Ear's Donny!

Let’s see, what is there to talk about this week? Anything big happen over the weekend? Oh yeah, I remember… someone finally took a shot at TFG!

For me, this story and my reactions unfolded in stages. First I saw a blurb on Facebook as I was scrolling, saying shots were fired at a Trump rally. I figured there were potshots in the distance and they hustled the Hustler off stage.

A few minutes later, Sweetpea got a call from her brother, saying someone shot at TFG. My response was, “Come on, I’m sure it’s nothing… if it was, it would be all over the news.”

I stopped myself there because I realized I had the Orioles game on TV and all hell could be breaking loose and they wouldn’t stop coverage of the O’s and Yanks game, so I flipped on NBC.

Oh, OK, this is for real.

It was good that my brother-in-law made the call from home or else my first worry would have been wondering if he was the shooter. The dude is one of the few who’s more left-wing militant than I am.

Within minutes, I saw an instant replay of the incident and began to plot my next blog post. Eventually, there would be several more versions as the story developed.

First off, I thought there was a good chance it was faked. I’m sure Donny T wouldn’t volunteer for the William Tell treatment, but he could have ducked and squeezed a ketchup packet over his ear. I bet he’s got a pocketful of those.

But it looked pretty real and when I heard them start interviewing witnesses and they described seeing a shooter on a nearby rooftop, I thought, The Russians!

It would be a perfect Russian psyop. They get one of their Putin-loyalist snipers in place by greasing some local authorities and having him wing TFG. If this were taking place in Russia, the shooter would probably end up falling off the roof, but here, they just let the Secret Service snipers do their thing.

And the move would be perfect, hitting multiple boxes:

·         TFG gets to pose as a tough guy.

·         TFG garners massive sympathy (definitely from MAGAs, maybe a few independents. Many Dems sorry they missed.)

·         This is cover for every incident of future violence generated by MAGA.

·         Republicans get to play the victim card, which is their favorite move. (Because yeah, the richest echelon of the country and members of a massive organized religion are all victims.)

·         They can fund-raise off of this forever. Imagine the possibilities… They can make a plaster mold of his damaged ear to be used in creating anything from candles to cookie molds, to desktop fidget toys. “For just $50 a month, you can bend the President’s ear.”

·         And regardless of what they find out about the shooter, they will ultimately blame the Democrats.

A Russian troll farm couldn’t have dreamed it up any better. And it would explain why such a pampered prince, who hasn’t stared danger in the face since he came home to Melania after the Stormy Daniels case broke, was so ready to start throwing tough-guy poses amid the Secret Service dogpile.

(I figure that he is so ego-driven that he can’t accept being shielded and protected (especially by a woman) because it would make him look weak and scared, so he went into instant Ego Recovery Mode.)

I admit that for an instant, I hoped for something more serious. But only for an instant.  At the moment, there are more good reasons to see him remain alive.

·         If he’s killed, he becomes a martyr for the cause, an updated flag to wave at every uprising and polling place takeover.

·         Project 2025 moves on anyway, only with someone more skilled at the wheel, someone who WILL take steps to protect future Republican rule, and not just his own. Someone capable who will do much more damage to the Republic than a consistent fuckup and repeat loser.

·         I want to see him pay for the atrocities he’s inflicted on the nation. Instant death is too easy on him.

So, by Monday morning, it came out that the shooter was some sad sack from outside Pittsburgh, a high school outcast with his daddy’s AR-15. A registered Republican who also threw a few bucks to ActBlue. He left no social media presence or “manifesto.” Could be he just wanted the notoriety that goes with Suicide by Secret Service.

And yes, Republicans are blaming the Democrats. Always.

It’s especially nauseating to see this group, whose default plan is the death threat, cry about the mean old Left being so doggone violent.

It also seems that TFG took this opportunity to cement one of his lackeys in place with his VP pick, JD Vance R-OH, in case something else happens. It reminds me of a scene in the 90s classic TV show, The West Wing. The VP has resigned, the president has to be removed because his daughter has been kidnapped and he’s under duress, so the Speaker of the House has to step in as president. Played by the old “pre-diet” John Goodman, he says something like, “We have to name a Vice President immediately because as you may have noticed, I’m about one prime rib away from a massive heart attack.”

But I digress. (I loved that show))

Ultimately, I think this was just another loner-wolf doing something that only makes sense to him; maybe trying to impress Taylor Swift instead of Jodie Foster.

Maybe it will turn out to be more complicated than it looks, but I doubt it. There will be many investigations into how this schlub with a rifle got so close to a former president/current presidential candidate. So far the Secret Service and local cops are blaming each other. Eventually, it will get untangled, as well as the shooter's background. I think it’s an Occam’s Razor kind of thing, where the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. Shit happens and #45 has a horseshoe up his ass.

Either way, Republicans will milk this thing like a chocolate-milk-bearing cow outside a defunct Dairy Queen, until they’ve squeezed out every last bit of delicious outrage and then spewed venom all over everyone else.

USA! USA!

If the Indictment Fits, You Must Convict

OK, so he was only off by two weeks! Looks like there’s gonna be a show tomorrow (4/4/23) as TFG gets dragged in for prints and a mug shot. And to me, the funny thing is, according to the New York Times:

So how does that square with his big pronouncement two weeks ago that his indictment was imminent? It shows that he was lying through his teeth again, in yet another scam to gain headlines, sympathy, and donations. The grift never ends.

The usual shitheads are poo-pooing the whole thing, as expected.

So it’s the GOP position that law enforcement presence at protests is the root cause of violence? Would that count at BLM protests as well?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

It amazes me, the straws people grasp at to clear themselves from blame. I’ve heard more convincing alibis from 4-year-olds with pudding all over their faces, explaining how they haven’t been into the dessert.

I’d like one of these apologists to explain to me why anyone should disregard evidence of a crime that was solid enough to convince a grand jury to indict. What’s the rationale for ignoring a crime? Are we in favor of a ranking system where only crimes that are this tall get to go on the ride? The fact that there is such evidence precludes this from being a political revenge hit job. If it truly was, you wouldn’t have evidence like with the Benghazi investigations. The fact that they dissipated without a single charge shows there was nothing there to begin with but a political smear.

I’m sure tomorrow will be a spectacle but we have to remember that this is only one step on a long road. Getting a conviction will be an entirely different animal, and getting one that will hold up to judicial appeal will be even tougher. At every step of the way, there will be pressure brought to bear on the participants, to move in one direction or the other. I just hope they follow the law and the evidence, and let the chips fall where they may.

Déjà vu All Over Again

Really? We had another school shooting? Let me find my “Surprised” face. I don’t even know what to write about these anymore. The ground is well-covered. (I’d link, but you can just click the label “Smoking Guns” from the right-side label cloud.)

No shit. I don’t think this was an article that needed to be written. Maybe just a line that says, “See every other mass shooting article written over the last 20 years.”

If you watch Fox “News,” the big story was that the shooter identified as Trans. That brought the Republicans up out of their seats, to demand action. Out of the 2500 or so most recent mass shootings, three have been done by Trans people. So obviously, there’s your problem! Not the other abundance of straight white males.

Maybe liberals should go out and claim that it was obviously a false flag operation on the part of religious conservatives. They seem to think that’s a solid argument to make every time their people are jammed up.

I’ve written before that I favor a ban on semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 and high-capacity clips. I don’t think these instruments of war belong in the hands of non-military citizens. Our citizens have plenty of other guns they can use for hunting and self-defense that are less likely to cause the kind of mass destruction we see with these rifles. And I know a similar ban worked in the past.

The problem is that there are so many more of these guns in circulation now than there were in the mid-nineties when the ban was implemented. And the overall issue is so much more polarized than it used to be, so I don’t see how a similar ban could be made effective. Too many people would refuse to turn in their guns, leaving mass arrests to be the only recourse, and no politician (or police force) would have the stomach for that. So on we go, doing nothing.

Maybe someday they will surprise me, but I think this has become our new normal.

While I spend time trying to dissect political arguments, sometimes you just have to let a Matriarch step in and lay a good old-fashioned smack-down on an idiot:

Niiice.

And on That Note…

…Let me leave you with the funniest thing I saw this week:

Change is in the air!

The "Me" Gap

There was a story out a couple weeks back that exemplifies why Republicans are having trouble reaching anyone besides the rich, the racists, and the religious right. The gist of it was that while Marjorie Taylor Green was taking questions during a local call-in show, inferred that if a woman was no longer having children, she was no longer entitled to an opinion on abortion. (Unless, I presume, she was against it.)

The caller confronted MTG, saying “My body is my body and I don’t want the government telling me what to do with my body." (In other words, the conservative argument against vaccinations.)

“I don’t think you’re having children anytime soon,” she said, apparently based on the sound of the caller’s voice. “So I appreciate your interest in women’s rights, but killing an unborn baby is not a woman’s right, and that’s not health care.”

She went on to say that we “need to focus on the future of America, and that’s our children… and the unborn, they’re our future also… So let’s focus on protecting their lives instead of being focused on the lie that abortion is women’s health care because that’s not health care.”

Green, who if her eyes were any closer together, could use a microscope as reading glasses, dropped off the line as soon as the host went to a commercial break.

The article went on to point out that by these new standards, no man may have a valid point either, nor would MTG herself, so she may not have thought this through. Color me surprised. [Massive eye roll]

There’s a lot to unpack here, and as usual, I’ll start with the obvious point that people calling a grape-sized conglomeration of cells a “baby” is as misleading as it is wrong. But that’s the ploy; to get people thinking about a chubby, cooling little baby and not a tiny organism without a fully-formed heart or brain.

Whether it’s a “person” yet is a highly debatable and moral question without a consensus answer. Having one group of people use their personal religion to claim the answer one way and force everyone else to act accordingly, non-believers and otherwise is selfish, aggressive, and incredibly self-important. And it totally lacks anything close to empathy, other than to the non-sentient clump of cells. I’ll come back to this point in a minute.

When she mentions “the lie that abortion is women’s health care because that’s not health care,” all I can say is tell that to the woman with an ectopic pregnancy, or the girl who’s bleeding inside and has to wait for her doctor to confer with a team of lawyers to figure out if he’s allowed to go in and stop the bleeding to save her life. Or the woman who has any number of health issues that make having a baby dangerous to life. OR the woman who is carrying a baby who will be born with debilitating medical conditions that bode for a short and painful life. OR the woman who just doesn’t want to endure the physical changes a pregnancy will inflict on her body, just to appease some far-off group of people who have literally nothing to do with the people in question. It is absolutely health care, and no religious moralizing will change that.

The real root of the problem, as I see it, is a massively inflated sense of self-worth in conjunction with a complete lack of empathy. They can’t put themselves in the shoes of someone whose life experiences don’t align with their own and are so supremely self-important that they can’t fathom that their own take on the matter isn’t definitive.

“I believe it so YOU have to act accordingly.” That’s what it comes down to.

When you look at it, selfishness and a lack of empathy IS the Republican platform. Name one of their principles that aren’t dripping with it. Wait, maybe we better make that “policy” points… I don’t think they have any true principles left that they won’t violate if a Democrat wants to exercise one. They say they favor States' rights until a state wants to enact some kind of gun control. They say they’re in favor of bodily autonomy in the right not to get vaccinated, but neglect a woman’s bodily autonomy in forcing them to reproduce against their will. They were in favor of insurance mandates up until Obama proposed one.

This was from the 2016 election but is no less true now.

But back to my previous point, every GOP position could be defined as selfishness and lack of empathy:

·         Abortion: You need to have that baby because I think you should for my own religious reasons. What YOU want must defer to what I believe.

·         Birth control: Same language as above.

·         Same-sex marriage: YOU two can’t get married because it offends ME.

·         Immigration: If YOU enter this country there will be too many people, too many foreign-speaking brown people, to continue to function as things are.

·         Assistance to the poor: Why should YOU get help that I didn’t get? Yes, I know I want the minimum wage to stay at $7.25 but if we raise it, you might get a job making what I make. Better for you to work three jobs.

·         Student loan forgiveness: I paid my loan off (or didn’t get one in the first place), so you should have to, regardless that the terms now are much more predatory than they were years ago.

·         Taxes: Taxes should always be rock-bottom and loopholes should be vast. Let the middle class pick up the burden. (So sayeth the top 1% who then convince the non-rich Republicans that it’s somehow better for everyone if the rich avoid taxes, via the media outlets they own.)

·         Health care: Why should I be mandated to get insurance just to bring the cost of everyone’s insurance down?

·         Guns: I want to be able to buy any gun I want whenever I want, which is always immediately. I don’t care how many other men, women, and children get killed, I want a big gun that goes BOOM BOOM BOOM. No background check, no required training, no safety measures, just ammo and firepower. If someone else gets shot, they should have gotten their own guns.

·         War in Ukraine: Why should WE finance their defense against marauding invaders? They’re not invading US… We could use the money to help people here. It’s beside the point that we Republicans never support domestic spending that doesn’t first get skimmed by the rich.

·         Electric cars: I want a car that goes VROOM VROOM. I don’t care what happens to the planet. Climate change is a hoax anyway. Like I care if Florida and the Carolina coasts get wiped off the map. It’s just a natural cycle. I know this because that’s what they say on Fox “News.”

·         Any halfway house, rehab center, mass transit stop, or affordable housing complex: Not in MY backyard.

Sadly, that last response is not limited to Republicans, it may as well be the national motto.

So Much Wrong in So Little Space

I saw this a couple weeks ago and pulled it out for a good debunking. There’s just so much wrong with it, it’s like a laundry list of fallacies and willful ignorance. I’m sure it only exists as an intended distraction from the massively damning January 6^th hearings. Here’s the Meme:

Let’s take this bit by bit, shall we?

“You know when that trash-talking loud mouth was running the country.” I love it when they pretend our biggest concern was TFG’s manners and personal habits. It lets me know right off the bat that they don’t know anything about what matters to liberals or Democrats.

“And you could afford bacon and gas, and feel good about splurging sometimes…” And why was gas affordable? Because COVID was ravaging the nation, people weren’t driving, and demand was way down so prices fell. It’s the simple economics of supply and demand. And COVID was ravaging the nation because TFG so thoroughly botched the national response to the pandemic. His actions, more than any other factor, turned virus prevention measures into a political issue rather than the health crisis it should have been and was in other countries. If not for him, there wouldn’t be nearly as many people who refused vaccines and face masks. Yes, the virus would still spread but it wouldn’t have been so pervasive. Over a million dead from it in two years? THAT’s his legacy. This is just another way to try to pin current high prices on Joe Biden.

“…Your 401k was actually growing…” The stock market is only a small part of the overall economy… the part that works for big business. Corporations were flush, especially after the massive tax cut for the 1%, that was supposed to trickle down to the rest of us in the form of more jobs and higher wages, but totally didn’t. They used the savings for executive bonuses and stock buybacks. So naturally, stock prices went up. That was very good for people loaded with stock.

But for the rest of us? Stagnant wages and people needing to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and oftentimes putting their health and life in danger to do it.

“…and you didn’t have to worry about your 3 yr old being indoctrinated…” Totally doesn’t happen, this is just a “controversy” made up by Fox News and the like, to create a new “crisis” to hype people up about. And 3-year-olds? Seriously? What kind of pre-pre-K is this idiot talking about?

“…or your baby starving because there is no formula.” So it’s the Democrats'/Biden's fault that one of the largest formula distributors had to shut down due to contaminated product? That’s actually a benefit. If not for regulations that control food quality, that formula would have shipped and killed actual babies (not embryos). But then Republicans would have blamed Democrats for that too.

Also note that Republican congressmen voted en masse against legislation that would have brought in supplies of uncontaminated formula. So they really don’t have a leg to stand on with this point.

“Yeah I remember those days and I miss that loud mouth, Twitter trash-talking orange man that was running our country pretty good…” Seriously, with this primitive grammar, I can see why they love TFG’s sing-song baby talk and 4th-grade vocabulary.

“and making our country great again.” Great at what, dying of disease and gun violence? We’re definitely the champs there. Notice how no one ever defines what it takes to make the country great. I think that’s by design so that anyone that hears can fill in the blanks themselves.

“If you can say we are in a better place because you voted for the dementia-ridden man in office now, something is wrong with you.” The truth is that our country is teetering on the edge of collapse, due, specifically, to the actions of TFG and his Republican enablers. It may be Biden’s era now, but the table was set by the last regime, who is responsible for:

·        Further enriching the richest among us at the expense of everyone else

·        Allowing a deadly virus to run rampant thought the population and the world

·        Weakening our role in NATO and bolstering NATO’s primary adversary.

·        Shutting off all efficient means of immigration from the south, while imprisoning tens of thousands, ripping children from their mother’s arms (and then neglecting any system left to return them to their families)

·        Appointing SCOTUS judges who have:

o   Stripped the rights to self-determination from half of the population.

o   Prevented the federal government from effectively addressing the most serious threat to humankind we’ve seen since a big-ass asteroid.

o   Ensured that more and more people will die from gun violence

o   Gutted laws made to guarantee equitable voting access

o   Made sure Republican legislatures can continue to gerrymander themselves into permanent power, yet allow suits against Democratic states who do the same.

·        (and just to put the cherry on top,) Trying to overturn a lawful election by force and seize power like a tin-pot dictator.

This country is not, by any measure, a reliable standard of greatness. We are a mere shell of our former selves, crippled by the actions of a minority of religious zealots and crooks in high places.

Democrats have no chance to undo any of these grave injustices unless they are given the manpower to do so. We need more Democratic Senators Representatives, Governors, Mayors, Councilmen, School Board Members, and so on. We need to be there in numbers that can’t be obstructed on arcane parliamentary traditions.

Republicans consider us the enemy; sub-humans who need to be squashed. We need to treat them like political enemies and become as ruthless and efficient as they are in turning out and voting their interests.

Until that happens, going to be fighting it out with Iran for the title of Greatest Nutjob Theocracy. And there’s definitely something wrong with THAT.

And Furthermore

Just to end on a less depressing note, something about this silly meme made me laugh all afternoon.

Hearing Impaired

I very much enjoyed the first January 6^th hearing last week. In fact, upon finishing the first session, I said it looks like this was going to be the hot TV mini-series of the summer. It wasn’t until today that I realized that the rest were going to be on during the day. WTH? Don’t they know that some of us have jobs? I guess I’ll have to DVR them, to savor later.

A lot has been made over the claim that a number of Congressmen sought pardons from TFG, to shield them from any charges stemming from their roles in the attempted coup. What cracked me up is that they didn’t get them. They forgot that loyalty is a one-way street with their dear leader. Once they served their purpose, he had no further need for them. Why would he care if they got jammed up? Not his problem. Haven’t they been paying attention? Suckers…

I also had to laugh about the Fox “News” commercial-free counterprogramming. It’s telling that they’d rather pass up the ad fees from their highest-rated programs than risk any of their flock wandering over to a real news channel and hearing some damning information. And after seeing the messages from their golden boy Hannity, imploring TFG to stop with the stolen election nonsense, it makes sense. All those middle-aged, angry, white, male, heads exploding across the country would have been quite a disturbance.

But really, I don’t know what they’re worried about. It’s not like their audience would believe anything counter to the approved storyline. Any semblance of critical thinking has already been bludgeoned out of them.

I know the conservative counter-argument wants to paint the whole thing as old news masquerading as an electioneering ploy. Nothing like the 11 Benghazi investigations, I’m sure, which were completely non-political. Please. Tell them this is 1 down, 10 more to go.

I say if the Democrats can profit off this at the ballot box, more power to them. Republicans have been doing this shit for years. Did you see in today’s hearing, when they talked about how much fundraising TFG did based on the Big Lie? It could be argued that pushing that false narrative was worth it to the GOP for the financial windfall alone. They hammered their people with the direst of messaging, each email coming with an outstretched hand. And we all remember how they pre-checked the tiny box authorizing a monthly, rather than 1-time, donation, to the chagrin of all those saps who gave until it hurt.

But the bottom line is that when a group tries to overthrow the government, there HAVE to be consequences. And not just to the foot soldiers, but to the “generals” who whipped the whole thing up and worked overtime to mentally anesthetize their fans into action. (No pardons there either! Sorry about that, “Proud” boys.)

If the hammer does not come down on the “brain trust” and all the president’s men, we’re openly inviting another coup. And the Republicans will have had four years to learn from their mistakes. Like next time, don’t let the DC police have clubs or defensive gear either; make them wear their civvies and use Silly String. Or maybe not have any DC police out there at all; just bring in some cub scout packs or a mime troupe or something.)

And no videographers! The biggest problem these perps had is that the whole nation watched what happened, live on TV. They could claim it was a tourist event all they wanted, but we saw what they did with our own eyes. If they’re smart, they’ll take out all news and surveillance cameras as a first action.

But who am I kidding? They’ll probably just live-stream themselves again.

I just hope the Justice Department is following the proceedings. Without their action, all this high drama becomes nothing but a sideshow.

In Other News

Shocking as it may be, there just might be hope for a bit of gun legislation. Word is that there are 10 Senators who will vote for this bipartisan bill that contains some minor tweaks to our gun laws. I think if they’re serious, they better find two more because if we learned anything, it’s that we can’t count on the two senatorial DINOs, Manchin and Sinema.

On one hand, the bill is so thin and “pie in the sky,” I’m sure there will be people on the Left who will want to vote it down because it doesn’t carry much weight. That would be a mistake. Even though it doesn’t go far enough, it’s something and in a fight like this, something is better than nothing. We just have to go back and try to build on it.

On the other hand, it smacks of the kind of bill the Republicans can point to and say, “See? We did something. Now let’s stop talking about the slaughter of innocents so we can get back to blaming Biden for the price of gas.” Republicans should be able to get behind this bill because it provides the illusion of action while not doing a thing to hamper the sale of more guns.

And while it will only take 10-12 of them to get it passed, watch how they all take credit for “taking action.” Of course they will. Just like when they took credit, back in their districts, for things provided by the big Infrastructure Bill that they voted against.

I was hoping they would at least propose raising the purchase age from 18 to 21. That shouldn’t have been a tough sell when you look at the situation dispassionately.  This group is rife with ego, testosterone, lust, and very little impulse control. We don’t sell beer to that age group because it’s dangerous. But semi-automatic rifles are OK? It boggles the mind.

The gun people counter with the fact that 18-year-olds can serve in the military and shoot similar rifles. Granted, they overlook the part where the military personnel are highly trained and supervised and the guns are meticulously handled and stored. If that were true with the general population of gun-buying 18-21-year-olds, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem. But there are zero prerequisites for buying an AR-15 aside from being able to slap the money (or Visa) on the counter.

But in the end, I’m sure the real reason a new age limit wasn’t established was that they didn’t want to shut off such a lucrative market. Nothing gets in the way of a profitable next quarter, whether it’s guns, gas, or drugs.

(Late edit: They're already moving the goalposts and trying to find ways to kill the deal)

It’s a Jurassic World and We’re Just Living in it

I saw Jurassic World-Dominion over the weekend. I love the franchise and couldn’t wait to see this one in the theater. It’s the first movie I’ve gone to since March of 2020. (I saw the Harley Quinn movie “Birds of Prey.”) I was worried because the critics were pretty harsh to it and I really wanted to enjoy it. I needn’t have worried.

I loved it. And if you’ve enjoyed the previous movies, go see this one. While there are some talky parts, overall it’s one incredible, scary set-piece after another. I saw it in 3D and definitely flinched a couple of times.

They keep comparing it to the original and noting how it pales in comparison. But of course it does! When the original JP came out, no one had ever seen such lifelike representations of dinosaurs before. Those of us who used to think that Land of the Lost was the coolest thing ever got our minds blown. Every JP movie after that lacks that amazement factor, so it's an unnecessarily harsh standard to hold for a new installment. As an audience, we've become blase regarding movie effects. What once was unbelievable has become commonplace.

So sod what the critics think. We don’t go to the Jurassic movies looking for another Godfather 2. It’s a popcorn movie and a good one. The Bluzdude approves.

Another Dad Story

Well, kind of. As I mentioned last week, this will be my first Father’s Day without my Father. I’m fortunate that I’ll get to celebrate the day with Sweetpea’s family. Her dad is still alive and well, and all her brothers are fathers, so it will be a nice communal event.

It reminds me of a Father’s Day present I got my dad ages ago. I saw this ad in a magazine and thought it represented the perfect sentiment for my own father-son relationship. I carefully cut it out and brought it down to the frame store in the mall I worked in, and voila, instant present. This is the ad:

In case you can’t read the inscription, it says, “As long as there’s an occasion to thank your father for tolerating your childhood… There will always be a Chivas Regal.”

We were more Jack Daniels drinkers than Chivas, but it was what it was. I just loved the picture.

So when we cleaned out their place when Mom moved out, I made sure I ended up with it.

I may not have kids, but I remember being that cub.

Happy Father’s Day (in a week) to all the “Big Daddies” among us.

Silence of the Lambs, Who Have Been Slaughtered (Again)

Well, this has been an awful week, hasn’t it? And one we’ve gone through so often, you’d think we’d change things up one time. But here we are again, feeling some kinda way.

According to my Labels list, I’ve at least sideswiped the topic of guns and mass shootings 74 different times since 2009, and I know I’ve dedicated at least a half dozen full posts. But this shit just keeps happening. I came to the conclusion ages ago, that if the Sandy Hook slaughter of a bunch of first graders didn’t move the needle, it’s never going anywhere. (And I’ve seen that same sentiment come up a lot this week.)

So now we do the well-practiced dance where Republicans blame everything but the guns for the incident and Democrats try to make a case for some kind of legislation but get voted down because they can’t go it alone.

And the Republicans are even lying about THAT!

I heard an interview with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and when the reporter asked him about how to stop the shootings, he said that the Democrats can do whatever they want to address it because they have control of Congress and the Presidency.

This is a common Republican method of lying. While it is “technically” true, it’s a “practical” lie because the good congressman knows full well that the Democrats can’t do a thing in the Senate without the support from at least 10 Republicans, maybe more if the two DINOs bail. But there he was anyway, blaming his political opponents for not being able to take the action that his side is doing everything in their power to prevent from happening. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of how our government works and the current political makeup of Congress knows it’s bullshit. I’m sure his base eats it up though.

I’ve been seeing this meme drift around Facebook again and it’s still an easy one to debunk:

Yes, the god who authorized the killing of millions of men, women, and children is the key to stopping hails of bullets in classrooms. </sarcasm> But that’s just the moral angle. This meme provides a concise counter:

The real reason the “rock” thing is a bullshit argument is practical. While one can kill with a rock, one cannot use one to kill 19 children and 2 adults in a matter of seconds. (Unless the Coyote is rolling a boulder down the hill and there is a crowd of children surrounding the Road Runner.)

And the same goes for every other red herring method of killing, like what Junior Mints was just talking about.

From knives, to bats, to golf clubs, to the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, you have to use those on one person at a time, from up close. People can run away. People can intervene. People can get their own rocks because they have time. These AR-15s make it SO EASY to kill SO MANY in seconds, from many yards away. THAT’s why eliminating them makes sense.

Can we also dispense with Ted Cruz’s nonsense about arming teachers? He doesn’t trust them with books but he wants them packin’ in the classroom? And what happens if a shooter bursts in and caps the teacher first? After all, he knows what he’s doing, he’d probably wearing body armor, and the teacher is concentrating on getting a math lesson across while keeping her charges from running around the room and stuffing crayons up their noses.

The gun nuts will say that maybe the kids should be armed as well. That should make an interesting day in the Principal’s office.

Principal: Why are you in here again?

Kid: Jimmy was hoggin’ the ball again so I had to shoot him.

At this rate, every school will be Military School.

Congresswoman Heckle, from the farce comedy team “Heckle and Dyed” added her two cents (adjusted for inflation) as well.

It’s the same kind of flawed, “strawman” argument. No one suggests banning things in which one can be hurt by accident, or there would be nothing left in the world, just a big bubble-wrapped expanse. Planes have a beneficial use, just like knives, bats, and golf clubs. Guns, however, have one purpose and that’s to kill. And AR-15s have a more specific purpose, to kill by literally destroying whatever it hits.

And then we look at the damage these things can cause when they hit their target. Did you know they had to use DNA to identify some of these kids? They even knew what clothes they were wearing but still couldn’t identify them by sight.

As far as I’m concerned, no civilian needs a weapon that can do that much damage, ever. There is no logical, beneficial reason for non-military personnel to carry that kind of firepower. We already know what banning semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity clips will do because we have the data from the last time they were banned. The number of mass shootings sank, but then returned once the Republican Congress under the Bush Administration allowed bans to lapse.

How to enact such a ban again is a question better left to the experts, but there’s no doubt that such a thing would improve the numbers. I would presume there would have to be some kind of buy-back and it would be foolish to think that all such guns would be collected. But there would be fewer and people like this kid wouldn’t be able to waltz into the store, buy a gun that morning and start shooting children before they can dig into their Lunchables.

And again, we hear it all the time; “But I’m a good gun owner, my stuff is locked up and my kids are properly trained.” Which may be true, right up until it’s not. The mother of the Sandy Hook shooter did all the “right” things too. It’s never a problem until it becomes one.

Republicans are trying another way to keep things status quo, too, by intimating that it’s somehow a big deal to amend one’s position.

Question: How does one “loudly” edit a website? Just asking.

But here’s the real point. Every change of policy, every new direction the law can take, comes about because people shift their positions. If they didn’t things would stay one way forever. This is not a big deal or a “gotcha” moment. It’s not now and it wasn't to the GOP when every one of them changed their minds on RomneyCare. One minute it was the answer for pushing back against single-payer, the next it was Pinko-Commie Socialism. (Right around the time that the “Romney” part was replaced with “Obama.”)

Lots of things will have to change if we are to prevent more mass murders like the one in Texas: minds, laws, standards, and expectations. And lots of state and local elected officials. As with access to legal abortion, it will only get better when citizens replace their elected councilmen, mayors, state reps, governors, and the like, with people who will take concrete steps to protect schoolchildren and everyone else who ventures out of their houses. And even then, the current SCOTUS is likely to shit-can any and all new gun regulations, because support for unlimited gun ownership is as much of a requirement of the Federalist Society as support for banning abortion. So we have to create a super-majority in Congress so they can approve replacement justices when the time comes or add more seats to the bench.

Republicans are fighting for their professional lives by trying to keep things exactly the way they are. Without taking tangible action on gun laws, any statement to the contrary is a lie. The only conclusion for their inaction is that the slaughter of children is the acceptable cost of doing business. And that business is the selling of guns. Big ones that go boom-boom-boom.

We have to vote like our lives depend on it, because they do.

Lunatic Fringe Benefits

 The former guy got me good and pissed off again last week when he tried to play dumb about paying taxes on fringe benefits, like cars or housing for executives.

"They go after good, hard-working people for not paying taxes on a company car," Trump said.

"You didn't pay tax on the car or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment because you have to travel too far where your house is.”

"You didn't pay tax. Or education for your grandchildren. I don't even know. Do you have to? Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?"

I know the answer to some of that. My job involves managing a fleet of company cars that our employees use. My company has branches around the country, so district and regional managers are given company cars for business travel, which they can also drive for personal use.

According to the IRS, a company can “give” a car for an employee to use for business purposes, for free. BUT, any personal use is considered income and therefore taxable.

Our drivers have to report their business and personal mileage every month so we can calculate the value of their personal use, known as “taxable benefit.” It’s a major operation for which the drivers, the accountants, and I have to devote a significant amount of time to get it right, to remain within IRS compliance.

It would be really nice to just blow it all off but a reputable company can’t do that.

There are a couple of ways to look at TFG’s comments.

One possibility is that he knows damn well what the IRS laws are; he’s just used to flouting them like he does with every other aspect of his business. He’s just playing on the (probably correct) assumption that his fan club doesn’t know anything about tax laws on company cars.

But on the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me either if he really doesn’t know anything about it. It’s certainly plausible that he has his accounting flunkies to work out all the details so he has never had to think about such things. No wonder he’s puzzled… He’s never had to get down in the details before. All he’s ever had to do is say, “Give that guy a car,” or summon one for himself. The details are for the little people to work out.

Speaking of details, let’s go to the debunker portion of this week’s post:

Sounds like solid self-defense at first, but there’s just one tiny detail they overlook: They don’t account for the effect the NRA has had over gun laws and culture all over the country. No one is blaming mass shootings on card-carrying NRA members, but you can’t ignore that through their efforts, gun laws are woefully insufficient to even make a dent in gun-related killings. Even the smallest, most logical efforts to safeguard innocent lives from being cut down are met with howls of Second Amendment hysteria. Like banning people on the Terrorist fucking Watch-List from buying guns, or fingerprint safety guards, or literally anything else that might save a life or make a weapon a bit less lethal.

We have to remember that the NRA exists as a lobbying arm for gun manufacturers. That’s it. Everything else is a side-mission, always secondary to selling more guns!

Because of the NRA, you can walk into a Walmart, buy a semi-automatic rifle on credit and start shooting before the first payment is due. Because of the NRA, people can buy high-capacity clips that have no use in hunting or reasonable self-defense. Because of the NRA, even jurisdictions that do have some kind of gun control laws are unable to stem the tide of killing because of the guns coming in from surrounding areas that do not have such laws.

There is no amount of killing, whether it’s teen partygoers, concert attendees, or grade school children that will deter the NRA from enshrining the right to own any firearm imaginable as a basic human right. The cost in life is irrelevant. The only numbers that count are the monthly receipts. That is the legacy of the NRA.

I also have to laugh at the bar they’re setting, to reap congratulations for themselves. No members murdered anyone this weekend? Whoo Hoo! Hooray for us! Let’s celebrate with a little automatic weapons fire into the air! Our guys went a whole weekend without a murder spree!

My theory is that the weekend in question was over the Fourth of July, so their members were too busy blowing shit up to even bother getting out the guns.  

Just don’t tell the NRA, or they might try to outlaw fireworks.

National Punching Bag

Conservative rag The National Review was taking shots at Dr. Fauci again last week, comparing him to that last guest who’s still drinking and dancing when the hosts just want to go to bed:

He’s been a target of the Right since Day One when he dared contradict the Former Guy on matters within his area of (considerable) expertise. Republicans are determined to minimize the seriousness of the coronavirus in order to keep schools and businesses open and making money. They don’t care about the damage done as long as the money keeps rolling in and upward.

Republicans complaining about Dr. Fauci always strike me as sounding like kids whining because they want dessert for dinner. They just want everything over so that all the elves can go back to their trees and resume making cookies. They desperately want to turn back the clock to pre-COVID times and then turn it back further to 1949.

I understand that we are all COVID-fatigued and want things to be normal again. And we would be closer to doing so if only we didn’t have that childlike desire for instant gratification. Just when we get to the point where we can put a serious limit on the Rona, we ease off the brakes, throw open the screen door, let the horse out of the barn, celebrate on the 10-yard line, or any other metaphor you like that means "to give up too soon." Premature inoculation, if you will.

Our country leads the world in COVID cases, for the simple reason that 40% of the country thinks it’s a hoax, despite suffering over 567,000 deaths.

Look at this map from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center, specifically at the yellow graph in the lower right.

The poorly drawn red arrow shows where we started “opening back up” in February. Look at the increase in cases, and that’s WITH the aggressive rollout of the vaccine. We’re blowing it because we are too impatient and too reliant on “expert opinions” coming from non-experts, who usually have skin in the game. And that first little bump on the left of the graph shows where we were when we shut down the country the first time. I’m not saying we keep up the draconian measures, but we should at least insist on masks and distancing until the vaccinations take hold.

Taking potshots at the nation’s leading epidemiologist for changing his story only shows that they don’t really understand science. They seem to think that Dr. Fauci was supposed to stand up there on March 12^th, 2020, and layout every detail regarding transmission and treatment of COVID-19. They don’t understand that no one can have a full picture of the details on a virus that’s just getting started. Science observes ongoing behavior and evidence and updates its theories to suit the data.

Science does NOT stake claim to a theory and then cast it in stone when other factors call it into question. That’s what religion and politics do. They start with the desired outcome and backfill the rest.

There’s also the question of being a decent human being and a good neighbor. Look, I’d like all this to be over as much as the next guy, (aside from working at home, which I never want to end,) and I just got my second shot last Friday. Two weeks from now, I’d love to rip my mask off and go running barefaced through the streets and retail outlets, screaming “I’m free! I’m free!”

But even after being fully vaccinated, I can still contract the virus and then spread it to others, some of whom may NOT be vaccinated. But I can’t see running wild like that until we achieve the fabled herd immunity.

It’s ironic, in a “snake chasing its own tail” sort of way, that Republicans are desperate to get to the no-restriction phase of herd immunity, yet actively work against achieving said herd immunity by downplaying the seriousness of the virus, going without masks, gathering in bars and restaurants, avoiding the vaccine and trying to convince others to do so as well. Thus, they ensure that we never reach that coveted “freedom” they so loudly desire.

But let them throw jabs at Dr. Fauci all they want. That’s the thing about a punching bag… it always snaps back.

***

In other COVID news, I noticed Republicans going nuts about the pause with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I don’t know if the pause is a good thing, (using an abundance of caution to not kill people) or a bad thing, (scaring people out of getting the shot), but I do know that if those test results came out and they didn’t put a halt to its use, Republicans would go nuts about that too. It really doesn’t matter.

Whatever happens with Democrats in charge, Republicans are against it. To be seen fighting the Libs is all they have. (Well, that and stoking fear of foreigners, Blacks, gays, trans, Muslims, Atheists, feminists, and tan suits.)

***

I also saw this headline from the National Review in my Yahoo news feed:

To me, this sounds like the best news in a long time, on the reproductive front. And they’re calling it “cruel?”

Shit. Cruel is forcing a woman to carry and deliver a baby she doesn’t want, can’t afford, or will kill her in delivering, while opposing assistance with birth control, medical care, food, or child care. They’re just pissed because obtaining the “abortion pill” by mail bypasses all the roadblocks they’ve set up, like making up restrictions that only women’s health clinics have to follow and shutting down any place that can’t comply, allowing mobs of people to line the streets like a gauntlet outside the clinics, enforcing waiting periods to make sure it will take a couple of trips, sometimes over many hours, requiring doctors to read scientifically incorrect statements to their patients, perform invasive, medically unnecessary tests, and so on.

It’s the same reason they hate voting by mail… it bypasses their vote suppressing policies.

 ***

I culled this from Facebook this weekend.

Um, I can think of a reason… how about so we won’t slaughter each other in numbers we can’t even keep track of any more?

Always with the grand conspiracy theories, they are. Hey, when assault weapons were outlawed in 1994, what did the government do for which you should have shot them? I’ll tell you… not a damned thing. All that happened was that the number of mass shootings went down. And then as soon as Republicans let the ban expire in 2004, the numbers skyrocketed.

If, as the meme intimates, we need semi-automatic rifles to go up against government forces that have turned against us, ask the Taliban how effective all their guns were against the forces of the United States military. They had lots of AK-47s and it didn’t do them much good at all. Defending one’s home against military invaders, using nothing but the contents of one’s own gun locker is a pipe dream, a Hollywood, bad-ass, feel-good story, and not marginally related to reality.

I’ve gone through all this before. I believe civilians have no business owning semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity clips. They serve no function other than to kill lots of people in a short amount of time, and to give ammo-sexuals their thrills when they fire guns that go boom-boom-boom. The latter reason is no rationale to tolerate the first.

The gun nuts love to rail against “taking our guns.” Even if that were possible, that these killing machines could somehow be removed from circulation, (which I seriously doubt,) we’d still be the most heavily-armed citizenry in the world, just with standard rifles and handguns.

If Washington DC didn't have strict laws against open carry, we wouldn't have seen the January 6th Insurrection, it would have been the January 6th Congressional Massacre. 

They also love to argue that guns residing with law-abiding citizens are not the problem. And the problem with that is most mass-killers ARE law-abiding citizens, right up until they’re not. Just ask the victimized parents of Sandy Hook.

People certainly wouldn’t stand for some kind of national Evaluate the Citizenry for Signs of Evil program, so how else does one identify potential killers? It’s not like the guys who suddenly go off and shoot up a workplace or factory always have a history of gun violence… it’s usually the quiet ones or ornery loners who just go off. It’s unlikely that we could ID these guys in enough time to confiscate their guns. (And if we do, it sure seems like they can go right back out and buy more guns.)

The only solution is to put limits on these guns. All we need are a few more politicians with the balls to take on the NRA. 

Getting it past the new Supreme Court is another story.

Rock Steady

Just as sure as all the crazy-ass people started shooting up their neighbors and co-workers as soon as they could get out of the house, we have the crazy-ass gun nuts rushing to defend their beloved penile proxies. This was one I saw over the weekend and it makes about as much sense as the book it cites.

I could use an Atheist defense and dismiss any argument based on the Bible (especially the Old Testament), as being based on folklore and mythology, but then I’d have to come up with something else to fill up this post.

So even if we accept the tenuous premise that the Bible is a relevant defense, there are still problems with this argument. We can start with the fatal flaw that it contains an invalid comparison. It’s the same flaw that damages most pro-gun arguments where they cite other items that can be used to kill. But when someone can use rocks (or knives or bats) to kill dozens in seconds, from a distance, then you can compare the two. But until that happens, these other minor instruments can be easily repelled and are not in need of regulation. (First line of defense: Be out of arm’s reach.)

I also wonder, can God really find fault with some guy who killed his brother when He, Himself, slaughtered thousands of children (according to His press kit), for no more reason that they belonged to the wrong people? God was the biggest murderer in the Bible. It sounds like a “Do as I say, not as I do” kind of situation, which is probably why it attracts Republicans.

OK, hold on… maybe THIS was the Rock that killed Abel, and maybe Goliath as well:

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Maybe they have those stories all wrong. Maybe after all this time they’ve been taking The People’s Elbow for granite.

 ***

Here’s another meme I’ve been seeing that bugs me:

I’d be prouder to be an American if the writer knew how to punctuate. I’d be prouder still if they weren’t quoting some schmaltzy Lee Greenwood song. But most of all, I’d be proud if they’d realize that being American isn’t a race and therefore cannot be an instrument of showing racism.

Being American is a nationality and it’s to our benefit, as a country, that we’re made up of multiple races. Merely proclaiming one’s self an American shouldn’t make anyone feel racist. Feeling “Nationalist” is another story, but that’s not what this meme says.

Ultimately, I think this is more of a strawman argument. All these memes talk about how “others” (usually Muslims) are offended when we fly the flag or claim to be American. Who, exactly are these people? I’ve never once seen or heard of someone claiming to be offended because of the presence of the flag. We can fly our flag and they can fly their flag, (whatever that may be.)

Although to be honest, have you ever seen what conservatives do when they see a non-US flag being flown? Cue the hissy fits in 3… 2… 1… Go.

They’re 100% in favor of flag-waving, as long as it’s theirs.

 ***

I’ve been sitting on this for a while but have not found the proper time to post it. But it just goes to show that word choices matter. Consider this headline I snipped from my Yahoo news feed:

My first thought upon seeing it was, “Tracy Morgan had awkward sex with Hoda Kotb??” It made me chuckle before I eventually worked out what they were trying to say. Later that day, I saw the amended headline:

TM 2)

And with that, dignity was restored to poor Hoda Kotb.