In MAGAland there's no such thing as bad publicity but this Democrat probably will benefit

 

By Hal Brown

Read article in TMZ here.

The Yelp reviews are like these (click to read a few), and don't address whether or not the bar serves good food and has enjoyable enetertainment.

Here's the current Yelp review page: 

Note that even with the bad reviews it gets 4 ½ stars.

Here's another TMZ article:

I modified this photo for my illustration.

This is a Google search of The Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar. I shows how the search is trending..

Click to enlarge image

This is what you see on Google Image search:

Click to enlarge

One article that got my attention was this one from the gay publication The Advocate.

Here's an excerpt:

The man with Boebert has now been identified as Gallagher, co-owner of Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar in Aspen. The U.K.’s Daily Mail was the first to report the news.

The fact that they are dating is “very surprising,” someone described as “a well-placed source” told the Mail. “I always thought Quinn was a cool guy and a Democrat. His parents would be horrified because they are definitely blue,” the source said.

Social media posts show Hooch has hosted LGBTQ+ events, such as a women’s party for Aspen Gay Ski Week and a drag performance called “A Winter Wonderland Burlesque & Drag Show.”

 

Unfortunately I can't compare the same search from before it became nationally know that to the grab and grope Beetlejuice sideshow put on by the bars owner, Quinn Gallagher, and the Charismatic Christian queen of Congress, Lauren "Bible Babe" Boebert.

What most rational people would consider bad publicity never seems to hurt Republicans, especially diehard MAGA Republicans. The Boebert brouhaha may end up in an election loss for her but then again the sympathy vote may help her eke out another narrow victory. 

Finally we have an incident where a Democrat, and a very progressive Democrat at that who is clearly woke, may benefit from what could be looked at as bad public behavior. In his defense, he thought he was making out with his date in the dark probably thinking nobody could see them unaware that he was being recorded by a sensitive low-light camera theater camera. Since he didn't think anyone could see this so one could make the case that this wasn't really public even though it happened in a public venue.

Here's more about Gallagher and his bar:

Excerpt:

Just before 11:30 a.m. Monday, more than 20 people sat in chairs and on couches bunched together in the Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar. Note, Gallager is currently a co-owner of the bar.

Most greeted each other with hugs and hellos; others settled in right away.

They were there for another Hospitality Matters meeting, an awareness effort started by Lindze Letherman, general manager at Hooch, and Quinn Gallagher, bartender at Hooch, in response to losing several of their friends and service industry colleagues to suicide. 

Through the bi-monthly meetings in the Hooch bar space, which feature guest speakers and open-ended conversation, Letherman and Gallagher hope to create a more conducive environment to discussing mental well-being with their peers. Monday’s meeting was the fifth one in the past few months.

“We wanted to at least try to get the community together to start talking and realizing that it’s OK to not be OK,” Letherman said.

Now he and his bar are famous, not just nationally but internationally considering the incident was first reported in the UK Daily Mail (here). 

Here's a tidbit from that article:

The hospitality business is something Gallagher and Boebert have in common. 

Boebert had a brief foray into the industry as the owner of Shooter's Grill in Rifle where customers could have their cheeseburger and onion rings served by a waitress with a 9mm on her hip.

The restaurant, which encouraged patrons to come armed, was shuttered in July 2022 after the landlord declined to renew Boebert's lease.

Despite bad Yelp reviews about Gallagher's business I would venture to suggest that it will help attract new customers if only out of curiosity. Residents 

I can see him having a profitable side hustle selling autographed photos of the groping picture.

Addendum:

This is what I posted on the bar's Facebook page which you can view here:

This will be an example of the truth of the saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity and I am glad to see this will prove that it works for progressive Democrats and much as it does for MAGA Republicans. Bad Yelp reviews won't hurt, in fact they will serve to give the bar even more publicity. More people will check out the bar just out of curiosity. After all, the bar still gets 4 ½ Yelp stars and similar rating elsewhere. I appreciate that Quinn and Lauren were attracted to each other and tried to put politcal views aside and see if their relationship could work despite being what I'd call strange bedfellows. 

A bit of snark:

Replica of
The Continental Congress Mirror

Update: Related from Salon:

Click above to read

Too bad for House GOP that Biden isn't God since he just wished them lots of luck in impeachment

 

Who knows what Bible these MAGA Republicans pray to.
Perhaps it's the Bible According to Boebert.

By Hal Brown

Not to split hairs, and far be it from me as a far from religious (okay, an atheist) Jew to get into a Talmudic discussion, but if Biden actually was an all-powerful diety he wouldn't have to wish the House Republicans "lots of luck" in their trying to impeach him. 

He could just either make it happen or stop it from happening. He could also make them look like abject fools in a futile attempt hurling screaming diatribes at him and trying to do a public Jamal Khashoggi on his son Hunter.

Of course the same Republicans frothing at the mouth to strut their stuff, pounding their chests and bellowing like great apes, as they play out their impeachment game to the final buzzer if they believe anyone has Heaven sent supreme  powers it's Donald Trump.

 For the believers among them impeachment is assured. God/Trump will have ordained it.

Related article, with my Trump thought bubble added.

What does Trump's gaffe-filled speech tell us about him? Is it psychology or physiology, or both?

 

Adapted from Hypnotic seance,

 by Richard Bergh, 1887

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist

Trump's gaffe-filled speech yesterday where he said he beat Obama before and will beat him again and will prevent World War II was  covered, and mocked, on "Morning Joe" as examples of declining cognitive ability tied in with his age, that is, his physiology.

Click above to watch Morning Joe segment

There's another way of looking at this which Mika did allude to, his psychology. What we may be seeing is that this off-the-wall speech was an indication that his anxiety over his legal jeopardy is manifesting itself and he isn't thinking clearly due to this. 

Later on Morning Joe Al Sharpton spoke directly to this:

Click to view

This is what former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said on Sunday on "Meet the Press" 

 He's not afraid of prison and doesn't even think about it.

Here's the thing about this notion. It is true that if someone doesn't think about having something horrible happen to them, prison in Trump's case, they may not experience fear. Prison for Trump, after all, isn't inevitable like death. Thoughtful self-aware people think about their own mortality from time to time, and as death from disease or merely old age gets closer they think about it more often.

They key term above is thoughtful self-aware people.  I defy anyone to give indesputable examples of Trump having this characteristic. 

Depth psychology tells us that the unconscious mind exists. Harry Litman opined the following about what Trump thinks:

Instead, it's nothing more than a political witch hunt he assumes will disappear under the law.

I suspect that this indeed is what is in Trump's conscious mind. 

He has had minor setbacks with the law but for him these were nothing more than what for a normal person would be a $25 parking ticket that wouldn't raise our auto insurance costs or add driving infraction points. It costs as much as a meal at Applebee's but won't break the bank.

Trump has believed he's so far above the law he'd need a powerful telescope to see it, and that's even if he cared enough to look. He doesn't look because at some level in his unconscious there's an awareness that he'd see it if he looked hard enough. It may seem far away and impotent to him but he should learn about trying to fight the law from the song “I Fought the Law”.

 The song was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets which became popularized by the Bobby Fuller Four, who had a top-ten hit with it in 1966.  Below is the 1979 version from The Clash:

Click for video

Trump seems to be playing a version of the song which goes "I fought the law and I won" in his mind.

This is the belief system of a grandiose narcissist who has his belief in his invulnerability from the consequences of bad acts baked in.

Addendum:  

I nominate "I Fought the Law" as the official theme song for Trump. It's has been ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and the same year was named one of the 500 "Songs that Shaped Rock" by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It can only help its standing as a rock classic if it is played at Trump on loudspeakers outside of his rallies. 

Perhaps someone can record a version that goes "he fought the law, and the law won" sometime soon.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe, Would God go with GOP or Joe?

 

By Hal Brown

Here's a personal note about my own religious background and beliefs.

This blog is really meant to be an addenudum to what I wrote yesterday, here:

I initially thought of the title of today's blog after reading this article about Evangelicals supposedly losing their grip on the GOP on Raw Story.

Click to read in Raw Story

I tried to make an illustration with this image:

It was taking too long to position the pointing finger properly on something like a stone tablet so I went with the easier to make image you see on the top of the page.

Click to enlarge

The hypocritical irony of beliving that  God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses as the basic rules for mankind to abide by  and how Republicans flout as many as half of them is beyond the scope of what I want to write about today.  Suffice to share the new 10  GOP Commandments (Slate 2021) by Liz Cheney and take note of the failed efforts in Texas to require that public schools to display them. Texas, of course, is the state where its governor, Greg Abbott, is putting barbed wire on floats acrtoss the Rio Grand to stop deperate immigrants from crossing.  

So much has been written about the abject hypocrisy of Evangelicals who support Trump and the other GOP candidates for president who either not only don't have any semblance of so-called the Christian values like those described on this Christian website (and like Trump probably don't believe in God). Then there's the most devout candidate, Pence, who managed to worship the false god Trump as he again and again did things that proved he was as cruel as the Devil. (More about Pence here: CNN's Tapper corners Mike Pence over accusations he used his faith to run cover for Trump)

The question I pose for Evangelicals is who would God choose to be president? 

A great deal has been written about Einstein's quote about quantum mechanics, God does not play dice with the universe, and what he meant by it (here for example). 

I doubt too many Evangelicals consider how quantum mechanics fits into God's plan, but I think they'd endorse the idea that God has a plan and everything He does is for a reason.

In other words, this goes back to my title, God does not play Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe when making decisions that effect life on Earth.

Which presidential candidate actually walks the walk? While Biden doen't talk the talk of the Evangelicals can anyone who thinks clearly about what he believes and what he has done and is trying to do for people is walking the walk that a kind, loving, and compassionate God would approve of?

You don't need to read these 100 quotes from the Bible about the poor, for example, to ask the question.

Click images to enlarge them

There's nothing more I can add to this.

"Listen up GOP candidates and your pious flock, according to me and my son, woke is good." God*

By Hal Brown

* Disclaimer: I do not profess to know God actually said "listen up GOP candidates and your pious flock, according to me and my son, woke is good." I think that the Bible's deity probably would say this. There's more about my faith history on bottom of the page.

I read the following in Raw Story:

Click above for article

This was my comment in Raw Story in response:

 If there was a capital G god, the most real tradtional all powerful diety decision maker ruling over Earth and all points in every direction to the end of the Universe and perhaps beyond, you know, the capital G god who looks like one of the images below, why would capital H he have had a son he sent to Earth who preached a message to mankind that in its essence was what the GOP is calling woke. Read (Newsweek) "Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus" here.

____________________________________________

The Newsweek article has as its central premise that Trump, other GOP presidential candidates, as well as many members of the party who are pandering to Evangelicals  have "transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too weak and liberal for their liking."

I didn't read the Daily Beast article cited in Raw Story since I don't have a subscription but I did look at the other article. It was from The Christian Post (below) describing the speech Ron DeSantis gave which concluded with this sentence: He told the audience, “As president, we are going to leave the woke mind virus in the dustbin of history, where it belongs, once and for all.” 

Click above 

Here are two other Raw Story comments with illustrations (click to enlarge):

A commenter who goes by SailorRet posted many more images here.

Below are a few of the other comments in Raw Story which I think make excellent points:

BowlingGreenMassacreSurvivor an hour ago edited

“I don't know how you could be a leader without having faith in God," DeSantis said. 

The only member of the Founding Fathers who had beliefs similar to Evangelicals was John Adams, and get this, he was also the only member of that group who was an abolitionist.

(Yeah, maybe that was a big reason he and Thomas Jefferson hated each other. But the point is clear.)

METAL_TREK an hour ago

Yeah. Woke is why young people are putting off getting married and having kids. Not because they can't fucking AFFORD to have kids thanks to 40 years of union busting and trickle down pushed by their own party. 🙄

Too bad for them, the young people aren't buying their line of bullshit the way boomers and a chunk of my generation (X) did.

No lie. My 20 year old asked me what they could do to avoid struggling with bills and stuff the way I sometimes do. I looked them straight in the face and said "Don't have kids unless you have a great job and you're living with someone who also has a great job. I love you and your sister, but kids are expensive and you need two solid incomes to raise them" (my ex, their mother, was stay at home and ran off with her affair partner just as she was supposed to go back to work, but that's a different story). My 20 year old is LGBT and doesn't want kids anyway. My 20 year old also votes. And NOT for RepubliQans.

So thank 40 years of GQP union busting and trickle down. Not woke (whatever the fuck that is).

AdvocacyShouts an hour ago

"And it’s the faith in God that gives you the strength to stand firm against the lies, against the deceit, against the opposition."

Um...actually...Ron...it's having a strong moral compass and a desire to do the right thing (for others as well as yourself) that keeps people unwavering.

It's very weak, and irresponsible, to act as if some invisible being is directing and supporting you, because it's a lie and you know it. You do what you want, giving into your hate and fear, because then you can take it out on others - and blame the outcome on your deity.

As for "COVID-ism", Vivek? We all know every single one of you candidates is vaccinated. So you can fk off with that bs.

And you'll never eradicate "wokism", because that's just respect for others and not trying to control who people are. Us telling y'all to stop banning books is not the same as you telling us which gender we are. You're just so convinced you're right, when you're very, very wrong!

n Goth We Trust-91 counts PAB23 minutes ago edited

Ex-Vice President Mike Pence told the audience, "The facts speak for themselves. Today more young people are delaying having a family altogether. The share of never-married adults has tripled since 1980. People are getting married later, having children later in life; declining U.S. birth rates" — all the "hallmarks of decline."
—
Phvck YOU Q-Tip! That's called freedom to decide when or what to do in ones life. What is declining is American's showing up on Sunday mornings for sermons, which now a days at many churches are white Christian nationalist propaganda.

Linda Beaver8 minutes ago

These. Christofascists. Are. Insane. I've posted this quite a few times over the past several years on quite a few threads, but it bears repeating: When you mix religious fanaticism with political fervor, you have big trouble. Wasn't it Barry Goldwater who said, "when fascism comes to the United States, it'll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible"?

Aldewacsa minute ago

...""protect children from 'indoctrination' in public schools.""...
Now THERE is projection on steroids... Religious schools of ANY religion are breeding grounds for extremism and bastions of indoctrination. Manipulation at its finest.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" ... OOPS forgot about that, did you? If we all followed the dictate of keeping government out of religion and vise-versa, and ENFORCE that, we'd be much better off.
But NOOO, they claim to be pure and god-fearing, but then reality bites ... right, Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski? Donald Trump and (..MANY..)? Ken Paxton and his side piece?

As it is, there are millions running around proclaiming that they "live by" the demands in their religious texts, but they fail to even provide a modicum of proof that their god exists.
Should that not be STEP #1 before committing to your chosen cult? ... I.E. Prove there is a basis for your beliefs in magic? Asking too much, I know...

A personal note:

I was raised a secular Jew.

I suppose I am so un-Jewish that I just had to be reminded what today was, so I am adding this to the blog:

My town of Mt. Vernon, NY at the time I lived there had a very large Jewish population and I barely knew any Christians. There was one Christian family on my block. 

As a adult I was amazed to learn that three of the major players in the failed illegal attempt in 1947 (when I was three) to buy the soon to become a sovereign country of Israel a surplus aircraft carrier named the Attu for $125,000 (described in article here) were my neighbors. They lived literally next to my house or one house away. I discovered that the men I knew, the fathers of my best toddler friends, were being investigated by the FBI and there were agents prowling the treelined streets of my  tranquil neighborhood.  I am still in frequent touch with two of these friends.

My great-grandfather was one of the founders of a major synagogue tthere.

Click above to enlarge

Most of my male friends and all of my boy relatives went to Hebrew school and went through the •  bar mitzvah ceremony with the attendent big party afterwards. My parents couldn't afford this and didn't believe it was important anyway. 

They taught me that God was simply a force for good.  I used to say the "now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep, God bless Mommy and Daddy etc." prayer every night when I went to bed. I stopped believing in God when I pretty young after one experience. I had terrible stomach cramps and was sitting on the toilet. I was already doubting that there could be an actual God but was in such pain I said out loud "God I promise that if you stop the pain I will believe in you." The pain persisted for a long time. I figured nobody with the power to stop it existed because after all I knew I was a good kid and didn't do anything which I needed to be punished for.

Now if I had to describe my position on matters of faith I would call myself an ethical atheist.