DECEMBER 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

The Ignominious Absurdity of the Month (IGGY) award used to be called The Bonehead Absurdity of the Month. I used the word “bonehead” because I thought the utterances selected were largely products of stupidity or ignorance. Coming to believe that the people I selected were not just ignorant, but downright evil, I decided to change bonehead to ignominious, hence was born The Ignominious Absurdity on the Month. This shouldn’t imply, however, that ignominious individuals are not also ignorant; in reality, there is a close affinity between the two, as some of this month’s selections will attest.

1. The Usual Suspects. It’s become habitual that certain persons will repeatedly distinguish themselves as IGGY candidates. This month, Reps. Jim Jordan, Matts Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Green put their ignorance and stupidity once again on display. If we can’t require IQ tests as a prerequisite to serving the US House of Representatives, at least we should require an MRI of their brains to check for nougat. It’s the least we can do for the American public. The nougat brains of Jordan, Gaetz and Green showed their tangle of glitching neurons when commenting on the Covid virus.

First, Jordan’s brilliant observation: “Real America is done with Covid-19. The only people who don’t understand this is Fauci and Biden.”

Done? As the year ended, there were over 580,000 new cases in the U.S., the highest on record.  Worrisome projections about the new Omicron variant suggest Jordan must have been absent when brains were passed out.

Next, Gaetz: “Still the best vaccine we’ve found is mother nature’s vaccine, it’s contacting the virus that’s what has provided the greatest, most durable, protection over the longest period of time.”

Sorry Matt, scientific research has revealed that people who have had Covid are not immune to getting it again, especially, apparently, from the Omicron variant.

The immutable Taylor Green apparently thinks cancer is somehow analogous to COVID-19. In her words: “Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die of cancer. The country has never once shut down. Not a single school has closed. And every year, over 600,000 people of all ages and races will continue to die from cancer.”

Apparently, Georgia’s Greene missed a few days of school—including the day all Peach State schools are required to set aside once a year to teach something other than creation science. So, the nougat-brained Green thinks cancer is somehow analogous to COVID-19, a communicable disease that continues to spread, evolve, and kill innocent people across the globe.

It’s a tragedy that so many people still die of cancer each year. But what we haven’t done in the face of this ongoing crisis is demonize effective treatments, politicize basic precautionary measures, or relentlessly attack one of the world’s foremost experts on the problem.

Obviously, there’s a significant difference between cancer and COVID-19. Let me see if I can puzzle this one out. Hmm. No luck. Guess I’m just too obtuse.

NOVEMBER 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala). On Sunday, an article in Rolling Stone reported that both Republicans members of Congress and their staff met repeatedly with organizers of the Jan. 6 insurrection to plan protests around blocking the official tallying of the Electoral College vote. This month, the Montgomery Adviser reported that Brooks denied helping to plan the rally, saying that he had not had any  involvement in fundraising for the rally, and only showed up to speak “because the White House asked him to do so.”

In a phone interview, Brooks seemed quite sure that his hands were clean when it came to the rally and the violent and deadly assault on the Capitol that followed. "If you’re talking about someone participating in meetings, setting the agenda, raising the money,” said Brooks, “I don’t know of anything that suggests my staff as doing that stuff.”

But speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, Brooks walked that statement back a critical distance. Speaking to CNN’s Melanie Zanona, Brooks continued to claim that he had not attended planning meetings for the event, but said, “I don’t know if my staff did ... but if they did I’d be proud of them for helping to put together a rally lawful under the First Amendment at the ellipse to protest voter fraud and election theft."

Which is certainly made more interesting by how, back in July, Brooks told Slate that he was aware there was a likelihood of violence at the rally. “As a consequence of those warnings,” said Brooks, “I did not go to my condo. Instead, I slept on the floor of my office. And when I gave my speech at the Ellipse, I was wearing body armor.”

An article from another Alabama television station, WKRG, has Brooks making the statement about purchasing a Glock after a more general statement about the threats that he receives as a member of Congress. Which makes this seem like less connected to the Jan. 6 event.

During that interview in July, Brooks refused to say who had given him the heads up on what was about to happen. Or provide details on that warning. But those would be excellent questions for the House select committee on Jan. 6.

In a statement to WAFF in Huntsville, Alabama, Brooks later claimed that he had “zero warnings of any kind” about violence from Trump supporters and only wore body armor because he was concerned about “the risk of threatened violence by BLM and ANTIFA.” Brooks also hinted that he might have been carrying a weapon at the rally, saying: “As a consequence of these threats, I have body armor, a concealed carry permit, and purchased a Glock to go with them.”

According to the original Rolling Stone article, at least one of those involved in planning the January 6 rally has been in communication with the select committee. That organizer is apparently now a cooperating witness, sharing information about the members of Congress and their staff who helped plan events on Jan. 6. That organizer specifically mentioned that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was present at meetings, and that others—including Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Louie Gohmert, and Rep. Mo Brooks—either attended themselves or sent “top staffers.”

If Brooks’ statements seem to constantly skate the edge of self-contradiction and encouraging violence, they fall solidly in the speech Brooks made to the insurgents gathered before him on the Ellipse the morning of January 6. On that morning, Brooks’ didn’t tell them to storm the Capitol and engage in violence. He only told them, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. Our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives to give us, their descendants, an America that is the greatest nation in world history. So, I have a question for you. Are you willing to do the same?”

He didn’t tell them they had to stop the electoral count. He only told them, “Today, Republican senators and congressmen will either vote to turn America into a godless, amoral, dictatorial, oppressed and socialist nation on the decline, or they will join us and they will fight and vote against voter fraud and election theft and vote for keeping America great.”

He didn’t tell them they had to attack the Capitol, he only called out to the crowd, “Will you fight for America?” before saying, “We, American patriots are going to come right at them!”

It seems clear that Brooks had staffers—at least—involved in the pre-planning of Jan. 6 events. It’s clear that he had foreknowledge that violence was likely, if not certain. It’s clear that on Jan. 6, Brooks helped deliver that violence by informing the crowd that the nation would be lost if they didn’t act immediately. And it’s clear that every day since then, Brooks has continued to blast the Big Lie about election fraud, even as he has hedged his own claims to stay just this side of obvious sedition.

Is this the last straw in Brooks’ worthiness for a Hall-of-Shame induction?

OCTOBER 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

ANNOUNCEMENT: Ted Cruz, Rudy Giuliani, Tucker Carlson AND Louis Gohmert are four irredeemable evildoers who have appeared repeatedly as monthly IGGY candidates and winners (Carlson and Gohmert appear again this month). In a quiet ceremony after picking up dog shit in my backyard, I inducted the four of them in the Phronesis Hall-of-Shame. This means that their ignominious actions and utterances will not appear in any future IGGY listing. Their membership is well-earned—and long overdue.

Near misses for induction included Senators Mitch McConnell and Ron Johnson, Representatives Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, and Marjorie Taylor Green, and Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott. Strong future contenders include Senators Mike Lee, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. Feel free to recommend additional worthy candidates.

1. Representative Elise Stefanik. House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik wouldn’t dare call out Jan. 6 insurrectionists and their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. After all, that’s how she got her current gig. So, she’s instead stooping to calling undocumented immigrants the actual insurrectionists—and echoing a white supremacist conspiracy theory in the process.

“Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” Elise for Congress claimed in one Facebook ad last week, according to Zachary Mueller of America’s Voice. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” Just days later, Stefanik doubled down.

“After national press attention condemning Stefanik's use of the white nationalist 'replacement theory' in her Facebook ads warning of an ‘election insurrection’ ... she has doubled down and is STILL running these ads,” Mueller tweeted. “In total, Stefanik paid Facebook to show these xenophobic dog-whistle ads to over a million Facebook users, all but 5% of whom lived outside New York with the majority being over the age of 55,” he wrote last week. “Stefanik is not using these ads to communicate a message to voters in her district,” he notes. “Instead, she is targeting older Americans across the country who react positively to online racialized fear-mongering.” Replacement theory seems to resonate.

This white supremacist belief has more recently found a home on Fox News via Tucker Carlson. It also found a home among the House Republican caucus way before Stefanik’s disgusting ads, echoed by Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry in April.

“For many Americans,” The Washington Post reports Perry said during a hearing on Central American migration, “what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is, what appears to them is we’re replacing national-born American—native-born Americans to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation.” Like the Post noted, never mind that it was Perry, like Stefanik, who sought to “transform the landscape of this very nation” by supporting overturning the election. Facts, smacts.

Among the national press attention that slammed Stefanik’s ads came from her hometown newspaper, which “offered a scathing response” to her rhetoric, HuffPost reported. “Quite a choice of words, of course, considering that the country is still suffering the aftershocks of the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington by supporters of Mr. Trump who tried to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election,” The Times Union Editorial Board said. “The Harvard-educated Ms. Stefanik surely knows the sordid history and context of this.”

That suggests that Stefanik should know better, and indeed, Stefanik is on the record criticizing Trump in the past. “In fact, at times Stefanik sounded practically like a Never Trumper, as she called on Trump to recognize that Russia had attacked the 2016 election to help him, urged him to release his tax returns, and assailed him for his comments about women,” Mother Jones reported in May. Some might argue that Stefanik is a weathervane adjusting to whatever winds are necessary to hold onto power. Or maybe, just maybe, Stefanik’s now finally showing us exactly who she is.

SEPTEMBER 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

Sorry this is arriving late, I was out of town.

1. Senator Ron Johnson. Even before the January 6 insurrection by supporters of former President Donald Trump, Senator Ron Johnson was pushing the Big Lie that Trump was somehow cheated out of a second term.

As chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Wisconsin Republican used the December 16 session to raise doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. In a lengthy, if largely fact-free, statement to the committee, he claimed that alleged irregularities could be grouped into three categories: “1) lax enforcement or violations of election laws and controls, 2) fraudulent votes and ballot stuffing, and 3) corruption of voting machines and software that might be programmed to add or switch votes.”

“In the time we had,” Johnson babbled, “it was impossible to fully identify and examine every allegation. But many of these irregularities raise legitimate concerns, and they do need to be taken seriously.”

That declaration was, of course, false. So outrageous was the senator’s hearing that The New York Times headlined its report, “The election is over, but Ron Johnson keeps promoting false claims of fraud.”

No surprise there. Johnson is the king of false claims—on everything from Covid-19 cures to tax-policy votes that invariably end up benefiting the senator and his campaign donors.

Johnson’s amplification of the Big Lie fostered the fantasy that the presidency was being stolen from Trump. Now, however, there’s reason to believe that Johnson’s been knowingly lying about the Big Lie.

On Sunday, when he spoke at a Republican event in Wisconsin with Lauren Windsor, a progressive activist who posed as a conservative and taped a conversation with Johnson, the senator said, “I think it’s probably true that Biden got maybe 7 million more popular votes. That’s the electoral reality. So to just say for sure that this was a stolen election, I don’t agree with that.”

Windsor is a self-described “progressive pugilist swamp-slayer” who has gained prominence over the past decade with multiple exposés of conservative hypocrisy, and, as executive producer of the political web show The Undercurrent, has distributed a tape of the conversation on social media. Johnson said during what he apparently thought was a private conversation, “There’s nothing obviously skewed about the results.” He even told Windsor that Trump lost because he had underperformed as compared to other Republicans. “If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he would have won,” said the senator. “He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.”

Still, Johnson continues to peddle Trump’s Big Lie—even going so far as to support a bogus audit of the election results that has been promoted in recent weeks by Trump-aligned Wisconsin legislators. The audit will cost Wisconsin taxpayers $680,000.

Let us hope that Johnson’s big lie will follow him like stink on a skunk when he seeks a third term—should he decide to run.

AUGUST 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Rep. Dan Crenshaw Rr-Tx) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark). Republican lawmakers spent the entirety of the Donald Trump administration hunting for and condemning government whistleblowers. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Rand Paul, Reps. Nunes and Takeyourpick—they all sternly warned of the threat posed by anonymous government figures coming forward with a new possible crime Trump or his team seemed to be committing. But that was then, and this is now, and if you're talking about whistleblowers willing to squeal about Secret Scary Wokeness hopping through government hallways or putting up sinister new motivational posters, that's different. That's the sort of stuff Fox News lives for.

Continuing the Republican tradition of pretending at maximum manly toughness while thumping through life with shows of weaponized gutlessness, it's Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Arkansas's Sen. Tom Cotton leading a new charge against Rampant Theoretical Wokeness in our nation's tough manly military. Crenshaw announced it on Twitter with suitable turgidity: "We won't let our military fall to woke ideology," he puffed. The Crenshaw-Cotton response is a new "whistleblower webpage" where you can "submit your story" of being, um, exposed to Wokeness. He promises to expose the "spineless military commanders" who have failed to oppose "progressive Pentagon staffers" who "have been calling the shots."

This feels a tiny bit like Biff and Taller Biff demanding the military oppose civilian control and "call the shots" themselves, but we're probably imagining that. Both Republicans have shown a truly stellar understanding of our military's structure and enforced limitations in the past, which is why most of America knows their names despite neither Biff showing much success in any government sphere that does not involve self-promotional shitposting.

Crenshaw and Cotton's push here is part of a larger Republican attack on the military for perceived anti-conservatism, and immediately follows a Sen. Ted Cruz bit of buffoonery in which he compared the turgid manliness of Russia’s military recruitment posters, under Vlad Putin, to the "woke, emasculated military" of the United States.

It's an organized Republican campaign to portray the military as "weak" so that conservative-minded changes can be made. Crenshaw and Cotton's quasi-populist, more-quasi-fascist goal is to ignite partisan battles within the military command itself—the promise to "expose" commanders that do not oppose Crenshaw-identified "woke" policies makes that clear enough—so that the military can be purged of conservatism's enemies in the same manner that Trump's allies purged whistleblowers, watchdogs, and perceived critics from civilian government agencies.

With Crenshaw's crude attempt, however, it was evident what was going to happen next. First, Crenshaw was going to start collecting some painfully butthurt stories from conservative soldiers upset that their new commander is a womanfolk or whatever, and after months of sorting through all the ones too obviously racist or sexist or ridiculous to put his name to will come up with some that Tucker Carlson can print out and roll around in on live television.

Second, it was a certainty that Crenshaw’s little form was going to be absolutely overrun by Americans trolling Crenshaw with frightening incidents of "wokeness" that may or may not have been culled from movies, television shows, or their own imaginations.

REVISITING THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

By Ronald T. Fox

Hiroshima After the Bomb 

In previous Phronesis posts about the atomic bombing of Japan, I challenged conventional wisdom in the United States that the use of atomic bombs forced Japan to surrender, thus ending the war. I referred to this as “The Hiroshima Myth.” In my post, I left little doubt that I believed Truman’s decision was motivated not by a desire to end the war quickly in order to avoid a bloody invasion of the mainland, but to end it before the Russians would enter the war and extend their influence throughout East Asia. I also argued that Japan’s decision to surrender was motivated more by fear of Russia’s invasion than the atomic bomb and Truman’s promise of a “reign of ruin” from the sky.

Since my original post in 2015, I have dug deeper into the historical record and have come to understand that Truman’s decision, and the Japanese response, was more complicated. Useful for my rethinking was Marc Gallicchio’s book, Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II.

I now believe that while the atomic bombs were not the driving force in ending the war, they played a larger role than I originally acknowledged. It was both the Russian entry into the war and the atomic bombings, along with Japan’s deteriorating military and economic situation, that motivated the country to accept a slightly modified version of “unconditional surrender.” Evidence points to both the bomb and the Russian entry into the war as necessary conditions for Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. At the same time, my additional readings reinforced my belief that Truman was thinking beyond Japan, to the American-Soviet rivalry in the post-war world, when he decided to shun diplomacy and pursue a quick military ending of the war.

What follows is a complete revision of my original essays. I will post the revision, on the 76th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, in three parts. Part I covers Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. Part II explores the Japanese Decision to surrender. In Part III, I speculate on the enduring legacy of the Hiroshima Myth. Part II will be posted tomorrow and Part III the next day.

PART III. THE LEGACY OF THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

By Ronald T. Fox

THE LEGACY OF THE HIROSHIMA MYTH

Parts I and II examined distortions of truth surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These distortions formed a mythology about the bombings that has become deeply embedded in the collective American conscience. Part III offers my thoughts on the legacy of the Hiroshima Myth.

Enduring American allegiance to the Hiroshima Myth—or, conversely, our collective failure to confront its truth—has had a profound impact on the United States, both at home and abroad. Perceiving the atomic bomb as the decisive weapon necessary to end World War II helped create a conviction that nuclear weapons could serve a useful military purpose. Americans came to embrace them as essential protectors of our nation. To be safe, we needed to stockpile nuclear weapons and be prepared to use them, a belief that would spark a massive nuclear arms race in the ensuing decades. Accepting the Hiroshima Myth meant accepting nuclear weapons as a fact of national and international life.

The United States has refused to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons, even if their use risks the end of human civilization. Ask yourselves: would this refusal be the U.S. stance if Americans did not so forcefully believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the winning weapons that forced Japan to surrender?

The belief that the bomb killed thousands to save millions imparted a moral righteousness to the bomb that today translates into a collective American numbness to matters of mass destruction, even genocide. Almost anything is permissible if used to “save American lives.” This numbness, along with our belief in American exceptionalism and the decisiveness of military power, helps explain why the US is prone to deploying extensive force and using increasingly destructive weapons against perceived international enemies, however non-threatening they may appear to the reasoned mind.

JULY 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

The recent spike in Covid delta variant cases, and associated deaths, and continued refusal of many Republican faithful to get vaccinated, dominated the July news cycle. At the risk of kicking a dead horse in the mouth, I will confine the July nominations to GOP absurdities on the subject.

NOTE: Also, as you will notice the presence of some frequent IGGY candidates, perhaps it is time, as one Phronesis reader suggested, to retire some of these repeating absurdists to the Ignominious Absurdity Hall-of-Shame, thus joining original inductee Donald Trump. Expect a new induction ceremony in the near future. If you have any IGGY HOS recommendations, please let me know.

1. Tennessee Republican Lawmakers. Ever wondered how far the GQP will push the limits of anti-science?  Look no further than the state of Tennessee.  Straight from the files of “you can’t make this up,” some Republican lawmakers were so aghast at commercials encouraging children to get Covid vaccines (which is a great idea, by the way, of addressing the low vaccine rates we are still struggling with), that they are saying we should just cancel the Health Department.

Some Tennessee Republican lawmakers accused the Tennessee Department of Health of "guilt-tripping" kids to take the Covid-19 vaccine. Rep. Scott Cepicky, (R) Culleoka, motioned to "dissolve" the department altogether over the accusations.

Cepicky said the department's vaccine campaigns featuring children "peer pressure" them into taking the vaccine.

"When you have advertisements like this with a young girl with a patch on her arm all smiling, we know how impressionable our young people are and wanting to fit in in life," Cepicky said.

How terrible!  It’s bad enough teens have to fend off aggressive advertising from tobacco, alcohol, vapes, and big pharma, now we are taunting them with lifesaving, pandemic-busting vaccines!

At the source of this conflict (allegedly) is the state’s “Mature Minor Doctrine” allowing health care providers to treat children age 14+ without parental consent.  These advertisements may brainwash teens into getting health care against the wishes of their science-denying parents!  The horror!

The worst part?  This wasn’t just some off-the-cuff comment that will be ignored and forgotten.  The issue is scheduled to be brought back up in July.  Republicans have a strangle-hold on the state, and so far, only democrats and health officials have spoken up in opposition to the plan.

It may be time for us to move.

PART II. WHY DID THE JAPANESE SURRENDER?

By Ronald T. Fox

WHY DID THE JAPANESE SURRENDER?

It is conventional wisdom that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with Truman’s threat to launch a “reign of ruin” on Japan the likes of which the world had never seen, forced the Japanese Supreme Council (consisting of the six top members of the government—The Big Six) to accept the Potsdam Declaration demanding its “unconditional surrender.” Assessing the validity of this claim requires looking at the war situation from Japan’s perspective. Were the atomic bombings, and the threat of more to come, the main reason Japan’s Supreme Council decided to surrender? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the timing of the surrender decision as well as how the top Japanese political and military leaders saw their strategic options in August of 1945.

JUNE 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Pardoned Dirtbag Michael Flynn. Over the weekend, the now-pardoned traitor Michael Flynn appeared at a QAnon-themed event in Dallas, Texas, where he once again seemed to support the notion of a violent pro-Trump rebellion to topple the government. This was met with approval by the Trump-supporting crowd. The movement of oft-delusional conspiracy theory promoters is well represented among the seditionists who staged the Jan. 6 insurrection.  Those still demanding that individual state electoral totals be nullified because of unspecified frauds, believe that the entire election was a scam or undercover front and actually Trump is still the legitimate president. They point to an August date when Trump will drive his gilded golf cart back onto the White House grounds, arrest Joe Biden, and begins mass executions of all those who doubted him. Or something to that effect.

Yes, Michael Flynn may have been caught dead to rights in acting as influence-peddler for foreign government while moonlighting as Trump adviser—which, among Trump's many advisers, now seems to have been the most common single occupation—but now that Trump's freed him from his criminal past he appears to believe it is time for a good, old-fashioned coup. That's what he told the Q crowd, anyway.

A self-identified "Marine" in the audience posed the question, "I want to know why what happened in Minamar[sic] can't happen here?", a reference to the recent military coup in Myanmar that has been promoted in Trump-supporting circles as a playbook for reinstalling Trump as president in this country.

"No reason. I mean, it should happen here. No Reason. That's right," Flynn replied.

After video of these remarks exploded through the internet, the ex-national security adviser once again bizarrely attempted to claim that he specifically did not say the specific thing he was filmed saying. "There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not called for any action of that sort," he bellowed.

As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake points out, this has become a routine for Flynn. He says something clearly supportive of martial law, an overthrow of government, or the QAnon movement itself, it gains national attention, and he or an ally responds by claiming he never meant the thing and you're all fake news for thinking he did. Flynn, however, is a liar through-and-through. He was ostensibly fired from his White House position in the first place for lying to federal investigators and to American Jesus Mike Pence. He's not good at it.  Like Trump, he simply gaslights his audiences with toddleresque claims that whatever you saw happening didn't. If you're a believer you'll go along with it, and if you're not then he doesn't care.

Flynn appears to be fully off the rails. It's not clear that he himself knows what he believes and what he doesn't, but he seems utterly unconcerned with the violence that he and his allies have already unleashed. Instead, those in Trump's orbit seem intent on pushing for more. You probably won't see Michael Flynn on the front lines of whatever new violence comes after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but at the conferences and meet-ups that validate those violent views, he continues to poke and prod for it.

MAY 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Arizona House Rep. Joseph Chaplik. From the Church of the Perpetual Face Palm (aka the modern-day Republican Party) comes another wee dollop of “what the fuck?” So how do you even begin to respond to this?

The Republican-controlled Arizona House voted along party lines last week to allow state businesses to ignore any and all city, town, or county measures requiring their customers to wear masks. In other words, the state that flipped blue last year for the first time since 1996 has decided to flip the fuck out. Why? Well, as the sponsor of this anti-mask bill, Rep. Joseph Chaplik, would have you believe, it’s because we didn’t all die of AIDS back in the ‘80s.

In the House debate, Rep. Randall Friese, a Tucson Democrat who is a physician, said masks are part of the “very basic, important tools,” along with hand-washing and social distancing, to curb the spread.

Chaplik, however, argued that the mandates are an overreaction and that society has managed to survive other viral outbreaks without masks.

For example, he cited HIV “that was going to wipe our global destruction of human bodies with AIDS.”

“We heard about that in the ’80s,” Chaplik said. “Yet no masks were required.”

Uh … who wants to tell him?

People are fond of saying Republicans these days are virulently anti-science. But that suggests they actually know what science is. This feels more like a bunch of little kids who’ve never tried a vegetable saying they hate broccoli. I don’t know that they’re anti-science so much as they’re anti-scientist—because scientists keep telling them they can’t just eat Pixie Stix all day and expect to stay healthy.

They’ll do what they want, dammit, because FREEDOM!

Another GOP representative, Bret Roberts, questioned the overall effectiveness of masks, asking, “If they work, how are people still catching COVID?”

Uh, okay, now who wants to tell him?

Thank God we now have a president who takes COVID seriously. Unfortunately, we can’t just throw fools like this in the gulag because, you know, freedom.

But that doesn’t mean we have to keep reelecting them.

APRIL 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Trump Attorney Sidney Powell. It’s been amply established that Sidney Powell bears a large measure of moral responsibility—at the very least—for creating the poisonous environment that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Powell was one of the main legal lowlives behind Trump’s misbegotten legal effort to steal another term.

Powell’s claims to fame were a series of lawsuits that alleged Dominion Voting Systems was in cahoots with Venezuela to steal victory from Trump—the infamous “Kraken” lawsuits. All four of them crashed and burned—but not before her claims led to Dominion and its employees facing vicious harassment and trolling. At least one Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, was driven into hiding.

Partly due to this, Dominion filed a whopping $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell, her law firm, and her nonprofit organization, Defend the Republic. Well, early in the month, Powell sought to throw out the suit. Her reasoning? Wait for it—she now says “no reasonable person” would believe her claims.

No, this isn’t really snark. She actually said this in an actual legal filing.

In her motion to dismiss, Powell does not argue that the statements were true. She claims they are not actionable because they are protected statements of political opinion.

“Reasonable people understand that the ‘language of the political arena, like the language used in labor disputes … is often vituperative, abusive and inexact,'” her motion to dismiss argues. “It is likewise a ‘well recognized principle that political statements are inherently prone to exaggeration and hyperbole.'”

Powell goes on to say that Dominion called her theories “wild” and “outlandish,” and in so doing support the notion that “no reasonable person” would take them seriously. Rather, she would have us believe her statements were merely “claims that await testing by the courts.”

So, in other words, Powell is tacitly admitting that when she made her much ballyhooed vow to “release the Kraken,” she knew it was based on hokum. And she also knew that when she was filing these statements that they were baloney.

I’m not a lawyer, but even I know that when you make court filings, you’re asserting that your arguments are based on fact. Not, though, if you’re a Trumper.

LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH: THE REAL G.O.P. AGENDA

By Ronald T. Fox

If you’re like me and inclined toward progressive politics, you likely continue to be amazed as to why so many Americans continue to vote for Republicans when many of their political beliefs and actions, especially on economic and financial issues, are so broadly unpopular. Solid majorities of Americans support gun control, regulating big banks, reducing greenhouse gasses, a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, laws to protect public health and safety, a wider access to healthcare, raising the minimum wage, protecting voting rights, and a progressive tax system that makes corporations and wealthy individuals pay more. These are all issues where republican lawmakers have defied the majority will of the American people.

How do they continue to get away with it? I’ve written in the past on Phronesis about how our political system is structured to thwart majority rule, citing the disproportionate influence moneyed interests, which are easily expressed through a constitutional system that in the electoral college, the small state-dominated Senate, and state and local governments stifles majority sentiment. I’ve written about the impact of gerrymandering and the failure of out communication outlets to educate the public on the realities of power and influence in our governance. I’ve addressed the failure of the Democratic Party to address working class concerns. I've posted about white resentment of identity politics. I’ve even pointed to the stupidity of voters (though such condescending academic preaching admittedly contributes to alienating ordinary Americans).

These factors help explain how Republicans, and their wealthy backers, have been able to thwart popular progressive legislation and retain their solid, if primarily white, electoral base. Still it is astonishing how a political party that has no clear legislative agenda other than obstruction, campaigns without a platform, goes at length to tell us what they’re against rather than for, has been so successful in achieving a policy agenda skewed toward rewarding the few Americans with wealth and power.

Ian Nillhiser’s opinion piece in the April 2, New York Times offers a clue: the Republican Party relies on the judiciary. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has for decades pushed an agenda that benefits corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. Court decisions have advanced the Republican vision in which government is prevented from regulating business, protecting civil and voting rights, and providing a basic social safety net.  Why should Republicans operate openly in the messy political arena when they can quietly achieve goals through the courts? How many Americans are aware of, and can comprehend, complicated court decisions, or non-decisions when they refuse to hear a case? You get the point: legislating from the bench enables them to dodge accountability for unpopular policies.

The conclusion for progressives and liberal to draw from the current reality of judicial legislating is depressing, to say the least. With conservatives controlling the Supreme Court and much of our nation’s networks of federal, as well as state and local, courts, and with most justices relatively young, we face years of rulings destined to benefit wealthy private interests and the broader agenda of conservatives. This endangers President Biden’s agenda, but, more ominously, our cherished Democracy.

I’m including Nillhiser’s op-ed below as a guest commentary. For a fuller exploration of his thesis, read his book: The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America.

MARCH 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. This is becoming a habit. In a Senate hearing investigating the security breakdown at the capitol, instead of asking the witnesses questions, as senators are expected to do, Johnson pulled out a statement from the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group, to explain why his “eyewitness” testimony was more valuable than that of any of the police officers on the scene, or the 300 million Americans who watched the tragedy unfold in real time. That’s because this witness had magic calibrated eyeballs, making him capable of discerning real Trump supporters from fake Antifa infiltrators.

Real Trump supporters are “jovial” and “friendly” people of the “working class.” But others don’t fit in. These people are, quoting now: “plain clothes militants, agent provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and disciplined uniformed column of attackers.” These are the people who, according to Johnson, planned the attack on the Capitol.

But Johnson wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. According to his expert not-appearing-at-this-hearing witness, marchers were thrilled by the “courtesy gesture” of not seeing Capitol Police on every corner. With this invite, the Trump supporters “surged” toward the Capitol. In a good way. In a “talkative and happy” way. Because, after all, if they didn’t see any police trying to stop them, that was a perfect reason to step over, around, or through four levels of barricades between the street and the Capitol grounds.

Everyone was in “high spirits” until what “seemed like a scuffle” broke out between people in “ordinary clothes.” However, even though these people were wearing ordinary clothes that “fit right in with MAGA people,” Johnson’s expert could tell they were “plain clothes militants.” How he could tell is unexplained. Maybe he had X-ray specs. These people that looked exactly like regular Trump supporters but were clearly not as happy, talkative, jovial, or friendly got into a brief “tussle” with police. Then one of the police officers “fired a tear gas canister, not at the plain clothes militants at the front line, but into the crowd itself.” Apparently, police were unable to see the very subtle difference between good Trump supporters and evil fake Trump supporters that was obvious to Johnson’s pal.

This “changed the crowd’s demeanor” because “all of a sudden pro-police people felt like the police were attacking them,” read Johnson. “The pro-police crowd went from confusion, to anger.”

Then, having explained that the police were actually responsible for the deaths and injuries to police because they made all those jovial pro-police people angry, Johnson tried to enlist the police officials gathered in front of him in his claims that the police were to blame for Jan. 6. Shockingly, this did not go well. He started off asked former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund if it wasn’t true that Trump supporters were pro-police. Sund’s reply was that he didn’t know about that. However, he did note that some of the people shoving their way through police lines and assaulting his officers actually claimed to be police themselves. Somehow, that’s a lot more believable than Johnson’s claims about “agent provocateurs.” Funny how the people who have been arrested so far look like Trump supporters.

If you know any “jovial” and “friendly” Trump supporters, please forward their names to me. I’ve been searching for over four years now.

FEBRUARY 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. If you want to catch Sen. Johnson in a lie, just ask him a question. If you merely want to catch him, put a peanut in a box with a hole that’s big enough for him to slide his hand through but not big enough for him to remove his closed fist. When you finally show up three days later, he’ll be so desperate for your help he’ll grant you three wishes.

So, yeah, it’s no surprise that Johnson has already disgorged the clumsiest and dumbest post-impeachment take you’re likely to hear from anyone in Congress.

In an interview today with conservative radio talk show host Jay Weber, RoJo said this:

"The fact of the matter is this didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me. I mean armed, when you hear armed, don’t you think of firearms? Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I’m only aware of one, and I’ll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot."

Good thing Rojo has set the record straight for we Americans who thought the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection. We need Johnson’s sharp analytical mind to make things clear for us, like World War II was just another street fight. Good thing Johnson set the media straight that Covid-19 is just a STD, Katrina was a Spring shower, and the February chill proves that global warming is a hoax.

Just when you think Senator Johnson can’t be any more asinine... Johnson claimed on Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the riot at the US Capitol rather than President Donald Trump. While seeking to defend Trump, Johnson said in an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the impeachment is part of a plot to divert attention from Pelosi, and what she "knew" ahead of the riot.

"Is this another diversionary operation? Is this meant to deflect away from potentially what the speaker knew and when she knew it? I don't know, but I'm suspicious," Johnson said of Pelosi.

Johnson had the delusional obstinance to claim he and Trump bore no responsibility for the mob attack on the Capitol and Congress, which was spurred by their repeated lies and false claims about the election.

What RoJo is attempting to posit here is that Nancy Pelosi anticipated the storming of the Capitol, and instead of taking measures to ensure its security, she allowed it to be overrun just to make Trump and Republicans look bad.

And you thought Louie Gohmert was moronic.

JANUARY 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Ferris State University Professor Thomas Brennan. Although Brennan does not fit the “celebrity” criteria necessary for nomination for an IGGY, I’m making an exception in this professor’s case. The St. John university student newspaper, The Torch, covered comments Brennan made on a Twitter account under his full name about the novel coronavirus pandemic, as well as a number of slurs that allegedly appeared on the same account. According to screenshots, Professor Brennan allegedly tweeted that COVID-19 was a “stunt” to form “a leftist new world order.” According to MLive, during a virtual meeting for Ferris State University’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Education department in August, Brennan reportedly commented that “COVID-19 death rates in the United States were exaggerated, and the pandemic and rioting were leftist stunts.”

According to The Torch, the Twitter account also allegedly tweeted bizarre and horrifying remarks like “Covid19 is another jewish revolution” as well as homophobic and racial slurs. An anonymous student in a class of Brennan’s spoke to The Torch and reportedly told the outlet that the professor talks about conspiracy theories related to cellphones during class time.

In terms of racial slurs, Brennan wrote that he is “not racist against black people,” added that he loves and respects them, and argued, “the ’n-word’ is a mind-control spell designed to make us hate each other.” He went on to say that he used the word in order to “neutralize” its power. Yikes!

In speaking to local outlet wzzm 13, Brennan explained that he didn’t use the N-word “lightly,” and suggested that we’re “heading towards such a crescendo of madness where we're about to all be enslaved because of this COVID crisis." He added to the outlet that he said “some hyperbolic things to draw attention to what it is I wanted to say.”

In response to the controversy evoked by Brennan, FSU President, David Eisler, said: “We strongly reject these statements, condemn them and will not tolerate them. We have worked diligently to become a more diverse university, and these statements demonstrate vividly how one person can set back the work of many.” Brennan has been on administrative leave since Nov. 19, though it’s unclear whether the leave is specific to the alleged Twitter remarks, the COVID-19 remarks during the August meeting, both, or neither.

Brennan is clearly the kind of scientist Republicans can get behind.

DECEMBER 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABUSRDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Trump Lawyer Joe DiGenova. During a call-in to the syndicated Howie Carr show simulcast at the ultra-rightwing Newsmax, lame duck Donald Trump’s lawyer Joe DiGenova called for executing Chris Krebs, the cybersecurity chief at the Department of Homeland Security that Trump fired by tweet.

“Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.

This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony. [...]

In addition to threatening Krebs, over the course of the interview diGenova made ominous and false suggestions about “circuit breakers” shutting down on election night in multiple states, which allowed for vote fraud; millions of votes showing up in dump trucks, tow trucks, and vans without detection; and he called on state legislatures to have the “cojones” to overturn the results of the election.

No doubt there will be an attempt by some to downplay this episode as just a joke rather than an incitement for someone among our nation’s heavily armed white supremacist loons to carry out.