Funny events in anti-woke world

[Asita]

You wrote out 19 points. The first 18 say literally nothing about the terms of the settlement, the 19th is not an accusation of corruption.

Because by any reasonable standard, I didn't have to. The settlement itself was the focus of my first post in this exchange. In that post I laid out red flags for it, such as while Blanche et al are mischaracterizing it as a settlement by the IRS, it appears to have simply been dictated by DOJ leadership.

The settlement is part of the sequence of events by the same people, not something distinct or even a separate event. Hell, I even described the settlement as an "attempt to terminate scrutiny before adjudication" and noted that the attorneys who were asked to evaluate the legitimacy of the case found that the plaintiff had "extraordinary control over the defendants of the case and that "circumstances raise the specter that Defendants and their attorneys may instead be operating at the President's direction ", which was echoed far more strongly by the judges in the amica briefs which described the sequence as a deception against the court and the purported settlement as "a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the Court"

To quote it at greater length:

Fraud on the court is established by clear and convincing evidence. See, e.g., Booker v. Dugger, 825 F.2d 281, 283 (11th Cir. 1987); Kinnear-Weed Corp. v. Humble Oil & Ref. Co., 441F.2d 631, 636 (5th Cir. 1971). Here, it is undisputed that this Court did not have the Settlement Agreement in front of it at the time Plaintiffs filed the Notice. The Settlement Agreement establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund was not before the Court and the broad purported release of Plaintiffs’ known and unknown liabilities was neither announced nor publicly released until after the case had been dismissed. It is also undisputed that Plaintiffs filed the Notice before the Court received briefing it had ordered regarding whether an actual case or controversy existed. In such circumstances, setting aside the Notice and reopening the case in order to determine whether an actual case or controversy existed is necessary to ensure that the parties have not corrupted the judicial process, and to prevent federal courts from providing cover to a collusive settlement.

Indeed, the corruption of the judicial process is exactly what happened here. The parties have used this lawsuit—which was never an adversarial proceeding over which the Court even had jurisdiction—as a means to allow a "commission" controlled by the President to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority to do so, and to confer unlawful private benefits to the President and his family by purportedly prohibiting the United States from prosecuting any and all claims against them. And the parties have plainly tried to shield this conduct from necessary judicial scrutiny by short-circuiting this Court’s inquiry into whether the lawsuit is in fact an actual case or controversy by filing the Rule 41(a)(1) Notice before they announced the "settlement"—clearly in hopes of preventing the Court from ever completing that inquiry, which, if it comes out against the parties, will undo their collusive "settlement."

The sequence of events that led to Plaintiffs’ voluntary dismissal with prejudice makes this strategy self-evident. Shortly after the Court requested briefing on whether the Court had subject-matter jurisdiction over this functionally non-adversarial proceeding, the government entered into a "settlement agreement" with Plaintiffs that required Plaintiffs to immediately dismiss this case (thus terminating the Court’s "case or controversy" inquiry), and that purported to bind the United States to a stunningly broad release of potential claims and to pay billions of dollars before even trying to defend against Plaintiffs’ claims. See supra; ECF No. 45 at 8–14. That the government
has actively opposed nearly identical claims brought by different plaintiffs against the IRS only emphasizes the fraudulent nature of the “settlement” reached here. See, e.g., Safe Harbor Int'l, LLC v. IRS, No. 25-cv-139, ECF No. 31, at 1 (D. Md. July 23, 2025) (government’s motion to dismiss claim "for the unlawful inspection and disclosure of [plaintiffs'] return information"); Griffin v. IRS, No. 22-cv-24023, ECF No. 58 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 27, 2023) (government’s motion to dismiss claim relating to disclosure of "return information" on ground that the discloser, Charles Littlejohn, was a contractor and thus "not an officer or employee of the IRS"). And the fact that the government never asserted even basic defenses, including that the claims were clearly untimely or that the alleged discloser here (Mr. Littlejohn, the same contractor as in Griffin) was not a government employee, only strengthens the conclusion that the litigation was collusive from the start and that its goal was to obtain legal authority for the purported "settlements."

Never mind my own characterizations of the events as

• the executive branch effectively controlled both sides of the litigation,
• The DOJ allegedly failed to assert standard dispositive defenses,
• a federal judge raised concerns about adverseness and jurisdiction,
• the case was promptly withdrawn after the judge scheduled a hearing on the matter,
• and substantially similar practical relief appears to have been recreated through executive action outside the litigation process.

And noted that:
"Political actors often scale back once scrutiny increases. A reduced but still highly favorable outcome after judicial pressure is not evidence against impropriety; if anything, it can be entirely consistent with an effort to salvage a politically sustainable version of the original goal."'

I thought I was being very clear that I do not see the settlement as a separate case. So when you conclude that I must really be saying that "the settlement took justifies scrutiny, the end result infinitely less so" because my most recent post focused on explaining why it's reasonable to suspect that the nominal Defense Counsel was instead working for the benefit of the plaintiff? That's a perplexing interpretation on your part, to say the least.

 

[tstorm823]

I thought I was being very clear that I do not see the settlement as a separate case. So when you conclude that I must really be saying that "the method the settlement took justifies scrutiny, the end result infinitely less so" because my most recent post focused on explaining why it's reasonable to suspect that the nominal Defense Counsel was instead working for the benefit of the plaintiff? That's a perplexing interpretation on your part, to say the least.

If we rewind about 100 posts back in this thread, you said this:

So the issue is not whether some compensation process for leak victims could lawfully exist in the abstract. The issue is whether this particular sequence of litigation conduct and executive action reflects a genuinely adversarial constitutional process or something more institutionally compromised.

So far as I can tell, those are reasonably synonymous statements. You said, from the beginning, "the issue is not [the end result], the issue is [the particular method that got there]". And whenever I veered back to the point that others were seeing the end result as a corrupt payoff to Trump, you insisted that wasn't the point. Now I say we agree that's not the point, you think that is an odd interpretation of your statements.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

This is precisely why I never lose. I'm willing to agree and validate an opponent's argument, when appropriate. You, among others, are unwilling to do so, seeing a literal expression of agreement as if it was an insult. You are stuck in the "it's not enough to succeed, others must fail" mindset. It bothers me none if you say something right.

Asita may be disappointed or annoyed at my minimal response, but there's really nothing more to say. We agree the method the settlement took justifies scrutiny, the end result infinitely less so, but now it's rescinded so there's nothing to scrutinize, which is to say we will likely never know more about this than we do right now. I have nothing more to add or dispute.

Sure, kiddo.

You know, this isn't even funny anymore. It's just sad. And without the entertainment factor, your posts have zero value. Bye-bye. (Now, I know how you'll crow that this is another win and a showing of your superior intellect. I'll let you have it, because you so obviously need it.)

 

[Asita]

If we rewind about 100 posts back in this thread, you said this:

So far as I can tell, those are reasonably synonymous statements. You said, from the beginning, "the issue is not [the end result], the issue is [the particular method that got there]". And whenever I veered back to the point that others were seeing the end result as a corrupt payoff to Trump, you insisted that wasn't the point. Now I say we agree that's not the point, you think that is an odd interpretation of your statements.

No, that's just you trying to spin doctor a desired interpretation through quote mining. For goodness sake, take a good look at the text that immediately preceded it:

​

"The concern is not whether or not Trump had an underlying claim stemming from the Littlejohn leaks. The concern is whether this specific litigation functioned as a genuinely adversarial proceeding. That concern is reinforced by several factors taken together:​

​

1. Despite representing the IRS and Treasury Department by necessity, the DOJ under Trump and Blanche repeatedly signaled that Trump himself was effectively being treated as the department’s primary client, including - but far from limited to - dismissals tied to the idea that attorneys who had been part of cases where Trump was the defendant had "sued their boss" and therefore had no place in the DOJ.
2. DOJ reportedly failed to raise several obvious and potentially dispositive defenses, including statute-of-limitations issues, questions regarding contractor liability, and the mismatch between the claimed damages and statutory limits.
3. Trump withdrew the case almost immediately after the judge indicated a willingness to seriously examine adverseness and jurisdictional concerns.
4. The practical outcome then appears to have been substantially replicated through executive action outside the litigation process altogether.

​

Any one of those facts individually might be explainable. The issue is the cumulative pattern.​

​

And notably, your response does not really address that pattern. Instead, you keep arguing that if the administration wanted an improper outcome, they could have pursued cleaner alternatives. "I would have done it differently, therefore allegations of impropriety are ridiculous" is not a serious argument, because people aren't optimization engines who unerringly pursue the most efficient path.​

​

Moreover, you're incorrectly claiming that myself and others are claiming that the $1.8 billion + tax audit immunity must have been the exact intended outcome, and that to assume otherwise - that he actually did intend to take $10 billion - necessarily compromises the argument of impropriety...as if the entire thing happened in a vacuum and people (including the judge) weren't calling red flags on the case. And that's just not tenable.​

​

Nobody is required to assume the final result or the maximalist original one was the only acceptable objective. Political actors often scale back once scrutiny increases. A reduced but still highly favorable outcome after judicial pressure is not evidence against impropriety; if anything, it can be entirely consistent with an effort to salvage a politically sustainable version of the original goal.​

​

So the issue is not whether some compensation process for leak victims could lawfully exist in the abstract. The issue is whether this particular sequence of litigation conduct and executive action reflects a genuinely adversarial constitutional process or something more institutionally compromised."​

That does not remotely translate to "the issue is not [the end result], the issue is [the particular method that got there]". That translates to "You're arguing as if you think our argument is predicated on proving the 'settlement's' exact composition did not change at any point, and therefore presume that if you cast enough doubt on that strawman then you prove that neither this case nor its outcome can be illicit, illegal or corrupt. But that's not how it works. What matters are the facts of the case, including the 'settlement'."

TLDR: It's more accurately characterized as "The argument is not predicated on the composition of the 'settlement', but instead the process that was used to reach it, both in the DOJ's conduct during the proceedings and Blanche simply dictating a 'settlement' after Trump withdrew the case."

So to state it again directly: The settlement cannot be separated from the litigation sequence; both are part of what appears to have been a collusive process, and there is at least a credible argument (supported by amicus filings and judicial concern) that the proceeding lacked genuine adverseness and may have been structured to generate legal authority for a corrupt outcome.

And I'll thank you to accept the clarification this time rather than continuing to try to condescend to me that I must actually hold the opinion that I'm directly telling you I do not hold.

 

[tstorm823]

So to state it again directly: The settlement cannot be separated from the litigation sequence; both are part of what appears to have been a collusive process, and there is at least a credible argument (supported by amicus filings and judicial concern) that the proceeding lacked genuine adverseness and may have been structured to generate legal authority for a corrupt outcome.

And I'll thank you to accept the clarification this time rather than continuing to try to condescend to me that I must actually hold the opinion that I'm directly telling you I do not hold.

Perhaps you still do not understand what I am disagreeing with others about, because nothing in your post actually addresses it. When you say the settlement cannot be separated from the litigation sequence, that is fine, as both are still parts of the methods, not the actual result. Your concern still lies wholly in the method, and you're making no comment about that part that others were focused on.

Set aside your own position or mine for a second, lets look at this instead for a moment:

Following Trump’s Efforts to Steal $1.8 Billion from U.S. Treasury for MAGA Slush Fund, Ranking Member Raskin Introduces Legislation to Block Fraudulent Abuse of Federal Settlement Funds

Washington, D.C. (May 20, 2026)—Today, Rep.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov

That is an actual press release from Democrats on the government website. Do you see the part where they don't mention any of the things that you are? They don't care about the means, they don't care about underlying legal flaws or potential cracks in the separation of powers, they care about who might get paid. The proposed legislation, if you follow it, would ban this sort of settlement, but their press release, the part they think it carrying the political weight, is entirely about how the settlement is a slush fund for Trumps family and "MAGA foot soldiers". The first few posts in this thread on the topic were also explicitly focused on who might theoretically get paid, "giving tax money to literal traitors".

I understand that you are focused specifically on the "how", but most people upset were upset at the "what". They were not immediately concerned because of abuse of the legal system, they were concerned because the idea of right-wing individuals getting paid compensation for being wronged by the government is unjust and inherently wrong in their eyes. The details about the how came later to them, and rationalized their view for them, but the initial reaction came entirely from the idea that only a corrupt government could ever compensate someone on the right for wrongs committed against them.

 

[Gergar12]

Its good that a French visit said drunk Hegseth isn't welcome at the D-Dday celebrations because as an open anti European and someone against the allied soldiers fought and died for he shouldn't be welcome.

Residents of French village say US defense chief Hegseth not welcome for D-Day visit

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday marked the 82nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings with a visit to Normandy, but did not attend the international ceremony hosted in Langrune-sur-Mer.…

www.france24.com

"In his earlier speech at the American military cemetery, Hegseth utilised dehumanising anti-immigrant rhetoric, urging Europe to counter what he termed an "invasion" of its coastline by migrants."

The source leads to this...

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1428&context=purc

But it is interesting...



That is a level of obsession that is funny enough inhuman.

 

[Cicada 5]

The Leopards Have Finally Come for the Mormon Face of Sen. Mike Lee

In the grand tradition of those who threw their support behind the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party, only to later find that their own faces had somehow ended up on the leopard menu, you may have noticed Utah Senator Mike Lee–not to mention his fellow Utah Senator John Curtis–having a very long, very protracted freak out across social media this weekend after feeling betrayed by the Christian ethnostate movement they’ve both assisted the Trump administration in trying to craft. Turns out that assisting MAGA’s evangelical base in their white-nationalist agenda doesn’t actually earn you many brownie points, when that base arbitrarily decides one day that despite your church having “Jesus Christ” in the name, that you’re not a real Christian.

Not that we should feel bad for the likes of Mr. Lee. The Utah Senator, in office since 2011 and currently serving as the Chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, has been one of Donald Trump’s most ardent soldiers and truth deniers since the day he decided to hitch his wagon to MAGA’s star. In addition to attempting to sell off millions of acres of public land in his home state, he was one of the most vociferous election deniers in the build-up to Jan. 6, 2021, and reported that he was working “14 hour” days in his efforts before the certification of the 2020 election to undo the results by any means necessary. In the process, he advocated for blue states to send in “alternative slates of delegates,” backing the fraudulent false electors scheme that could have resulted in an immediate constitutional crisis.


What thanks does he now receive from his benefactor the POTUS, and the Pentagon? How about having his faith lumped outside the denominations recognized by the Pentagon as “Christian”? That’s what Lee perceives as having happened to himself and Utah’s Mormon residents, at least, after the Defense Department this week changed the way it lists and categorizes the religious affiliation of service members. It was, in effect, a huge condensation, taking the number of overall “religious affiliation codes” from more than 200 to only 31, which involved lumping many different traditions of faith and worship into broader categories. Or in other words: The kind of boring clerical changes meant to increase “efficiency” that seem tailor-made to upset people of faiths that are recategorized. Senator Mike Lee ended up being the loudest and most clearly angry of these people, particularly at the assertion that his Mormon faith–the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–did not fall in the broader “Christian” category and instead has an exception of its own. Or as Lee put it in an irate video he posted:

“I find this offensive, not just because that happens to be my faith, not just because it happens to the faith of tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel, but it’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations. I’m imploring people at the Pentagon to reconsider this, not just reconsider it but undo it. Secretary Hegseth, tear down that wall. This is not cool. Get rid of it. Get rid of it now!”

Lee ended up spending pretty much the entire weekend having a moan about this on Twitter, despite some of the more diplomatic right-wingers in his replies attempting to explain that the Pentagon had always technically categorized the LDS (which does indeed believe in Jesus) outside of the “Christian” category. Indeed, if the Trump administration is going to discriminate against some particular Christian sect–and they no doubt will, if and when it suits them–it probably wouldn’t be to intentionally piss off a group that typically votes in the neighborhood of 75% for Republicans, although Trump has always been a somewhat weaker candidate here.

Regardless, surely the MAGA evangelical faithful rallied to the defense of Sen. Lee, standing up for the Mormon residents of Utah, right? Surely they put dogma aside and embraced their fellow Christians, right?


Hah, no, of course they didn’t. The saddest/funniest thing on any given one of the dozens of tweets that Mike Lee spent on the subject this weekend is the parade of blue-checked Christian reply guys, calling Lee a traitor for criticizing some small aspect of the administration, while vowing that he and all the Mormon adherents of Utah are going to hell. Love thy neighbor, etc. I do love the guy below, proclaiming that the people telling Lee he’s “not a Christian” are doing it in love, because they want to convert him to the real Christianity in order to save his eternal soul.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Because inverters solve the only issue you actually brought up.



Yet countries around the world manage just fine. By using the inverters they know do work.



She's not. She has exactly the same relevant experience as we do: zero. No relevant educational qualifications, no relevant professional experience. I may as well cite the bloke down the pub and then call it an "ad hominem" when you refuse to credit him.



That article cites the EIA to substantiate what it says about the levels of support. It still, obviously, ultimately rests on figures. It could not possibly make its arguments without them.

And i addressed the IEA, and how its figures were inexhaustive. That in turn addresses the conclusions in that article.



"Stop everything we're doing", nope, lazy strawman. Not going to engage with that nonsense.

There is a climate emergency. Urgent action is needed. There is overwhelming scientific consensus about that, it is not up for serious dispute.

They don't know if you can mix and match inverters in the same grid.

She very much does have knowledge and experience...

Regardless of whether or not you have a valid criticism of IEA, your linked source did not in any way dispute my claim that more subsidies in the US are now overwhelmingly going to renewables.

Yes, you believe that because all the scientists that disagree with that are smeared. It was scientific consensus that eggs were bad for you when they are probably the very healthiest food you can eat. Scientific consensus is not what you think it is and has just as much bias built in that anything else has.

 

[Asita]

Perhaps you still do not understand what I am disagreeing with others about, because nothing in your post actually addresses it. When you say the settlement cannot be separated from the litigation sequence, that is fine, as both are still parts of the methods, not the actual result. Your concern still lies wholly in the method, and you're making no comment about that part that others were focused on.

Set aside your own position or mine for a second, lets look at this instead for a moment:

Following Trump’s Efforts to Steal $1.8 Billion from U.S. Treasury for MAGA Slush Fund, Ranking Member Raskin Introduces Legislation to Block Fraudulent Abuse of Federal Settlement Funds

Washington, D.C. (May 20, 2026)—Today, Rep.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov

That is an actual press release from Democrats on the government website. Do you see the part where they don't mention any of the things that you are? They don't care about the means, they don't care about underlying legal flaws or potential cracks in the separation of powers, they care about who might get paid. The proposed legislation, if you follow it, would ban this sort of settlement, but their press release, the part they think it carrying the political weight, is entirely about how the settlement is a slush fund for Trumps family and "MAGA foot soldiers". The first few posts in this thread on the topic were also explicitly focused on who might theoretically get paid, "giving tax money to literal traitors".

I understand that you are focused specifically on the "how", but most people upset were upset at the "what". They were not immediately concerned because of abuse of the legal system, they were concerned because the idea of right-wing individuals getting paid compensation for being wronged by the government is unjust and inherently wrong in their eyes. The details about the how came later to them, and rationalized their view for them, but the initial reaction came entirely from the idea that only a corrupt government could ever compensate someone on the right for wrongs committed against them.

I’m not going to keep discussing what you think my or anyone else's underlying motivations are. That’s not the question and it’s not productive. In fact, much of what you're doing amounts to an appeal to motive: rather than addressing the argument itself, you're repeatedly trying to explain why people supposedly arrived at it. You're substituting speculation about people's motives for engagement with their evidence.

Moreover, you are repeatedly inferring a position I have not taken: that I would view the fund as acceptable on its own merits if not for procedural issues.

That inference is incorrect.

My argument is that the procedural conduct and the design of the resulting fund are part of a single pattern of evidence. I am not separating them into "process objection vs outcome objection," and I am not holding a conditional view where the fund would otherwise be fine.

Heck, in my first post, I very clearly took issue with the fund itself.

To recap: I described it as having every appearance of being politically choreographed, being riddled with double-speak in painting it as a governmental fund for 'victims of politicized investigations' but also explicitly stating that it - for some reason - is outside the government's purview and therefore not subject to governmental oversight, liability, or responsibility and covers things like paying administrative assistants. Never mind the elephant in the room of how it was conspicuously designed with a "use it or lose it" deadline of December 1, 2028, just one month before Trump's term of office ends. And indeed, it earned prompt bipartisan condemnation for lacking congressional approval, judicial review, or even clear criteria for payouts.

Which is to say: Despite spinning it as a governmental fund, it was very blatantly designed for only Trump and his administration to use, in a manner dictated by Trump himself (given that the stipulations are that while Blanche can assign the members of the board who govern it, Trump can dismiss them at will without cause, making him the final arbiter) on vague 'weaponization' grounds. And mind, this administration has consistently demonstrated that it deploys the label of 'weaponization' both reflexively and haphazardly towards any outcome they don't like, such as any investigation into Trump - including Tax Audits - or prosecuting the people who broke down the doors of the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021...which is to say, any investigation into people Trump views as politically aligned with him. Ie, just short of a carte blanche in practice.

That's the very definition of a slush fund: an unregulated reserve of money with no strictly designated purpose, often used for illicit, political, or discretionary activities.

And as I just quoted to you from the amica brief:

The parties have used this lawsuit—which was never an adversarial proceeding over which the Court even had jurisdiction—as a means to allow a "commission" controlled by the President to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority to do so, and to confer unlawful private benefits to the President and his family by purportedly prohibiting the United States from prosecuting any and all claims against them. And the parties have plainly tried to shield this conduct from necessary judicial scrutiny by short-circuiting this Court’s inquiry into whether the lawsuit is in fact an actual case or controversy by filing the Rule 41(a)(1) Notice before they announced the "settlement"—clearly in hopes of preventing the Court from ever completing that inquiry, which, if it comes out against the parties, will undo their collusive "settlement."​

Which, in layman's terms, is an allegation that Trump et al tried to put on a show trial for the purpose of providing a veneer of legitimacy to an illegal payout, and then as soon as the judge started to scrutinize the case, tried to hide it by withdrawing the case in the apparent hope of preventing the investigation from moving forward and then tried to achieve a similar outcome by simply announcing the creation of a slush fund that they misrepresented as a legal settlement.

That I have been explaining to you the legal basis for the claims that this should be investigated as an act of a fraud against the court does not mean that I'm unaware of or at odds with their characterization of fund itself.

The fact that I have spent more time discussing the procedural evidence does not imply that my substantive concerns about the fund are weaker, absent, or conditional. It simply reflects that the procedural evidence is the most objective and readily demonstrable basis for the broader inference of impropriety.

So there is no basis to characterize my position as agreement with you on the substantive legitimacy of the fund.

You are inferring a position I have explicitly denied holding, and your sole basis for doing so is that you believe the arguments I chose to emphasize are somehow mutually exclusive with my own description of my views.

 

[Silvanus]

They don't know if you can mix and match inverters in the same grid.

And so, countries all over the world just use the inverters they know do work.

She very much does have knowledge and experience...

Why? Because she set up a consultancy? Because your video relies on her being an expert in the field? What relevant experience does she have, then, because the sole professional role i could find she held in the energy sector was in pricing and corporate structure.

Regardless of whether or not you have a valid criticism of IEA, your linked source did not in any way dispute my claim that more subsidies in the US are now overwhelmingly going to renewables.

Your claim rested on an article which, in turn, rested on IEA figures. So if those figures aren't telling the story, your claim no longer has much of a basis.

Yes, you believe that because all the scientists that disagree with that are smeared.

No, there's simply no credible or sizeable dispute in the scientific community.

The scientific community doesn't have some shadowy mafia control over who can say what, and it doesn't control the media or governments. It is a community of researchers. It has journals and summits, and it has sets of professional standards. Those few fringe figures who dispute the consensus of anthropogenic climate change frequently fail to meet those standards. That is not censorship. They don't make the grade, and they don't have the data.

Also, it must be said that claims of conspiracy in favour of renewables are just absurd on the face of them. The overwhelming array of money here, the industry lobbying, the profit, the millions and millions spent to influence public opinion... comes from the fossil fuel industry. They are the ones who dominate the lobbying groups. They are the ones who stand to earn (or lose) billions. The profit motive stands squarely with them. Follow the damn money.

It all puts me in mind of the "debate" around nicotine and tobacco. The scientific community published research on how dangerous it was to public health. And the cigarette companies pumped millions into lobbying and media manipulation to muddy the waters. Soon enough they had a few fringe 'researchers', all on their payroll, to claim nicotine wasn't addictive and tobacco was harmless. Then the companies could claim there was "debate" in the scientific community.

But there wasn't, not really. Their pet researchers weren't actually meeting the standards that scientific jourmals require; they were just publishing their own mock-ups. They were shills. And you would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker; you'd be here claiming that tobacco is good for you and that those who think so are unjustly smeared.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The Leopards Have Finally Come for the Mormon Face of Sen. Mike Lee

...and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations.

Oh, buddy, did you not notice the steady stream of Christian nationalists waltzing into your party? The lines are getting drawn, and you're on the wrong side along with the rest of us.

 

[bluegate]

Obligatory notice that Mormonism is nothing but a weird American cult, ever weirder than actual religion.