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.

2. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA). McClintock warned Thursday that Gov. Gavin Newsom is imposing COVID-19 restrictions that remind him of the “mass hysteria” of the Salem Witch Trials, French Revolution and communist scares of the 1950s.

Newsom’s policies, the Republican congressman told the U.S. House in a five-minute floor speech, are being driven by the “lockdown left,” “self-absorbed elitists” and “autocratic officials who seem oblivious to the damage they are causing.”

McClintock said COVID-19 survival rates are very high, and that he saw growing defiance.

“All mass hysterias are driven by blind fear fanned by politicians and charlatans who see opportunity in them,” he said.

“We have sadly learned that such fear can cause a free people to abandon their legacy of freedom and independence, their prosperity and their common sense. But only for a while.”

He took solace in the past. “Every time in history that this has happened, there’s always a moment when the fear fever breaks, and the hysteria suddenly burns itself out.

“The French Revolution, the Salem Witch Trials, the Communist hysteria of the 1950s all had a moment when the absurdity of it all became so apparent that it overcame the fear and the people turned on their tormentors.”

The Salem witch trials took place in 1692 as people feared witches were bringing the devil to their community. The Communist scare involved usually unfounded allegations against people accused of being sympathetic to the Soviet Union and its allies.

McClintock did not say if the recent reaction to Covid policies will trigger such a moment. But, he said, “every shopkeeper who defies these petty tyrants, every parent who confronts their school officials, every person who refuses to submit to this dysfunctional, dystopian world created by the lockdown left brings us one step closer to that turning point. It can’t come soon enough.”

McClintock only two weeks ago applauded California Governor Gavin Newsom because he “recently defied his own idiotic Covid edicts as he partied at one of the few restaurants that he has not yet forced out of business.

“I defend him because he was doing what we all once did in a free society: Make our own decisions over what risks we are willing to run and what precautions we are willing to take according to our own circumstances to protect our own health.”

The same day McClintock spoke, Newsom announced that almost all state residents would be subject to a 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. curfew covering nonessential activities.

But COVID-19 cases have continued to climb, and earlier this week, Newsom said the state could take “drastic” action, which it did when he issued a stay-at-home order for counties whose intensive care units had reached capacity.

McClintock, though, saw panic.

The governor, he said, “has ordered Californians to run home before 10 p.m., lock their doors and hide from this insidious virus until daybreak. Unfortunately, Covid doesn’t seem to be following the curfew, so Newsom is now threatening yet another hard lockdown of virtually the entire state throughout the Christmas season.

“Don we now our plague apparel. There is just one nagging question the governor hasn’t bothered to answer. If these lockdowns are so successful, why do we need to keep having them?” McClintock asked.

He cited resistance to the lockdowns throughout the state and encouraged more.

“This has to stop. The good news is that more and more Americans are questioning the lunacy of these policies and the hypocrisy of those who impose them,” the congressman said.

3. Senator Ron Johnson and his GOP Colleagues. Just because retired X-ray reader Scott Atlas has left his post as American’s fud-spreader in chief doesn’t mean that the Republican Party is about to be even the slightest bit more reasonable when it comes to the science of COVID-19. Any pining for the days when Donald Trump was promoting an ineffective and dangerous drug in the face of a surging pandemic is about to get a fresh whiff of nostalgia tinged by Lovecraftian horror, as the Senate invited a range of cranks and quacks to testify on this month.

Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s other favorite American, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the Senate will be hearing from a fan of (brace yourself) hydroxychloroquine. That’s right, the drug that has been found ineffective in multiple international trials—and which the FDA cautioned against back in June—is going to get another day in the Senate. And if that’s not enough damage, the “experts” Johnson has invited to speak are also expected to slam vaccines.

Republicans in the Senate are continuing to promote outrageous lies and dangerous nonsense in the midst of a still mounting plague. In doing so, they are causing American deaths as surely as the virus itself.

With 200,000+ cases and 2,000 Americans dying each day, the fact that there are at least two successful vaccines making their way to the public is one of the few bright spots in a very dark winter. But as The New York Times makes clear, Johnson is doing his best to bring in the clouds. And clowns.

In addition to the hydroxychloroquine promoter, who still insists on treating COVID-19 with a malaria drug, Johnson has invited at least two vaccine critics. Also, on board, a “critic of masking and social distancing.” Meaning that Johnson’s traveling medicine show has quacks ready to kill Americans both now and later.

Ten months into the worst pandemic since 1918, Johnson continues to insist that this entire coronavirus thing has been “overblown.” In addition to the hearing on Tuesday, Johnson has repeatedly used his position at the head of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to elevate what the Times kindly calls “fringe beliefs,” but which are better explained as ridiculous and dangerous medical quackery whose promotion costs lives.

With every bang of his chairman’s gavel, Johnson is cutting off responsible scientists and keeping alive false beliefs that there is still a “scientific debate” over where masks and social distancing are effective. Still a debate over a series of treatments that have been tested and dismissed. Still a debate over whether COVID-19 itself is actually generating hundreds of thousands of deaths and leaving millions of Americans with long-term debilitating illness.

The effects of COVID-19 have not been exaggerated. The preposterousness and irresponsibility of Johnson’s action at this point are impossible to exaggerate.

Because even though Johnson is both wrong and wrong-headed in his promotion of these ideas, choices such as putting an anti-vaxxer in front of the Senate at a time when it’s important to build public support for the approved vaccines, have consequences. Johnson isn’t alone in these views. A Republican Party and a right-wing media that are more concerned with promoting Trump than truth are still deeply engaged in supporting nonsense and outright lies.

On Monday, the nation remembered the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. Seventy-nine years later, America is facing a casualty rate from COVID-19 that exceeds that attack every single day. And Ron Johnson is not on the side of Americans. It’s often pointed out that the crime of “treason” is strictly defined in the Constitution of the United States to limit the charge to those “levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies.” But not every enemy is an enemy nation.

4. Christian Pastor Rick Wiles of TruNews. With the religious right’s otherworldly loyalty to Trump and outright endorsement of his coup attempt, it was only a matter of time before a Trumpvangelical crossed the line into calling for outright violence. Well, Wiles did exactly that. On the day before Thanksgiving, he called for Trump to have Democrats and journalists lined up and shot.

The Christian pastor made the remarks during an episode of his TruNews program where he discussed Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. Wiles also pointed out that the Justice Department has created a new rule allowing for firing squads to be used in federal executions.

"I'm not trying to be funny but [it's been fast-tracked] because they plan to shoot some people," Wiles said. "They're gonna have a bunch of traitors. They're gonna line 'em up against the wall and start shooting them. Because that's what they deserve."

Wiles went on to say that a bunch of Democrats, reporters and academics are secretly in bed with Beijing—and they deserve to be shot.

We already knew that Wiles is nothing more than a Nazi masquerading as a pastor. As we all know, he is virulently anti-Semitic—close your eyes, and he sounds like Richard Spencer at his worst.

This is domestic terrorism, straight up. And we cannot allow this to stand. It’s time for Wiles to get the Alex Jones treatment. Past time, actually. He has apps on the iTunes App Store (for both the iPhone and Apple TV), Google Play and Roku. Pester those platforms and get his channel nuked.

This is the sort of thing that resulted in Heather Heyer being murdered. We cannot chance some lone nut taking matters into his own hands and deciding to murder someone ostensibly in Trump’s name.

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And the December winner is ….

Pastor Rick Wiles represents true evil which makes him hyper-worthy for the December IGGY.