Derp Roundup: Fans Of Killer Cops Can Breathe Just Fine, Why Do You Ask?

Time for another roundup of the dumbest of the worst of the unfathomably stupid! We scrape the mishegas off our browser tabs, puree it into a frothy mess, and serve it up to you with a warning to not overdo it on the brain bleach. Proceed with caution and gin.

• Our Top Derp goes to the clever people who came up with these hilarious "I Can Breathe" sweatshirts for a pro-police rally in New York City Friday. Get it? Get it? If you simply never break any laws ever, and always comply with cops' lawful orders, you will never be strangled or shot, and you can therefore breathe. Of course, it also helps if the cop is a lousy shot once he decides that you look too dangerous while you reach for the ID he just demanded. If you're really lucky, the bullet will only graze a lung. And there you are, still breathing, probably.
  

  Killer cops aren't the problem, criming crimers with asthma and heart disease are the problem. Especially if they resist arrest, which is why every video of someone with their face pushed into the pavement by six cops also includes the audio "Stop resisting! Stop resisting!"

  It's awfully reassuring to know that there are patriots out there willing to unquestioningly support our police, the thin blue twitching emotionally unbalanced line between order and anarchy.

• In related news, an Illinois woman has filed an application to trademark the phrase "I Can't Breathe." Catherine Crump of Waukegan filed the application December 13; if the trademark is granted, it would apply only to clothing bearing the phrase, not to people chanting it or printing it in other contexts. It's not at all clear that Crump will actually succeed, however, since she would have to prove that hers was the first clothing bearing the phrase. It could take up to a year for her application to be acted upon. But don't worry: Ms. Crumpexplained she's not in it for the money, maybe:

  In an interview, Crump said that she had “nothing to do with the Garner family,” and had not spoken to them about her trademark bid. While claiming that her purpose for marketing “I can’t breathe” garments was not to make money, she declined to disclose what other reason there was for her trademark filing (which cost $325).

  She seems nice.

• Fox Business News host Melissa Francis offered a theological perspective on the 2016 presidential race, predicting that if Elizabeth Warren runs, Wall Street will line up behind Hillary Clinton, because Warren is not merely in league with Satan, Elizabeth Warren is Satan:  

  "And I can tell you from talking to people in the financial industry, in banking, on Wall Street, they think she is actually the devil," Francis said. "I mean, without question, Elizabeth Warren is the devil. So they're going to put any money they have behind Hillary Clinton, which should be a help."

  This seems a rather inaccurate judgment, however, since everyone knows that the devil rules hell, while Elizabeth Warren merely wants to give Wall Street its fair share of hell. She's more of a hell redistributionist. You know, like a commie on a coffee mug. 

• At his big ol' end-of-year press conference Friday, Barack Obama called only on women reporters, which was pretty cool. He even brushed off a male reporter's attempt to ask a question, telling him "You've been naughty" (sadly, no sexytimes followed, but it was surely fodder for presidential fanfic).

  Needless to say, the gesture was seen as an affront to equality and good journamalism by Fox News's Ed Henry, who complained that the silly ladies just didn't ask any tough questions at all:  

   Henry:  ...a couple of weeks back in Australia, in the G20 Summit, the president ONLY called on the five TV networks and I think the White House will argue that we got our licks in, we got some tough questions into the president a few weeks ago so they wanted to give some other people a chance, but frankly, I think some of the questions just...didn't press him. I mean, there's so much going on right now...

   Gretchen Carlson:  So much going on..

   Henry:  ...the questions were trailing off, the president was like "lemme, lemme remember what you asked," because it was so unmemorable..he's the president of the United States.

  Such softball questions -- you know, all they brought up were a bunch of feminine topics, like Cuba, the Sony Pictures computer hack, the economy, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the state of race relations in America. It's a wonder the lady reporters even filed their stories on computers, because needlepoint would have worked just as well. And did you notice there wasn't a single question about Benghazi?

  Update: Yes, thehard-hitting question from the boy reporter, ignored by Obama? "What's your New Year's resolution?"

• You owe it to yourself to go look at this nifty ad from the makers of the slightly evil card game Cards Against Humanity, in support of the Sunlight Foundation. It's about campaign money, graft, the seemingly endless stupid in Congress, and pretty cool graphics. Go, look, enjoy. We won't even quibble that the ad tries a bit too hard to balance stupid things Republicans have said about science with stupid things Democrats have said about science, because, yes those Dems actually did say those dumb things, and also, the ad runs out of examples from Democrats pretty quickly, too.

• Finally, we found an End-Times Prophet who might be trying a little too hard:  We heard a seasonal message of derp from Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, who is apparently quite the big deal among rightwing Christians because he's a "Messianic Jew" -- i.e., a Christian who wears a yarmulke. Cahnshared his Hanukkah message with WND, explaining that the Hanukkah story of armed resistance to the tyrannical Greeks is very very relevant to today, because believers are surrounded by all sorts of dire forces that seek to destroy the one true faith of JudeoChristianity:

  “Most people think of Hanukkah as this nice little holiday,” Cahn says, referring to the quaint traditions of spinning dreidels, lighting menorahs and eating fried potato pancakes. “It’s really not. It actually holds a big, prophetic end-time revelation. It’s a heavy holiday.”

  And what is that revelation? Well, duh: Secularism is as big a threat to Judeochristianity today as Antiochus was to the Jewish fundamentalists who fought for their freedom in 167 BC:

  In today’s Western culture, the god of choice is no longer Zeus. It’s secularism. Every perverse teaching is tolerated, even blessed by the state. All the world’s major religions are taught to children in public schools as being equal. Those who stand firm for biblical values are demonized.

  And while the penalty for those who hold onto their Judeo-Christian heritage has stopped well short of death, the pressure is building on them to conform. Many have lost businesses that failed to conform to the new normal of same-sex marriage. Others have been forced out of jobs at corporations or government agencies.

  How bad has it gotten for True Believers? So bad that, seven years after the final book and three years after the final movie, Judeochristians are still oppressed by the cultural hegemony of Harry Potter:

  “What is the biggest thing in youth movies? It’s ‘Harry Potter.’ There are many youth who have gone into the occult because of ‘Harry Potter,’” Cahn said. “But the other thing about it, there is no God there. It’s a godless universe filled with witchcraft and man nullifying God.”

  This is the kind of cultural rot that the Maccabees resisted.

  “You cannot uphold the Word of God if you are not in the Word of God. Entertainment, the web. You have to realize there is a force to take you away,” Cahn says.

  Happily, the End Times are nearly upon us, and so there will apparently be plenty of chances for well-armed Judeochristianists to fight evil just like Eric the Maccabee:

  “What if they kill us? OK, so you’re in heaven. Not bad. That’s the worst. What happened with the Maccabees? They were the underdogs who looked like they were going to be crushed. The Maccabees reigned with God over God’s people in Jerusalem. So remember that. If you’re in God’s will and you keep going. Remember you’re on the winning side. Don’t ever give in to the enemy’s lies that you’re on the losing side because that’s what he wants. If you think you’re on the losing side you’re going to act like it. You’re going to mess up.”

  Cahn graciously stopped short of actually calling on people to actually start shooting people they suspect of being enemies of God -- not even if they're cosplaying as Lucius Malfoy. On the other hand, he didn't discourage it, either. Oh, also, he has a three-DVD boxed set that you can buy that explains all this, if you're interested. Molotov!