Where's Nelson Mandela When You Need Him?

In their ongoing campaign to wrest control of elections from voting citizens, the GOP once again showed who they were, last week, when a presenter at a Republican Donor’s Retreat gave a speech on how they needed to “combat” voting on college campuses.

Lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association, said, “"What are these college campus locations? What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed."

Cleta, whose name sounds like what you would call a group of Cletuses, thinks it’s a bad thing to make voting too easy. Well, too easy for people unlikely to vote Republican, anyway.

Lest anyone claim that Cleta is some kind of outlier on the subject, note the complete lack of disavowal on the part of national, or any other, Republicans.

They’ve been working on stamping out college voting for some time now… There have been 11 states, so far, with proposals to eliminate the use of college IDs, tuition, or housing receipts as voter IDs. Texas is considering a bill that would ban college campuses as polling places.

This is what you need to throw in the face of the next person who tells you that voter ID requirements are merely a way to fight election fraud. When you look at these actions, there is zero content that addresses fraud; it’s 100% voter suppression.

It’s obvious that Republicans have no interest in trying to persuade young people that their ideas are better. They’re just going straight to preventing the perceived opposition from voting by any means necessary. And I understand that, given their toxic policy intentions. It’s hard to sell the continued protection and enrichment of the 1%, forced births, White supremacy, and evangelical Christianity.

Republicans know that young people are especially butt-stung over Dodd and the toppling of Roe, and are not thrilled by being so aggressively disenfranchised, so they have to find some way to overcome the severe unpopularity of their platform. How else can they ensure that the views of 30% of the country, or less, take precedence over those of the rest of us?

Between this voter suppression, closing and under-staffing voting precincts, gerrymandering, packing the courts with ideologues who are happy to ignore case law to bless their noxious legislation, and running candidates who plan to switch parties, the GOP is working overtime with their efforts to turn the future USA into the old RSA. What’s the redneck word for “apartheid?” Anyone? I’m sure they’ll let us know soon enough.

***

Ohio, desperate not to let Texas surpass them in red state ratfuckery, is trying to sabotage a possible state constitutional amendment to support reproductive rights because they know it would pass easily.

They’re taking a two-pronged approach:

·         Proposing a hurry-up referendum to change the threshold to pass further referendums from 50% to 60%.

·         Holding that election in August, when the expected turnout is light. The Religious wingnuts will be sure to show up. Politically passive people may not even know what’s at stake and the Republican State government will ensure it stays that way. They’re counting on “election fatigue” to weed out the casual supporters.

So then, if it passes, it will be that much harder for the majority to see their collective will translated into reproductive freedom and minority rule will be enshrined into Ohio law.

***

Lest we completely succumb to the bleakness that is the current political landscape, there IS some good news to be found today.

“Ding dong, the whiney little bitch is dead.”

Now, I’m as happy as anyone to see that pious, pampered piece of monkey shit gone from his lair at Fox, we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves. They’ll just pop another talking head in there who will spew the same lies and misinformation, and pretty soon, he or she will be the next Worst Person in the World. But still, we can at least have a moment.

“People familiar with the situation” say that his firing came straight from Rupert Murdoch and is related to a discrimination suit filed against them by former producer, Abby Grossman.

I think there has to be more to it. Fox has been dancing with these kinds of lawsuits for years. It would take a lot for them to can the face of their network. I’m sure the Dominion lawsuit didn’t help, but he wasn’t the only one that came out of those depositions looking like a schmuck.

No, I think there has to be something more going on behind the scenes. I mean, all we have to go on is what the people at Fox are saying… and since when can we trust THEM to tell a painful truth about themselves?

Maybe he’s been believing his own bullshit for so long, he’s going to mimic his beloved/behated orange idol and make a run for office, maybe even president.

Then again, that’s a pretty remote possibility. I don’t think he could handle the kind of scrutiny that comes with a run for office. He certainly couldn’t run against TFG… he’d get mincemeat made out of him. There’s too much footage of Tucker fawning at the altar of Trump that could be used to cut him off at the knees.

Anyway, I expect there will be more information forthcoming, be it from the inevitable leaks, or legitimate investigative reporting.

Man, I hope it’s someone who has embarrassing pictures on him…

MAGA at the Movies

Do ever see sometimes during political arguments when someone posts a graphic showing all the things that, if they were proposed today, would get labeled as Socialism by the Right and get shot down?

Thinking about this made me wonder about movies, specifically if some older movies were released today, would the audience accept them in quite the same way?

Upon further review, I think it’s highly unlikely. With today’s ultra-polarized, talking-point-driven, political-team-sports masquerading as politics, a third of the country might have different rooting interests from the ones originally envisioned. To explore this, let’s take a look at:

The MAGA Guide to the Movies 

The Week Republicans Showed Their Cards

Last week may well go down in history as the exact time US Republicans showed themselves as the party of anti-democracy autocratic dictatorship. All over the map, we saw Republicans doing their best to thwart the will of the people in deference to a small, vocal, band of racist and religious wingnuts, and toadies of the billionaire class.

Last week, we found out:

Justice Clarence Thomas received millions of dollars worth of gift trips and resort accommodations over many years, from a known billionaire conservative political donor, without including them on the mandatory financial disclosures. His defense was that he was an old and dear friend of the family who had no business before the court. Which is quite ludicrous, considering the amount of dough he spreads around to other Congressmen. And it’s even more telling that he also donated to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Do you think his donations may have had an effect on the way both senators continue to thwart any major Democratic initiatives? Or is that all just one big coincidence?

And the idea of this guy not having business before the court? How about Citizens United, which gave this guy the very right to buy off those two senators and whoever else could help him. Every decision SCOTUS made, from trashing the Voting Rights Act to upholding gerrymandering, to assaulting abortion benefits Republicans and therefore benefits this guy.

***

We had a woman run for state senator in North Carolina as a Democrat and then switch to Republican, just a few months into the job.

Is this the new tactic from the Right? Instead of running against an opponent from a hard Blue district, just run an imposter who can switch teams. This is one of the most depraved things I’ve ever heard of. It shows the lengths these people will go to subvert the democratic process.

Her seat is important because it gives Republicans a veto-proof Senate, so they can override the Governor at will. There’s nothing you can tell me to convince me this move wasn’t planned ahead of time because, at this time, political differences are so stark, there is little cross-over. A Venn diagram would show the parties in two unbroken circles, several feet apart. Nevertheless, this was her defense:

Seriously? What was cast aside was the will of a majority of voters who thought they were voting for a pro-choice, pro-health care, pro-Make the Rich Pay Taxes, pro-Social Security Democrat,.

Look, you can’t advertise steak and then serve chicken. Or in this case, a bowl of rocks. This one reeks of pre-planning, especially since North Carolina doesn’t have a provision for recall elections.

It looks like NC Democratic leaders are going to have to do a much more thorough job of vetting future candidates.

***

A federal judge in Texas banned the abortion drug, mifepristone, which is the safest of the two available and has been used safely for over 20 years. He basically banned it on a technicality, that the FDA didn’t test it properly. This is an area over which no court has ever asserted authority. The judge overlooked the long history showing the drug to be safer than Tylenol and accepted the many dubious, unproven, and just plain false claims presented by the plaintiff, who sought this exact judge because he was already well-known for being anti-choice. Hey, the Supreme Court is now ruling based on personal beliefs rather than legal precedent or validity, why wouldn’t it filter down to the rest of the court system?

Then as the fallout began to mount, Republicans doubled down on the condescension:

Yes, women have to deal with white men making rules about what they can do with their own bodies. And if men could give birth, they’d know how big a deal bodily autonomy is. Look how they pissed and moaned about goddamn vaccines, orating at length about the sanctity of one's own body and the absence of the government’s right to touch it. Except for women. Women are property to be owned and directed; that’s the Republican position. Might as well just put it on the Trump 2024 bumper stickers.

Republicans are asserting that these blobs have more rights than the woman, I mean “Incubator” that’s carrying them. As I’ve said before, endowing these collections of cells with human rights is a religious argument and religion has no place in US law. At least that’s the way it used to be before the theocrats took over.

Not to be outdone, Iowa’s attorney general has put a hold on offering Plan B contraception and abortions to victims of rape and sexual assault. It doesn’t matter how badly a woman is traumatized, Republicans are more worried about an un-sentient blob. But it’s totally not about controlling women, right? “You’ll have that baby and like it.”

***

Just to show that Republicans aren’t all about putting the screws on women.

An Oklahoma state representative got a change made to state law that would allow his wife to become a vehicle tag agent. He was arrested for it but that didn’t last long… the AG dropped the charges. Just professional courtesy from one white guy to another, I’m sure. What’s the point of getting elected to anything if you can’t do favors for your family and friends? For a moment there, it was almost like Oklahoma was showing a bit of integrity. Things are back to normal now.

***

 And then there was the Big One of the week, wherein the Tennessee state legislature expelled two Black representatives for taking part in a peaceful protest. They voted on a third legislator, a White woman, but she was not expelled. It’s a total mystery why the two Black guys had to go but the White lady could stay.  

The reason for the expulsion wasn’t that these guys broke the law; they were taking advantage of their First Amendment rights. They were expelled for “breaking decorum.”

Seriously.

Folks, it’s breaking decorum to fart in church. Sure people don’t like it, but you’re not excommunicated. Maybe, if someone crashed Easter Mass at the Vatican, pushed the pope out of the pulpit, dropped trou, and farted into the microphone, then maybe they might get excommunicated.

In reality, Tennessee Republicans engaged in the time-honored tradition of sticking it to an uppity Black man, just to show him who’s boss. And it also shows who’s a sniveling little bureaucrat that’s afraid of losing privilege. And as usual, when the shit blows up, Republicans double down.

This is no longer about teaching some punks a lesson, this is the blatant disregard for the citizens that voted these guys into office. They’re carrying out the citizen's business and the Powers That Be don’t like it. And rather than have a battle of ideals, they kick their opponents out of the game. AND, they try to cancel all future games.

It’s all over the country now… there is no bottom to which Republicans won’t sink, in pursuit of consolidating and maintaining their power. They’ll rig the game, cheat on the rules, sucker-punch their opponents, and buy off the refs. It’s zero-sum politics at its most pungent and they will never stop until they’re thrown out on their collective asses. IF, that is, we can survive the resulting riots, as they claim any election they lose must have been stolen.

Democrats need to take the gloves off because these guys will not play nice, or even honorably. That ship sailed a long time ago.

***

On a lighter (or just weirder) note, as I was pondering the charges against TFG and wondering how it was going to play out, I asked myself, “If TFG goes to prison, does he get Secret Service protection?” The very idea of it amused me. At first, I thought about how it would be quite the shit detail for the poor Secret Service guy, who probably thought he’d have a much cushier gig guarding the Second Coming of Julius Caesar. But then I remembered how he seemed to have no problem in surrounding himself with Secret Service Sycophants, who would delete their incriminating January 6^th text messages on his behalf. He no doubt has fans in the Service, so they’d probably have no trouble finding volunteers.

But my question is really moot, for two reasons. First, I saw this over the weekend:

So there you have it. He’d have someone to listen to his bullshit while he’s doing time. That’s one way to make sure you have visitors. I don’t think he’d be seeing much of Melania.

But the main reason it doesn’t matter is that I don’t think he’s ever going to see the inside of a jail cell. They just don’t put rich white-collar guys like him in jail. Certainly not at his level (being an ex-president.) They’ll find some other way to impose “punishment,” in a way befitting a privileged, wealthy, White male. They won’t even put him in one of those Camp Creampuff white-collar jails either. And they’ll find some kind of “cover” for it too… the fear of riots, the unwillingness to cause social upheaval, protection of Democracy… whatever.

But boy, would I ever love to be wrong on this one…

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!

There Have To Be Consequences

In my last post, I postulated that we wouldn’t see any charges against TFG on Tuesday like he warned there would be. Well, here we are a week later and we’re in the same place, with no charges filed and the Orange Cretin using all the available oxygen to play the victim.

In a way, I’m kind of bummed that it’s the stripper payoff stuff that’s the first to get him indicted. It’s really the least of his problems. But then maybe that’s why it IS coming out first… to have a cascading effect. You’d have to think that these various prosecutors have made contact with one another for scheduling reasons, if nothing else. We can’t have people in multiple states trying to perp walk him at the same time. It’s not the worst thing to work your way up to the most serious and troublesome violations (like election tampering and treason).

And yes, I know it’s not specifically the payoff that’s got him in trouble, it’s the campaign finance violations. His apologists love to point out that Clinton settled with Paula Jones, but they omit that his deal didn’t involve his campaign or the funding thereof, which is the entire point.

It’s funny that now he’s trying to deny he ever had sex with Stormy Dee. That one can be cleared up in a heartbeat. Have her testify to the characteristics of lil’ mushroom cap and then allow him to provide exculpatory evidence. They did it with Michael Jackson… Or, maybe they can do like they suggested in Porky’s, all those years ago, and set up a whole lineup of lil’ mushroom dicks for her to identify.

“Have you seen this prick?”

Another frequent talking point from TFG defenders revolves around how this is somehow “revenge.” I can see how it may look that way, but when you think about it, there’s no other way it can be. Republicans had a chance to hold him accountable and they refused. Now there’s no one else left but Democrats. The thing is, there absolutely have to be consequences for offenses like the ones he’s being accused of, or else it will never end. Blatant corruption and electioneering will become the new normal. Every charismatic criminal in the nation will fall all over themselves trying to become president, knowing they can raid the entire federal fridge for their own benefit. The people MUST send a message that this won’t be tolerated, no matter what letter comes after the name in question.

I love how they also point out that prosecutors should be processing other crimes instead, as if the existence of one crime precludes prosecuting another. It’s just a red herring. It’s a chance to speechify about how Democrats (of course) let criminals (Black people) run rampant while they harass this innocent (White) businessman. 

Not for nothin', both of those mayors were Black women. More about their mayoral terms here.

The truth is, as a culture, we are not used to rich businessmen getting prosecuted or especially, convicted. Remember that not one banker went to jail due to crashing the economy in 2008. Not one. The upper class doesn’t go to jail in this country unless someone catches them screwing children and it becomes public. (That last part is the determining factor.) They just grab their golden parachute and drop in on an island somewhere, to live like kings.

I don’t blame any of these prosecutors for taking their sweet time. The stakes are too big to hurry. You know the saying… If you take a shot at the king, you’d better not miss. These will be the most scrutinized cases in modern history. They’ll need to have them buttoned up tighter than TFG’s anus on sentencing day. The impeachment cases were buttoned up like that, but unfortunately, the jury was guided by self-interest rather than national interest and disregarded their sworn oaths. They knew were voting to acquit before the trial even started.

Maybe when it gets close to crunch time, Ron DeSantis will throw him a lifeline. All he’d have to do is offer a deal: “If you will drop out of the race, I will prevent your extradition from Florida. Quid pro quo, Fuckboy.”

That should at least buy him enough time to hop an Air Vlad flight to Moscow. 

Who's Actually on First?

I have a family member whose birthday is tomorrow (Tuesday, 3/21), and for a second there, I thought I had the perfect present lined up. Who wouldn’t love to see a crooked sack of shit like TFG get arrested, probably on national television, to celebrate a birthday? It would have been perfect if the moment wasn’t so fleeting.

In the time it took me to think, “Hey, maybe his lawyers were told to get prepared,” the next thought was, “Wait, am I seriously going to believe a single thing this guy says? If this guy ever tells the truth, it’s purely by accident.”

Since there’s no official word about anything like that yet, the consensus seems to be that TFG basically pulled that date out of his ass. And I understand why.

If he really wants to trigger another protest, he can’t be vague. A call to such actions needs a deadline. You can’t say, “I need you guys to protest my forthcoming arrest, one of these days,” it’s got to be, “Hey, I need you to start some shit on Monday!”

Not that I think there’s going to be anything impactful. If the MAGAs learned anything, it’s that TFG can’t (and won’t) protect them. If they do anything but yell and carry signs, there will be consequences. The law enforcement people won’t be asked to be punching bags this time, it’ll be ON. And they’ve seen how ever-present video gets turned into IDs, and that turns into court cases, jail time, and lost employment. Best to stay in town and shout at the TV from the local bar.

And speaking of noxious vapor, I just can’t wrap my head around all this “America First” nonsense. The MAGAs are basically against spending money to help anyone but Americans. No matter the situation, they want to pretend it’s not our problem. Or at least not their problem.

But like it or not, it’s still a global economy and things that happen outside our borders absolutely affect things within. Name one isolationist country that’s prospering, now or ever.

Not to mention, there are things like upholding basic decency, and the right not to have your cities reduced to rubble by invaders bent on conquest.

But my biggest beef with “America First” is that there is no meat behind the sizzle. How exactly would they want to spend the money that would otherwise be spent on foreign affairs?

Health care for all? Nope, that’s socialism.

Food assistance? Nope, lazy people should go to work (for whatever an employer deems them worthy of paying.)

Student debt relief? Nope, I still have to pay my car loan.

Infrastructure? Nope, they might build something in my backyard. Or worse, they might not. Republicans won’t vote for it, but they’ll be happy to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremonies in their states or districts.

Housing assistance? Nope, not in MY neighborhood.

Free phones and data plans? Nope, that’s a handout.

So no, nothing that will help the lives of lower and middle-class Americans. But…

Border security? Absolutely, we gotta keep the brown foreigners out.

Military? Absolutely, because spending what the next 12 nations in the world spend collectively is just not enough. Even though the money never seems to go for pay raises for soldiers, just more weapons systems, benefitting the giant defense contractors.

Tax cuts for the rich? Absolutely, because, well, they don’t know, but their elected officials sure do. They have to remain elected officials, don’t they, and the money saved from tax cuts can slide right into their re-election funds.

So basically, “America First” means “We want to stop spending money on foreigners so we can give it to the white, male, Americans who already have more than anyone else.”

Headline News

No big surprise here. When was the last time Republicans accepted blame for anything, ever? Do you want to see a complete meltdown? Watch a Republican order a meal at a Republican fundraiser that uses Republican chefs and wait staff, and have it get screwed up. The pathway to lay blame would become an infinity loop. They’d probably have to go out and drag a Mexican inside, so they could blame him. And Biden, by proxy, for letting in the Mexican.

The excuse I keep seeing is that the bank was more concerned with being “woke” than running a sound bank… as if the two are mutually exclusive. They trotted out some hiring parameters used for the bank’s Board of Directors, to prove their point. The problem is that The Board is not really a hands-on group. Any clown can sit on a Board. They deal with big-picture issues, not the day-to-day wheeling and dealing of the other executives, the kind of which put Silicon Valley Bank out of business. It’s just the mundane making risky high-stakes bets with other people’s money, the kind of thing that was outlawed by Dodd-Frank, portions of which were then overturned by the Trump Administration.

“Woke” is now the go-to boogieman for the GOP. Whatever goes wrong, they cry “Woke.” The fact that they won’t define it makes it that much more effective because then everyone can slip in whatever resonates in their own head.

In MY head, it just means that one recognizes that there is racism out there, and sometimes it’s baked into “the system.”

I can give you a concrete example… Do you know what “red-lining” is? It’s an outlawed practice that banks and lending institutions used, wherein they’d draw a “red line” around poor areas of town where they did not want to make loans. They wouldn’t send mailers to that location, advertise, or approve any loan applications that originated there. This happened, and then it was banned. Lending institutions are now required to accept applications from any geographical area within their operating area.

I’m not saying there aren’t other ways to keep defaults and delinquency low, but they are universally applied, rather than restricted to any single area.

This was racism, built into the banking system. Stone cold fact. If it didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have required Congress to draft and pass a law to ban it. That was one, so it’s not beyond reason that there are more.

Of course McCarthy refused to go to Kyiv. He survived January 6^th! That’s enough mortal peril for one man. Tourists can be dangerous!

I also think he knows if he went there and actually saw what was going on, he might feel obligated to do something about it, and that would go against his party’s line. (And probably result in an immediate recall vote.)

Ah, who am I kidding? He’d have to have a soul to be affected by such mass suffering, which spineless political automatons like him completely lack. Otherwise, he might realize that fiscal responsibility sometimes has to be put on hold when facing a humanitarian crisis of these proportions.

Ah yes, the time-worn trope that one has to be perfect oneself in order to address an imperfection. Typical Fox “News.” Also, note that the headline says that they were “all questioned” about jet use. People ask questions and that’s a headline? It’s not even a story unless the answers are somehow unusual. And who do you think is asking these questions? Fox, of course.

They ask questions and then tell the audience, “Hey, people are asking questions.”

Look, presidents and cabinet members cannot go traveling around via horse and buggy. They need fast, secure, transportation to carry out the nation’s business. It’s unfortunate but it’s the price of doing that business. It hardly invalidates efforts to rein in CO2 emissions and try to blunt the onrushing effects of climate change.

Although Biden did not do himself any favors by greenlighting the “Willow” project, which opens up some federal land in Alaska for oil drilling. If Fox were writing about that, their argument might have merit. But then drilling in Alaska is what they’ve wanted all along. And they’ll never actually give a Democrat credit for doing something, even if that “something” is exactly what they want. 

Move Along, Nothing to See

I see Tucker Carlson at Fox “News” release his take on what the January 6^th videos showed:

It’s laughable that anyone could even put forth with a straight face, the idea that a video showing nothing of importance happening in one place and time, proves that nothing ever happened elsewhere? Even chimps are smart enough to know that kind of argument doesn’t hold water. I know Fox viewers can be convinced of anything they want to believe, but seriously? We all saw what happened live on TV!

The MAGAs were crawling over the Capitol walls like in that scene from Starship Troopers when the giant alien bugs attacked the outpost.

Or in World War Z when the fast zombies attacked the walls in Jerusalem.

Using the “Tucker Method”, we can use video and photographs to prove anything. For example, did you know that World War I never happened? Here’s proof: this is a picture of English and German soldiers celebrating Christmas in 1914.

(Source)

See? No fighting, no mustard gas, just a Charlie Brown tree and some Christmas caroling.

Also, World War II didn’t happen either. See? Here’s a picture from the South Pacific in 1944.

(Source)

Bob Hope was doing a show for vacationing tourists. See how everyone’s just sitting around, all nice and calm? There are no tanks or machine guns or missiles, just good times with friends.

The Korean War didn’t happen either. Here’s the ironclad proof:

(Source)

See, it’s just Bob Hope and a couple of guys hanging out, and having a chat. He’s probably telling them about all the hot sightseeing spots in the Solomon Islands. No guns, no Jeeps, no mobile hospital units where they laugh just to keep from crying.

Viet Nam? An illusion, just some bad PR. This is Viet Nam in 1970:

(Source)

This is Bob Hope, 26 years into his world tour. He must have been very popular. This looks like a Monsters of Rock concert. I don’t see any napalm or rampant heroin use. Who knows why all the hippies were protesting back home; this looks like fun!

You know, maybe this is how we prove to the MAGAs that BLM protests were predominantly peaceful.

(Spencer Platt-Getty Images)

This is just a nice little parade through Manhattan, certainly not a reason to start billy-clubbing people. No brick-throwing, no buildings on fire, just a stroll through The Big Apple.

Of course, it helps to also be right. The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. (Not including Portland, obvs.) One should note that the stats say police used force in 9% of BLM protests, but in only 3% of all other demonstrations. Sounds like the BLM crowd got special treatment, which I’m sure has nothing to do with flare-ups of violence.

Yesterday, Speaker McCarthy said that he will “slowly roll out” 1/6 footage to other outlets. I’m sure he needs the time to have his flunkies edit out everything that Tucker decided not to use. Why else would Fox receive the whole trove at once, while everyone else has to wait for installments?

The only footage that should be held back is that which shows secret rooms, paths of egress, and such so that it can’t be used to formulate a more lethal invasion the next time the MAGAs are displeased and decide to take another sightseeing tour of the Capitol.

“Ooopsie! This is the Speaker’s office? I thought it was the restroom. Sorry about the mess…”

They Need a Fall Guy

 The MAGA anti-vax nutjobs have been a little more vocal lately, because of that FBI report that they say proves them right about COVID being released from a Chinese lab. The MAGA crowd, who so often claim the FBI is a pack of left-wing freedom stealers, suddenly believe them now about this. (But not about anything else that they don’t want to hear.)

As with most things coming from the right, there’s a grain of truth wrapped in a whole truckload of wishful thinking and bullshit. The report assigns very little confidence in that finding, basically admitting that it’s possible, but the origins are still in question. So once again, we have this huge roar about something that makes very little difference. Or rather, as far as I’m concerned, matters not at all.

Why? Because the origin of the virus, whether it occurred in the wild or was released accidentally or on purpose from a lab, doesn’t change what we had to do to fight it. Whatever the source, the US government had to make a risk assessment, plan a strategy to battle and contain the virus and execute it. The degree to which they did or didn’t has been debated ever since, but none of that hinges on the origin of the virus. It came, we fumbled about for a while, and more than a million Americans died from it, with millions more sickened; sometimes seriously, other times not as much.

I think Republicans desperately want it to be a lab release for one simple reason: blame. They need to be able to blame The Enemy for something that had such a negative effect on the country (and the world). Being able to blame an entity that has been TFG’s favorite punching bag is the cherry on top.

When your chief characteristic is rage, it’s a hard thing to maintain over a naturally occurring process that just sprung up from flora and fauna. What are they going to do, dox Mother Nature? Threaten her job? Cut down her trees? So they need a bad guy, which is why they need COVID to have been man-made, just to have somewhere to aim their rage.

Let the academics work out how COVID got loose so that maybe more effective preventative measures might be used the next time around. But other than that, it just doesn’t matter and there’s no sense even arguing about it.

Debunkery

I saw this back in January and I kept it so I could highlight how bad arguments aren’t only a fault of the Right. Consider this graphic:

Now, I’m upset as anyone about the number of people killed by police entities in this country, but this graphic is not the weapon it should be.

Notice how it labels the data as “fatal shootings by officers and other deaths at the hands of police.”

Were there no deaths at the hands of police that were justified? Any number of these could be police responding to hostage situations, a perp who’s pointing a gun, or shooting at them.

A more effective graph would clearly count the number of killings by police of unarmed people. That’s the real issue that causes strife and unrest (and rightly so). A logical assumption would be that if the numbers were properly narrowed that way, they would have been described as such, but since they weren’t we should assume it counts all killings.

Maybe there’s a better case to be made out there, but this isn’t it.

***

I found another bad argument seeping into the sports world again, this time regarding some new baseball rules. This year, MLB has installed a more aggressive pitch clock and batter’s clock, which limits how much time batters can spend dicking around at the plate with their batting gloves, how much time pitchers can spend glaring at the catcher, and how many times he can lob the ball over to first base with a runner on.

As with any adaptation to sports rules, there are many “traditionalists” who bristle at attempts to make the game more engaging. I’ve seen several memes illustrating this point:

The logical counterpoint here is that yes, there’s a delay on that one pitch, but that’s just time invested in preventing MORE wastes of time. You lay down the law once, then the rest of the game speeds up. This is not a complicated concept but it seems to be one these meme creators aggressively ignore. It’s another one of those things that you can yell at the TV down at the bar and the rest of the drunks can nod along in agreement.

Personally, I’m all for anything that will speed the game up a bit. I’ve seen some say that when they’re at the game, they don’t care how long it takes. But I’m sure there are even more there who have actual lives. I’ve seen a ton of baseball games and most of them are night games, just because there are so few day games even scheduled. Most games start at about 7:10. A three-hour game will wrap up around 10:00 PM, with gives people time to get out of the park and back home before 11:00, to get some sleep before getting up in the morning to go to work.

They’re never going to be able to eliminate the occasional long game due to an explosion of hitting and scoring. But that’s the fun stuff to watch, isn’t it? What you DON’T want to see is an extra hour of guys stepping out of the batter’s box, loosening and refastening their gloves, then stepping back in. And then watching the pitcher step off the mound, fiddle with his hat, rub on the ball some more, then climbs back to look in for more signals. Everyone needs to stop jerking around, get in there and play. If the umps call a penalty ball or strike, so be it. Let that light the fire under everyone’s ass to keep things moving. Some of us have to get up in the morning.

RIP

It was with a heavy heart that I saw the news this morning of the passing of one of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s founding members, Gary Rossington. Skynyrd’s music was part of every party we ever threw in high school and college. Even my dad used to love dancing to Gimme Three Steps.

I was lucky to be able to meet them many years ago and in another life, back when I was a record store manager. (Remember those?) My buddy and I went to see their big 1987 reunion tour in Cleveland, their first tour since the plane crash. After the show, the MCA rep (who got me the tickets) asked us if we’d like to go hang with the band at a small party in their hotel suite. Believe me, we didn’t take long to answer. You can read the whole story, here. I didn’t get to talk to Gary, probably because I was too busy chatting up his wife, but she and the rest of the band were great to us.

 

Indivisible

Just when you think MT Greene can’t say anything dumber, she comes out with her suggestion of a “National Divorce.” I guess she’d know all about it because she is not only divorced from her former husband, but from reality. Or maybe it had been a while since the State of the Union Speech and nobody was talking about her for a hot second.

While I don’t think this will ever happen, not in a thousand years, it IS an intriguing proposition. Many others have opined on how exactly the Red portion of the country is going to survive without the welfare dollars from the Blue portion. It’s been well documented that Red states take in far more in federal dollars than they contribute, which is heartily ironic, given their penchant for speechifying on taking handouts.

Personally, I’d look forward to seeing an improvement in test scores across the board, once the states with the lowest marks in education secede. Let them all go to Sunday school. The only thing they’ll be prepared to do is enter a life of menial jobs and servitude.

And I don’t think this grand experiment will last very long, were it to come to pass. Once the next pandemic hits, without those mean old Blue States to develop and distribute vaccinations, they’ll die off like mold in the sun.

What really gets me curious, though, is how exactly the country would get divided up? I don’t see a way that the Blue States can remain contiguous. The biggest obstacle is a north-to-south lineup of Red States that creates an impermeable barrier. Look at North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, all stacked atop one another. Where’s the weak link that can be turned Blue?

So either the Blue States of America would not be able to abut, or they’d have to create three countries… Blue East, Blue West, and Red. And maybe Texas. They’re not known for playing well with others.

I’m sure there would have to be some further slicing and dicing within the states themselves. This would be the perfect time for Eastern Washington and Oregon to go and unite with Idaho. Perhaps Dallas, Houston, and Austin would want to break off from the rest of Texas. Florida may also want to claim independence just because no one else wants to be associated with them.

There would have to be treaties from the start, to allow free trade and passage amongst all entities of the former USA, although I don’t know how long they would last. I can see them as the first casualty to fall for the cause of international lib-owning. Before long, the plains states will resemble the terrain from the Mad Max movies. Maybe someone can build a tunnel from Illinois to California. OR, maybe everyone would just have to get used to driving east to west and back by way of Canada.

Anyway, it’ll never happen. It’s just one more way for political pinheads to say, “Hey, look at me!”

Headline News

How is this even a story?

Ah, it’s from Fox “News.” Why would any Democratic governor ask a Democratic Senator to resign, short of criminal activity? And who says the Governor has the authority to tell a Senator to do anything? All over a health issue, one that can be addressed? It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. (That would be Senator Feinstein.) Depression can be treated, unlike the conditions afflicting people like MT Greene, Lauren Boebert, Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, et al., who look at meanness and ignorance as virtues. When are they going to resign for being dimwits who have yet to deliver a tangible benefit to their (non-wealthy) constituents? I’ll take an honest guy like Fetterman, slowed as he may be, over those other malicious clowns every day of the week.

The real story: TFG claims the Democratic President didn’t fix Republican destruction of rail safety regulations fast enough to avert a tragedy.

Just remember the GOP talking points:

·         When a Democratic politician doesn’t show up at an emergency site, he’s abandoning the people.

·         When he does, it’s dismissed as just a photo op.

Did you see where Republicans are now claiming that East Palestine is being ignored because of racism against white people?
Never in my life have I heard people twisting themselves into such knots in order to claim victimhood. I will definitely agree that they are victims of believing their own bullshit.

I’m glad that there is a concerted effort to get this footage into additional hands. The only way a distorted edit works is if no one ever sees the raw footage. I think Fox “News” wants to give James O’Keefe something to do, now that he has all this time on his hands after being fired from the much-disgraced Veritas Project.

I’ll be curious to hear the word salad sure to issue forth from Speaker McCarthy, as he tries to come up with a logical reason why he can’t give the footage to anyone but Fox.

Oh, who am I kidding? They don’t even try to hide their shady dealing anymore.

It was with much sadness that I read about Scott Adams going ‘round the bend like that. Dilbert has always been one of my favorite comic strips. As an almost 25-year veteran of office work, it was like he had spies telling him everything that went on in my world.

I was a regular reader of Adams’ blog a few years back. He had some interesting ideas on how TFG was getting so popular and actually predicted his win in the presidential election. He seemed to think TFG was some kind of genius at communication, tricking people into assigning positive qualities to the open-ended statements he used. I thought it was an interesting hypothesis at the time but after watching the guy since 2015, I’m back to thinking he is an idiot.

I suspect Adams had to have known this would blow up the way it did. Maybe he was ready to retire from cartooning and wanted to go out with a bang. He wasn’t stupid, by far. He had to have known that such obviously racist comments would end his career. Either that or he wants to live out his life by entertaining the MAGAs, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and the Klan.

And as a pre-emptive strike, for when the inevitable defenses come out (like from Elon) about how Adams is a victim of “cancel culture,” let me reiterate that people have always been responsible for the fallout from what they say. It’s not new, it’s just the way it is. When you say something wildly offensive, you have to deal with the consequences.

Fox Libel and Other Headline News

I’ve been watching with great amusement the story of Fox “News” being sued by the Dominion voting machine company over their post-election broadcasts, in which in one of many whacko conspiracy theories they pushed, Dominion machines were programmed to switch votes from Biden to Trump.

As a result of the discovery process of their suit, Dominion has obtained and released text messages that prove that Fox “News” on-air talent and management knew full well that this accusation was unsubstantiated bullshit.

This matters bigly… in order to sue successfully for libel, you have to prove malicious intent. Most parties plead ignorance. Normally, that would be a slam dunk with any case involving Fox, but here, the intent is clear. By knowingly broadcasting a damaging lie, there’s no other reading of the facts that eliminate malice.

It’s not like they were spreading allegations of runaway decency and fairness; they were making accusations of election tampering they knew to be untrue. This accusation caused damage to business and reputation. If that’s not malicious activity, I’d like to know what is.

This information is even more damaging to Fox than if they “didn’t know” the accusations were false. It shows that they were more concerned with upsetting their viewers with the truth than telling them lies they wanted to hear. It was a conscious choice. And no matter how much backpedaling the talking heads do, the film doesn’t lie. They wholeheartedly pushed this story out there.

Naturally, Fox is falling back on the freedom of speech defense, which tracks with Republican tendencies. Whenever they can’t defend their speech, they fall back on defending their right to speak it.

How long will it be before they once again defend themselves in court by claiming they’re not really a news service, they’re an entertainment channel? That seems to be their go-to Get Out of Jail Free card.

I’ll be quite interested to see how this thing shakes out. Fox finally went too far, by smearing an entity that can demonstrate loss and has enough money to go toe-to-toe with a major media outlet. If Fox knows what’s good for them, they’ll stick to hazy unspecified conspiracy theories in the future. Here’s to hoping the financial penalties make this lapse of ethics really hurt.

Headline News

Now onto some headlines I saw last week on my news home page:

More bullshit from Fox “News.” Wasn’t this Rep. Ronny Jackson the same guy that sent out that wildly discredited health report on TFG? You know, the one that looked like it was written like a 2^nd grader doing his own report card because he was too scared to bring the real one home to Mom and Dad?

I heard some of the details on the radio… they published Biden’s actual stats for BP, bloodwork, and such. There’s no reason to believe the numbers are untrue, other than that they conflict with Fox’s predetermined view that Biden has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. This is just one more of the hundreds of examples of Republicans accusing Democrats of things Republicans have already done. And the “details left out” of TFG’s medical report were, basically, all of them.

This is another example of Republicans’ predilection for arguing either side of the same issue. All over conservative media, the standard line about East Palestine OH has been “Biden hasn’t shown up” or “Buttigieg hasn’t shown up.” But when someone does show up, the National Review calls it a “publicity stunt.”

As far as I’m concerned, all such appearances are publicity stunts. When was the last time there was a crisis somewhere, a flood, a tornado, a mass tragedy, and someone said, “If only there was a politician here!” I guarantee that if someone from the Administration had shown up right off the bat, Republicans would not only call it a publicity stunt but decry the inevitable traffic tie-ups and lock-downs that go with any presidential visit. You can’t win with these guys, they will argue any side of a point as long as the Democrats are on the other side. And then whine about a lack of unity.

In a related rhetorical flourish, Republicans are all for States’ Rights until a State disagrees with Republican dogma. In this case, Former Veep, Mike “Not Hung” Pence wants to ban the abortion pill in all states, presumably because it defeats conservative efforts to discourage, delay, and increase the pain and inconvenience of a woman’s attempt to end her own pregnancy.

Abortion pills have been proven safer than office visits for a manual abortion and are expected to be the number one way around state bans, so of course Republicans want to kibosh them nationally.

But it’s all for a woman’s health, mind you. Because somehow in the forced birth movement, it’s safer to endure giving birth, a process that numbers show to be far more hazardous to a woman’s life, than the one that prevents it.

Republicans may not be able to force changes to pro-choice states’ laws, (yet), so they’re trying to ban the tools. Same end destination, just different ways around the block.

The only way this shit ends is with continued resounding defeats at the polls and a mandate from the masses.

***

I agree with the idea that something has to be done about the current Social Security system, lest it run into insolvency by the end of the great Baby Boomer Retirement. But the answer is not to cut benefits or raise the qualifications; it’s to shore it up with new money. Or old money, via paying back the massive “loan” Congress took from the fund in the 1980s, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

So I’m excited to see where the new Sanders/Warren Social Security bill goes. This bill ends the cap on Social Security payroll taxes currently set at $160,000, after which people earning more pay nothing further into Social Security.

There is no good reason why people should be immune from paying into Social Security once they pass this arbitrary limit. This cap is nothing but a big sloppy kiss to the asses of the rich. I imagine the theory behind it is to not hamper the job-creating intentions of the business class, but we already know that more profits don’t translate into more jobs. Only higher demand for goods and services can do that.

This should be an easy fix and is already wildly popular. I think the biggest drawback is that it’s sponsored by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. I’d bet that if the same bill was signed by Republicans, it would be universally hailed. Not that such a thing is possible; corporate Republicans HATE the idea of Social Security and have been trying to end it for decades. Their tummies are all tied in knots just thinking about the existence of a giant pile of money out there that they can’t skim.