Today's FAFO

On November 6th, four of the top Google searches were

1. Can I change my vote?
2. Do tariffs cause inflation?
3. What should I buy before the tariffs kick in?
4. What is Project 2025?

On the day after the fucking election.

Peak Dunning Kruger

"Strategic Voting".

When you think you're being clever and savvy, but the effect is that you're being a total fucking idiot.

 

"The problem is knowing enough to believe you're right,

but not enough to know you're wrong."

Today it's Danielle Moodie

Some of the smartest commentary I've heard in a while.

If you define your best interests - even subconsciously - as WhiteCentric, then your interests align pretty closely with MAGA.

And you've got all the cover you need - again - as the media generously hands you the convenient rationalization of "Inflation Fears" (this year's version of "Economic Anxiety").

A Rant

I don't know this guy - he's new to me. Good rant tho.

Off_JaWaggon

Q & A

Q:

Want some help buying a house? $25,000 for a down payment. Or maybe we could build a few million places that are more affordable.

A:

Nah

Q:

Could you use $50,000 to start a business?

A:

Nah

Q:

How 'bout we pay for some childcare?

A:

Nope

Q:

Tax breaks for middle- and low-income wage earners?

A:Pffft

Q:

Union support and a minimum wage hike? 

A: Big whoop

Q:

Well, maybe we could go after corporate collusion and price fixing and market manipulation?

A: Yawn

Q:

OK - so, what are your issues?

A:

We need eggs at 2 bucks a dozen, and gas at 2-fifty a gallon.

And, oh yeah - shoot a few border-crossers for us - and put that on pay-per-view.

The Undecided

Overheard

Here are your choices for breakfast:

On one plate, there's a bowl of lumpy, runny, oily hangover squirts.

On the other plate is a short stack, two strips of crispy bacon, and an egg - sunny side up.

That's it. Those are the options - but you're telling me you can't decide until you know a little more about the fucking pancakes?

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.

Don't Get Stoopid

It's Come Down To This?

Wondering if we'll still be OK after these midterms?

Got news for ya: we're not OK now.

Here we are at this end of at least 4½ billion years of evolution, and the boomers are transfixed by gadgets designed to take their money (in a place where the casino bosses have bought enough politicians to make it illegal not to take their money), using their big ol' monkey brains to poke a button - basically playing Musical Slots - staring at a screen, expecting glory to arrive any second in the form of a 100,000-dollar jackpot, financed by the half-a-million dollars these idiots are pumping into those stupid machines.

WE ARE NOT OK

Today's Brian

Brain Tyler Cohen - Liz Cheney and a criminal referral

I'd consider giving up one of my nuts if the Press Poodles would stop framing their questions in GOP talking points.

And if they're "just asking the question so the interviewee can answer", then they can issue the damned caveat - "Republicans are coming at you with this, how do you respond - assuming you think it's worthy of a response?"

- or -

"Y'know, Liz - there's a buncha really stupid people in this country who can't tell the difference between a legit legal thing and the kinda political crap many in the GOP peddle all day every day. What can you say to countervail that stupidity?"

The Nail-Biter

Shelly Simonds won her election to the Virginia House of Delegates.

But no she didn't. Not if The Republican Guard has anything to say about it.

There are at least 3 real possibilities on what this voter intended - and 2 of them tilt the race to Simonds.

• First, the voter intended what the Repubs are claiming - straight GOP.
• Second, the voter went with all GOP, but maybe they know Simonds and they were making an exception. Whatever the reason, people split their ballots all the time.
• Third, the strike-thru on the Simonds bubble means the same as the strike-thru on the Gillespie bubble.

This thing was tossed out on the first accounting, and again on the recount, but suddenly, it's magically resurrected when Yancey needs just one more vote.

It's a classic Under-Vote.

Simonds is challenging the decision in court, and I guess we don't find out what happens next for several more days.

Careerism On Steroids and Triple Shot Espresso

We're not talking about if there will be an implosion, but when.

New York Magazine:

The president is a 70-year-old child whose TV time must be closely monitored — because any news story that upsets his ego will trigger a temper tantrum followed by irrational demands that his indulgent, overwhelmed guardians will be helpless to refuse.

Or so Donald Trump’s aides keep confiding to the nearest available reporter.

On Sunday, one of the president’s confidantes told Politico that his staffers have to “control information that may infuriate him,” a task made difficult by the fact that the leader of the free world “gets bored and likes to watch TV.”

-and-

Nearly a dozen of Trump’s closest confidantes helped plant an embarrassing news story about how their boss can’t handle embarrassing news stories. Which is to say: A president who prizes loyalty in his subordinates has already been betrayed by a huge swath of his inner circle.

 

hat tip = Bob and Chez Podcast

Telling

GOP voters are begging the people they voted into office not to fuck 'em over by repealing ACA, and those representatives are high-fiving each other for moving to repeal it anyway.

What does that tell us about the GOP?

What does it tell us about ourselves?

What does it say about how fucked up it has to get before we figure out that it's fucked up?

The Anti-Elitist Lie

I'm sure you've noticed:

Trump loves to bash "the elitists", but he'll be installed as the 45th POTUS on the strength of a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes - even though he got his ass kicked by more than 2 1/2 million votes of the actual populace.

Tell me again - how is this putz in any way "Representative Of The People"?

Today's Tweet

"I just wish that I had not voted."— Trump supporter despondent over Mnuchin, who's bank foreclosed on her home: https://t.co/WZASUp9D5Z pic.twitter.com/k720708Y6h

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 2, 2016

So yeah - you got butt-raped with your pants on, and because you're just too fuckin' dumb to sort thru the obvious bullshit, you're forcing the rest of us to share in that little Personal Growth Opportunity. Thanks and fuck you so very much, you ignorant twat-waffle. I hope you enjoy a long and miserable period of well-deserved self-loathing, cuz you earned it, lady.

Almost forgot - generations yet unborn wanted me to pass this message to you:

(Ed Note: I guess I'm not quite ready for a lotta forgiveness and reconciliation just yet)

Today's Eternal Sadness

Just the latest in the parade of carnage that accounts for the death of a child every three days.

PAYSON, Ariz. (AP) — A 3-year-old Payson boy shot and killed his 1½ -year-old brother after the boys found a handgun in a neighbor's apartment and took it to another room, the eastern Arizona town's police chief said Wednesday.
Police Chief Don Engler said his department's investigation of the Tuesday shooting will take about a week. Results will be forwarded to the Gila County Attorney's Office for a decision on whether to prosecute anybody, he said.

"What we're taking a look at is the circumstances regarding the securing of the weapon" and how the boys were able to get ahold of it, Engler told The Associated Press. "We are continuing our investigation, and we haven't ruled out criminal charges at this point."

He said it was too early to say what recommendation his department might make to prosecutors.

The boys and their mother were visiting the 78-year-old neighbor in their apartment complex when the shooting occurred in a bedroom.

The brothers found the semi-automatic pistol somewhere in the living area where it was not in plain sight, the police chief said without elaborating. Neither adult knew the boys had the weapon, Engler said.

The boys were playing when they found the gun, police said. The weapon discharged, and the toddler was shot in the head.

Engler said the mother was just entering the bedroom when the shooting occurred and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The younger boy was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Names of those involved were not released.

Engler said he didn't know whether the 3-year-old grasped what he had done.

"That'd be a difficult stretch for me to make that assumption," the police chief said.

However, he said the shooting was a tragedy that was felt by many in the community, including members of his department. Payson is about 90 miles northeast of Phoenix and has a population of approximately 15,000.

Engler noted many of the department's young officers have children of their own. "Certainly it's difficult for our officers in those circumstances," he told KPHO-TV.

But hey - freedom ain't free, so we'll need to continue these little sacrifices because what's good for the Ammosexuals is good for America.  And besides, your dead kids don't trump my constitutional rights.

Check this out at Pacific-Standard:

Since 1996, when a small CDC-funded study on the risks of owning a firearm ignited opposition from Republicans, the CDC’s budget for research on firearms injuries has shrunk to zero.

The result, as we’ve detailed, is that many basic questions about gun violence—such as how many Americans are shot each year—remain unanswered.

 And this at The New York Daily News:

Guns kill 32,000 Americans a year, but not one penny is given to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find out why.

Victims of gun violence can thank the National Rifle Association for squeezing off that funding.

The NRA began lobbying Congress in the 1990s to limit the CDC’s funding after the agency gave financial backing to an independent study that found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly associated with an increased risk of homicide.

The pro-gun behemoth succeeded in ramming legislation through in 1996 that forbade the CDC from using federal funds for studies that “advocate or promote gun control.”

Whenever it becomes obvious that you have a real problem - and when that problem seems pretty obviously epidemic and systemic - then certainly the last thing ya wanna do is find out what the fuck might be causing it.

And finally, from The Onion, here's the checklist for enacting gun control legislation:

• Write gun control legislation. Pass gun control legislation.
• Before voting on gun control bill, try, if you can, to remember any recent examples in which guns have been used to kill innocent people.
• Acknowledge that it’s going to be hard to buck the pressure of the high-powered gun lobby, but not that fucking hard, dumbass.
• Consider if overwhelming public support for a particular measure is something you want to be associated with or not.
• Inform your decision by researching whether guns are good or bad when placed in the wrong hands.
• Muster everything that’s left in your black, desiccated heart to do something that might actually be of service to someone other than yourself.
• Carefully assess the other side of the argument wherein mentally unstable people can buy weapons at a gun show with no problem whatsoever, and then realize there is no other side of this argument.
• Put on your stupid little suit, run a comb through your greasy hair, go to the U.S Capitol building, pick up your fancy little gold pen, and pass a fucking gun control bill.

Today's Eternal Sadness

Charlie Pierce gets it.

So, tout le monde — as we say around the still in the holler — is talking about the very tragic events down in old Kaintuck', where you can kilt you a b'ar when you is only three.

A five-year-old boy in the southern US state of Kentucky has accidentally shot dead his two-year-old sister at the family home. He had received the rifle, specially made for children, as a gift last year.

A rifle, specially made for children. Think about it. Some sales rep at a gun manufacturer pipes up at a sales meeting, "Hey, maybe there's a market for kiddie guns! No, I mean real guns. With bullets!" Everybody cheers and the guy gets a raise, and nobody stops for a second and says, "You know, we don't trust our five-year olds with matches. Maybe guns should wait until, I dunno, middle school." Anyway, roll that one around in your head for a second as we continue into our regular feature, This Week In Responsible Gun Ownership:

Reports say the weapon had been kept in a corner and the family had not realised it still contained a bullet.

And from a commenter:

Yeah, well, we don’t know the whole story, do we? Maybe his sister was threatening him with her gun. In that case, then the gun may well have saved his life. You know what they say, the only thing that stops a bad three year old with a gun is a good three year old with a gun.

And BTW - when is it not a good time to talk about what we can do together about trying some small thing to make things just the tiniest bit better for ourselves?  I can't be the only one who sees "let's not politicize this tragedy; it's too soon to talk about gun control; we should respect the family's grief" as the perfect dodge.  Cuz guess what - we can absolutely count on the simple fact that another kid will be killed with a gun before somebody decides it's OK to start talking about gun control, and so the clock is constantly being reset to zero, and nothing will ever get done.

If you think it's OK for little kids to have guns; if your ideology or your party loyalty requires you to close yourself off and "stand firm with your 2nd Amendment Rights" in spite of knowing that tens of thousands of American families are forever broken every year because you're just too fucking stoopid to learn anything new about the US Constitution in particular or the world in general - then please raise your hand and I'll be happy to come over and slap Wayne LaPierre's dick outa your mouth for you.

Dead Americans

Between 2000 and 2010:

via: bls/gunpolicy.org

Today's Turnaround

Fox Nation has this story about how Obama's ratings began to fall as he was releasing some of the points in his Budget Proposal which includes the offer to fuck up Social Security and Medicare:

I have a coupla questions.  First, how come Obama's approval ratings always start to tank whenever he starts to talk and to act like a Republican?

And second, how come the knuckleheads watching DumFux News never fucking notice that?

Meanwhile, Back At DumFux News

Everybody's favorite opportunity to indulge in a little Arm-Chair Psycho-Junk-ology:



From Little Green Footballs:

This is just sad. Generations of anger passed on by abuse and beatings resulted in hateful demagogues like Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin, who pass on the legacy of abuse to their own children and preach it to others on Fox News.

Ya gotta be careful about this, but sometimes it's just too plain to ignore.

Coupla things:
1) I have no idea if Malkin or Hannity were ever actually on any kind of team at any level other than PeeWees or whatever, but I'm thinking if they had been, then they'd know that a good coach never ever abuses his players.  And that a great coach can be stern and hard-ass and flinty and demanding and and and - but he makes sure his players know he likes (even loves) them and that he respects them; and that he'll teach 'em what they need to know so they can do what seems impossible while never simply commanding them to do something they're not capable of doing; or gets them hurt or makes them look or feel lousy in front of their peers.

2) DumFux News is not putting this up to complain about The Wimpy Libruls and how all this PC crap is making us weak - although that last bit - making us weak - is the key.  Remember, this shit doesn't happen by accident.  This is on Fox air for a reason, and at the risk of making too much of a leap, and drawing too obvious an analogy, here it comes.

The message is: Here at Fox, we know all you little people out there are suffering and taking a tremendous beating, but you need to suck it up, ya buncha cupcakes.  Look at Sean and Michelle.  They're in really peachy circumstances; they're wealthy and pretty and powerful; and they took the beatings.  Why should you be exempt?  You don't wanna be a moocher.  You don't wanna be unworthy of what you get.  You wouldn't want something for nothing, would you?  Of course not.  So if you deserved a better job (or a job at all) or some kind of security for your retirement, then you'd already have them because you would've earned them.  This is a meritocracy after all, and so you get what you deserve.  If you earn cookies then you get cookies.  If you earn shit then you get shit - and you can be grateful we care enough to show you the error of your ways.  We're just trying to get you to be better people (like us).

(In the end, it gets turned around to mean: if you're taking a beating, it's because you deserve that beating)

Hey - you voted for us - the beating is obviously what you wanted.

Can there be any question about why Republi-Cons and Theo-Cons go so well together?