#and major sees his cards as pawns to serve his entertainment

[stairset]

Since the series finale is coming up I wanna talk about all my absolute favorite Rebels episodes, in the order they aired bc ranking them would be so hard and I'm lazy, and why I love them because I feel like I owe it to a show that's been a huge part of my life for the last few years and was one of the things that got me through the nightmare that is the teenage years.

Rise of the Old Masters: I think every good show has that one great episode early on that just tells you "this is gonna be a good show, we have a plan" and gets you hooked, and I believe this was that episode for Rebels. Spark of Rebellion was a solid start, Droids in Distress and Fighter Flight were slower episodes to help you get to know the characters a bit more, and then this episode is, for lack of a better term, when shit started getting real. Ezra and Kanan's relationship starts developing, the Grand Inquisitor is introduced in person and makes a great first impression, we get some of our first major Clone Wars connections, etc. It also uses Yoda's famous "do or do not" line to deliver a nice message. "I'm not gonna TRY to teach you anymore. If all I do is try, that means I don't truly believe I can succeed, so from now on, I WILL teach you".

Path of the Jedi: Once again, Kanan and Ezra both have a lot of development here, both as a team and as individuals. The crazy visions that Ezra experiences were some of the darkest and most intense things in the show at the time, and Frank Oz guest appearing as Yoda's voice and Ezra finally constructing his own lightsaber are both great crowd pleasing moments. It also happens to be the first appearance of the world between worlds, though neither Ezra or the audience realized it at the time, which just goes to show how far back the writers planned everything out.

Call To Action: Tarkin makes his debut and calls out our other villains on their relative incompetence throughout the season, even going so far as to, erm, make an example of two of them, and succeeds where they have failed, even capturing Kanan in the process. Despite the cliffhanger, it's a bittersweet ending as the crew does succeed in their mission to deliver a message of hope to Lothal and the surrounding systems. This is where the stakes start to raise, and it shows.

Fire Across the Galaxy: Ending the first season with a bang, the crew rescues Kanan on Tarkin's star destroyer above Mustafar, the stolen TIE from Fighter Flight actually ends up being relevant, the Grand Inquisitor is sent off in the perfect way, the crew joins with Pheonix Squadron, giving us our earliest look at the growing rebellion, and of course the moment everyone remembers, the reintroduction to Ahsoka Tano, and her former master not long after. It was the perfect way to end the first season while getting everyone hyped for the next.

The Siege of Lothal: Everyone was absolutely hyped for the season 2 premiere and it did not disappoint. While many worried that Vader would be toned down for the show, he proved to be as threatening as ever, outsmarting our heroes time and again, kicking Kanan and Ezra's asses, and putting his pilot skills to use by taking on the entirety of Pheonix Squadron himself. And of course there's the unforgettable scene where he and Ahsoka sense each other and James Earl Jones delivers the iconic, bone chilling line "the apprentice lives".

Stealth Strike: This episode was just fun, plain and simple. Kanan and Rex's bickering, Ezra's interactions with Sato, it was all hilarious and entertaining. It was sweet seeing Kanan and Rex finally start getting along, and it also happens to be one of the few times Commander Sato played a major role in an episode. Despite Sato's fairly minor role in the show I always liked him, so seeing him in the action with the lead characters was nice.

The Future of the Force: The Inquisitors are after force sensitive children to ensure that they don't grow up to become Jedi, and it's up to Ezra, Kanan, Zeb and Ahsoka to stop them. Kanan, Ezra and Zeb having to get out of the apartment building with the Inquisitors hot on their trail was intense and lead to an entertaining chase through town, and it all culminated in the elic fight between Ahsoka and the Inquisitors where we see her brandish her white lightsabers for the first time. The episode also serves as a bit of a continuation of the Clone Wars season 2 premiere, in which Sidious hires Cad Bane to help carry out a very similar plot.

Legacy: The episode starts off intense with the Empire attacking the Rebels at their current location after Ezra accidentally gave it away in the previous episode, while the rest is much slower, as Ezra follows a trail of force breadcrumbs to Ryder Azadi, from whom he finally learns the tragic fate of his parents. I think I speak for a lot of people when I expected him to reunite with them, so the revelation of their deaths was a bit of a shocker, and Ezra's reaction, his vison of being with them on a better Lothal, and Kanan's statement that they'll live on in him were all beautifully tearjerking.

Shroud of Darkness: Even though this episode basically exists for the purpose of setting up the season finale, it still stands on its own as a fan favorite, and rightfully so. Our Jedi Trio of Ezra, Kanan and Ahsoka see lots of cool, trippy visions in the Lothal temple, including the Grand Inquisitor and the revelation of his backstory, the return of Frank Oz as Yoda (this time face to face), and of course Ahsoka getting confirmation that Vader really is her old master, with Matt Lanter reprising his role. The episode also has a number of iconic shots, including the temple guard avatars surrounding the Inquisitors, Ahsoka seeing Yoda in an homage to The Last Crusade, and Vader entering the Lothal temple at the end to meet with his Inquisitors in person.

Thhe Mystery of Chopper Base: A rather straight forward adventure, featuring the crew having to rescue Rex from some creepy ass spider creatures. Like Stealth Strike, this episode is simply fun. It's got so many great interactions between our main crew. But there's also a lingering feeling of dread throughout because, because you know there gonna be separated soon and that something's gonna go wrong because, well, it's Star Wars. It leads into the season finale perfectly.

Twilight of the Apprentice: We all remember this one. We all remember our exact reactions to everything in it. Maul is introduced, Ezra starts being tempted by the dark side, the Inquisitors are all killed off, Kanan is blided, and of course Ahsoka and Vader have their climactic duel that was built up for the whole season and did not disappoint, and the last minute or so simply showing the aftermath of everything that happened as “It’s All Over” plays is so effective with absolutely no dialogue. Not only that, but, and I’ve said this before, this episode is also the point where all the big parts of the timeline directly come together. In this episode, Rebels, Clone Wars, the prequels, the originals and even the sequels are all directly connected in a way that they never were before, and it’s not until a later episode that they’re all connected on that same level again. This episode, and subsequently the whole show, is the fulcrum of the Star Wars saga.

The Holocrons of Fate: Maul makes his return and has his sights set on both the Sith holocron from Malachor and Kanan’s Jedi holocron so that he can combine their power to learn any knowledge he desires. This leads to our mind-blowing climax in which Maul learns through the light of the holocrons that Obi-wan is still alive and sets off to find him, while Ezra sees a vision of twin suns, also pointing to Obi-wan, albeit in a less direct way. While the whole episode is entertaining the ending is truly what sets its place as one of the best simply because of the epic factor.

The Last Battle: This episode is simply a half hour of pure unadultered Clone Wars nostalgia and I loved every goddamn second of it. Everything from the battle of Christophsis soundtrack to the return of the droid humor from tcw to General Kalani from the Onderon arc being there to the heroes having to team up with the droids thanks to Ezra being the voice of reason and making them realize they were all just pawns for Palpatine and he is their true enemy, and the yellow Clone Wars style title card at the end with the Clone Wars theme playing during the credits, it’s just a giant love letter to the entire Clone Wars fanbase, a thank you for helping the crew get where they are today. It shows how much they truly appreciate their fans, which shouldn’t be a rare thing with content creators but it is.

An Inside Man: I have a sorta complicated relationship with Agent Kallus, who I guess isn’t an agent anymore but that’s beside the point. I don’t like him that much as I feel his redemption arc could’ve been handled much better and he could’ve done more to earn it, which I’ve talked about before. Yet despite this, I love not only this episode but another Kallus centered episode later on that I’ll get to. This whole episode is intense and excited. Mister Sumar, a minor character from season 1, is reintroduced only to be brutally killed by Thrawn, seeting the stakes for the episode, and establishing Thrawn as an effective villain. While Thrawn’s episodes before this one were more about him simply studying the heroes from behind the scenes, this is the point where he starts taking direct action against the heroes, and does it damn well. He figures out all their tricks that all the Imperials before him overlooked, and Kanan and Ezra only barely get out.

Visions and Voices: Maul returns once again to finish his mind connection with Ezra, leading to the return to Dathomir where the ghosts of the Nightsisters serve as the Guest Appearance Of The Week and posess Kanan and Sabine in rather creepy ways, Ezra also discovers Obi-wan is alive while Maul finds out where he’s hiding, and of course Sabine gets her hands on the darksaber. Like Shroud of Darkness this episode exists just to set up a climactic fight in a later episode, but still stands on it’s own.

Trials of the Darksaber/Legacy of Mandalore: I put these together because they’re basically a two-parter and because I love them for largely the same reasons. These were the first Sabine episodes where she finally got some real, major development as a character. Previous Sabine centered episode seemed to all follow the pattern of “have some dialogue hinting at her backstory that we give away in the sneak peeks then no other answers” and it was frustrating because beyond that those episodes were solid episode, but the way they kept promoting them to be bigger than they were did effect my enjoyment of them at the time. These episode finally resolve that problem and give us payoff to all those hints, and boy was that payoff satisfying. We get the backstory of the darksaber, Sabine training, we’re finally introduced to her family, and the final battle between Sabine and Gar Saxon is simply epic.

Through Imperial Eyes: This is the other Kallus episode that I love despite my “meh” opinion of the character. The banter between Kallus and Ezra is very entertaining to watch, Kallus’s plan for framing Liste as the traitor to keep his cover is very clever, though obviously not clever enough to fool Thrawn, who once again proves to be a great villain and shows that he can hold his own in a physical fight, and of course Yularen appearing was cool.

Twin Suns: The long awaited final showdown between Obi-wan and Maul, who actually finally dies for good, like is really, seriously, legit, for real, in actuality, finally permanently dead, deceased, lifeless, killed, devoid of life, sleeping with the fishes, an ex-person. At first I was in the crowd of people who were like “what the fuck” at how quick he went out, but in analysis I wouldn’t have it any other way. It shows how much Obi-wan has wisened over the years whereas Maul never learned, never changed, and tried the same thing he did on Qui-Gon, and it proved to be his final downfall. The way Obi-wan holds Maul’s body in his arms the same way he did with both Qui-Gon and Satine so many years before, and shows sadness and pity that it couldn’t have turned out differently is absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking. The cartoons made Maul such an interesting character, and cemented him as one of my favorite villains, and I couldn’t ask for a better conclusion to this decades old rivalry.

Zero Hour: While not as mind blowing as the previous season’s finale, Zero Hour is still and intense and action packed way to conclude the season. We see the end of Pheonix Squadron and the beginnings of then true Rebel Alliance, Sato gets an epic and heroic send off, the fight in space with Ezra and the Mandos is epic, the Bendu gives us a glimpse of his true power, and Thrawn is as great a villain as ever. The whole thing is simply epic.

In The Name of the Rebellion: We finally saw the Rebel Alliance on Yavin 4 in all its glory, Saw makes a return and, as I said when the episodes first aired, I believe the Moral Ambiguity with his character, while still not perfect, was handled better here than in Ghosts of Geonosis, but i don’t feel like repeating myself so just look the post up if you haven’t read it already. Anyway Saw’s interactions with Ezra and Sabine were a lot of fun to watch, like if we’re still giving everyone space fmaily nicknames then Saw is like the slightly crazed but still kinda cool uncle in this episode. All the connections to Rogue One were a ton of fun to piece together, and it was great to finally see a giant kyber crystal that’s actually fully animated. Also Jennifer Hale was in it so that’s pretty neat.

Flight of the Defender: A very simple and straight forward episode. Ezra and Sabine steal the TIE defender prototype, they crash it and hide the hyperdrive, we meet the white lothwolf who helps them get back to their friends. I can’t even really explain why I like this one so much tbh, but I do.

Jedi Night/DUMJE: We all know why these episodes are here. I couldn’t ask for a more epic and heartbreaking send off for Kanan’s character, and I’m glad that they dedicated the entire following episode to showing how the rest of the cast deals with their grief in different way rather than glossing over it and immediately moving on to the Mortis stuff. It’s surprisingly rare for characters to get to properly grieve in this franchise despite death being so common. Obi-wan, Galen, Han, Luke, the entire population of Alderaan, the other characters have to get over these things pretty quickly so it’s nice to see a more realistic aftermath for once.

Wolves and a Door/A World Between Worlds: I’ve made my thoughts on these episodes very clear since they aired on Monday, which is that they are quite possibly the most mind blowing thing I’ve watched in a very long time. The connections to Mortis and callbacks to all the movies and to Clone Wars, the voices in the background, the beautifully animated moving pictures, the return of Ahsoka and the revelation of what happened to her, Sidious making his debute with Ian McDiarmid himself providing the voice, it’s all incredible to watch. Like I said about Twilight of the Apprentice, this episode is one of the few times where we get an idea of just how connected everything really is, that it’s all one big story. No wonder the two episodes are also so tightly connected to each other, they truly are where all the parts of the saga come together in ways they never could otherwise.

#this is quite possibly the longest post ive ever made im just. so passionate about this show ok #its so important to me i just had to make a big huge analysis about why i love it so much #im gonna miss it so much but im glad its gonna get the proper ending it deserves #instead of getting canned while still in its prime like tcw #star wars rebels #shut up tristan

[skepticraven]

GOP vs Chicago

I know this is a long post but stick with me. I think you’ll find it informative. 

Turns out Chicago doesn't have the highest murder rate in the country. Anyone who says that is manipulating the facts. Chicago has the 3rd largest population. Everybody dies so more people equals more deaths by cancer, heart disease, car accidents, and yes, murder. However, you have to factor in the population with the number of gun deaths to determine whether dying there by the bullet is more likely than anywhere else.  On a per capita basis, Chicago’s shooting epidemic is not nearly as severe as the violence in many other American cities. In the words of Trevor Noah, “Would you rather be in a big city with 5 Pennywise the Clowns running around. Or in an Uber carpool with just one?” (See chart below before reading on).

Gun deaths anywhere are a problem. A big one. But gun deaths in Chicago aren't so common that it warrants Trump and other Republicans talking about that city and only that city. So why are they talking about Chicago all the fucking time? There are 3 main carefully calculated reasons:

1) Illinois is a blue state which is a more comfortable point of criticism for Republicans than is cities like St. Louis or New Orleans, which are in Red states. There is no way Republican politicians would publicly draw a line between red states with lax gun laws and high per capita rates of gun violence. That is the reality they are trying to distract you from.

2) Also, Republicans want you to believe that Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the country (which isn't true but we'll get to that). Republicans believe they can use the lie about Chicago having the strictest gun laws, combined with the lie about Chicago having the highest rate of gun deaths, in order to discredit any suggestion of regulating firearms. The problem is that Chicago doesn't have the most gun deaths, nor do they have the toughest gun laws in the country. People can own handguns in Chicago. You can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Chicago if you take an extremely short class. Their supposedly strict gun laws boil down to a few things: requiring a state-issued "Firearm Owners Identification" card to purchase a weapon. (That said, Chicago residents can just drive a couple hours away to skirt that regulation). Stolen weapons must be reported within 72 hours. There is an assault weapons ban only in Cook County, Illinois. New York and Los Angeles have stricter gun laws and both have a lower per capita firearm-related death tolls. 

Now would nationwide stricter gun laws eliminate ALL gun violence? No. Of course not, but when has a complete ceasing of criminal behavior been the point of any law? The idea has always been a reduction of a negative behavior. There will always the black market but nationwide regulation would stop some people. I mean, there are people on the terrorist watch list who can buy a gun because we regulate so little. Any rational person can see the problem with that. We know for a fact that gun regulation can and does reduce the number of gun-related deaths when said regulation is implemented nationwide. We know this by looking at the levels of firearm-related fatalities in other countries. (See graph below). The countries who regulate have less violence. The number of gun deaths in Germany, for example, is about on par with how many Americans die from being hit with a falling object. A Japanese person is as likely to be shot and killed, as an American is to be struck by lightning.

3) The third reason the GOP targets Chicago with misinformation is that Obama is from Chicago. The Trump Administration is systematically dismantling or trying to dismantle everything Obama or his administration ever did: The Paris Climate Agreement, The Iran Deal, ObamaCare, the ban on oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, allowing transgender people to serve military, the standards that were set to ensure livestock deemed “USDA Organic” is treated more humanely than those in conventional farming, etc. etc. etc. Be it big or small, Trump wants to end it all. So, going after Chicago is a way for Trump and the Republicans to say Obama failed. In fact, there is footage in that Trevor Noah clip I posted above of them blaming the gun violence in Chicago on Obama. Trump went so far as to say that Chicago is worse than Afghanistan. That seems to awfully disrespectful to the soldiers serving in Afghanistan but then again, the military was only ever a political chess piece to Trump.

                                         SUGGESTIONS

We do a lot of arguing in this country about guns but rarely do we get into the specifics of what people mean when they say we need stricter gun control legislation. So I thought it was important to clarify that. Republicans frequently fear monger about the Liberals wanting to take all guns but that just is not true for the overwhelming majority of us. Obviously, there are differences of opinion between liberal-to-liberal but this is my thoughts as to what needs to be implemented: 

-Mandatory background checks for firearm purchases (even for private sales and gun shows) are necessary to stop mentally ill folks, felons, people on the terrorist watch list, etc. from getting guns.

-We need to allow mental health professionals to report people to the police who could be a threat to the public or themselves, without fear of being sued for a HIPPA violation. For example, if they have expressed suicidal/homicidal ideations in the last year or they are unable to tell reality from hallucinations/delusions. Depending on the situation maybe their access to firearms is only temporarily cut off and any weapons they owned are stored in a secure location. Other patients may need to be indefinitely restricted.

-We need to increase communication between gun stores and police. For example, if someone is buying enough weapons and ammunition to create their own little Waco, its worth making the cops aware. Doesn’t mean the cops need to automatically take the guns from whoever purchased them but they should at least be able to check out the purchaser.

-Assault weapons should be banned. Those are not weapons used for hunting nor are they practical, easily mobile weapons for self-defense. Nobody is coming to rob your house with a small army that you need to be able to fire off 90-120 rounds per minute. And public safety supersedes your temporary entertainment at a gun range. Get a different gun. Perhaps there can be some kind of program where people get money for surrendering assault weapons voluntarily and illegal gun owners would not be penalized for handing the gun or guns over voluntarily. The financial incentive would obviously only be a fraction of the original purchase price (like a pawn store) but if the firearms could be repurposed for military use, it would save tax dollars in the long run. 

-Report your firearm if stolen. Do so within 12 hours of when you become aware that it is missing so perhaps the thief can be apprehended before he uses it.

-If you're a parent or guardian, keep your weapon securely away from unsupervised children, in a gun safe or similar secure storage container.

-Outlaw silencers. Why give people the opportunity to conceal their crime? If you are concerned about your hearing, wear earplugs or protective silencing ear muffs when you are at the gun range. 

-Trump recently undid yet another program supported by Obama when he pulled funding from Life After Hate, an organization that helped White Nationalists and Neo-Nazis get out of violent extremist groups. That absolutely needs to be reinstated. In fact, I would give extra funds to this group and similar organizations that focus on getting people out of gangs, cartels, and other forms of criminal organizations. Some people could be persuaded away from committing violent crimes if they felt like they had another choice. Time to give them one.

#guns #gun violence #las vegas shooting #chicago #st. louis #neworleans #politics #republican #democrats #liberal #conservative #gun reform #gun legislation #gun safety #firearms #violence #violence is not the answer #trump #donald trump #president trump #against trump #stop lying #misinformation #the more you know #gop #stoptheviolence #shooting

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: November 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of November 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

In the mind of proven liar Boris Johnson it was a competition between him and David Cameron to see who could give less of a shit about various parts of the UK being flooded, and of course Johnson “won” that contest by not deigning to pay it the slightest bit of attention for over a week, comfortably beating Cameron’s previous record of not caring by a couple of days

It appears that Jeanine Áñez Chávez believes the 1970s was the height of South American politics considering her policies are a grab bag of every dictator of the decade, from American interests installing her as president over the democratically-elected head of state in much the same way that Pinochet became Chilean leader, while her outright demonising of the indigenous people almost identical to Stroessner’s policies in Paraguay during the same period

There’s a very good reason why the advisors of Prince Andrew expressly told him to not do any TV interviews about the links between him and Jeffrey Epstein, that reason being that when he ignored their advice and thought he could handle a TV interview about his links to Jeffrey Epstein it was a complete train wreck for everyone but the Woking branch of Pizza Express, which in turn caused his advisors to quit

Not only did proven liar Boris Johnson duck out of Channel 4′s live debate on climate change - just like he ducked out of Channel 4′s leaders debate earlier that same week - but he dispatched a camera-crew toting Michael Gove and his fucking father to debate on his behalf, both of whom were promptly told to bugger off by Channel 4 as neither are the Tory leader.  So of course, the immediate response to this was to threaten to pull Channel 4′s broadcasting license

...and the following day Stanley Johnson appeared on Victoria Derbyshire to call the British public illiterate, because in his mind telling the public they can’t even spell Pinocchio means they cannot compare his son to the character

Says a lot that the Conservatives stooped to doctoring footage of an interview with Keir Starmer on the very first day of the election campaign, trying to convince people that Labour’s position on Britait is difficult to understand, and this clip was shared by MPs such as Matt Hancock to establish that lying through their teeth is the first card they intend to play 

...although this didn’t look so clever when James Cleverly ran and hid rather than face questions about this from Sky News the following day, having previously had his backside handed to him on Good Morning Britain of all shows earlier that morning, receiving the empty chair treatment as a result.  He had no issues scuttling off to his LBC safe space where Julia Halfwit-Brewer would pander to his ever lie an hour later (and not, as Tory cheerleaders try and claim, at the same time Kay Burley was lying about him being at Sky News’ studio)

...and it wasn’t long before the BBC turned their hand to doctoring footage, though, when they took it upon themselves to edit out proven liar Boris Johnson laying a wreath at the cenotaph the wrong way up and replace it with a clip from 2016, and when called out for it claimed it was a “production error” as if it’s a perfectly normal mistake to remove a clip from footage shot by the BBC and replace it with a clip shot by the BBC three years ago that would have obviously been readily available in the edit bay as news editor Rob Burley accused anyone noticing the obvious bollocksness of the official line as “conspiracy theorists”

...and it wasn't the last time Rob Burley bullshat the public that week, either, as his response to the BBC using the caption “Broadband ‘Communism’” when discussing Labour’s play to make broadband free he took to Twitter to try and shout down anyone suggesting the BBC were outragiously biased in their framing of the story by saying the BBC weren’t doing the framing in spite of the caption “Broadband ‘Communism’” being added to BBC footage by a BBC editor at the BBC studio

...and yet the BBC weren't done with their Pravda approach to broadcast journalism, given how proven liar Boris Johnson’s claim during the leader’s debate that the public can trust him drew actual laughter from the audience, yet in every instance where the BBC have replayed that clip since the laughter has been edited out

Tory sociopathy continued unabated when Jacob Rees-Mogg stated in an interview that the responsibility for those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire didn’t lie with the landlords covering the building with highly-flammable cladding, but entirely at the feet of those who died for lacking common sense.  The only bright spot of the interview (or between his ears) is he neglected to follow up with the blatant attempt to shift the blame onto the fire brigade instead of those who just so happen to have slashed the number of firefighters and fire stations since 2010

...but don’t worry, in rushed Laura Kuenssberg to describe the comments as a “gaffe” as opposed to, say, a deeply-crass piece of victim blaming that is only possible if you see those of a lower social class than you as being sub-human

Nothing sums up the Tories better than the Tory Press Office changing its Twitter handle to “FactCheckUK” ahead of the first leader’s debate in a blatant attempt to mislead the public - and the fact that Dominic Raab tried to defend their doing this by saying nobody cares about social media only serves to beg the question why, if nobody cares about social media, why the Tories would stoop to using social media in a clear attempt to mislead the public

...yet that isn't the most charmless thing Dominic Raab did that particular week: that would be slapping the parents of Harry Dunn with legal costs fas if they’d actually done a single damn thing about Anne Sacoolas fleeing back to US soil after killing their son in a hit and run incident, and because he hadn’t punched down quite enough he promptly made sure Dunn’s family were locked out of a local hustings so they couldn’t give him both barrels 

...nor was it the last time the Tory Press Office was caught flooding the internet with misinformation, as they launched a website purporting to be the Labour election manifesto which was just a long list of outright lies and smears 

Nobody appears to have told Michael Gove that campaigning was suspended in the wake of the London Bridge attack, given he showed up to a campaign rally in Cobham that evening - sort of like he did in the wake of Jo Cox’s murder in 2016

The good news for WWE is their most recent biannual show in Saudi Arabia wasn’t the in-ring trainwreck the previous three have been.  The bad news is they found a new way to be at the centre of a PR shitstorm when the majority of the wrestlers for the show were stranded in Saudi Arabia and having to pay for their own flights home while management plus a handful of preferred wrestlers flew home without them, and only made the situation worse by issuing the usual passive aggressive ass-covering statement 

Not only has Matt Hancock spent the entire month being nothing more than an ersatz James Cleverly, whose role is to keep pumping outright lies and fabrications into the Twittersphere, but he also demonstrated the Tory debating tactics perfectly at a hustings where he kept repeating his repeatedly-debunked lie about nursing numbers until the audience were outright laughing at him, at which point he played the “Layber anteesemmatizm” card...at which point the crowd utterly tore into him for using such an obvious tactic

As if Jo Swinson wasn’t already farting deluded gibberish out of her face, it suddenly occurred to her that she’s a victim of oppression given she threatened legal action against ITV for not inviting the leader of the fourth-largest political party in the UK to the leader’s debates, and if that wasn’t all she constantly whined about Jeremy Corbyn and proven liar Boris Johnson being white men under the impression she doesn’t fulfill 50% of the victim complex she insists on whinging about

Good to see that the BBC are keeping their viewers educated, informed and entertained with their election coverage by pretending that proven liar Boris Johnson’s visit to Addenbrooke’s hospital didn’t happen as showing any footage of his visit would mean broadcasting the jeers he received from staff and patients alike, but they did find the time and effort to accuse Jeremy Corbyn of politicising the NHS - because as we all know, proven liar Boris Johnson has never used the NHS as a pawn in his political games

Somebody should probably tell the Liberal Democrats that telling the Labour  candidate for Portsmouth South to step aside so they can win the seat and bluster about how if they don’t will had the Tories the victory is not the smartest strategy to adopt when the Labour candidate is the sitting MP and they’re basing their assumptions off a solitary opinion poll

...equally telling is how the Liberal Democrats responded to Tim Walker stepping aside in Canterbury, which is another marginal held by a pro-Remain Labour MP: they immediately responded by saying they would field another candidate in the constituency and saying they would stand against Labour in every seat - which is interesting, because they sure as hell aren’t standing against the Tories in every seat... 

Not only did Kwasi Kwarteng pull a figure of £1.2tr out of his backside to describe Labour spending plans, both believing it would be spent in one lump sum while neglecting to mention his made-up figure is still significantly lower than the nine years of Tory-incurred debt, but then he claimed he wouldn’t bandy about figures when asked what the Tory spending budget was costed at

I’m sure Michael Gove thought he was being oh-so-clever when making as much as he could about Jeremy Corbyn being heckled for being a terrorist sympathiser by a church minister.  However, all he actually did was signal boost the fact that Richard Cameron had a history of Islamophobic and homophobic tweets, which saw him promptly suspended by the Church of Scotland

At first it looked as if Heidi Allen had coined a smart idea with the Remain Alliance...until a more cursory glance revealed that the basis of this alliance consisted of the Lib Dems standing aside for the Greens in seats where Labour had majorities of 5000+ at the last election while the Greens stand aside in Labour marginals, at which point the Greens started announcing they would stand aside in the seats they were designated to support Labour

Of course Ian Austin slithered out of the woodwork to rant about Jeremy Corbyn and telling all Labour supporters to vote Tory - and equally unsurprising was how it was the BBC giving him a free platform to do so while neglecting to mention that Austin has been working as a Tory-appointed trade envoy for six months, thus making his endorsement more than a little bit questionable 

Who knew that Richard Spencer was a racist piece of shit?  Well...anyone who actually paid attention for the last three years, rather than call him the dapper face of the right while ignoring what he was saying at any point

I’m sure in the mind of Jo Swinson it was a “win” when she took the SNP to court over their claims she was given a bung by a fracking company when in fact she was given a bung by the boss of a fracking company...but in the mind of everyone else what she did was clarify that the bung exists, that she accepted it, and by taking the matter to court she brought it to the forefront

The Lib Dems’ priorities became clear when Sam Gyimah outright lied and blamed the Labour candidate for Kensington for the Grenfell fire yet drew no comment from the party whatsoever, just like the Liberal Democrats posting election pamphlets riddled with one lie after another through people’s doors draws no comment from the party whatsoever...yet when a satirical article suggested that Jo Swinson kills squirrels for sport the party went off the deep end to issue one denial after another in record time

Smirking halfwit Priti Patel had an interesting take on the drastic increase in poverty that’s happened in the last nine years of Tory rule: it’s definitely not the fault of the Tory government and entirely the fault of the local councils - and of course, you’d be a fool or a communist to point out that local councils have had their funding cut for the past nine years by...well look at that, it would appear the Tory government are the ones who have spent the past nine years cutting the budgets of local councils

It says all you need to know about Michael Gove that, when confronted with evidence that the Tories have built approximately 200,000 less social houses than the 200,000 they pledged to build, the only response he could think of was “But Jeremy Corbyn...” as if that’s a valid defence for the Fyre Festival doing a better job of providing accommodation than the Tories have

It seems the Lib Dems forgot to lock Ed Davey in a cupboard for the duration of the election campaign as every time he popped up he justified the term “Yellow Tories” first by saying that he hoped that austerity would continue, and then by saying the Lib Dems would gladly go into coalition with the Tories if a second referendum was dangled in front of their noses

It’s obvious that Israel Folau has decided he may as well be an alt-right troll at this point, considering he used the bushfires that have left at least six dead as an excuse for a little gay-bashing on Twitter

It was dickheaded enough that Gideon Bull would resort to calling a Jewish councillor “Shylock” - but to try and cover his backside by claiming he didn't know that the character Shylock was Jewish only served to hand several dozen feet more rope to him before it dawned on him that stepping down was what he should’ve done in the first place 

As there weren’t enough subjects for Dinesh D’Souza to be pig ignorant about, he decided to wade into the debate about climate change and say there is no need to be afraid because fifty years ago fearmongers were afraid of nuclear winter and that hasn’t happened, seemingly under the impression that nuclear winter is related to the weather and not something minor like global thermonuclear war...

At some point Billy Corgan needs to accept that Jim Cornette is only doing damage to his relaunched NWA brand, especially after an episode of NWA Power had to be pulled and swiftly re-edited as they had to remove a joke Cornette made about the Ethiopian famine from the show’s commentary

Somebody at FC Den Bosch thought it was a good idea to try and claim that it wasn’t racist abuse that Ahmad Mendes Moreira heard from Den Bosch fans but “crow sounds.”  Funnily enough, Den Bosch were quick to say that, actually, that’s exactly what Moreira heard - presumably around the same time whoever thought the “crow sounds” defence was hearing the door slam shut behind them having been sacked by the club for general bellendedness

Indie wrestling nobody Matt Wade made sure he’ll stay a nobody by refusing to wrestle an opponent because they are black, outright stating that to the promoter this before being booted out of the show and blackballed from the promotion

The eldritch corruption known as Disney made an obvious mis-step when unleashing their nuclear option on all popular culture they don't own that is Disney+ by deciding that classic episodes of The Simpsons would be blown up into fullscreen even though fullscreen didn’t exist when they were made - which only served to crop out large parts of each and every scene, taking various visual gags with it

Footballers can thank Harry Arter for perpetuating the belief that they’re all thick after he took to Twitter to say he wouldn’t be voting Labour at the next election because of how Jeremy Corbyn lied when campaigning for Leave about how much the NHS would receive after the UK left the European Union.  That sentence would make a lot of sense if you changed the name “Jeremy Corbyn” for “Boris Johnson”, but rather than admit the flub instead Arter deleted his Twitter

Attention-seeking nonentity Rachel Riley really should consider her choice of attire, because when your attire features a image of Jeremy Corbyn on an anti-apartheid march doctored to say he's racist it not only makes you look like you have an unhealthy obsession with shrieking at people in the hope that they agree with you, but it also makes you look like somebody who thinks that the South African apartheid is something you can joke about

So nice of Stan Collymore to state that, when Andre Gomes was lying on the pitch in clear distress during Everton’s game with Tottenham, the one thing which concerned him was how Son Heung-min and Serge Aurier were showing remorse, going so far as to suggest they were faking it for the camera.  That doesn’t make him sound like someone who lacks empathy, does it?

And of course, a month simply cannot go by without Donald Trump doing something dickheaded, for example his repeated claims he is paying no attention whatsoever to the impeachment hearings...and then livetweeting as he watches the impeachment hearings live on TV.  But somehow that classified as normal behaviour compared to him Photoshopping his face onto Rocky Balboa’s body for...reasons

#dickheads of the month