 So, because I don't hate myself, I chose to not subject myself to the inevitable stupidity that we were bound to see at CPAC 2021, so of course I didn't watch it live. However, there were a lot of clips that popped up afterwards showing how unhinged the event was, and anyone who's surprised at the unhinged behavior that we saw on stage, you shouldn't be surprised because anytime you think that CPAC is unhinged and there's a bunch of lunatics making insane points, just you wait because next year it's gonna be even worse and this year was no different, folks, so in no particular order, I wanted to showcase some of the dumbest moments from CPAC 2021, starting with QAnon conspiracy theorist Lauren Boebert who did this weird political theater. Tell me you're a lunatic without telling me you're a lunatic. Even in her manualisms, like if she wasn't even talking about politics, like if I just saw her in public, I think that person has a few screws loose, not to be overly ableist, but I mean, folks, these people are freaks. I don't know how else to frame it, and I thought that AOC had the best response to this, she said via Twitter, tell them loud and proud girl, GOP will strip your unemployment protections and dismantle any semblance of a public safety that we have left, then make working people pay way more for everything on low wages while Wall Street gets a meal ticket, good old conservative values, baby. And that's exactly it. Like all of these denunciations of welfare, they never talk about corporate welfare and how we subsidize the fossil fuel industry. We subsidize the wages of large multinational corporations who pay their workers such a small amount of money that they have to go on welfare. So rather than like pointing the finger at corporations and corporate greed in America, capitalism, they point fingers at the individuals and they say, oh, we don't care about, you know, big government. We we don't want your welfare, except, you know, really what she's saying there. If you read the subtext, it's rugged individualism for people and socialism for the wealthiest people, the corporations, which are not people, by the way, contrary to popular belief. Moving on, though, Rick Scott apparently didn't get the memo that the hysteria over cancel culture is over. Conservatives have moved on. I mean, sure, it had a really good run. Mr. Potato Head, Cat in the Hat, all of these things were canceled. But now all the rage is critical race theory. But Rick Scott tried really hard to pander to conservatives there. But really what they want to hear about is how our children are being indoctrinated and they're learning about how white people are the devil in schools, not about how we're being canceled. Nonetheless, you could see him like desperately try to get applause here. And, you know, they don't really care about what he's saying. Democrats want to tell us what to say and how to say it or else we will be canceled from our jobs, our churches, our schools, our entire life. They want to cancel us. How many of you are not even sure what you can say right now? You're worried about what you can say will be socially acceptable. I believe there's going to be a big backlash coming. It's going to come from all of us. And there's nothing that Democrats can do to stop us. OK, so to be fair, he did get a little bit of an applause towards the end of that clip there. But I mean, I love this implication that it's really conservatives who are the true champions of freedom of speech and individuality and ideological diversity. It's not like you're all a hive mind of, you know, Trump worshipping sycophants and you're in a cult. No, it's really, you know, they're the ones who are encouraging people to, you know, thwart what is, you know, common thinking in the United States. He says here, Democrats want to tell us what to say, how to say it or else. We will be canceled from our jobs, our churches, our schools, our entire life. They want to cancel us. Basically, if you didn't already know, conservatives, you're the victim and the left is coming after you. I don't necessarily know what social clout the left has with churches. Nonetheless, I don't think you're going to be canceled from your churches any time soon, conservatives. And he adds how many of you feel you're not even sure what you can say right now, you're worried about what you can say will be socially acceptable. And, you know, he's implying that it's only the left who will cancel your scold you. But why don't we put this theory to the test, Rick? How about this? You can say that the COVID-19 vaccines are incredibly effective and people in that audience should take the COVID-19 vaccines if they want to stop themselves from catching a highly contagious deadly disease. He's not going to say that because he knows that that's not politically correct at CPAC, so it's not like Republicans are any different. And he wouldn't say something like that because he knows the way that the crowd would react. In fact, another speaker actually got applause from the crowd when he stated that the United States isn't meeting expectations with regard to COVID-19 vaccinations. Take a look. Clearly, they were hoping, the government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90 percent of the population into getting vaccinated. And it and it and it isn't happening, right? There's a younger people. I know that there's the Delta variant and the possible Lambda variant. That's even more contagious than the Delta variant. But guess what, folks? We are not meeting our targets when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. Yeah. Great. This is awesome. Great news, everyone. I mean, these people are absolute fucking psychopaths. They're they're celebrating the fact that not enough people are getting vaccinated. It's just it is absurd to me. I don't even know what to make of it. But on the subject of COVID-19, you could tell how deranged Republicans are when the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, talked about her failures when it comes to COVID-19 and her mishandling of the pandemic as if it's something to be celebrated. And she even denounced Republican governors who dare to take the pandemic seriously. We talk about rewriting history. Let's talk about rewriting history. We've got Republican governors across this country pretending they didn't shut down their states, that they didn't close their beaches, that they didn't mandate masks, that they didn't issue shelter in places. Now, I'm not picking fights with Republican governors. All I'm saying is that we need leaders with grit, that their first instinct is to make the right decision that they don't backtrack and then try to fool you into the fact that they never made the wrong decision. Her state is consistently one of the worst in the country when it comes to new cases, new infections, deaths due to COVID-19. And yet she's basically saying I refused to take action during this pandemic, even though 600,000 Americans died. But I'm the hero. The individuals who instituted mask mandates, they're the ones who are actually bad. It's like a celebration of death. And of course, that's to be expected from basically a psychopathic death cult, which the GOP largely is. And I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that. Like when you're literally celebrating your refusal to institute basic precautions to stop the spread of a highly contagious disease. Yeah, you're kind of you're kind of a sick person. You're kind of sick in the head. But moving on to King Chud, of course, unexpectedly, he still is the standard bearer of the Republican Party. A CPAC straw poll show that he is dominating. So when it comes to the 2024 GOP primary, Donald Trump has a commanding lead with 70 percent. So he knows he's still the defacto leader of the Republican Party and nobody's even going to come close. And he bragged about that. On the Democrat side or the I love my Republicans, but we're really kicking their ass, too. But we love them. But we like it because they're friends of ours, right? So it's OK. I think we can say that affectionately. I mean, it's Trump. He's braggadocious. That's exactly what I expected him to talk about, of course. And he's going to get even worse as the GOP primary approaches. But in case you were wondering, is he still peddling the big lie that led to the January 6th insurrection? And the answer is, yeah, he's still telling people that he won when he didn't. It's true. We all won. We all won. Actually, you didn't win. You lost. And it wasn't even that close. So, you know, if if you don't know by now that Donald Trump is a compulsive liar, then I don't know what to say. Maybe you're a sicko fan, but perhaps if his loyalists heard him admit that he's a liar, then maybe they'd have a bit of a change of heart. Thankfully, he did admit that he's a liar and he lies a lot when it benefits him when it comes to politics. By the way, you have a poll coming out. Unfortunately, I want to know what it is that, you know, they do that straw poll, right? Now, if it's bad, I just so I say it, it's fake. If it's good, I say that's the most accurate poll, perhaps everything. Of course, when he admits that he lies to benefit himself, they laugh. I almost forgot that we were dealing with a cult for a second. It's just if a politician that I was supporting admitted that they lie when it serves their political narrative, I would not support that individual. Even if I agreed with them on policy, like if Bernie Sanders or Nina Turner admitted that they make things up to create a sort of narrative, I would really struggle to support them still because that's bad. Like I want people in America to believe in facts and empirical reality. And so long as we're knowingly spreading lies, you know, it's bad for society. It's unhealthy for democracy. But I mean, of course, they just, they love him more. They think it's funny that he lies. So I mean, there's not much left to say. I could probably show you a dozen more clips, but you get the point. Every year, CPAC gets progressively more stupid and unhinged. And this year obviously was no different. And I could only wait to see what the next CPAC has in store for us. But, you know, we don't necessarily have to look to that because if you really want like a showcase in GOP stupidity, the 2024 GOP primary, which will start promptly in 2023, that's going to be like quintessential GOP stupidity on focus. Except maybe it won't go on that long because again, Donald Trump really has a stronghold on this party. We'll see what happens. But yeah, every time I see one of these events, I get a little bit more misanthropic and the humanist in me dies a little more. And the misanthropist in me takes over a little bit, but I'm fighting. It's like a battle between good and evil. It's like a battle to not give up all hope in my mind. There's like an angel and a demon on each shoulder. And one is saying, Mike, human beings are stupid. We're not going to make it. And the other is saying, no, this isn't, everyone in America, this is just a small, albeit large vocal minority. It's just, it's a battle. And either way, regardless if the angel or demon on my shoulder wins, I still get a little bit more depressed each time from these events. It's sad to see stupidity put on display and celebrated. People are telling me about how wonderful the humanist report is, bigly.