaking as a member of the more-or-less secular left, I just wonder what on earth you put your faith in.

Ryan is of course being either spectacularly stupid or spectacularly dishonest (or, considering the source, both) here. The problem the left, no matter how secular, has here is not that Republicans in Congress are praying for victims of mass shootings, it’s that that’s all they’re doing! Pray all you want! But don’t pretend that’s the only answer when you’re in Congress, charged with making the laws of the nation.

6. Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Don’t worry, folks. Mass shootings are not a problem, because Hitler was worse. Rest easy, it’s only because things are happening now that they seem “heavy.” This pearl of wisdom comes to you from Texas Gov. Abbott in relation not just to Sunday’s killing of 26 people in a church in Sutherland Spring, Texas, but also in-reference-to the killing of 58 people in Las Vegas in October and a few other recent mass murders as well:

“We have acts of evil taking place, and because they are close in time to us right now, we think this is something heavy right now. But put this in the context of history. Look at what happened with Hitler, the horrific events during that era, and Mussolini.”

If that’s the standard, then 9/11 really was no big thing at all. Gosh, guys, look at what happened with Hitler! MUCH bigger than 9/11, so put that in the context of history and realize that this is not something so heavy happening right now. Actually, you know what? Hitler, schmitler. Look at what happened with the 1918 flu epidemic and the Black Death.

So mass shootings are not “heavy enough” because worse things happened in the past. How do morons like this get elected? Oh yes, Texas.
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And the winner is:

My initial reaction was to go with Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler, but because he holds a more significant political office, and the implications of his outrageous comment are more far-reaching, I have selected Texas Governor Greg Abbott as winner of the November IGGY award.