Today's Belle

On the Veep Debate.

If Walz can bring his Coach game - "C'mon JD, you can do better'n that" - he can draw the kind of contrast that sinks a phony like Vance - who's already 11 points underwater on 'favorability".

Today's Belle

"He's asking for a country to run, when he can't even make a donut run."

Today's Belle

The claim that no one was killed (or even shot at) for an 18-month stretch under Trump is not true.

And it doesn't matter whether it was an oversight or a straight up lie. People were killed, and Trump ignored it.

To pump himself up, he erased people. He denied they even existed.

Today's Belle

What a great tagline:

"Did our lost family members get anything?"

Today's Belle

On The Project

Project 2025 enjoys a favorable response from only 1 demographic: MAGA Republicans.

Trump has tried to distance himself from it, while Vance has been sniffing the wind, trying to decide if he should publicly embrace it or pretend he's turning up his nose at it.

These people have no honor. Everything is fungible, including what they claim are their "values".

I don't think the GOP qualifies as a "Party" anymore. There's no core to it - no mission - no central theme other than "Create enough chaos that people start to believe they have no choice but to let Trump do all their thinking for them."

The Daddy State awaits November's election results. And don't start thinking they're going to stop the fuckery on Nov 6th - or whenever those results are in. Win or lose, shitty times will likely continue, because MAGA's shitty behavior is not likely to stop.

Beau Three Years Ago

Daddy State Awareness Guide

Umberto Eco’s 14 Characteristics Of Fascism

(Ur-Fascism - or Eternal Fascism - is Eco's generic form, as opposed to a particular type of fascism, ie: the Nazis, Mussolini, etc)

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Today's Beau

Every 5th POTUS has left the office without completing the term for which he was elected.

That's 9 guys out of 46, and it's addressed in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 in the US Constitution, and The Presidential Succession Act of 1947.

Everybody take a deep breath, a long pull on a cold drink, and maybe spend a little time getting the knots outa your knickers.

Today's Beau

Today's Beau

It just kinda drifted by a few days ago, and I didn't make much of it - not like I should've done.

But let's make a note of it. Even though it won't make much difference to the rubes, this is something we should make sure the "independents" are aware of.

It's another example of the Daddy State strategy of keeping people in thrall to the point where they can scream about the total terribleness of something one day, and make a u-turn the next day, claiming exactly the opposite.

Today's Beau

Once you've stepped in it, you're gonna stink for a while - even once you've scraped it off the bottom of your shoe.

Green Shoots In Texas

The Speaker of the House in the Texas legislature (Dade Phelan) led the impeachment effort against Ken Paxton. In true GOP style, Paxton led a revenge effort to torpedo Phelan with a primary challenger endorsed by Trump and a host of MAGA luminaries - and the effort failed. Phelan won and the Trump guy lost. 

Is it 2022 all over again?

Stoopid GOP Voters

I know we're not supposed to call the other side a bunch fuckin' idiots, and I promise to stop calling them a buncha fuckin' idiots when they stop acting like a buncha fuckin' idiots.

Classic - make the proposed action look like it's going to do one thing, when it's actually intended to do something pretty much exactly the opposite of what you've been telling your constituents you intend to do. By the time they start to catch on, it's too late - ain't nothin' they can do - and if your Messaging Team has their shit together, the rubes will be glad to pretend it's what they wanted all along.

The Daddy State

Fake it 'til you break it.

Today's Beau

For every problem that's complicated and difficult and prickly, there's a solution that's simple and elegant and wrong.

Today's Beau

Democrats and Liberals and Progressives - every clear-thinking normal human being - warned us that the Republicans wouldn't stop at Roe v Wade. 

They all warned us that the Republicans would next target contraception.

Guess what.

Glenn Youngkin is a smiling hyena

Today's Beau

Because he's your ruler. He'll tell you what to believe - what to think.

Daddy State Awareness

• The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
• The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
• Lying about everything creates chaos, which helps condition us to stop thinking, and look to them for "guidance".
• Once we're totally dependent on them, we'll accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.

Today's Beau

Hey, MAGA - instead of ruining everybody's weekend with all that culture war bullshit, maybe you guys should spend a little time figuring out a fucking calendar works.

Equal Justice

From the comments: "Sounds like Menendez qualifies as an honorary Republican."

If it's proved that Menendez committed the crimes he's charged with, I hope they burn his ass to the ground, and I hope Biden makes a big noise about it: "We're serious about this accountability stuff, guys - nobody's above the law."

Today's Beau, etc

To shut down or not to shut down.

Trump always tells us what's really going on. So when he says, "This is the most united the Republican Party has ever been", you know the GOP is breaking into smaller and smaller pieces.

Because this divide-n-conquer shit always comes back to kick your ass.

Today's Beau

70% of us recognize that helping Ukraine is important to US interests.

58% of us see Ukraine as important to us personally.

This should not be an issue. Trump needs to get Putin's dick out of his mouth, and Speaker Johnson needs to get Trump's dick out his mouth - and take the fucking vote.