It's A Wonderment

(at about 5:10 when Bloody Bill Kristol spouts off about how nobody trusts Trump or Hillary, Brazile nails it):

"...we have to get over the fact that we won't have a lotta love in this campaign."

I'm anything but a Donna Brazile fan, but that right there is fucking genius - get the fuck over it, kids.

The rest of it is more of the same old crap about Both Sides, and everybody's awful, and there's no reason anybody would wanna vote for any of these jokers, and gee whiz, I wonder why we can't get Americans to show up on Election Day. Which of course is what makes the Donna Brazile thing so sparkly, and why she doesn't get to talk about it much on the air.  She came a little too close to calling the Horse Race Bullshit for what it is.

And also too - is there really any reason to keep Cokie Roberts around - for anything?  I haven't heard her express a cogent thought that isn't basically "Yeah, but the Democrats..." for a dozen years or more (thanks, driftglass).  Does she have somebody's grandkids tied up in her basement or something? Fuck me, lady - enough. You're done. Time for you to be the Grande Dame of the Georgetown Cocktail Circuit full-time or whatever, but please just go the fuck away already.

Not that I feel strongly about it or nuthin'.

Thinkin' Music

Steve Kimock

w/ Bobby Vega (bass), Leslie Mendelson & John Kimock (drums)

"Careless Love"
"Tongue N' Groove"
"Surely This Day"

Today's Tweet

Twitter buddy Inigo Montoya asks:

Is US broadcast media going for a Guinness Book World Record in covering a single story nonstop indefinitely to infinity and beyond? #trump

— inigo montoya (@alphagalz) May 23, 2016

Media analysts and various consultants discovered in the 90s that while approval ratings for broadcasters went straight into the shitter when they ran stories about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski, the number of viewers tuning in to see those stories went in exactly the opposite direction. 

We love to hate ourselves for loving to watch such hateful shit in such a Stockholm Syndrome-y way.  This is USAmerica Incorporated - it's just something we do.

What's Wrong Here?

Steven Rosenfeld interviewing David Cay Johnston over at AlterNet:

“Imagine that you are a mortgage lender. Are you going to lend people money for 30 years if they don’t have the security of employment?” Johnston said, offering an example of how the successful push by the technology sector to undermine and overturn the labor laws created during the New Deal are tilting too far toward piecemeal purveyors and will create new instability.

“People are working without salary, benefits, and the stability to buy a house and raise a family,” he said, saying that the blame can be placed at the foot of high-tech lobbyists who have donated to congressional campaigns and federal officeholders who subsequently loosened federal laws to their benefit.

Meanwhile, according to Pew’s New Digital Economy report, 61 percent of Americans have never heard of “crowdfunding,” 73 percent are not familiar with the “sharing economy,” and 89 percent have never heard of the “gig economy.”

The big picture painted by Johnston, who is a registered Republican but schooled in the belief that business prospers when wages and benefits are reliable and income is spent locally, was the fundamentals of middle-class stability are being further eroded by a new technology-based oligarchy. Despite all the hip apps and marketing, gig economy profits are only going to executives while the jobs offered are intrinsically unstable, fiscally unpredictable and most of the risk and expense are placed on contract workers.

 But not to worry, Oligarchs - the great American Intellect Deficit is forever on your side:

Meanwhile, according to Pew’s New Digital Economy report, 61 percent of Americans have never heard of “crowdfunding,” 73 percent are not familiar with the “sharing economy,” and 89 percent have never heard of the “gig economy.”

 

Today's Pix

Today's Quote

"Love me or hate me, both are in my favor. If you love me, I will always be in your heart. If you hate me, I'll still be in your head."

--Wm Shakespeare

Prematurely Mainstream

A coupla other Fugelsang concepts that stand out for me:

sometimes atheists are the best Christians

-and-

separation of Church and Faith 

John Fugelsang:

The Rubin Report

John Fugelsang - Facebook

Today's Podcast

Today's GIF

Yeah OK - it's a little Man-Bash-y.  Tough shit.  You can deal.  Be a man about it.

Fake Lord Have Mercy

hat tip = bosom buddy Lollie B

Today's Chart

I think it's worth noting that there's a fairly obvious connection here: a rapist being able to deny his victim's right to abort "his" "child", and then to sue for his "right" to be involved in that kid's life is coming almost straight outa the really shitty parts of The Bible that have god telling certain Israelites that it's OK to kidnap and rape women as a means of obtaining a family.

That's pretty fucked up right there, buy hey - it's what the TheoCons do.

Allow me to reiterate Mike's Manifesto on this particular subject:

Abortion is very serious, and so it MUST be closely restricted -

...to women

    ...who are pregnant

        ...and decide not to be pregnant

No exceptions

If you're not the one who's pregnant

(and especially if you were born with that Y chromosome)

then your opinion is duly noted

and you can shut the fuck up now

Today's Tweet (And GIF)

pic.twitter.com/oXlXJKpR3E

— Teta (@Hora_Teta) May 19, 2016

Today's Stand Up Guy

On Monday morning, every American considering political office got a lesson in taking caution while posting anything to social media. Mike Webb, Virginia Congressional candidate, inadvertently revealed his taste in porn to Facebook. Initially, Webb had only meant to post a screenshot of phone records, along with a Yahoo search of Curzon Staffing Agency, whom he claims prank called him about a job offer. The candidate's post attracted the attention of the public for an entirely different reason. Before snapping screenshots, Webb apparently forgot to close what appear to be two porn sites. The sites' names, which are truncated by the tab label, read "LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BO" and "IVONE SEXY AMATEUR."

 

What is it about Virginia Politicians these days? 

And oh yeah - GOP - what the fuck, guys?

And So It Goes

Remember all that bullshit last year about "The War On Cops"?  

It's open season on police - Blue Lives Matter - all those rotten brown people fomenting  violence against our noble officers blahblahblah.

Well, it was exactly the bullshit many of us said it was, and the FBI confirms it.

Via HuffPo:

The data contrasts with the claims from some conservative media outlets and police union bosses who have continued to peddle the narrative that officers are under siege. The past two years have seen a surge in police reform activism in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile instances of police killing civilians. But critics of this movement allege that groups like Black Lives Matter promote violence against officers, and have helped wage a “war on cops.”

And:

“The FBI statistics on police officer felonious deaths show that belief that the job is growing more dangerous, because of protests against police or because of the demand for reform to police practices, is simply wrong,” Harris wrote in an email. “Belief to the contrary may be sincere, but it has no basis in fact.”

Battling the endless parade of "conservative" crapola

Today's Tweet

Well time for lunch catch ya'all tomorrow pic.twitter.com/doQZjbEeMN

— Linda Collins (@LindaCollins11) May 17, 2016

Let the PhotoShop wars begin.