Le Tweet

On being Republican - they have nothing but the worst of intentions

1/ The benefit of being in a party that doesn't want or need government to work, because it fundamentally doesn't believe in government and benefits enormously when government fails, is that all you need is to jam the machine's gears so it breaks. You don't have to *do* anything.

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) February 25, 2019

·

12h

Replying to

@SethAbramson

2/ So when the GOP finds a criminal who knows how to win, backing that horse fervently offers the dual benefit of increasing Americans' hopelessness that government can ever be honest or work while also ensuring that those atop government aren't honest and do only nefarious work.

7

215

944945

·

12h

3/ We may sometimes think of Trump as a sort of exception in the history of the GOP, but how often does a Republican do something awful and quickly wind up a "hero" of the Republican base? When has the party clearly tossed out its scoundrels? That'd be counter to its philosophy.

12

207

881

·

12h

4/ Dick Cheney is a hero for orchestrating a ruinous and false conflict that cost thousands of lives. Did the GOP care that Libby was outing agents in our clandestine services? "Owning the libs" has *always* been—my whole life—more important to the GOP than ethics or governance.

13

263

1K

·

12h

5/ I guess what I'm saying is, what if Trump—despite not believing in any Republican "principles" or being anything but the clear anathema of any "moral majority"—is in fact the natural conclusion of the devolution of GOP politics, as in fact the principles never really mattered?

37

215

943

·

12h

6/ The GOP is now the party of "owning the libs." It doesn't care about immigration; it knows a wall won't reduce illegal immigration. As long as it seats judges who set us back 100 years and finds ways to prove that government doesn't work, it's doing *just* what it wants to do.

23

280

1K

·

12h

7/ 70% of the GOP would lionize Roger Stone in perpetuity if it discovered that he'd secretly worked with Russia to elect Trump, and had thereafter found some sleazy way to get away with it, by pardon or otherwise. And Stone knows it. And Stone is excitedly waiting for sainthood.

13

253

1K

·

12h

8/ When the only "governing" philosophy of a political party is that it hates the government it wants to control, and wants to reverse the progress of the democratic experiment of which it's a part, why should we be surprised when it makes a malignant narcissist into its godhead?

A Greater Truth

Conventional wisdom has always assumed Religion = Morality.

Without religion, we have no morality, and without morality, we have no basis for ethical conduct in society.

Over the last 30 years, every time the pollsters have asked about Americans' "Faith Profile", the number of people self-identifying as Atheist goes up a little.

It's now believed to be anywhere from 5% (when respondents are asked directly) to a high of maybe 25-30% (in a study where the methodology was more subtle).

One thing I find pretty interesting is the possible confluence of a shifting Religious Profile and the changes in crime rates. (ie: a falling crime rate is coincidental with the rise in atheism)

We're told that religious people must be good people because they're religious, which invites the inference that atheists must be bad people because they don't have that religion thing to keep them in line.

But while a full-blown 70-80% of Americans in the general population are either affiliated with a specific religion, or at least self-identify as "religious / believers",  99.93% of the people in prison here in USAmerica Inc self-identify as "religious / believers".

Flip side: 5-30% of Americans at large are non-bleievers, while 0.07% of our prison population are non-believers.

This does not prove anything - gotta be careful with the whole Correlation thing. 

Not everybody lying down with their eyes closed is dead.

But, as we start this next silly season of electioneering and clownery, we need to leave all of the Purity Tests out of it - including the one where we try to measure a candidate's worth by their willingness to abdicate part of their responsibilities to an imaginary friend.

Today's Tweet

Merrily we lockstep along.

If it's cold anywhere, climate change is a hoax.

If a single hate crime is faked, racism doesn't exist.

If a single rape accusation is falsified, sexual assault isn't an issue.

Right wing thought in 2019 is just a glorified series of get-out-of-thinking free cards.

— John Iadarola (@johniadarola) February 21, 2019

Today's Pix

click on it

This Combustible Mixture

...of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

Carl Sagan:

Today's Tweet

"I've just been mentored"

.@BarackObama says being a man isn't about 'eight-pound chains' or 'women around you twerkin',' it's about being a good human.pic.twitter.com/89ufZyifUN

— Psychonaut (@WakingLifeDream) February 21, 2019

On Herding Cats

So here we are at the beginning of another election cycle.

Not crazy about Warren? Cool.
Think Beto just don't cut? Fine.
Sick to death of all the Biden memes? OK.
Bernie's 2 years past his freshness date? Awesome.

I'm not asking you to keep it all under your hat. I'm not telling you to sit down and shut up.

You should stand up and you should speak up.

But don't lose your shit just because I like somebody who you're convinced is a DINO, and the new Darling Of The Wall Street Crowd, and nothing more or less than the embodiment of the Evil Duopoly and blah blah blah.

Get the fuck over yourself.

Everybody running for the Dem nomination is a better choice than the Flaming Racist Daddy State Asshole currently steering the entire world directly into the sun.

EVERY FUCKING ONE OF 'EM

Horribly Horribly Wrong

WaPo ran a story yesterday about a USCG officer being arrested for planning to launch violent attacks on the people he thought needed to die - politicians journalists judges etc.

“The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country”

"Rarely seen". 

The world in general (and this country in particular) is a pretty fucked up place when a guy who -

...called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and said, “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth.”

- has to be characterized as "rare" and not "completely un-fucking-heard of".

And of course we can lay this shit at the feet of Cult45, and of course they'll deny it with their screaming silence.

Redneck Update

We gain strength from diversity, but unity is what gets us power.

Trae Crowder:

Today's Quote

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

-- Martin Luther King