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God help us

See also this

this is absolutely deranged pic.twitter.com/Hl3x7xDi0J

— queen of bitch island (@kittynouveau) July 20, 2020

I thought the child-trafficking conspiracy theory was peak silliness. But yeah, hold my beer, says America 2020.

Reading Ben Shapiro's Brainwashed

Honestly, I'm not sure I'm going to read all of this one. After three pages, I have already had my bait of Ben's strident screeching. But let's look at as much as we can stand.

For those of you who are blissfully ignorant of his existence, Ben Shapiro is the darling of the MAGA-American crowd. He is a former editor at Brietbart, and appears frequently on Fox News and posts his "discourse" on YouTube, explaining why trans people are mentally ill and Muslims are "radicalized" terrorists. In 2004, he published Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth, which I'm wondering if anyone read past the title.

It was published by that stellar press, World Net Daily.

Let's have a look.

Brainwashed has not one, but two forwards, one written by the editor of World Net Daily, and the other by David Limbaugh, Rush's little brother. Both are empty stuffing. Ben is a brilliant young genius, what a clever toddler he is, what an important book this is. We'll skip over these.


Chapter One

Ben lays out the case for "brainwashing" by liberal universities.

First he attempts to prove that universities are liberal. He declares,

The vast majority of the professoriate is leftist. This is an uncontested fact.

What's his evidence for this? Ben at least includes his sources (1/4 of the book is sources) so I turn to the back of the book and discover that his "uncontested fact" is based on a single survey, done by the think tank National Center for Policy Analysis.  This think tank (now defunct) was funded by the Koch brothers and among other things worked to deny global warming.

The survey the NCPA ran had 151 respondents, from (as they put it)

professors and administrators in social science and liberal arts faculties at Ivy League universities 

and found that of this small sample, almost none of them selected George Bush as the best president in the past 40 years. (I know, I can't believe it either!)

Also, 57 percent admitted to being Democrats, while only 3 percent said they were Republicans. 20 percent said they were independents.

This is Ben's sole evidence for his "uncontested fact." Frankly, anyone with sense would stop reading right now.

Let's take it apart, shall we? The sample size is too small, and furthermore it's a biased sample. They surveyed only professors and administrators in the social sciences and the liberal arts -- social sciences are in the liberals arts, by the way, so I assume they're selected out for their ability to scare Conservatives.

No survey was done of business schools, and probably none of economics professors (some people think of economics as a liberal art, but since NCPA doesn't define what they mean by "liberal arts," it's hard to know if economics counts). No survey of science professors or math professors.

Also, we have no sample questions, and no link to the actual survey. As those who design surveys know, how a question is worded often influences its answer.

Also, the "survey" ends with this:

Critics point out that academics are all for diversity in the student population, but are against diversity of opinion on campuses.

Who are these critics? On what are they basing this conclusion? Where's their actual statement?

This is very shoddy work, especially since Ben is going to build an entire book on this dubious claim.

I'm sorry: This "uncontested fact."

Ben moves on from here to spout several more unsupported or badly supported claims: that Leftist professors don't give a balanced point of view in the classroom, but simply spout propaganda; that the "brainwashing" of students is extremely effective.

His evidence for this last? Students who came into a single universities in 2001 were 29.9% liberal and 20.7% conservative. This is based on a national survey of all university students in the USA. When they graduated, Ben says, they were 71% liberal and only 20 percent conservative. This, on the other hand, is based on the voting patterns of students at one university (UCLA) for one election (Bush v. Gore), evidence collected in 2000 -- an entire year before the results collected in the survey he is comparing the voting records to.

I can't believe Ben honestly believes this is an appropriate way to use evidence. I guess he's hoping his audience is too gullible to care?

But Ben doesn't need this evidence, he says! All the surveys support him! (He doesn't cite any.) Talk radio supports him!

Also, he has personal experience. When he went to UCLA, everyone was mean to him and the newspaper fired him -- for exposing Muslims, he claims, but again he cites no evidence. I suspect they fire him because of his crap research skills and his fundamental dishonesty.

His final evidence in this first chapter? An anonymous email from a professor who supports his brave truth-telling.

That's right. His readers support him in emails.


Chapter Two

Ben starts this chapter with a scandalous claim from a geography professor -- his geography professor, I assume -- who pointed out that truth is subjective, since we are all subjective beings. This is bunk, Ben declares. Of course universal truth exists! Of course evil exists!

Only a tiny bit from the professor seems to be a direct quotation. And, of course, this is being reported by Ben years after the lecture took place. Given that this is a geography class, I suspect what was actually said had more to do with how maps were drawn than with whether babies are murdered (Ben's go-to example, always -- he's a fetus-fetishizer).

Ben goes on to claim that this moral relativism permeates universities. Again, he bases this claim on dubious evidence -- comments by a few professors, and a single poll which found that 73% of students think their professors are moral relativists. This poll is no longer available, so I can't check how many students it surveyed or what they were actually asked.

He goes on to cite another shocking example -- his source an editorial that cites the same survey Ben cited above (in the very same language; I wonder if plagiarism is a moral wrong?) -- that "10 to 20% of his students refused to say that the Holocaust was wrong."

I went to the source. Here's what the editorial actually says, in its 4th paragraph, one in which he is arguing that students are moral relativists, just like their teachers:

Several years ago, a college professor in upstate New York reported that 10 percent to 20 percent of his students could not bring themselves to criticize the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews. Some students expressed personal distaste for what the Nazis did.

"A college professor" "several years ago" "reported."

Again, this is appallingly scholarship.

More nonsense follows. Ben cites Peter Singer, another favorite boogeyman for the Right, a philosopher famous for saying newborns have no more moral right to exist than piglets do. Evil! Ben shrieks. This is evil!

He cites Paul Erlich, for the horrible crime of comparing the bombing of Hiroshima with the Holocaust. Evil! Ben shrieks. The Jews were innocent, those civilians in Japan...had to be killed, to save American lives.

What?

This is pretty much how Ben always argues, from what I know of his later work. He says something shocking, and usually ridiculous, and then supports it with "evidence" that has little or nothing to do with his claim.

I mean, let's look at that argument. The victims of the Holocaust were innocent. Okay, so far so good.

His claim that the civilians who died at Hiroshima are not equal to the victims of the Holocaust should, reason shows us, rest on the fact that those civilians were complicit some great crime: not innocent.

Instead, he says that they had to die, to protect the lives of American soldiers. Now this may or may not be true, but it doesn't work to refute his outrage over the comparison. In fact, the idea that the civilians "had to die" is exactly the argument that (pardon my Godwinning) Hitler used to murder six million Jews and another six million Poles, socialists, disabled people, Romani, and LGBT people (including trans people). Those 12 million had to be killed, to protect the Aryan nation.

Ben supplies several more, equally badly supported examples as "evidence" that professors are Leftist. For instance, in one of his classes, a professor played a rap song, and then tried to discuss whether censoring that song was a violation of the First Amendment.

(See, there's right and there's wrong, and if you disagree with MAGA Americans, obviously you're wrong. It's right to violate free speech, unless it's Ben's free speech you're violating, then it's wrong)


The Left, Ben concludes this chapter by stating, clearly exists in order to "debase morality."

That's all I can take for now. (This is another way Ben "wins" arguments. After you spend several hours refuting his first three sentences, you're really too exhausted to go on.)

Right-Wing Screeching

This story was very hot on the reactionary Right-Wing blogs about two weeks ago -- I assume it got big play on Fox News, that's usually why the entire Conservative Blogosphere goes apeshit at once.

Here's what happened: a young woman who had been sexually assaulted asked to be euthanized. (Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, as well it should be. But it is reserved for hopeless cases -- for instance, people dying of liver cancer, which is a horribly painful way to die.) The young woman's request was denied, because her case wasn't hopeless, and she was far too young, and because treatment options existed which she hadn't exhausted yet.

The young woman subsequently starved herself to death. No euthanasia was involved, although her parents did make the decision to stop force-feeding her, after several months. (If you know anything about force-feeding, you know it's a form of torture.)

Fox News reported that the girl had been euthanized, because of course they did. And then everyone who watches Fox News began screeching about the case. Rod Dreher wept big hot crocodile tears over it. Those GODLESS SECULAR people over there in the SOCIALIST Netherlands are SO EEEVIL, our world is DOOMEd and so on, for about 15 paragraphs.

Worse, the Conservative Attack Squad, besides screaming about this on Twitter and elsewhere nonstop, then went after the poor child's parents.

Did any of them bother to check the sources and see what actually happened? You know they didn't. If they were capable of checking sources and evaluating evidence, they wouldn't be watching Fox News.

Reading Unwind, by Neal Shusterman

This is my next read-through, at the request of the Kid, who was compelled to read in it high school. This was one of the required texts in one of his English classes.

It purports to be a 'fair and balanced' response to the battle between Pro-Choice Americans and 'Pro-Life' Americans. In response to the 'Heartland War," the epigraph tells us, a 'Bill of Life' was passed.

To end the war, a set of constitutional amendments known as “The Bill of Life” was passed.  It satisfied both the Pro-life and the Pro-choice armies.   

The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen.    

However, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to retroactively “abort” a child . . 

We are one page into this text and I am already saying Oh My God.

The 'Bill of Life' only makes sense if we assume (as apparently Shusterman did) that what pro-choice people really want to do is kill children.

Which, yeah, no. That's not what pro-choice people want, at all. They want the choice to be pregnant or not to be pregnant. And they want the risks and costs of the decision to be pregnant to be up to those who after all bear the physical dangers and costs of pregnancy. This 'Bill of Life' would do nothing about that.

Also, for fuck's sake, what "Pro-Life" person would be happy with killing children at 13? Even as annoying as most 13 year olds are. That's just beyond stupid.

Shusterman says people accept this because the 13 year olds don't 'really' die. Their body-parts and organs are transplanted into other people, so 'really' the children continue to live.

Again, in what universe would anyone find this argument acceptable?

But that's our premise. This novel already has a D- rating from me.

Chapter One

We meet Connor, who has discovered that his parents have sold him to the Unwinding... corporation? I don't know. It's not clear, at least so far, who runs the Unwinds.

Connor has been a trouble-making kid and young teen. He acted badly and mouthed off and refused to do well in school, even though he knew kids who acted that way were likely to be sold as Unwinds. Connor's kind of stupid, in other words, and terrible at planning ahead. True, he is thirteen. But still.

His parents are selling him off and using the money to go to Disneyworld with his younger, better behaved sibling. I'll admit I found this detail funny. I'm not sure Shusterman wanted us too, though.

Connor and his girlfriend decide to run away, except the girlfriend bails at the last minute.

Sulky, Conner runs on his own. He gets a lift from a sympathetic truck driver, who lost an arm in some early accident and now has an Unwind arm. The truck driver says the arm still had part of the dead teen's skills and personality (it can do card tricks) so he feels bad. That's why he helps.

Muscle memory is a thing, but I don't think it works like this. But whatever.

Just before they take off, Connor sees another teen get taken by the Unwind Police -- he was trying to run away too. But he draws attention away from Connor, in his noble way, and so Connor escapes in the truck.

He takes his phone with him, though. After his dad rats him out (boy, parents really hate their kid in this future world, I guess that's just how pro-choice people are, right?) the police track the phone, and the truck gets stopped.

I mean, this is realistic -- kids and their phones, amirite? -- but Connor has to be pretty stupid not to know he can be tracked by his phone.

The Unwind police are about to arrest him when Connor leaps the divide between two sides of the interstate (what?) and flees. At this point, between Connor's lack of foresight and his idiotic behavior, I'm really wondering if being Unwound wasn't his best possible future.

A car on the other side almost hits him, and crashes instead. Inside is a kid in white -- another Unwind! Connor pulls him from the wreck and they run off together.


Chapter Two

We meet another future Unwind, Risa. She's an orphan, living in Ohio State Home 23, and has been training in the orphanage to be a pianist. But she's just not quite good enough.

A little world-building here. Since contraception and abortion are now illegal, lots of parents surrender their extra kids at birth to the state. Some are adopted (storked, this is called). The rest end up in state custody, where they have to earn their right to survive past 13.

Risa hasn't. She's good at music, but not excellent. And 5% of the kids in the home have to be Unwound every year. This year, she's one of that 5%. She offers to change tracks -- she doesn't have to be a musician! She'll join the military instead!

Too late, her administrators tell her cheerily. Off she goes.

In the transport, she meets another Unwind, who seems happy about it. He knows he's a useless human being, he says, but this way part of him will go on to do something useful.

On the one hand, this makes sense -- the propaganda that must be fed to the kids in the home (excel or be unwound) might actual create this sort of resignation.

On the other hand, wow.

Then the bus they're in crashes into the pile-up Connor created by jumping across the interstate barrier, and Risa escapes.


Chapter Three

And...here's the creepiest chapter yet.

We meet a religious family. In this world, the 'Pro-Life' people now apparently make a religion out of bearing a lot of kids and 'tithing' one out of ten to the Unwind Centers. Apparently, all religious families do this now -- they have a ton of kids and designate one or more of them as their 'tithe.'

I'm guess for the money? I don't know. This doesn't make any sense. I don't care how much you believe in God, the notion that you'll send one out of ten kids to be slaughtered and call that 'Pro-Life' seems....

I was going to say unlikely, but then I remember the family in my neighborhood that was famous for not believing in birth control. They had twelve kids, which they could not afford (who can afford 12 kids?) and the three oldest joined the military in order to send money back and help the rest.

I mean, I don't know that those three died or even suffered injuries. But this was the era of the Vietnam war, so, yeah, kind of a tithe.

Lev is the tithe from his family. He's been raised from birth with the understanding that he's a special child, a sacrifice to God. Now that he's 13, and it's time to be Unwound, he's a little uncertain.

His preacher tells him that this is what God wants, and that he's the best of all his siblings, and that God wants the best. We find out that several of Lev's siblings are adopted (storked, as the novel puts it), because after all good Pro-life families all adopt lots of kids. And then send one of their own kids off to be Unwound.

Nevertheless, Lev is convinced, at least for now.

Lev, of course, is the kid that Connor rescues from the car.

Chapter Four

Lev objects to Connor's attempt to rescue him -- he's a tithe, God wants him to do this -- but the Unwind Cops are shooting at the three of them (Connor, Risa, and Lev) and Lev gets knocked out.

Connor shoulders him and he and Risa run for it.


Exasperated Thoughts:

So far this book fails the how-people-act test.

I'm not saying people don't surrender one or more children to help the other children in the family -- as I noted, a family in our neighborhood did just that. And I'm sure we can all think of families in which the oldest child works at terrible jobs to give the younger children a better advantage.

But there's a wide difference between that and selling your child to have its organs and other parts harvested.

Schusterman might think there's a parallel here, with some parents having abortions -- stopping a pregnancy because they can't afford another child, because that expense would harm the future of their family, including their already existing children.

Or someone at 16 having an abortion in order to finish school, giving themselves and their future children a better life.

Maybe that's the metaphor he's working with.

But there's a big difference between an abortion and killing your 13 year old.

Pretending this is exactly the same thing, either morally or ethically, is not just nonsense, it's the vile sort of lie we hear from 'Pro-life' people all the time. A blastocyst is the exact same thing as a toddler, so killing one is the same as killing the other.

No one believes that, not really. Or if they do, they're not someone I'd trust with a child anyway.

Also, Schusterman is ignoring the actual reason many people have abortions -- they don't want to be pregnant. Maybe they just don't want to be pregnant now; maybe they never want to be pregnant.

This is typical of the 'pro-life' crowd, obviously. Pregnancy isn't a disease! they declare. Childbirth is natural, they declare. It's only nine months, after all, and if you don't want they baby, why, you can just let some good Christian family adopt it.

Pregnancy kills over 700 people in America a year, and injures many, many others.

Pregnancy is a debilitating and miserable experience.

Yes, I know, some people love being pregnant. But for most of us, no, it's nausea and swelling feet and agonizing pain in our bones and ligaments, it's heart burn, it's the inability to take medication, some of which is vital for our health, it's a condition that causes permanent and sometimes debilitating changes to our bodies. It's not 'just nine months' of no big deal, and it's not over when we deliver, either.

And pregnancy creates a child which we are responsible for, forever. Giving that child up for adoption may seem easy to someone who had never birthed a child, but I could no more have given my child away than I could have sliced out my liver. It would have felt exactly the same.

The whole premise of this book, frankly, is something that only a person who could never be pregnant would have thought made any sense at all.

I'm going to keep reading, but jeez.

Glenn Beck's Overton Window Please Let it End

I'ma try to finish this tedious tome today. As I mentioned last time, I skimmed ahead, so I know nothing interesting happens, not in these last chapters and not anywhere else in the book.

That this pile of over-written bog-standard conspiracy crap garnered as many five star reviews on Amazon as it has is a sign of the coming Apocalypse, that's all I have to say.

Chapter 35

Noah meets Molly for lunch. Nothing happens, except we hear about how TSA loves to harass Freedom Fighting Americans, who are 100% not terrorists.

Chapter 36-37

The TSA part was because Molly needs to fly to Las Vegas, and how can she, when she'll be harassed and arrested by Security because Noah's Daddy knows who she is?

Noah has a brilliant plan. No, it's not flying her to Las Vegas in one of his private jets. (Beck's ghost writer apparently doesn't understand what the mega-wealthy are actually like.)

Nope, he disguises her as Natalie Portman, and then uses his rich-boy power to get her through Security that way.

I have to admit, my first reaction here was, who the fuck-word is Natalie Portman? Wikipedia tells me she was in one of the Star Wars episodes I didn't see, which makes sense (I guess) because Molly gets them out of a stick spot in these hijinx by quoting Star Wars.

The sticky spot? She's wearing...gasp...a crucifix, and the Star Wars Geek running security knows that Portman is Jewish.

There's some casual nastiness about what Science Fiction fans look like here, by the way: Geek is overweight and wearing ill-fitting clothing, and has a bad haircut.

"The force is strong with this one," Molly says. The Geek melts under her sexiness and deep knowledge of Star Wars.

They get aboard the flight and Molly falls asleep. While she's sleeping, Noah browses through her things, reading her notebook, and generally acting badly. But this is so Beck's ghost writer can tell us (again) that Molly is reading the Original Works of the Founding Fathers, who are perfect, also filled wit humility, not like That President Obama.


Chapter 38

Kearns and Danny are driving to meet their terrorists.

Along the way, Danny explains his theory about how various terrorist attacks, including the Sept 11 attack, are all just False Flags. And so this attack on Vegas is probably one too. Kearns objects, saying that if that were true he would know about it. Danny calls him a naive little kitten.

Not exactly in those words.



Chapter 39

More Deep Thoughts from Noah as he reads through Molly's notebook, which is filled with quotations from the Founding Fathers. More conspiracy whackiness. My boredom is at Peak Beck.


Chapter 40

Kearns and Danny prepare to meet the terrorists. Danny has to explain to Kearns how to approach bad guys, because Kearns never learned that in all his years as a Super-Secret Agent for the FBI.


Chapter 41

Kearns and Danny sell the nuclear weapon to the terrorists. Then they start shooting the terrorists, for reasons that aren't especially clear. This is the worst-run sting I've ever seen in fiction.

But before they shoot the terrorists, they let them load the weapon into their truck, so one terrorist gets away with the bomb.

But Danny and Kearns get aboard as the truck drives away, which the terrorist doesn't notice, because he's an idiot.


Chapter 42

Noah and Molly have rented a car and are driving at top speed toward the location Danny sent to everyone. Why? I guess Molly thinks she needs to help Danny? It's not really clear. Molly is driving, because Noah never learned. (I don't actually know why Molly is driving. Probably so Noah can tell her to slow down, a lot.)


Chapter 43

Danny calls 911 from the back of the speeding Truck o'Terrorist. I'm not sure why. I mean, does he honestly think Emergency Services will fly out here to the middle of the desert to rescue him?

But no fear! 911 is in on the Big Conspiracy. Danny and Kearns are on their own.

Meanwhile Kearns has found his Super-Secret Contact, the only one who knows Kearns is REALLY from the FBI, dead in the back of the truck.

Danny has to point out to him what this means -- this is ANOTHER false-flag operation, like 9/11, and he and Kearns are the scapegoats.

Their solution?

They set off the nuclear weapon.

I mean, what? (A) Is that really their best option? Why not, idk, shoot it out with the sole remaining terrorist when he stops for gas or whatever? Also (B) how is setting off the nuclear weapon here, instead of actually in Vegas, going to help their cause? It's still a terrorist setting off a NUCLEAR WEAPON. Besides which (C) what makes them think some idiot in the White House won't decide this is a first strike? Touching off the destruction of the entire planet?

But that's what they do, exploding themselves and I guess the surrounding 40 or 50 square miles in a blaze of glory.


Chapter 45

Noah and Molly are still driving. They are having a fight about who is more committed to this Fight for Freedom, blah blah blah, when Molly sees police lights behind them.

Noah flings himself out of the car so that he can fling himself in front of the police cars and let Molly get away (she's determined to get to Danny and stop whatever is happening -- she doesn't know it's a nuclear weapon, but she knows it's a Big False Flag).

He stops the police by standing in the middle of the road with his hands raised. They all stop, instead of one stopping and the rest going on after Molly.

Then, as they're all facing him down with their scary weapons, the nuclear bomb explodes.


Chapter 46

Noah gets interrogated. Not very interestingly. We learn nothing new. (If the repetition in the book had been trimmed away, it would be about six chapters long.)


Chapter 47

Noah's daddy interrupts the interrogation. He makes yet another endless speech, again saying nothing new. "Useless eaters," "Saul Alinksy," "democracy is a sham," "people are sheep," blah blah blah.

Then he announces that he must find out what Noah is made of.


Chapter 48

Noah gets tortured some more, with his father watching.  Again, it's very boring torture. Near its end, inspired by Molly, Noah recites some Social Darwinist doggerel his father taught him when he was a boy. This convinces his father, for some reason, that Noah is his True Son and Worth Trusting.

Epilogue

Noah's locked up in a repurposed prison, doing various clerical jobs for his father, but unable to do them in a convincing manner. His daddy is thinking of locking him up good.

BUT THEN.

The guy who fetches him his meals slips him Molly's bracelet, and tells him to do a certain job -- basically leave his computer logged on.

He also slips him a note from Molly: "We are everywhere. I'll see you soon. The fight begins tomorrow."

THE END (thank God)

So apparently in the next book, The Eye of Moloch, which I am not going to read, we still don't get to the concentration camps.

I have to say, this is the least scary Supervillain ever. Apparently what he wants to do is bring peace and prosperity to America by managing the economy.

The bastard.

Also though he wants to stop Good Christian Patriots from having AK-47s, collecting rain water, smoking cigarettes, homeschooling their kids, and refusing vaccinations for their babies.

So totally evil, yeah.

I have to say this book was a lot more boring than I expected. Lots of propaganda and lies, but it was all Conspiracy Nut lies and propaganda, and frankly, who cares.

I'll look for something less idiotic next time.

Links

No matter what lies get pushed by Trump supporters, this is the truth

Also this

Vote the GOP out in 2020. Also, maybe don't vote for GOP-lite? Warren is looking better every day.

Problems with Capitalism

Thread for anyone who supports civil debate with Nazis

This was fun, in a grim sort of way

I can't tell you how many times I've been dismissed because, obviously, no one living in Arkansas can possibly be worth listening to:

More lies from the Right, or Don't Listen to the Screeching about Antifa:

Glenn Beck's Overton Window Ch 27-34

You'll remember that Beck left us with the promise of hearing Kearns' life story.

But that was a fake! I swear this novel reads like a first-draft written by a 15 year old and never revised.

Chapter 27

This chapter starts out as if we're going to hear all about Kearns, but instead Beck abruptly quits that story, when Danny demands to stop at a bar/brothel. He wants a beer, he says.

Kearns goes along with this, letting Danny go into the bar by himself to get a beer (Kearns doesn't drink, obviously). Only a few chapters ago he basically took Danny hostage. Now he lets him wander off into a bar by himself.

Where Danny borrows the phone from a stripper and sends a text message to Molly, warning her to keep everyone away from Las Vegas, since that's where the Big Job is going to go down.

Chapter 28

Noah wakes up, after being kept unconscious for almost two days, by someone, to find himself in his father's custody. And his father wants to see him.

I can see that Beck means this to be a scary moment. I can see that Beck wants us to see Noah's daddy as an evil monster. Frankly, though, he's the most boring villain I've ever met. The meanest thing we've seen him do so far is fire someone for checking her watch. Ooo, scary.

Also, all he does is talk and give lengthy presentations to people in boardrooms about the eeevil plan they have to take control of America. Beck has us watch this presentation three times. It never gets more convincing or more interesting.


Chapter 29

Back to Danny and Kearns. They're driving out to meet the terrorists again, and maybe actually sell them the bomb this time. Kearns can't use Mapquest, so he gives Danny access to internet. He also conveniently leaves the room so that Danny can send out another warning out, this time to the whole group of Freedom Fighters. Why didn't he send this last night? Who knows.

He also sends them the location of the meeting with the terrorists. I guess he couldn't have sent that the night before.

Whatever. Kearns has a casual attitude toward security for a high-caliber spy, is all I'm saying.



Chapter 30

Noah meets with his dad. Also, his dad's doctor gave him a bottle of methadone pills, to help him "come down" from whatever he was drugged with by Molly's team. This seems unlikely to me, but okay.

Noah's daddy tells him they found him by tracking his cell phone. Which took 40 hours. Okay.

Also, Noah is shocked to find that you can find people by tracking their cell phones. This is what I mean by inconsistency of character.  Noah is suddenly a naive idiot again, despite being a mastermind ninja fighter only a few chapters ago.

Noah's daddy has a big reveal for him -- Molly is not what she seems.

Apparently this is news to Noah, even though we just spent several chapters establishing that Molly is part of a secret cabal of freedom fights. But Noah's daddy gives him a lengthy presentation (of course) establishing that Molly has been to college, that she shoots guns, that she goes to political rallies with her mother and Danny Bailey.

Then Noah's daddy drops the bombshell: Molly got the job in the mailroom to spy on them.

Now I think even less of Noah's daddy than I did before. He's running an evil empire, but he doesn't bother to do security checks on the people who have access to his files? Okay.

Also, and this is really queasy-making, Noah's daddy establishes that Molly deliberately cut her hair and wore clothing to make herself look like Noah's mommy. Because she knew Noah would find that hot.

I know now more about Glenn Beck's kink than I really wanted to, frankly.


Chapter 31

Noah and his daddy have a private meeting. This is so Noah's Daddy can explain his plan yet again, though once again he doesn't explain it, just talks endlessly about how America is a big mistake, people aren't equal and can't be treated as if they're equal, and how most people are "useless eaters," not to mention evil. A story about a Turkish girl being buried alive by her family in an honor killing is put forth of proof of this.

Noah's daddy points out that in most cultures this girl would have been raped by the time she was sixteen. He means most other cultures, not America, where girls and women never get raped. But in any case, what this has to do with his point or the plot of the book, I don't know. Maybe Beck just wants us to see why Noah's daddy would think he should run the world? Because "most people" are useless eaters who rape and kill children?

I have no idea. This chapter is really incoherent.

Noah's daddy ends by saying that America's government is corrupt, so it's time to overthrow it and establish a new government.

The new government starts tomorrow, Noah's daddy says dramatically, and it will not fail.

Noah's daddy reminds me of those guys who corner you on long bus rides to tell you all about the dangers of vaccinations and drinking diet sodas. But we're supposed to believe he's a super-intelligent evil villain who is about to take over the country.


Chapter 32

Noah, appalled by his father's behavior, flees the building (after first asking several people where he can find Molly, because that won't leave a trail for his father to follow). Someone tells him Molly's mom is in the hospital. So he heads there.


Chapter 33

Luckily Noah used to date a neurologist at the hospital. Luckily.

She gets him in to see Molly's mom, who has just awakened and is asking to see him.


Chapter 34

Molly's mom has been beat up and also poisoned. By Noah's daddy's people, we're meant to assume, I guess? That's never made clear. She's dying, but first she needs to tell Noah some important things.

(1) He needs to find Molly and protect her. That's his job.
(2) Also, he needs to read Ephesians 6:12
(3) Also, Molly's mom knew his mom, before he was even born. So she knows what his mom would want him to do, which is save the world by protecting Molly. At least, I think this is what this part means. Who knows.

Noah rushes off to find Molly.

Ephesians 6:12, in case you're interested:

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

I guess this is meant to refer to Noah's daddy? Or maybe the US Government in general. Obama was president, remember. A dark ruler.

Who knows. Sometimes Beck acts as if the US Government is important and worth preserving, sometimes he acts as if the government is literally Satan, and we need to kill it with fire.

I guess he means people like the Freedom Fighters, who are the true heirs of the Founding Fathers, should be running the government, instead of those terrible corrupt elected officials, who pass things like tax codes and business regulations, and insist on funding public schools.

You know. People who actually govern.


I've skimmed ahead, by the way, and no, we don't get to the concentration camps in this book. Apparently there's a sequel, if you can believe that. Aargh.

...and Here's Rod!

Rod Dreher is a little late on the screechy bandwagon, but here he is explaining to you why "Easter Worshipers" is persecution of the very worst kind and just more evidence that Christians are the most abused group ever and also liberals are Satan.

I saw a headline today discussing the "Easter Bombings" in Sri Lanka. No doubt that too is more persecution of Good American Christians. I mean, Easter didn't get bombed, amirite?

If you want to know why no one takes the screeching of MAGA Americans seriously, here you are.

LOL

So for a brief moment this morning MAGA Americans were losing their damn minds because a couple of politicians said that those killed in Sri Lanka yesterday were "Easter worshipers."

"How much do they hate Christians?" one demanded. "They can't even say our name!"

"Yeah! We don't worship EASTER. Say it RIGHT: we're Christian worshipers."

I asked if by that he meant that they worshiped Christians, and he blocked me.

Such delicate flowers, these fellas.

Cold Hard Truth

Fact-checking Trump's many, many lies is pointless.

MAGA Americans -- and those who get their "news" from the National Review, or Fox News, or similar sources -- could not possibly care less that Trump is lying. They do not care about evidence, they do not care about reliable sources, they do not care what is objectively true or objective false. They care about hearing things that reinforce their smug and delusional worldview.

And the rest of us already know that if Trump is talking, he is lying.

The best move any serious news outlet could make would be to ignore Trump as much as possible, while covering the serious contenders for the 2020 election.

Reading Glenn Beck's The Overton Window Ch 1-3

MAGA Americans love to talk about "the Overton Window" nearly as much as they like to talk about Saul Alinsky, so when I saw this book by the infamous Glenn Beck available for free via my Kindle, I snapped it up.

Time for another read-through of a silly book by a silly writer. Though from what I understand, Beck didn't actually write this one -- he paid a ghost writer to write it for him. Which is just sad. Because this book is terrible.

It starts with an introduction, in which Beck assures you this this book is not fiction, it is (dum dum) faction.

Beck defines faction as fiction based on facts. (1) That's pretty much all fiction, you potato, and (B) yeah, no, not this one.

The rest of the introduction is Beck lecturing us on how he's not an ideologue and this book isn't about being Right or Left wing, and it has nothing to do with who is President now, this is just about the Truth. (Who was President then, by the way, was Obama.) This could really happen, he asserts, and it could happen any time, not just when that radical...um, no matter WHO has seized control.

Beck know critics will try to silence him, by saying his book is silly or terrible, because that's always what happens when people try to Speak the Truth. He doesn't care, though. He's going to Speak the Truth anyway.

Then we cut to a prologue (yes, this book has both an introduction and a prologue) in which an obvious lunatic named Eli Churchill is talking to what I guess is a reporter, via a payphone.

(Me: Oh My God.)

I mean, seriously, when was the last time you even saw a payphone? I had to explain to my students what one was when it showed up in a 1985 movie I was showing in class.

Anyway, this guy is reading from an enormous sheaf of papers, trying to tell the reporter what he has learned.

"Could you just tell me?" the reporter begs. This is a faction, obviously, since in reality the reporter would have hung about about 20 minutes earlier, when this raving conspiracy theorist first began to rave.

Churchill says all that money that got lost in the budget (this was a scandal Conservatives were pretending to be outraged over in the early years of the Obama administration) wasn't lost. It was being used to build something.

“I’ve seen the place, one of the places where they’re getting ready for something—something big—planning it out, you know? I got a job inside in maintenance, as a cleanup man. They thought I was just a janitor, but I had the run of the place overnights."

So...it's like a building?

But no, because in the very next breath, Churchill says it's not a building.

“They’re building a structure…Not like a building, but like a political and economic and social structure.” 

Okay. So how do "they" hire you to scrub floors in a political and social and economic structure? And how exactly do you have the "run" of a structure like that, overnights?

Never mind, it doesn't matter, because right then someone shoots Churchill.

Eli Churchill had enough time left to begin a quiet prayer but not enough to end it. His final appeal was interrupted by a silenced gunshot, and a .357 semi- jacketed hollow point was the last thing to go through his mind. 

That's what passes for clever writing when you're Glenn Beck's ghostwriter.

Chapter One

Here we meet the main character of the novel, Noah Gardner, who were's supposed to think is adorable. He's so sexy and "puckish" that he sleeps with a different woman every weekend. Though only because he lowers his standards. He'll even sleep with a six, apparently. What a man!

But now that he has reached the advanced age of 28, he wants to give up his slutty lifestyle and settle down with a real woman.

Luckily one shows up. She's working at a temp at his ad agency, and despite that she's a temp, she's dressed....well, I don't know exactly how she's dressed. Glenn's ghostwriter says she's not following the dress code. Also that she's a "free spirit."

Is she wearing overalls? Jeans? a mini-skirt? Thigh boots and mesh stockings?

No idea. Also we don't know what she looks like except that she's really hot. But it's an "aloof and effortless hotness" which "dares" men to bring it up. You know. That "effortless hotness" real women have.

Also she has a perfect "line," something Noah's artist friend talks about.

Noah falls in love in 5 seconds. Literally. This is true love, he knows, just from looking at her "effortless hotness," and that perfect "line."

Chapter Two

So he hits on her. Guess how.

"Need some help?" he says. She's pinning something to a bulletin board, so obviously she needs his help to do that. I mean, she's just a girl. She shoots him a contemptuous look and continues to try to pin whatever it is up all by herself.

And now we get a description!

You won't be surprised to find that "effortless hotness" means not much makeup. Also her "abundant" hair is pinned up in a loose bun with two crossed pencils. And she has -- I know this will shock you -- green eyes.

He goes over to help despite her dismissal and finds she is posting an "amateur" looking notice about a political meeting to the bulletin board. The header lets us know this meeting will be held by a political group called We The People.

If you love your country but fear for its future, join us for an evening of TRUTH that will open your eyes! 

Oh my God. It's a TEA PARTY novel.

There are about fifteen "guest speakers" listed, all associated with groups like "The Guardians of Liberty" and "Founders Keepers." One is a YouTube start with 300,000 followers!

The "Effortlessly hot" woman is Molly Ross, as Noah discovers after looking at her name tag (after a long lingering look at her cleavage, where he spots a tattoo of what might be an angel). Molly says she doesn't expect anyone from this place to come to the meeting, since PR firms aren't interested in The Truth.

Also she knows who Noah is.

“Noah Gardner. Twenty-first floor, northwest corner office. Vice president as of last Thursday. And a son of a … big shot.” 

“Wow. For a second I wasn’t sure where you were going with that last one.” 

Oh look. More Humor!

Noah turns out to be the son of the owner of the PR firm, which I guess is why he's sitting around in the break room eating Tootsie Rolls (I kid you not, that's what he's eating). You'd think the son of the owner would have his own office and his own staff and better taste, but not in this Factional Universe.

Anyway, Noah says he plans to go to her meeting. Why? Because he's patriotic. Very patriotic, in fact. Not because he's stalking Molly or anything.

Molly makes what is supposed to be a sparkling joke about Noah and the Ark, and we're out of there.

Chapter Three 

Oh, here's some plot, finally. 

Chapter starts with a faux document from Homeland Security, all about how the collapse of the economy is causing "radicals" to rise up, and how a "contingency plan" needs to be formed to deal with them.

A list of radicals includes one or two radical liberal groups, like "Earth First," but mainly it is groups like The Tea Party and homeschoolers and "anti-abortionists," as well as gun-rights activists, Anti-Immigration groups, Christian Dominionists, and White Nationalists.

You may not remember this, but during the early years of Obama's time in office, a report did leak saying that the FBI and Homeland Security judged that White Nationalists and other conservative activists were a danger to the country. Conservatives had a screaming tantrum, because obviously white nationalists and anti-abortion groups weren't a threat.

The document goes on to talk vaguely about "enhanced interrogation" and "extralegal detention" of members of this group, before being abruptly cut off as we switch to a meeting in a boardroom, being led by Noah's daddy, Arthur Gardner, who is 78 years old even though his son is only 28, and who has -- I think, the writing is hard to follow here -- been hired by Homeland Security to run a PR program which will convinced "the public" that this leaked report isn't true.

No problem, Arthur says. In fact, it's already done. (How? Well, he just told the Washington Post to say it was fake. Problem solved.)

Then we have a 15-page long speech from Arthur, in which he snarls and screams at everyone in the room, including the people from Homeland Security, telling them that the truth is whatever he says it is, that he's rich, that they are cowards and fools*, and that the world is about to be destroyed by a financial tsunami.

Here he tells a story of an actual tsunami which he watched, standing on the roof of his big hotel in Sri Lanka. Lots of people died under the giant wave. He found this very interesting.

We're supposed to think Arthur is a monster -- I know, because a few pages later he name-checked Saul Alinsky along with some other evil people, like the founder of the Washington Post -- so I guess him watching hundreds of thousands of people die just for fun is supposed to reveal the depths of his villainy.

Apparently Arthur is also the one Churchhill was talking about, back in the prologue, since we also learn here that he is building a "structure," a "new framework," which will last after the USA has been washed away in the coming tsunami.

There's tons more. But my God is the writing terrible. Glenn Beck's ghostwriter apparently thinks that people stand around spouting speeches is good writing. It's not. Also, why would a super villain like Arthur Gardner reveal his plans in a boardroom filled with sixty or seventy people? Including some from Homeland Security?

I mean, is he an idiot?

Noah leaves halfway through this rant speech, and who can blame him.

So far this book is both badly written and very slow. Also, it's clear neither Glenn Beck nor his ghost writer know how actual big corporations work.

That's as much as I can take today. More later!

* ETA It occurs to me that Noah's dad is a pretty good picture of Donald Trump, right down to the world salad and the bullying. I wonder if this is intentional? I know Trump wasn't running for president in 2010, when this book was published, but he was already pretty well-known.

Trigger Warning: Ch32 to End

Why does everyone hate Jake?

This is a question Jake asks himself after one of the terrorists, a back guy, speaks harshly to him.

“Don’t give me any trouble,” the gunman said as his lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. “I’d just as soon shoot you, you son of a bitch.”  

That sounded personal, Jake thought. He wondered if the guy had a real reason to hate him, or if his skin color and political views were enough to justify that hatred.

Black people are the real bigots!

Also, the more I think about the big plot twist of Burke being part of the Bad Guys, the less it makes sense.

Did Matthias recruit her / get her hired at this university just in case he had some trouble-making guy he wanted her to woo? Or was that improvised, once they realized Jake, the Good Man with a Gun, was on campus?

If it's the latter, then why did he recruit Burke? Worse, why did she join his bizarre crime team? She doesn't seem to care about politics, and I refuse to believe anyone who is on the tenure track of an excellent university is silly enough to think his crime scheme had even the tiniest chance of success. Why blow up her life for something stupid like this?

I mean, obviously one point J.A. keeps harping on is that progressives, especially those who go to college, are stupid. And I know that's what lots of conservatives believe -- that we're just too stupid to understand Jesus, or what a gun does.

But Burke isn't written like she's stupid.

Also, if her job was to neutralize Jake, because Jake is such a threat to the Plan, then why doesn't she neutralize Jake?

She's been dating him for several days. She's been alone with him any number of times. He trusts her, apparently. I can think off the top of my head of six or seven things she could have done -- planted drugs on him, for instance, and called the police. Or planted child porn on him. Or not planted child on him and called the police to say he had child porn anyway -- that would have been enough to get him off campus, which is all they really need. Or told the campus police he has guns in his room. That would have gotten him expelled, which is -- again -- all they need.

Also! On the day of the big job, she literally invites him to the library. She makes sure he's in the library, where Matthias will be, when the Big Job kicks off. Why would she do that? Take him away for the weekend instead. Invite him away for a hot weekend in El Paso. I'm sure he would have gone.

This plot literally makes no sense.

Okay, let's wrap this up. We've got about 30% of the book left, but having skimmed through it, I have to warn you it gets really tedious.

Jake "McClane's" his way around the library, shooting people. Dr. Mtumbo joins forces with him, as does Pierce (or, as Jake calls them, 'a black Progressive and a Snowflake Professor.' I mean, good thing Jake doesn't filter everything through an ideological lens.) Neither has ever fired a gun before today, which amazes Jake. What world do these people come from, he wonders.

Um, the normal world?

Burke repents and tries to find Jake so she can apologize for being such a bad girl. She gets shot, but don't worry, she doesn't die.

But let's back up. About 75% of the way through the book, this new guy shows up. He's lean and tanned (Did I mention all the Good Guys with Guns in this book have deep tans? They do. Because cowboys, I guess.) though he's probably about 70, he moves "like a 22 year old athlete."

No fewer than three people comments on how Dog -- that's his code name -- moves like a 22 year old athlete. "He looks about 70," they will all say, "but he moves like a 22 year old athlete!"

'Dog' -- and he is constantly telling everyone to "Just call [him] Dog" -- moves through campus, shooting terrorists with preternatural skill. (One terrorist holds a woman in front of him, like a human shield, and Dog shoots him anyway, right through the mouth.)

How does he know who is a terrorist and who is not?

Because he's a Good Guy with a Gun, that's how.

Oh, and also the President has sent him here. That Trump. What a guy!

Also -- and this is the big surprise -- he's actually Jake's Uncle! (Plot twist!)

No wonder Jake is such a hero. He's genetically related to Dog.

Yes, Dog actually says this. Good genes create Good Guys with a Gun apparently.

This is also something I've noticed Conservatives believe -- that Certain People are Superior because they have Superior Genes. This is part of their White Nationalist bent, obviously. It's not their fault white people are the superior race -- it's just their genes. I mean, it's just science.

God, isn't this book over yet?

I'm leaving a lot out, such as for instance the redemption of that whiny Campus Cop who was evil because he was a progressive. He mans up and along with Jake shoots a bunch of people. Together, they free several hostages from the snack room in the library.

But of course the hostages are liberal snowflakes, and thus aren't grateful for being released.

“But . . . but is it safe?” asked a male undergrad with multiple piercings on ears, nose, and lips.  

A girl with pink hair said, “We should stay where we are until someone from the government tells us to leave.”

“The administration needs to issue a statement and address this,” added a middle-aged man who Jake pegged as a professor. “This campus is supposed to be a safe space and a gun-free zone.” He looked pointedly at the pistols Jake and Granderson held. “Neither of you should have those. You should turn them in!”

As a matter of fact, in our Mass Shooter training, the police told us very firmly that if we were holding a gun when they arrived, we would be shot. This is because, contrary to what this book claims, you can't actually tell a Good Guy with a Gun from a Bad Guy with a Gun.

And that's something this book ignores -- how Dog knows the Bad Guys from the hostages; how Jake manages to shoot down any number of people without accidentally shooting a hostage; how, if Matthias had several people undercover in the library, as we're told he did, one of those 'hostages' Jake saved didn't turn out to be one of them, so that Jake got shot in the back.

How in real life shoot-outs don't work even remotely the way they do in this book.

In the final chapters, for instance, Jake and Matthias shoot each other. Matthias dies. Jake, who had taken three slugs to the chest, spends a few weeks in the hospital and then is just fine.

Yeah, no. That's not what happens when you get shot multiple times in the chest.

Okay, I'm leaving a lot out -- for instance, the FBI show up about 70% of the way through the book, but they don't do anything except get in the way of Dog and the Chief of Campus police. Because the government is useless, obviously. Only Good Men can do anything.

And yes, it has to be men. We have two women in this book. One, Burke, is an inept traitor, and the other is a Homeland Security official, and a total bitch who hates men.

Most of these last chapters are taken up in describing the fights Jake has with people. Pages and pages of detailed descriptions of these fights, all really boring.

But in the end, Jake and Dog take down the evil progressive terrorists, and the hostages (well, most of them) are saved.

Of course, the university students all need counseling, because "that was the trouble with being a snowflake. You melted if it got the least bit warm."

See, only snowflakes would have PTSD after something like this, or need counseling. Jake, the Real Man, just shrugs it off.

Then his uncle offers him a job, being his partner.

"Work for the government?" Jake frowns.

Because governments are evil, remember.

But don't worry. Dog is a freelance Good Guy with a Gun. So Jake doesn't have to stick his snout in the government trough.

Whew! Close one.

The End

We never find out what happened to Pierce, in case you were wondering, or why Burke is a part of Matthias's crew. We do find out Burke gets arrested, after Jake saves the day, but not what happens to her after that -- does she get the death penalty?

I mean, this is Texas, and Matthias is responsible for more than 30 deaths. Given she's his accomplice, she's on the hook for all those deaths.

Also, what about the big crush Jake had on her? How he was willing to risk his life for her? And then she's a Bad Guy with a Gun? (Also, if Jake is so good at telling Good Guys from Bad Guys, why doesn't he figure out Burke is a bad guy before she has a literal gun shoved in his ribs?)

But this doesn't disturb Jake at all. He just shrugs it off. Bitches, what can you do?

Over on Amazon, the MAGA Americans writing reviews of this book are begging for a sequel. I imagine J.A. will give them one.  Anything for money, after all.

Trigger Warning Ch 21-31

This is a massively stupid book.

I mean, I get that the point isn't the plot. The point is for J.A. to include heaps of Far-Right rants, so that MAGA saps will buy her book.

But oh my God, the plotting.

Chapters 21-31

Chapter 21 is yet another encounter with the President of the University, who has summoned Jake to his office to yell at him for being a conservative. As Presidents of Universities do.

“Why? Because I’m a conservative? In an institution of higher learning, especially, shouldn’t there be room for all different kinds of viewpoints?” 

“Not the ones devoted to hate,” Pelletier said as his lip curled in a sneer.  

“I don’t hate anybody. Look around at the rest of the country, sir. The stock market’s up, unemployment is down, the economy is growing at a nice rate. Around the world, other countries respect us again.” 

The sad thing is, this is exactly what MAGA Americans believe. I've had them say this exact same thing on my FB page or on blogs. And parts of it aren't wrong -- the stock market is up (and down, and up), and employment is down. But these are mostly minimum wage and part time jobs. Wages are down, in other words, except among the very richest among us.

And no, "other countries" don't respect us. Why would they, when we've allowed ourselves to be led by a conman?

Meanwhile, Pelletier threatens to commit grade fraud to get Jake expelled.

“My grades are fine. You won’t be able to cook up something and claim that I flunked out. Not without falsifying a lot of records and getting a bunch of people to go along with you.” 

“Don’t be so sure I couldn’t do that,” Pelletier warned.  

He probably could, Jake thought. After all, the left specialized in banding together and spinning false narratives. The mainstream media had been doing it for decades. They took pride in being able to tell the public what to think, whether the so-called news they peddled bore any real resemblance to the truth or not.

Oh my God.

Blah, blah, blah. Jake leaves, heading for the library for his 'date' with Burke, and we switch to the Chief of Campus Police, McRainey, on his way to drink coffee with his buddy, Head of Groundskeeping -- who is dead! (The Bad Guys killed him for his coveralls, remember.)

While McRainey is trying to decide what to do about this, one of the Bad Guys jumps him from behind. They fight. For pages and pages and pages. Then McRainey kills the Bad Guy. I forget how, and who cares.

McRainey stumbles upon the dead guy, by the way, because the Bad Guys left him lying in the middle of the room for some reason, instead of hiding him with the other bodies. Because of course they did.

Bleeding and battered, like a true Man, McRainey calls for help.

Cut to Jake in the library, flirting with Dr. Burke. He sees Fareed with his study group and is instantly on his guard. After all, Middle Eastern guys are all terrorists.

More ranting from Jake:

Jake started to pull her chair out for her, then stopped and said, “Wait a minute. I’m not supposed to do anything polite like that, am I?” 

“Holding a woman’s chair for her is a patriarchal microaggression . . . but I’ll let it slide. This time.” Natalie’s smile and the twinkle in her eyes took any sting out of the words. 

See, this is funny, because feminists spend all their time attacking guys for
opening doors and pulling out chairs for them, and it's offensive because it attacks masculinity -- how can men be men if they can't pull out chairs for women?

(A) I have never in my life seen any woman, feminist or not, get upset about having chairs pulled out for them or doors held open.

(B) But here's a point. Conservative/Anti-Feminist men love to wave around the fact that they hold doors open, or open jars, and those feminists don't appreciate it! As if that were something women needed -- someone to hold doors for them, someone to pull out their chairs. We don't need that. We need equal pay. We need universal daycare. We need the right to control our own bodies. We need men who will do their fair share of childcare and housework. Chairs? Bitch, we can handle chairs.

Conservative/Anti-Feminist men focus on holding open doors and pulling out chairs because that is literally the least they can do. And that's the part they do.

Anyway, more political rants from Jake, more rants about feminist, more rants about how unreasonable progressives are. Then he says this, to Burke:

"The last thing I want to do is turn into one of those people who filter everything though an ideological lens."

I mean, oh, my God. I'd challenge anyone to go through this entire book and find anything Jake has said or thought that wasn't filtered through an ideological lens.

Here's an actual picture of Jake in his dorm room:

Actual Picture of Jake

Nah, not really. Jake doesn't have a phone, remember?

The Bad Guys emerge in the library. They have changed out of their groundskeeper coveralls and into regular clothes. Why?

You got me. I'm still not sure why they needed the coveralls to begin with. But once they were in them, why go through all this trouble to smuggle their regular clothes into the library (an operation we hear about in some detail) so they can change in the bathroom?

Also they've hidden weapons in the bathroom. How? Why? You've got me, but it's necessary for Matthias, our chief Bad Guy, to kill a student while he's retrieving the weapons. I'm kidding, it's totally not necessary, the student was leaving the bathroom and Matthias could have just waited for him to leave, but he kills him instead. And then knocks out another student who surprises him while he's hiding the body. He doesn't kill this guy.

Later he shoots a student who starts running as if to jump him. Which is surprising, since conservatives have assured us that in the event of a mass shooting, we should just 'swarm' the gun man and we can bring him down.

My point, though, is that Matthias is holding these students for ransom -- so why would he start shooting them? Dead hostages aren't very useful.

Oh, and we get Matthias's back story. See, he was a student at this university. He was -- and is -- a progressive. But to his shock, when he came to the university, everyone hated him as much as they hated good Patriotic American Conservatives. Why? Well, because he was working class.

Their commitment to diversity and equality didn’t extend to boys from squalid little oil-field towns like the one Foster came from, no matter how smart they were. 

You know how the progressives hate the working class.

That's why Matthias is doing all this, we discover -- he knows that the only thing progressives really respect is wealth. So he's going to get really rich, and this is the best way to do that.

Did I mention that we're supposed to believe Matthias is brilliant?

He pulls his gun and starts firing rounds into the ceiling. Everyone screams and panics, except Pierce (and Jake, but we'll get to that). Pierce just calmly assesses the situation, and makes this odd remark:

The gunman was white, fairly young, and average- looking. Nothing about him shouted “mass shooter.” 

See, Fareed. Fareed is what a terrorist looks like. A young white guy? That's a 'normal' American. White guys aren't terrorists!

Meanwhile, Fareed tries to join forces with Matthias, in order to bring down the American Infidels (yes, he literally says this) but Matthias will have none of it.

Cut t o Jake, whose catlike reflexes cause him to leap across the table -- literally across the table, knocking books and papers everywhere -- and knock Burke to the floor.

Jake twisted as they went down so that he hit the floor first and she landed on top of him, in- stead of the other way around. His weight falling on her might have seriously injured her. 

Oh my God.

Matthias shoots the guy who rushed him, shoots another round into the ceiling, and then goes off on his political rant. He wants a hundred million dollars from the families of the students, who are all part of the 1%, or he will blow up the entire university.

"That’s a one with eight zeroes after it, for those of you who believe math is racist.” 

Ha, ha, ha, see, that's funny because progressives think math is racist. He says this standing in the middle of a university. Where we teach math, and do research with math, and on math. Where there is an entire department devoted to math. But okay.

Matthias then assures them he thinks math is racist, too -- because J.A. doesn't want us to forget that he's evil because he's a progressive -- and rants some more. He only wants ransom from the 1%, because despite what J.A. told us earlier, his aim isn't actually to get rich, it's to hurt the wealthy.

That's what progressives live for, as you know, to hurt the wealthy. (We find out Pierce's father owns two Fortune 500 companies. And also McRainey, despite lying in a pool of his own blood, finds time to ruminate on how the real wealth gap in the USA isn't because rich people write the laws that allow them to loot the country. Oh no. It's because progressive write laws that allow the government to loot the working class. That's why most of the wealth in this country and the world is owned by about 30 people. Democrats.

Also regulations, somehow.

Blah, blah, blah, more political rants from everyone, despite how they're in this mass shooter situation. Jake's adviser, the one who was so evil and such a progressive, is brought to his senses by the situation. Guns aren't evil! Violence isn't evil! He steals a gun and kills one of the terrorists, and then -- Die Hard style -- climbs into the ceiling.

Jake rushes Matthias. He overpowers him, and puts a gun to his head.

But what is this! Burke has sneaked up behind Jake. She puts a gun to his ribs.

OH NO. Burke is one of the BAD GUYS.

This is the big plot twist J.A. has for us, and while it does explain why Burke would be willing to risk her career by dating and making out with Jake, it's just...bizarre.

Burke is a professor of Criminal Justice at one of the best universities in the nation. She's on the tenure track. This is what we're told. And yet we're supposed to believe she's going to join forces with someone like Matthias and his crackpot scheme to hold an entire university for ransom?

I mean, obviously J.A. has never spoken to an actual professor, but yeah, no.

I'm assuming we're going to learn that Burke was overwhelmed by her passion for Matthias, or something of that order. But also: yeah, no.

Or is she supposed to have been planted here at the university by Matthias, the way all the Bad Guy groundskeepers were, and the guy working the desk at the university, and so on? Because if that's the case, oh, hell, no.

I suspect J.A. has no idea how faculty get hired. Most people who don't work in the academy have no idea how faculty get hired, so that makes sense. But you don't just walk into HR at a major university and apply for a tenure-track job and get hired.

First there has to be an opening, and in a tenure-track job, that means someone left or someone died. Maybe Matthias killed one of the criminal justice professors? Okay, let's go with that.

Now we have to get approval to hire in that line, the tenure-track line, for that job in that department. This is a process that usually takes about a year. But maybe they put a rush job on it, because I don't know why they would, but let's pretend.

Now we have to put together a search committee, and they have to decide what they want -- what particular flavor of criminal justice professor they want, I mean -- and write a job ad. It gets placed in two or three specific journals around the world.( I assume Matthias recruited Burke before he killed the other professor, because otherwise that's just wasteful, so how did he know what sort of criminal justice professor the committee would decide they wanted? Burke has to be qualified for this job in order to get it.)

Now we wait for applications to pour in, and they do pour in. When we advertised for our last position in my department we got nearly 200 applications. And this is not a tenure-track job, and it's not at 'one of the best' universities in the country (though I like our university).

Then the committee reads all the applications, all the CVs, all the teaching philosophies and writing samples and so on. (All of these are required when you apply for most academic positions.) We choose maybe 20 that make the first cut.

Then we contact their references, and ask for letters of recommendation, or call them up and talk to them. This takes six to eight months, from start to finish.

We settle on three candidates, usually, to interview in person. We bring them to campus for a two or three day visit, so everyone can talk to them, so they can give a presentation of their research, so they can teach a class or two and we can see how they get along with our students, so we can just make sure they aren't hinky in some way, like planning to pull a heist on our campus.

Kidding. But I could tell you stories. These interviews happen for a reason.

Anyway: We choose one person to hire. We write up the justification for not hiring the other 199, as well as the justification for hiring this one, and send everything to HR. HR contacts our choice and asks for more information -- copies of transcripts, SS#, a whole pile of stuff. The justification also goes up the line to the dean and provost and the Board.

Then we wait. It's usually another few months before we get approval to hire.

By which time the person has usually taken a job at another university and we have to start over.

MY POINT IS -- yeah, if we're going to be told that Burke is on the campus as one of Matthias's plants, that just didn't happen. Maybe Matthias could get one of his men planted in the grounds crew. He couldn't get someone hired at the library. He absolutely could not get someone hired on the tenure track.

Also, if Burke were at all qualified to be hired on the tenure track, there is no way she would throw that over to help her boyfriend run this ridiculous job. Becoming qualified for a position like that -- and getting a position like that -- is the culmination of about 15 years work, and a shit ton of ambition. She's not going to give all that up.

I wouldn't write a book about what it's like to be in the military if I'd never been in the military and I didn't know anyone who had and I'd clearly never even talked to a soldier. Why does J.A. think she can write about what it's like on a university campus without ever even visiting one?

This is all I can take for now.

More Trigger Warning

Y'all, I'm pretty sure J.A. is a Sad Puppy. Either that, or she's Sad-Puppy-Adjacent. Not only is she pushing most of their alt.facts, in today's section, she uses a term I've never seen anyone else use: CTRL-Left.

Also, it would certainly explain why this book is so laughably bad. Most Sad Puppies can't write for toffee.

Chapters 15-20

If you cut out the political rants and repetition, you could get everything that happens in these chapters into about two paragraphs.

Our Bad Guy, Matthias, holds a Bad Guy meeting at his house. We find out why the Bad Guys have started about six fights with Jake so far -- because he's so dangerous that they want him off campus (or dead) before they pull their job.

How did they know he was so dangerous? I mean, before he started beating all of them up? I guess because he's a conservative patriotic American. That's essentially what Matthias says when one of Team Bad Guy suggests Jake might not be the only one on campus able and willing to thwart their Evil Plan.

"[The Left are] not violent. They abhor violence. Just ask them, they’ll tell you. Oh, they can form a mob quickly enough, if anybody offends them and violates their safe spaces, but….they won’t do anything." 

This is like Schrodinger's Immigrant (lazy and on welfare, and also he takes your job), only it's Schrodinger's Progressive. Giant spoiled babies who ALSO are total Nazis, planning to put good God-fearing Patriotic Americans in death camps.

Jake goes to a shooting range and shoots more guns. He has a fight with a 12 year old over whether his gun is big enough. (Oh my God.)

Jake thinks of quitting school, but how would he ever see Dr. Burke again if he did that?

I know J.A. told us Jake had a phone, but apparently he doesn't. I mean, he obviously doesn't realize that in the 21st century you can call people up and ask them out. Or, you know, text them.

Anyway, he goes on another date with Dr. Burke. They eat steak and make out. We find out Jake has a superpower -- he never gets lost, even when he's driving to some place where he's never been. It's just a inborn talent, that's how he is. But he's such a good guy that he lets Dr. Burke give him directions anyway.

He has yet another fight with a progressive snowflake, and makes this one cry too. That's his specialty. He beats up progressives and makes them cry. It's hilarious.

His fight with the snowflake (who calls him a Nazi) gets put on YouTube, and everyone believes he's a Nazi bigot now except one black guy, Pierce. He's in the book so we can see that J.A. isn't a racist and neither is Jake, despite some racist things he says to Pierce right away.

But Pierce isn't a sensitive snowflake, so he just laughs. Ha ha. Racism is a hilarious. Also later we find out that Pierce's father is the Real Racist. (Black people are the real bigots!)

This is an attitude toward non-white-people I have seen over and over again from conservatives who insist they aren't racist. It's not that they hate or dislike black people. Why, they have black friends! They hire black people! How can they be racist?

But when you talk to them, they will invariably let you know that these black people are different -- not like those other black people. These black people are Good Ones.

I think I've told this story here before, but once when I was in graduate school in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a white woman sat down next to me in a bar -- a total stranger, someone I had never seen -- and informed me drunkenly that she wasn't racist. "I'm not racist," she said, "but there are black people, and then there are n****rs. Know what I mean? You know what I mean!"

After he beats up the snowflake and realizes Pierce is one of the Good Ones, Jake remembers the small-l-liberals he had known in the army, 'Classical Liberals,' who unlike these snowflakes weren't evil, just wrong. Then he remembers something funny.

The Cntrl-Left, Jake thought with a smile, remembering a term someone on the Internet had come up with to mock the lockstep progressives and their obsession with the so-called Alt-Right. Because if there was any group in modern American society that truly wanted to control everyone and everything, it was the Left . . . 

The so-called Alt-Right.

Let's just skip ahead some.

In Chapter 18, the novel finally begins. Matthias and Team Bad Guy kill six or seven groundskeepers, apparently so they can steal their coveralls. This makes no sense, given that -- as we find out -- Matthias has been working on the grounds crew for months. Is there a reason he didn't just steal some coveralls? Or, I don't know, buy some? They're not that expensive.

ALSO: The grounds crew, at least on my university, does not wear a uniform. I'd be surprised if they wore a uniform anywhere. Why would they?

But we've already established that J.A. has never been on a college campus. She's also pretty bad at plotting criminal activity. I think this scene is in the book so she can point out that Banning Guns on Campus Doesn't Work, since the Bad Guys don't follow the rules. One of the grounds crew, who is also a progressive snowflake student (wait, I thought progressives were all spoiled rich kids?) protests when Matthias pulls his handgun:

“[You] need to put that gun away. You shouldn’t even have a gun here on campus. You know they’re prohibited. Hell, we put up the signs that say they’re prohibited!” 

Don't worry, this snowflake gets his. That'll teach him to go around without an AK-47.

I'm not sure why conservatives keep replaying this fantasy and ones like it, as if they're the only ones who can figure out that criminals don't obey the law.

(1) It's not the criminals we're worried about. It's regular people, who will keep their guns in the dorm rooms or carry them in their backpacks or whatever. Jake is of course a perfect gun owner, so he would never leave his weapon unsecured (except we see him doing just that) or carry it about loose in a jacket pocket (he does this too), so there's no chance in this little Fantasy World of some drunk 18 year old picking up a gun and shooting some other drunk 18 year old. And there's no chance of some hot-headed freshman getting in a fight over politics and yanking out his gun. That doesn't happen, in this Fantasy Conservatives land. In the real world, yeah, it happens all the time. And the more guns lying about loose, the more it happens.

(2) The NO GUNS ALLOWED sign functions like all rules and laws function. Laws don't stop criminals from committing crimes. They give us something we can do once the criminals have. Right now, guns are allowed on our campus. So if our Campus Police see a student with a gun, there is literally nothing they can do. A couple years ago, they could investigate, arrest the guy, get him and his gun off campus. Now? Now they just have to wait and see whether this is a Good Guy with a Gun, or maybe a guy who plans to murder 20 or 30 people.

I don't believe conservatives don't know this. They just ignore it, because -- like Jake -- they need their guns to feel safe. I mean, progressives are terribly scary, giant snowflakes that we are. Who knows what we might do if Jake didn't have his gun? Maybe we would call him a name and cry at him.

Blah, blah, blah. Pierce goes to the library. Oh, and Jake and Dr. Burke are headed there too -- for a study date. For some reason, they can't study in Dr. Burke's office. It's not because she's afraid of being alone with him, either. He does warn her that being his girlfriend might be bad for her career, but he doesn't mean it's because she's sleeping with a student.

Nope.

It's because she's sleeping with a conservative.

(Me: "OH MY GOD.")

Anyway, Pierce goes to meet his study group, ruminating as he does, and we learn that Pierce Did Research and found out the Real Voter Fraud comes from the Left and the Real Voter Suppression comes from Black Lives Matter and OH MY GOD. (None of this is true, obviously. The BLM thing is probably from a popular FB post shared on the right, showing what was allegedly Black Panthers outside a polling place. Upon  investigation, these turned out to be men escorting people to the polls. But they were black men, so ipso facto this is Voter Intimidation, since -- obviously -- any black man is scary to your white conservative.)

Pierce's study group is made up of Straw Liberals, including a girl with pink hair and a Islamic man, Fareed, who is plotting violent treason against the USA. Pierce isn't fooled by Fareed:

When the day came, if Fareed had his way, a soft little blob like Clark would be slaughtered with the rest of the infidels. Jenny, for sure, and maybe even Margery, would be raped to death for the glory of Allah.

Margery probably won't be raped to death, see, because she's fat, and as we all know, men only rape hot women. ("OH MY GOD.")

ANYWAY.

In Chapter 20, there is an extended scene in which one of the Campus police officers nearly assaults a working-class (white) man on campus to make a delivery. We see the officer do everything we've become accustomed to seeing real police offers do to black men and children on video, but afterwards, J.A. makes it clear that this fascist police officer is actually a Progressive, which is why he acts this way. (Oh my god.)

Bonus mention of Saul Alinsky. Of course.

For those keeping score at home: We're over 40% of the way through the book, according to my Kindle, and the plot is barely started.

Here, by the way, is a photo that was shared on my FB by a MAGA American (one that I am sad to admit is my cousin).

"The Only LGBT I Support"

All lives matter indeed.