The Fluffer Brief

Last week the nation was introduced to the enigma that is Natalie Harp, the president’s new most trusted aide. She eased into our consciousness a month or two ago, when people wanted to know who the hot blonde was that was tagging along with the president. Some speculated that she was his new wet nurse, there to take his vital signs and change his dirty diapers. It stayed that way until the news blew up regarding her exact duties, which, rather than handling “duty,” she’s been handling the president’s ego. Dubbed the “Human Printer,” she provides her boss with hand-picked selections of good news and positive reviews (from MAGA sites) and any other slice of curated information he may require. In this situation, I don’t even think it’s about sex, just ego-stoking. It’s an old man enjoying the attention of a pretty girl.

The book, “Regime Change,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, illuminated just how devoted she is, describing personal letters she wrote and left for the president, stoking his confidence and declaring unwavering devotion. She’s basically a presidential fluffer.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, again, got his name in the news with a jibe that mentioned Natalie, which met with a tidal wave of organized indignation from the Administration’s talking heads and MAGA toadies, in a volume and level of vitriol that far outweighed the original slight. In other words, it struck a nerve in the Oval Office.

The funny thing is how they weren’t mad at the shots taken at his incompetence as a military leader, his chronic sleepiness, his golfing, insider trading, or taking a bribe-plane from Qatar. No, all the faux-outrage was focused on the “riding with Natalie” part. Maybe it really IS about sex after all. He’s mentioned many times how he doesn’t want to be “Cartered” by a military mishap. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be “Clintoned” either.

Now, is there anything wrong with a president having devoted staff? Nope, assuming they’re qualified and security-cleared. This president has been surrounded by nothing but sycophants for his entire career. He never seems to run out of them.

And yes, it’s alarming that someone who appears rational on the outside is so slavish in her attachment to such an utter imbecile, who has neither attractiveness nor cleverness, nor consideration, nor inquisitiveness to warrant such affection. A lot of people flock to power; this seems a bit overboard. Who else in Washington would fling themselves into the rear storage compartment of the president’s SUV rather than leave his side for a moment to take a trailing car? That is some seriously weird shit.

While everyone was discussing this story last week, there was one angle I haven’t seen covered, which may explain her MAGA-ier-than-usual Trumpmania.

What if she’s a Russian plant? Consider these possibilities:

·         It sounds completely within the realm of something an old KGB man like Putin would do. Russians know the long game. They have the patience to wait until their asset becomes sufficiently entrenched to receive the payoff.

·         Even if they didn’t develop her from scratch, they could have approached her when she worked at OAN, home of the Super-MAGA talking heads. Hell, for this opportunity, they may not have even needed to pay her off; just provide the inroad. She may have already lacked the dignity necessary for such an assignment.

·         They know he has a “type,” which she fits to a tee. They also know exactly how the president operates, thriving on praise and adulation; the more cloying, the better. They could have coached her up on what he likes, on what he needs from his inner circle. The more fanatical the attention, the more he eats it up.

·         Even with the president under Vlad’s control, they still could have needed an ear on the inside because this president may not always remember to report everything back to his handlers. That’s the problem with employing a “useful idiot.” No matter how useful he may be, he’s still an idiot. They may have needed a secondary source.

Now, I’m not saying this is all true. I don’t have any inside information, so this is pure speculation. But it’s plausible, no? Sadly, this is what we’ve come to in this country, where a president being on the take with the Russians is easily within the realm of possibility. “The Manchurian Candidate” seemed far-fetched at the time. Now it sounds like another Monday.

I guess I’d better be careful though. This could be a Pelican Brief situation, so maybe I should start looking over my shoulder and start checking under the car before I go out. Good thing our house is only one floor. At worst, any fall from one of our windows would result in grass stains rather than broken bones. Unless, of course, they got broken beforehand…

  

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: In case you never read John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, or saw the movie, it’s about a young law student who writes a speculative “what if?” brief about land use crossing with ecological concerns, which ended up with a couple of Supreme Court justices murdered and assassins looking for the student. The movie stars Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.

Lincoln Would be Pissed

It finally broke nationally that the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is in dire straits, and not just that of Hormuz. Conditions aboard the Lincoln have deteriorated to the point where several sailors have tried to jump overboard. They’ve been deployed for over nine months, without shore leave or apparently any supply shipments.

We’ve known for years that TFG gives less than a flying F about our servicemen (and even less of an F about servicewomen). Back during his first term, he was quoted by one of his generals as saying those serving in our military were “suckers and losers,” apparently for putting their lives on the line in exchange for relatively little monetary reward. He doesn’t understand service, nor honor, nor sacrifice, so volunteering for such duty doesn’t compute to him.

Also, please recall that in 2019, he diverted funds away from our rank-and-file servicemen. I wrote about it thusly:

“Did you see where he wants to pull the money from?  Among other uses, he’s targeting funds earmarked to upgrade soldiers’ housing. Apparently, there are significant numbers of servicemen and their families living in moldy, rat-infested houses. Sure, everybody gets all weepy and patriotic about military men and women, but let’s divert the money meant to keep them from living in squalor.

I’m certainly no military expert, but I don’t understand, even if a longer-than-usual deployment is necessary, how they are not flying in supplies to restock the ship. Why can’t they send some plumbers to get the busted pipes back under control? Maybe start helicoptering some of the crew to shore and back, just to keep them going. Nobody functions well in a never-ending grind of both mental and physical faculties, not even our best and brightest.

At least Sen. Ossoff is bringing the heat.

Today, we’re faced with the fact that our military members are being treated more harshly than those who were on the USS Indianapolis.

 “Ya got city hands, Mr. President. Been countin’ money all yer life.”

At least with the sharks, you know what’s coming. I’m sure there are a lot of sailors on the Lincoln who enlisted after believing all the hype about becoming macho he-man weapons of war, only to be left to sleep in their own filth for three seasons. They must feel completely abandoned by their country and their leaders, who had to be pressured into taking the most meager of actions.

Which brings me to all the military sycophants I’ve seen on social media over the years, adorning themselves in yellow ribbons, flag lapel-pins, and sappy patriotic memes, who are now dead silent on what’s happening under their guys’ watch. I know one of my best friends served on an aircraft carrier in the 80s, who would completely understand what his modern peers are going through. Yet there has not been a word from him or any of the others in their social media feeds.

I guaran-damn-tee you that if this exact situation happened under Biden or any other Democratic administration, they’d be screaming bloody murder and there would be non-stop news coverage of the outrage. Instead, all these “Seal Team Six” war movie fans are now more like “The Silence of the Lambs.” It makes you wonder if there is anything really there under the charade. Is there anything they really stand for? Under all the bumper stickers, ribbons, and dewy-eyed reverence for our soldiers, is there any substance when you dig down deep for our soldiers and country?

No, just like their patriotism, it’s a mile wide and only skin deep.

Sunsetting

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been collecting more examples of the tricks used by a biased media outlet to taint what should be the “straight news” into partisan messaging. I have a prime example, right in my backyard: the daily newspaper, The Baltimore Sun. Last year, The Sun was purchased by the owner of the conservative media group Sinclair Broadcasting, and ever since, it has been coloring news stories with an anti-Democratic slant.

Granted, they have plenty of opportunities, given that the city and state are run by Democrats, so any and all “bad news” is immediately linked to a Democrat in power, especially Governor Wes Moore.

Rather than publicize a report stating that the Governor had kept many of his campaign promises, The Sun ran a front-page story arguing that he hadn’t kept them properly, claiming they were too vague or that fixes were already in process.

Gee, a candidate makes insufficiently specific promises… welcome to politics. Funny how they never run stories about Republican politicians taking credit for major projects at ribbon-cutting ceremonies, after having voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill that authorized the project. But then, it’s OK if you’re Republican.

But the point here is that they never cover a story that contains good news for Democrats without adding a big BUT. In fact, the “BUT” is usually the story. Like here:

And here:

They have to include reasons why it’s not really such good news, usually from hand-picked analysts, conservative think tanks, or one of the few Republican politicians in the state.

Take this article about a Fourth of July speech the governor made:

What did he say in the speech? No idea; they just question his motives and go on about what was wrong with it, as per their reliably negative “analysts.” They’re trying to torpedo, ahead of time, any chance a handsome, charismatic, young, Black, Democratic governor has to run for president in 2028. If you look at the first page of The Sun regularly, you’d conclude that their reason for existing is to provide a never-ending litany of smears of the Governor.

I understand and support that the media is supposed to maintain an adversarial relationship with the government, but we’ve never seen any such malicious coverage of the last two Republican governors, and that was before Republicans ran the paper. Digging up a black lining for every silver cloud is not balanced journalism; it’s putting your thumb on the scale. And even still, there’s a place for that, which is called the Op-Ed page, not the front page.

You can always count on The Sun to follow the traditional Republican talking points, like with this story:

Yep, whenever their own words are released and make Republicans look bad, they don’t apologize or look inward on what they can do better; they look to expose the leaker and prosecute. So rather than excoriate the Administration for using the “War Room” to devise plans to bury the Epstein Files information, The Sun/Sinclair National Desk attacks the efforts to expose such an atrocity. And if they can identify and punish this “transgressor,” all the better to dissuade future leaks. Yay! Democracy in action!

Note that this “columnist calling for a criminal probe” is one who works for the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, or in other words, Fox “News.” As per the modern conservative media playbook, they have one of their own people start talking about something, then have their other outlets report that “people are talking about something.”

Here’s another beauty from The Bubble:

What they completely omit from this story is the most obvious explanation: Republican talking points are far, FAR, more likely to be false or at least less true. So any objective reading of a situation will come down to a fair reading of the facts, which usually support the Democratic talking points rather than the Republican. We know it, and they know it… a great many Republican assertions are straight out of Fantasyland. It doesn’t even take AI to see that, just a rational look at the facts and data. So this article isn’t so much a stark, raving falsehood; by ignoring a major factor, it’s more like an aggressive misdirection. It nonetheless leaves the reader with the impression they want from the start, that the media has a liberal bias, all the better to claim victimhood, ignoring the fact that media ownership today is overwhelmingly Republican. And it’s getting worse:

Trump’s FCC just cleared the way for large media conglomerates, who own dozens of TV stations, to get even larger, to further provide a single perspective (a conservative one) for the nation’s viewers. With the Paramount/Warner’s merger about to go into effect, even more media outlets are about to be compacted into even fewer hands, and those hands will be overwhelmingly Republican.

Ultimately, that’s the most efficient way to garner good headlines… make sure your own people are the ones providing them.

Here’s one more story, this one from today’s paper:

It’s another traditional “Democrats in disarray” story, this time, about how the moderates are supposedly worried about the Progressives gaining favor. Why is The Sun writing about it? Because the last thing they want to do is run against progressives. They’ve been beating the Moderates for years. They just label them as extreme and go from there. Progressives promise the same things Republicans do: to make their constituents’ lives better. But Progressives actually plan for and try to do it. And when it works, like it’s doing in New York City, it scares the Republicans shitless, because they have absolutely nothing tangible to offer their voters, other than the millionaires among them, who make out like bandits.

So they call the Progressives “Communists,” which is funny because it’s the Republicans who are actually forcing private companies to go into business with the government.

Personally, whether it’s Socialism, Communism, or Capitalism, I tend to ignore the labels. The Democrats should be one message on blast: that they seek to spend money to make people’s lives better, not to provide more tax breaks and loopholes for those with the most. Costs down, wages up, tax the rich to pay for it.

Make food safe, address climate change, and install an immigration system that actually allows immigration. When in doubt, look to make things better for people as opposed to corporations.

If it wasn’t for the insatiable greed of the 1%, it would already be that way.

Just Say Thanks, Then STFU

House Republicans needed a distraction last week, probably from the fact that they haven’t done diddly-squat to better the lives of American citizens, so they decided to re-litigate the COVID pandemic by demanding testimony from Dr. Fauci.

As far as I’m concerned, Dr. Fauci is a national hero. He, alone, among the first Trump administration, spoke to what was in the national interest, as opposed to repeating whatever nonsense his boss was spouting. Congress should have been thanking the good doctor for pulling the country out of the COVID mess, despite constantly having to swim upstream against the torrent of snake oil and misinformation emanating from the administration.

I still hold great antipathy toward these anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-science idiots. I still blame them for the fact that my father’s last days were spent scared and alone in an ER hallway where he couldn’t have visitors, because all the rooms were filled up with COVID patients, in a Florida county where only about 35-40% of the people were vaccinated.

The Republicans’ aim was to compare Fauci’s public words and actions to passages taken from a personal diary, and to somehow get him to say something under oath that contradicts materials stated therein, to conjure up a perjury charge.

The first thing that came to mind upon learning all this was to wonder where they get off publishing a man’s private diary. I mean, WT actual F?

As someone who has journaled on and off throughout my life, I can attest that things found in my old journals should not be taken as raw facts. A journal was a place where I vented, or worked out my shit, on paper. I may have said, from time to time, that I’d like to see a particularly manipulative girlfriend’s head in a camera bag (quoting a Sam Kinison bit from the era), but that would hardly constitute a threat or even a committed position. I didn’t want actual harm to come to anyone; it was just me letting off steam, so I’d be able to function normally during periods of intense heartbreak.

Also, using a journal against its writer seems like nullifying his Fifth Amendment rights by disallowing his right to avoid self-incrimination via his own words and thoughts. It should be unconstitutional.

Note: I’m talking about figurative things like opinions and feelings, not a step-by-step written log of how the writer killed someone and where he buried the body. Or, details on running a massive child-trafficking and sexual abuse operation for rich guys.

So under the circumstances, I think Fauci was wise to plead the Fifth to every question.

There are no grounds too shaky for the current Republican justice system to create charges. Someone would definitely find an answer that didn’t exactly match something from the past, no matter how carefully he answered. As we know, these guys come up with charges first, before bothering with evidence. So as we learned from the movie “War Games,” back in the 80s, sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.

Fortunately, he did get to read an opening statement, to get some shots in against ringmaster and head clown, Rand Paul. It was the most savage opening salvo since Roman Maroni in “Johnny Dangerously.”

It’s a pity that we live in a time when scientists are criticized by those who don’t understand even the basics of science. Rep. Paul pretends to have high-level medical credentials, but he really doesn’t.

But even he surely knows that at the onset of a novel virus, no one knows what it will do, how long it will last, or how to fight it. By definition, you need data that amasses over time. It’s not lying to say something that has to be corrected later in such a situation; it’s just someone being wrong. Being wrong is the basis of science. You learn as much from being wrong as from being right; you learn what not to do or what doesn’t work, and you adjust from there.

So it makes perfect sense to cast a wide net with basic precautions like masks, spacing, and avoiding large quantities of people in public places. What got Fauci into trouble is that some of that cost some big donors some money, a cardinal sin amongst Republican politicos.

See, that’s a defining difference between the parties. Democrats were trying to save people. Republicans were trying to save profits, and short-term profits at that. They were too amped up over the next quarter’s bottom line to realize that temporary pain would lead to solid recovery later, once the virus could be treated.

So, now that Republicans need a distraction from this month’s policy atrocities, Dr. Fauci made a good target at whom to point their fingers.

Always remember, Congressional Republicans need something to run on this fall, and they’ve literally done nothing to help their constituents. Well, other than for the racist ones who cheer the harassment and seizure of brown people to pen up and torture for a while before sending them out of the country, to someplace where they may or may not be from. But that’s all they’ve got. All the bridge openings and ribbon cuttings originated under the Biden Administration. Sure, they’ll show up to take credit for actions they voted against, but it’s hollow. There will always be someone around to point out who actually got the shit done.

I can only hope that the next national health crisis holds off until we can elect a new administration, one who works to restore faith by basing health initiatives on science rather than who can benefit from providing a “cure.” Because if some pathogen starts running wild in the next three years, we will be totally and completely screwed. There is no one left to do anything that will help. They were hawking malaria pills to cure COVID last time, because key people could make money from it. Maybe next time we’ll see them pushing Viagra to cure the next bird flu.

At least then the “side effects” can occupy people until they eventually drop dead.

A Country Divided

I recently started watching one of those extreme weather shows on the Discovery Channel; the ones that show tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, mostly cell phone video shot by people in the middle of the event. It’s epic, fascinating stuff. (Well, to me, anyway.)

Yesterday I watched the episode about 2024’s Hurricane Helene, which was absolutely devastating to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. What I remembered from the news at the time was how Republicans were asserting that Biden’s FEMA was only helping Democrats, adding to the victims’ sense of helplessness and abandonment. The fact that these statements were patently untrue didn’t seem to matter much, and in the face of constant repetition on Fox “News” and the like, it came to be understood as common knowledge.

I submit that this was one more example of Republican accusations actually being confessions, because we can see from the years hence that this is exactly what the current administration is doing with their own barely-existing FEMA. California was devastated by wildfires but was refused federal help at every request. Even in Red areas, they were still seen as part of the Blue state.

And just last week, it was discovered that an Administration member said in a sworn court affidavit that approved grants for energy projects had been rescinded in states that didn’t vote Republican in the last election.

The current pitting of the two sides of the country against each other to this extent would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago. No one would have believed the depths to which the government, as run by an Adderall-addled fuckwit, would sink. But look at us now.

“We need help.”

“Who did you vote for?”

“Them.”

“Denied. Piss off, vermin.”

***

To add to my general discontent, I’ve just started reading that new book by NY Times writers Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, called “Regime Change.” I’m only about 120 pages in, and already, I’ve learned several appalling things. 

·         Stephen Miller is basically the Anti-Christ. He moves about the White House with impunity and tacit support from the president on everything he proposes. He’s so racist that even TFG noticed it. A quote from the book: “In a 2024 campaign meeting, Trump remarked that if it were left to Miller, there would be only 100 million people in the United States and they would all look like Stephen Miller.” A gruesome thought, to be sure.

·         Miller was enraged when the message emerged from the White House that ICE was only going after violent criminals, murderers, and gang-bangers during their deportation operations. He knew that they were going after everybody, and having that qualifier out there would make them look bad. (They weren’t picking up people at Home Depots and outside schools because they were going rogue; that was their mission in the first place.)

·         There has been very little thought put into who is getting tariffed and for how much. The president was basically determining tariffs the way you’d determine a tip for the gardener. “Let’s give’em 10%. No, make it 20%.” Apparently, no one in the president’s circle, nor any business leaders, thinks tariffs are a good idea, just TFG, who is always 100% sure of his own genius. All evidence to the contrary be damned.

·         They had invited 15 CEOs from the big fossil fuel companies to meet with them. The president asked for a list of ten projects the White House could help fast-track. The CEOs were amazed. Usually any request they made would get reviewed for political analysis, environmental impact, etc., before even being brought to the president. Said one of the CEOs: “He has a better sense of his executive authority than anybody else we’ve ever dealt with. [snip] I would never want a Democrat to have that same sense of executive authority. But this guy fucking does.”

Granted, we’ve known all along that Stephen Miller has been running the White House with racist intent, and the administration is totally in the pocket of big business and the fossil fuel companies, but it’s still jarring to see the details.

N. Carolina Eggs-ecutions

A couple of things bubbled up in my social media feed last week, and I want to talk a bit about them. First up, North Carolina wants to enshrine magical thinking into law:

The actual bill is more of a “personhood” item, bestowing full human rights to fertilized eggs. The fallout from that is that the NC GOP is pushing to allow “deadly force” to stop women they believe are having abortions. I’m sure you can see the can of worms that this opens.

“They believe.” That’s a pretty low bar to get over before murdering someone. One can believe anything. Will that now be a Get Out of Jail Free card for every guy who wants to knock off his wife or girlfriend?

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, I swear she was on her way to get an abortion. I had no choice but to beat her to death.”

Will this make murder the penalty for using an IUD? Or having a miscarriage? The language in the bill has chilling ramifications, and it’s all based on the massive assumption that “human life begins at fertilization,” which the bill characterizes as “a matter of indisputable scientific fact,” a highly contentious statement. (Ridiculous statement, in my opinion.) They reason that if one can use deadly force to defend one’s own life, it can be used to defend this prospectively defined human being/clump of cells.

So I can just see this being used as a tactic outside Planned Parenthood or other reproductive health clinics. A group of morons ring the clinic and shoot anyone who comes near, because “they believe” someone is about to have an abortion.

There are a whole slew of other ripples this bill would force us to handle. Are these cell clumps/fetuses counted in the census? Do they count as dependents and tax deductions? Can they inherit estates? Can they receive monetary gifts or own bank accounts?

On the bright side, so far, this is just a bill being introduced. It still has to pass both houses and be signed by the governor. Republicans may have the numbers to pass it; they enjoy a 71-47 advantage in the NC House and a 30-20 lead in the Senate. They have this edge because North Carolina is the “Poster State” for gerrymandering, and the state districts have been carved up to deliver the maximum GOP seats. The Governor, whose election is NOT affected by gerrymandering, is a Democrat, and House Republicans are one vote short of a veto-proof super-majority. That means the vote would be razor-thin to uphold a veto, but one bought-off or threatened Democrat could tip the scales.  But it would be politically perilous because popular sentiment is overwhelmingly in favor of broader reproductive rights, not narrower.

Democrats in North Carolina (and nationally) should make this a billboard issue to make the point that Republicans are not finished with their assault against women. Unless cooler heads prevail and they chuck this insidious proposal, hang this bill around their necks and make them wear it like a scarlet letter.

***

The other thing I found noteworthy is this cartoon.

I found it on social media and saved it for later use, and then later saw it pop up on a couple of blogs I follow. So I know I’m not the first to run it, but I feel I have to because it’s perfect. It’s an absolutely accurate depiction of what’s going on right now, as well as during the last 20 years.

I’ve been saying for years that all the Republicans have to run on is fear; fear of brown foreigners, gays, Liberals, non-Christians, Atheists, etc. They use that for misdirection away from their true intentions (like creating a rich, white, ruling class, siphoning tax money from the lower and middle classes upward to the 1%, and invalidating the rights of non-white and non-male. Because they don’t have a platform that offers tangible benefits to the average American, they have to guide our attention elsewhere, and fear is a potent weapon. So they get everyone worked up about these scary assertions, many of which disappear immediately upon the end of Election Season, and ride the big wave of fear and distrust right into office. At that point, all their attention turns to the enrichment of themselves, friends, and cronies. And with this Administration, self-aggrandizement, persecution of enemies, and setting up a permanent thumb on the scales of elections to come.

We need to keep our eyes on what’s truly important, like fixing the economy, eliminating those damaging tariffs, making health care affordable (and getting it back in line with the science), repairing our international standing, and installing a rational immigration policy that doesn’t include concentration camps. (And a host of other cleanup items to undo the damage caused by this clown-shoes game show host.)

And I’m hopeful there will be resources available for the gargantuan task of removing “his” name from everywhere he smeared it.

No, They are NOT the Same

When I was a little boy, maybe third or fourth grade, I asked my dad what the difference was between Republicans and Democrats. There had been a boy on the playground who was going around threatening to beat up any kid who said he was a Democrat. I messed around with him by going, “I’m a Democrat…  OK, I’m a Republican. No, I’m a Democrat…” I wasn’t too worried about getting beaten up… he was a fat kid, so I knew he couldn’t catch me. (I still remember his name… He’s probably the president of his local RNC.) But later, I figured I’d get to the bottom of the whole thing and try to figure out what I really was.

Many parents would have told their child not to worry about such things at such a tender age. But Dad told me something I’d never forget. He told me, “Republicans want the rich to get richer, and the Democrats want the poor to get richer.”

I thought for a second and said, “Then I’m a Democrat.”

Dad said, “Good boy.”

In the fifty-plus years since then, I’ve never seen any evidence that Dad was anything but 100% right with that call. Everything Republicans do is for the ultimate goal of improving the lives and bank accounts of the rich, even if it’s just pandering via religion to stay in power. It used to be subtle, but no longer.

Such open market tampering should be illegal… It probably is for the president via the Emoluments Clause, which states that a president may not profit from the office. But here he is anyway, making stock trades where he can create motion in the market just by saying something. So when he talks about a company or industry, he knows the inevitable result in the market, so before the speech, he either buys or sells, depending on where he KNOWS the stock is going.

It’s like he’s Biff in Back to the Future 2, making bets based on a sports almanac from the future, which shows all the winners. And no one will do jack shit about it. The Justice Department is no longer an entity that enforces the law, they are the president’s personal legal team. Prosecuting him is not in their charter. But watch them charge Nancy Pelosi with the same thing!

Yeah, the Republicans have been howling about Pelosi’s stock trades for years, and ignoring their own Congress critters who do the same thing. Bills have been introduced to outlaw stock trades by sitting Congress people, but, surprise-surprise, have not gotten any traction in getting passed.

It’s like with term limits. Why would they want to eliminate a perk of their own job? It’s in their interest to keep things the way they are. That especially goes for those who aren’t already wealthy, which, granted, are few and far between. Even though the congressional salary of around $175k sounds like a lot to Middle America, it costs a fortune to live in the DC area. Apartments and real estate in the DC metro area are obscenely expensive. And it’s not like you always get bang for your buck, either. It’s not that the places are that great; it’s that they're near DC, that’s it. It’s like the LA of the East Coast, only with lousier weather.

As far as I’m concerned, they should establish Congressional Barracks, like a complex of row houses, earmarked for Congress and even support staff (who REALLY get reamed on cost of living). With housing covered, they can pass a law banning stock trades for all government officials. Transgressors would get hit with loss of the amount used for purchase or sale, with an equivalent fine to boot.

Whatever the details, our elected officials should not be using their positions to enrich themselves, especially not by manipulating the markets and then using insider knowledge to profit.

Another peek into the Republican psyche comes from this article on Shark Tank’s token money-worshipping rich prick, Kevin O’Leary:

The complete quote from the headline: “I hope they work for my competitors.” This is the Republican philosophy in a nutshell, regarding how they view non-rich Americans. We’re just cogs in their personal machines that convey dollars upward to them. They don’t care about our quality of life, our opinions, what makes us happy, or anything else. We are a resource to exploit for their own gain. They would rather we just thank them for keeping us busy.

Once upon a time, such things were never stated publicly; one could only surmise such a stance from evaluating their corporate policies. But the current regime has emboldened the 1% to seek out the same kind of praise and adulation for being large and in charge that the president craves so much.

They want to demand company loyalty, applying pressure to work longer and harder for less and less. And then they display no such loyalty back, rolling out layoffs and job eliminations to keep the bottom line where they want it. It’s not like they’re going to cut back on executive bonuses, are they?

They demand everything, give you as little as possible in return, and cut you loose at the first sign of trouble. That’s the corporate American way, which is synonymous with the Republican way.

And somehow, they get people to keep voting for them, showing how they are true masters of manipulation.

 

Don't Believe the Hype

I think the state of Maryland is a shining example of how elections should be conducted. They have ample time for early voting, sufficient voting machines, and automatic mail-in ballots to all who request them. They provide ballot tracking back to the voter, to ensure confidence that one’s vote is counted.

That said, they really stepped in it this time around.

When they mailed out the ballots for the upcoming midterm primary elections, they provided the wrong party’s ballot to some voters. That necessitated a complete scrap of the mailed ballots and a remailing to all voters who chose mail-in ballots. They said there was an error on the part of the third-party vendor who physically mailed the ballots.

You can guess how that went over in the media:

Top story, front page.

Right out of the gate, the Republicans are on the warpath, declaring a fraud in process. The local conservative-shilling newspaper was right there to put up front-page headlines. Together, they’re acting like it was the Governor himself, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps, with a nefarious giggle. And they completely ignore what’s being done to correct the error.

They’ve already sent out emails and mailings (both of which I have received) with instructions to disregard the first ballot and only return the second. And if, like me, one has already turned in his ballot, instructions are to vote again with the new ballot because none of the old ones will be counted. (Inevitable Fox “News” headline: “Governor tells Marylanders to vote twice!”) The new ballots will have clear watermarked language on them, saying that these are the only ballots to be counted.

Also, keep in mind that this is a primary, so Democrats aren’t competing with Republicans. If cheating was the goal, why do it now during intra-party elections?

So, all the old ballots they receive will not be counted. If they have any sense, they’ll destroy them all. And it should be evident among the ballots received that they don’t get counted unless they have the watermark. Simple process.

I don’t see what else they can do to rectify the situation. I believe the votes will be counted fairly and accurately. I’m just pissed that they gave Republicans a lever to yank on, to claim foul when Maryland goes even Bluer than usual. And I especially dread when the Feds want the State to turn over all the ballots for review. I’m uneasy with the party known for cheating the system being handed the very material they can most easily use to cheat. The mistake may not be fatal, but it makes the job that much harder. It’s all a giant unforced error.

Or was it? Maybe there’s an operative or two within this vendor that were planted for the purpose of sowing suspicion about election integrity. It wouldn’t be that hard to arrange. There are enough Congressmen being paid off by moneyed interests, why not some putz in a mailroom? If you ask me, they should have picked some other state that doesn’t vote so predictably Blue.

So, when you inevitably see national news of the Maryland primaries being called into question, take it from a Marylander: They’re conning you. The error is being mitigated and will have no impact on the final vote tally. But they don’t want you to think about that, only the hysterical charges and hyperbole with which they describe all their opponents’ actions.

It's More Than a Naked Emperor

There’s a persistent myth being pedaled by Republican outlets that all Democrats have to run on is not being Trump. While “not being Trump” is a tremendous selling point to people whose EEGs show activity, it’s hardly the only nail in the toolbox. Last weekend, this editorial cartoon appeared in recently turned Republican mouthpiece, the Baltimore Sun:

Clearly, they’re seeking to persuade low-information chumps that the Dems have no substance other than hating their leader, which is truly ironic, given the ethos that currently holds Republicans together. Seriously, you’d really have to have your head in the sand to not see the legitimate concerns that Democrats can use to wrest power from the craven minions of the rich. Or watch Fox “News.”

Merely getting rid of the current president does little to fix what his team has done to the country. Republicans need to be voted out en masse. If they weren’t directly in on it, they were still sucking up to the perpetrators and allowing such gross negligence to prosper.

Democrats have an entire playbook to run on, and that’s Project 2025. None of it is contingent solely on the current occupant of the White House. It was written by Republicans and designed to be used by any Republicans in office. Last election, Republicans, to a man, denied having anything to do with this playbook, yet once they swept into power, they began enacting its directives immediately.

If I were a presidential (or congressional) candidate, that would become my Bible. I’d read from it on the campaign trail and highlight the damages done by the current Administration following its instructions. And none of it has to do with Trump. It’s all about consolidating power among rich Republicans and changing enough laws to ensure they stay in power.

It’s all right there…

·         Bouncing immigrants out of the country,

·         Declaring their political opponents to be “terrorists,” to facilitate rounding them up at a later date,

·         Setting up ICE as a personal military organization, loyal only to the Administration, to get around Posse Comitatus as a tool to intimidate and neutralize political opponents,

·         Buying and allowing the consolidation of national media to present a Conservative-friendly viewpoint

·         Altering census methodology to undercount city residents and foreigners,

·         Making it harder for lower and middle class citizens to vote, gerrymandering Red States to make a changing of the guard damn-near impossible,

·         Making women jump through hoops that few men do, eliminating reproductive rights to keep women under the thumb of paternalism,

·         Railing against “DEI” to cover removing people of color from the military and government, and removing initiatives that helped them get there,

·         Packing the courts, Supreme and otherwise, with their own Federalist Society shills by any means necessary,

·         Abandoning renewable energy options and relying solely on the fossil fuel industry for power, which goes hand in hand with general climate-change denial, and much more.

Any of these items could be a marquee part of a political campaign. Yet the Baltimore Sun (and apparently the Chicago Tribune, from whence the cartoon originated) wants everyone to think that all Liberals want to do is persecute some poor half-senile public servant. No such luck. The Dems need to run the races of their lives to overturn this headlong rush into an American Dystopia, where the rich live like kings, and the rest of us rob, cheat, and kill each other just to get by. That will only happen by putting a spotlight on what is happening right now and how it’s affecting average Americans.

Republicans don’t have many legitimate positions that help the working class, so they have to create boogiemen to scare the votes out of them.

All we can do is cling to the truth and call out the BS when we see it. Eventually, more people will realize that the Emperor and his minions have been streaking this whole time.

But note that we can’t count on the national media to help… It’s all they can do to get a paper printed without typos or incorrect grammar-induced misconceptions. Like this headline from this morning:

What they’re telling me is a great relief! Looks like even after I’m dead and gone, it’s not too late to choose what happens to my carcass. I wonder if I still have to fill out forms, or if I just float off to the nearest psychic?

Jokes about the headline aside, the article presents an interesting option that I’d never heard of before.

Talk about "soiling oneself..." I can see the appeal of literally returning to the earth after passing, but then using the soil as fertilizer to grow your own stuff? I don’t know about that.  I’d have to think long and hard about eating the fruits of my labor that had been literally nourished by a departed loved one.

I can just see the eventual harvest…

“Hey, that tomato looks like Grandpa!”

I wouldn’t even want to consider growing an ear of corn…

The Art of the Roast

Warning: I’m posting about Friars’ Roasts today and am including some of the graphically impolite jokes from prior roasts. Go no further if easily offended.

I’ve always loved the Friars’ Roasts, going all the way back to the Dean Martin roasts of the 70s. Granted, the ones we have today are far more “industrial strength” than Dino’s were, at least the parts that were aired on TV. I’m told that in person, they were just as filthy, but because they aired on network TV, the harsh parts never made it past network Standards and Practices, or government oversight.

Because the roasts are not aired on broadcast TV, the FCC has no say over content, so cable stations are free to broadcast whatever they think the marketplace will tolerate.

Director’s DVD Commentary: The FCC only has dominion over public airwaves because that is a public resource. Therefore, cable/streaming, because we choose to pay for them, is not affected.

The roasts are the last refuge of the completely Un-PC joke, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners comedy. It’s the kind of stuff my friends and I used to engage in amongst ourselves, although we were nowhere near as clever. Anything was fodder for jokes back then. The bigger the taboo, the bigger the laugh.

So, if you choose to watch a roast, you should know what you’re in for. If one is squeamish about hearing jokes about sex, race, religion, divorces, family tragedies, medical issues, cosmetic surgeries, and politics, often in X-rated language, don’t tune in. (Same for this post. See warning above.)

Further, if you are famous and contemplating participating in such a roast, you can expect to have your life’s most embarrassing moments mocked and thrown in your face, and it will be brutal. If you can’t handle that, don’t go. And that’s not just the “honoree.” All the roasters get roasted as well. You shouldn’t sling it if you can’t take the returned fire.

You wouldn’t have thought so, but our famously thin-skinned president was once the “honoree” of such a roast. I heard that he told the network that the comics could rip him about any subject, including the perception that he wants to fuck his oldest daughter, just as long as no one intimated that he wasn’t as rich as he claimed (at the time). That told me that he definitely wasn’t as rich as he claimed, at least not until he found his life’s greatest grifting opportunity in the Oval Office.

Anyway, I’ve been watching the roasts forever, because I know that I’ll spend 2-3 hours laughing my face off. For the last 30 or so years, they’ve done one roast per year, usually airing on Comedy Central. Last year, they put the roast of Tom Brady on Netflix. And last Saturday, they aired the roast of comic Kevin Hart, broadcast live, which I watched. It can now be called up on Netflix anytime. I presume it’s been edited since the initial broadcast. Running two hours and fifty minutes, I’m sure they can find at least 20 minutes to cut, to tighten it all up. Not every remark was gold.

How was it? Not bad. I got a lot of genuine belly laughs, but not as many as I have in the past. I think the panel of roasters was a little too uneven. Too many little-known friends and not enough seasoned comedians. Although the “surprise” appearance by The Rock was entertaining. Those two guys together are always a riot.

Mainstay Jeff Ross was there, but surprised me by being the first roaster. As a roasting legend, they usually put him on later. He still killed, but looked pretty bad (even for him.) Apparently, he recently survived cancer, so the treatments must have taken a toll. But even at his best, comic Lisa Lampanelli once roasted him by saying, “Jeff, looking at you reminds me that I need to shave my taint.”

Chelsea Handler provided the first joke I saw bubble up on my news feed this morning. She was targeting Hart and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who is best known for performing at a Trump rally and insulting Puerto Rico by calling it a “floating island of garbage.” Both had recently performed at a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia.

Chelsea killed with her segment. I guess she was the hot blonde comic in place of Nikki Glaser, whose career went nuclear last year after her set on the Tom Brady roast.

Every time I watch a roast, I can’t help but miss comic Greg Giraldo, who was a roasting mainstay until his passing in 2010. (Man, I had no idea that was 26 years ago. I was going to guess around 10 before I looked it up.) This guy never failed to slay me. On the roast of Joan Rivers, referring to her many cosmetic surgeries, he told her, “You look like if Steven Tyler fucked a life raft.”

To Bob Saget, he once said, “You’re an 'artist' the way Cloris Leachman is 'moist'.” (Cloris was on the dais.)

To redneck comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, he said, “You look like a guy Tonya Harding would fuck in a '78 Nova.”

To rapper Flava Flav, he said, “You look like a skeleton wrapped in electrical tape.”

My favorite of his was to very large (and now deceased) comic Ralphie May, “You’re the only guy in America who goes to a porno movie and cums when the guy shows up with the pizza.”

At the roast of Rob Lowe, David Spade killed me with this comment on a large-craniumed NFL quarterback who was on the dais, “Peyton Manning is the only one who’s been given more head than Rob Lowe.”

Later, Rob Lowe piled on, “Peyton is here to tell Zika babies, 'It could be much worse.'”

Pete Davidson was there last night, which reminded me of this comment of his to Martha Stewart, during the roast of Justin Bieber: “Martha, you’re so old your first period was The Renaissance.”

He also had this one that killed me, regarding host Kevin Hart and roaster Shaquille O’Neal, “It’s great to be at a roast hosted by Shaq’s dick… Shaq, thanks for being here and taking a break from throwing barrels as Super Mario.”

Also at the Bieber roast, comedian Natasha Legero told him, “Justin, Selena Gomez had to fuck you. That makes her the unluckiest Selena in show biz.”

Same roast, rapper Ludacris said to a fellow rapper, “Snoop, there are not a lot of Black billionaires, just Dr. Dre, and the guy who sells you weed.”

I could go on all day but I’d better wrap this up, so here’s one of the best digs I ever heard, which came from comic Anthony Jeselnik while roasting Charlie Sheen, ”Every moment of your life looks like the first two minutes of Law and Order SVU.”

Good night, and tip your waitresses.

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: Lest you think I memorized all those quotes, or spent the day looking them up, I didn’t. One of the notes I keep on my Notes phone app is a list of favorite roast quotes, collected over the years of watching them. I often open it up whenever I need a quick giggle. And yeah, as you probably suspect, the only reason I posted on roasts today was to use some of the quotes. 

Odd Bits - The Germ-Ridden Edition

Last week’s post about fake assassination attempts ran longer than I initially intended, so I omitted some other news events I wanted to cover. I’ll address them today.

One Flu Over the Sniper’s Nest

SecDef Whiskey Pete removed the requirement that all troops receive flu shots, making them optional. I’m wondering if this is a new war strategy. Given his lack of safety precautions for the various bases in the Middle East, which have been left exposed and have taken heavy damage, he may be counting on some of his guys getting captured. His hope could be that rather than intel, they’ll give the enemy the flu. Or at least get gross bodily fluids all over enemy camps.

He says it’s about the principle that one can’t force a man to do things to his body against his will. And the “a man” part is a telling factor because these MAGA goons certainly don’t recognize the bodily autonomy of a woman. This is just more evidence that the new Conservatives consider women to be second-class citizens/property. Only men’s rights are worth fighting for. More on this in a bit.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Double Standard

The state of Virginia voted to approve a new Democratic-skewed congressional map, which was immediately nullified by a Republican judge. Shortly after, the Supreme Court voted to allow racial and any other kind of gerrymandering, as long as the developers of the map don’t explicitly state that they want to screw the minorities. As with most Republican legal positions, they want it to be legal when they do it but illegal when anyone else does.

Now, I’m in favor of eliminating gerrymandering of all kinds. I think there should be a bipartisan commission in each state that draws fair and representative districts. BUT, as long as the Republicans are cooking the books in Texas, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and the other Red States, I think the Democrats need to do the same. Standing on principle is pointless if you’re the only ones doing it. I refuse to take the noble stand while the opposition flouts the rules of decency and amasses enough power to retain it for generations. We can already see that their goal is to create a rich, white, male utopia at the expense of everyone else. They’re not even hiding it any longer. We need to avail ourselves of every tactic there is to seek a more even playing field. Otherwise, our vaunted Democratic Republic will disappear in a swirl of grift, racism, and religious fervor.

Texas Tea-ching

The state of Texas has been cleared to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom, breaking many decades' worth of precedent separating church and state. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” That sounds pretty clear to me, and requiring the posting of religious tenets of one religion is obviously in violation.

If I were a teacher in Texas, I’d find a way to add the tenets of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Pastafarianism to my classroom wall décor.

To me, the best take on the Ten Commandments came from legendary comedian George Carlin, who, using logic and common sense, whittled the Ten Commandments down to two:

·         Thou shalt be honest and faithful…

·         Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anybody.

I was going to embed the video, but it no longer seems to be on YouTube in its entirety.

SNAP Crappola and Pop

The GOP is trying to work up more requirements on what one’s meager SNAP benefits can be used to purchase. The latest attempts would eliminate, among other things, soda and rotisserie chicken. Republicans won’t be happy until all that poor people can get from the government is a thin gruel, preferably after waiting in a blocks-long line. To them, if you’re poor, it’s your fault, and this is all you deserve.

I’m looking for the next proposal, where someone creates a poor-folks’ MRE, like the military’s “Meals Ready to Eat.” Then the government could pass out boxes of these pre-approved rations and be sure they couldn’t possibly be enjoyed. Obviously, they will be produced by whichever giant agri-business greases the right politicians. Mark my words, it’s coming.

United States Male Service

A federal court has upheld Louisiana’s ban on receiving the abortion pill by mail, which will somehow affect the rest of the country. It is a major piece in the GOP agenda to keep women pregnant and under male control. See, much like mail-in voting, by eliminating the mailing of the abortion pill, women have to go to places that provide such services. That’s where the Republican suppression techniques kick in. They can harass people coming and going, legislate against such places via zoning restrictions or other capricious legal maneuvers, or continue the effort to ban specific drugs and procedures. It’s another way for a small portion of Americans to impose their religious inclinations on the rest of the country, regardless of anyone else’s moral or ethical code. It’s the Republican mantra: agree with me, or you’re not a “real” American.

Passport Trolling

When I read that the president is pasting his scowling puss onto American passports this summer, I was overjoyed that I already applied. In fact, my new passport came last Friday, sans the mug of the Orange Troll. That’s the last thing I’d want to flash around in various international ports. Talk about making yourself a more obvious target. There should be an option where on the first page it says, “Please don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him.”

Despite all the warnings that this would take a good bit of time, I received my passport roughly three weeks after I applied. Now I’m just waiting for them to return my old junior high school passport.

Funny thing though… Sunday morning, I received a status update email from the government, saying they just mailed my passport and I’d receive it on Tuesday, the passport I’d already received two days earlier. Just goes to show, this Administration can’t even succeed without looking like a screw-up.