Feb 16, 2018

The LeBron Thing

“The climate is hot,” James said. “The No. 1 job in America, the appointed person is someone who doesn’t understand the people. And really don’t give a fuck about the people. When I was growing up, there was like three jobs that you looked (to) for inspiration. It was the president of the United States, it was whoever was the best in sports and then it was like the greatest musician at the time. You never thought you could be them, but you can grab inspiration from them.”

“It’s at a bad time. While we cannot change what comes out of that man’s mouth, we can continue to alert the people that watch us, that listen to us, ‘This is not the way,’” James said. “It’s not even a surprise when he says something. It’s like laughable. It’s laughable and it’s scary.”
--LeBron James

Here's the whole video:




When The Headline Says It All

God love The Onion

Feb 15, 2018

Blood Money



Rubio = $3.3 Million from NRA


Gardner = $3.8 Million from NRA


Rob Portman = $3 Million from NRA


Bill Cassidy = $2.9 Million from NRA



Thom Tills = $4.4 Million from NRA


Ken Buck = $800K


Joni Ernst = $3.1 Million


RNC and GOP Candidates = $17.4 Million


45* = $21 million from NRA


BTW - take a look at The Dunblane Massacre, Scotland, 1996.

Of Guns And Skateboards



I don't know what to make of this.

 

Today's Pix

(click one - like maybe the 1st one)

















Feb 14, 2018

Their Political Oracle-ness-es


If you're following The Professional Left Podcast like I've been telling you to do for-fucking-ever, then you already know this.

If you haven't - catch up, dammit.

CNN:

Fewer people say they consider themselves Republicans, according to recent polling. But they're not becoming Democrats instead.

That's the conclusion of an analysis of Gallup data by Marquette Law professor and pollster Charles Franklin. He found that while there is a slight increase in Democratic Party support among Americans, more Americans are just becoming pure independents.

To be fair, this has happened after past presidential elections. In 2005 and 2013, the number of pure independents also increased.

But this year's uptick swing to pure independents is slightly larger. It's enough of a shift that it could indicate some new erosion in the Republican base.

Notice, there's no explanation on how anybody's supposed to know these folks are "Pure Independents", but what's a little factuality between friends, right?



Today's Tweet



Almost time to seize the granaries, kids.

 

Today's Today

The calendar has once again turned, and we begin the journey back towards Steak-n-Blowjob Day - beginning with a subtle hint:














Feb 13, 2018

GOP Guiding Principles

Another tasty bit unearthed - never tho't I'd see the day when I had to tag C-SPAN as NSFW.

Today's Olympic Video


The single most important aspect of world-class athletic performance is the ability to maintain a razor-sharp focus on the task at hand.  The great ones know this almost instinctively, and a great coach knows how to prepare the athlete to stay in the moment and concentrate. 


It's Pretty Blue

A new one for me via FB pal Doug Rapier


Randy

Randy Rainbow brings it

For The Record

These assholes came to my home town

Killed one of my neighbors

No incident in itself will change anything, of course. But we have to write it all down so we can piece it together - connect as many dots as possible - and remember it. Because we have to remember. Because once in a while, somebody has to lay it all on the line - and it's our turn now.

SPLC:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) counted over 100 people killed or injured by alleged perpetrators influenced by the so-called "alt-right" — a movement that continues to access the mainstream and reach young recruits.

On December 7, 2017, a 21-year-old white male posing as a student entered Aztec High School in rural New Mexico and began firing a handgun, killing two students before taking his own life.

At the time, the news of the shooting went largely ignored, but the online activity of the alleged killer, William Edward Atchison, bore all the hallmarks of the “alt-right”—the now infamous subculture and political movement consisting of vicious trolls, racist activists, and bitter misogynists.

But Atchison wasn’t the first to fit the profile of alt-right killer—that morbid milestone belongs to Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed seven in Isla Vista, California, after uploading a sprawling manifesto filled with hatred of young women and interracial couples (Atchison went by “Elliot Rodger” in one of his many online personas and lauded the “supreme gentleman,” a title Rodger gave himself and has since become a meme on the alt-right).

I don't know exactly how this next bit from Jeff Sessions factors in, but I get a bad feeling when it looks a whole lot like The Malignant Leprechaun is on his knees again, with his nose way up the ass of nitwits like the Sovereign Citizen gangs - eg: Cliven Bundy et al.



And the Press Poodles kinda went out of their way to make sure they missed the main point, even though they were dutiful in picking up on the racism bit.

It's important to call it out, but we react to the racist shit, and that actually provides some cover for the bigger issue of the Autocracy being built right in front of us.

WaPo:

Organizations such as the NAACP deemed Sessions’s language his latest act of racism. Lawyers, however, have been quick to point to the term’s regular appearance in case law, saying that “Anglo-American law” — also known as common law — is a widely used term in the legal system that refers to the shared legal roots of England and the United States.

Sessions’s use of the term appears to have been impromptu, as it does not appear in his prepared remarks, which imply that he was supposed to say, “The sheriff is a critical part of our legal heritage.”

To those unfamiliar with the term’s legal context, “Anglo-American heritage” sounded offensive, especially considering the accusations of racism that have nearly derailed Sessions’s career. A Senate committee in 1986, for instance, denied Sessions a federal judgeship, as his former colleagues testified that Sessions used the n-word and joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought they were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana,” according to The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips.

It's not like we haven't known about these assholes for a while.

The Center For Public Integrity - April, 2016:

Sheriff Nick Finch let a pistol-packing local man out of the Liberty County, Florida, jail shortly after taking office, a decision that brought him admiration, donations, and speaking requests from anti-government activists across the country. It put him at odds with state authorities, who charged him with a crime, but also thrust him into the vanguard of a radical and growing movement among sheriffs in rural communities who assert they can ignore state and federal laws they decide are unconstitutional.
- and -

What’s unique about his group is not that it opposes gun controls but that its ambition is to encourage law enforcement officers to defy laws they decide themselves are illegal. On occasion, some of his group’s sheriffs have found themselves in curious agreement with members of the sovereign citizens’ movement, which was also founded on claimed rights of legal defiance and is said by the FBI to pose one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats.
It's not simple coincidence that this idiot has become a shining star in the Daddy State Movement:


Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A federal judge on Friday dismissed most of a civil rights lawsuit against former Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. over an incident at Milwaukee's Mitchell airport last year.

But a claim that Clarke retaliated on Facebook for Daniel Black's exercise of his First Amendment right to shake his head at Clarke survives, and is now set for trial Jan. 22.

Black and Clarke were on the same flight from Dallas to Milwaukee on Jan. 15, 2017. Black saw Clarke wearing Dallas Cowboys gear and asked if he was David Clarke. Clarke said he was, and Black shook his head and walked away to his seat in coach.

When the plane landed in Milwaukee, Black was greeted by six sheriff's deputies who had been directed by Clarke to take Black aside and question him. They then escorted him from the airport.

This shit is happening. See it. Remember it.

Feb 12, 2018

Decorum My Ass


When they start bitching about your tone, you know your arguments are getting pretty close to top dead center.

This is the very height of irony: people who’ve spent eighteen months repeatedly glossing over or excusing or rationalizing away the most toxic, offensive, vulgar behavior and language—now greatly disturbed by a perceived lack of decorum.

It should be obvious, but to make sure we're good and clear on this: "Conservatives" have gotten all pissy because "Libruls" are being so Politically Incorrect.



This is how sideways it’s all gone here: that there are people apparently more concerned about the feelings of the bullies than about the very lives of those being bullied. I refuse to be one of those people.

If you’re waiting for me to apologize for emotionally wounding someone with the suggestion that they may not be all that keen on people of color, or that they’re likely afraid of gay people, or that their nationalism is showing because they defend what’s happening here—it’ll be a long wait.

I think the futures of dreamers and the welfare of sick people and the safety of LGBTQ teenagers and the stability of families of immigrants are worth the raising of my voice, and the forcefulness of my delivery, and the discomfort it causes anyone.

BTW: We all get to be mad all we want, but you're not justified in being mad at me just because I'm mad at you for something you've done; or for something you've failed to do.

Today's Tweet



Because Amy Siskind is a fucking hero and MoDo is a middle-school mean girl wanna-be who constantly sucks up to the popular kids - not recognizing her own Goth pretensions - and can't figure out that her efforts to be cool make her totally (and forever) uncool.