Listen to your children while they play
It's really not very funny what your children say
Oct 4, 2016
A Quote
"Senator Clinton is the prune juice of this election. She might not seem that appetizing, but if you don't take her now, you're gonna be clogged with crap for a very long time."
--SNL sketch
Today's Tweet
Guy traumatized by a microphone suggests PTSD victims lack strength.https://t.co/aKSJ8mBGch— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) October 3, 2016
To be charitable, I'm pretty sure Trump wasn't really saying PTSD sufferers are weak - he was (prob'ly) trying to say that some veterans get hung up and they don't handle it as well as others.
But given Trump's monumental Empathy Deficit which he articulates in practically no uncertain terms on a regular basis, there's no real reason to feel charitable towards him, or to give the guy any leeway at all. He's made his bones by attacking everybody's perceived weakness; every little mis-step; every time anybody leaves even the tiniest opening, in order to set himself up as the Superior Being by contrast. At this point, even if Trump is somehow being unfairly maligned, so-the-fuck-what? This is just Karma working the way Karma is supposed to work.
Payback's a motherfucker, motherfucker.
 |
| Jesus knows you're a dick, Mr Trump |
Today's Keith
It may sound like it's a bit over the top, but when you've got a fuckwad like Donald Trump going over the top several times in any given News Cycle, it all starts to look a little normal - and that's kinda the problem.
I long for the good old days of nice quiet boring elections.
Oh yeah, BTW - when you Bernie Bros get all het up and blathery about Wasserman-Schultz rigging the thing, and how Hillary hijacked the primaries and there was Fraud and all that? You open the door for Trump to pull the shit that Trump seems to be trying to pull.
Oh yeah, BTW - when you Bernie Bros get all het up and blathery about Wasserman-Schultz rigging the thing, and how Hillary hijacked the primaries and there was Fraud and all that? You open the door for Trump to pull the shit that Trump seems to be trying to pull.
Oct 3, 2016
John Oliver
That's called Journalism.
We used to be able to count on news magazine shows like 60 Minutes for that kinda thing - ah, those were the days. Have you even seen that shit lately?
In CBS's defense, at least they pointed up some of the problems and some of the efforts being made to help people who've come home with some real problems that they either didn't have when we sent them over there, or who may have had the beginnings of a problem that just got a lot worse - but at any rate are beset with problems simply because we're so determined to make these kids do shitty things to other people while practically ignoring the shitty things happening to them because of the shitty things we sent them over there to do.
And it oughta be pretty easy to see a parallel between Army Rangers in Iraq and militarized cops here at home.
Whatever; but notice - the CBS piece is like Thoughts-n-Prayers Journalism. It tells the story in such a passive voice that we get to think of ourselves as informed and compassionate, but still pretend these problems aren't really our problems; we even get to think these problems are totally disconnected from anything we've ever done - like voting for the wrong politicians - or not bothering to vote at all - or supporting the War Machine companies who maintain a near strangle hold on half-a-trillion tax dollars every fucking year.
And that's the difference as I see it - Oliver is addressing the problem, but he's also talking about the connections with what "our government" is doing in our names, while it seems like CBS is going out of its way to ignore all that so they can give us the Facebook version.
There's not so much as an acknowledgement of right-or-wrong about any aspect of the veterans' troubles; and they're sure as fuck working hard to avoid inviting an inference that maybe we oughta make something of a commitment to work for solutions - at the very least we need to be talking about pressuring the GOP (mostly) to get up off their asses and stop trying to starve the VA into a privatization scheme that benefits practically nobody but their cronies.
Because above all else, Press Poodles earn their kibble by making sure we don't end up thinking we need to do anything - cuz that might mean pushing a few dollars towards helping Americans and away from the commercial interests of a corporate content provider.
Gimme John Oliver and Samantha Bee every time.
For A Monday
"Too often, the face of our economic superiority is a corporate imperialism - our technological dominance is shown by smart bombs and Predator drones. We could do something else."
Oct 2, 2016
We Must Remember This
Think Progress
@BarackObama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. http://t.co/bqF26mQf Do as I say not as I do.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2012
HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt...http://t.co/gDAUj0Kt— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2012
Facebook billionaire gives up his U.S. citizenship in order to save taxes. I guess 3.8 billion isn't enough for (cont) http://t.co/xaPBfxlm— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2012
"@conservativeJT: @bluejoni @realDonaldTrump Trump is an American that will pay more taxes in one year than you pay in your entire life.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2013
"@DenZen: Successful people work their asses off to make it, only to be punished by heavy taxes which are then squandered recklessly."— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2014
If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
You know what is the worst part of @BarackObama's Tuesday speech playing class warfare--we paid for it with our tax dollars.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2011
Just Keep Talkin' Don
Trump says if he does a great job as president, his assets will increase in value, and so:
"...that's a conflict, but that's like a good kind of conflict, isn't it?"
"...that's a conflict, but that's like a good kind of conflict, isn't it?"
He starts his bad week with a poor showing at the debate, follows it with three days of Alicia Machado and "finishes" with this little meltdown in Ohio, which included more than some vague allusion to how maybe Hillary's not been "loyal" to Bill (?) Seriously, this is the guy they're talking about when they try to warn us about wrestling with pigs.
We can parse it out and try to draw conclusions about his fragile ego and the weird workings in Trump's little brain, but I think we have to consider that he's really just following his usual pattern, which is first and always counterpunch - never brush it off and never let any of it go - Tit-For-Tat come hell or high water.
But second - and I think more to the point - there's real purpose to it. This is a guy who throws shit. He's learned that the more shit he throws, the harder it is for anybody to sort thru it and make any sense of it. But while we're busy trying to get our heads around the shit storm, he stays more or less off the hook because we've all spent one more week not looking into the Rape Allegations and why they postponed the hearing; not looking at The Trump Foundation being uncertified which makes Trump's own actions potential felonies; not focusing on the leak of a few pages of his tax documents from 1996 that appear to confirm that he's been stiffing us all for the last 20 years - and that's what he wants. He wants to stall and deflect and postpone, constantly doubling down on his phony Populist routine which gives him more opportunity to go on playing the rubes for suckers, putting more millions in his pocket, as he moves towards whatever he thinks is his destiny while giving us that self-satisfied comfortable feeling that we've got him all figured out - and maybe we do, but prob'ly we don't.
Oct 1, 2016
No Small Thing
Hillary alone stands between America and the most unstable, unfit president in US history https://t.co/2HmqGre2AS writes Dorothy Rabinowitz— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) September 30, 2016
It's not a ringing endorsement, but when the Rupert Street Journal Editorial Page puts up anything that isn't easily recognizable as slagging "The Libruls", it means something; it's important.
Sep 30, 2016
Another Tweet
Literally can't make this stuff up... (thanks for this @GuardianUS!) pic.twitter.com/oIE8HBtyrC— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) September 30, 2016
Today's Keith
It gets a little off into the weeds, but I'll take a Franz von Papen reference any day because it makes me go look it up and learn something new.
Before his Machado madness, @RealDonaldTrump had already lost 10 points where it counts: among gamblers. Vol.12 pic.twitter.com/1c5uSFtt7D— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 30, 2016
Today's Tweet
.@NewYorker out with early look of their next cover, "Miss Congeniality", by Barry Blitt: pic.twitter.com/OXxPwsPH4v— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016
A Trump Story
A small business owner sold Donald Trump pianos for his Atlantic City casino.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 19, 2016
Trump stiffed him for the payment.https://t.co/9LMPenOZue
The anecdote is a powerful illustration for your narrative, although it can be a very misleading thing in direct debate (see Logical Fallacy - Anecdote). But when the stories are common to the point of being legion, there's more than some probability that we've got a real problem. And these stories are so common, even I know a guy who did some sub-contracting on The Taj Mahal, and got fucked over by Donald Trump.
Trump is the perfect example of a business ethic that says "I get to promise you whatever it takes to make the deal, but when it comes to paying the invoices that I contracted for, I intend to do only what my lawyers can't keep the law from forcing me to do at gunpoint."
When the guys at the top have their spats, and it gets expensive, and they need money to settle - guess who gets squeezed?
I worked with guys like Trump my whole career. I watched two of the best companies ever get swamped by the shit that follows these malignant slugs like plague follows rats.
This Trump guy is weak and cheap - he has no soul and no honor.
It Starts With Entitlement
That was one very short hop away from Trump declaring himself a God-Annointed Sovereign.
Eugenics, anyone?
Eugenics, anyone?
Today's Keith
It really is Garbage In, Garbage Out. If Repubs want a better GOP, they're gonna need a whole buncha better voters.
A Tweet
Michelle Obama on birther claims: Pres. Obama showed dignity “by going high when they go low” https://t.co/vhFCCpkHBa— CNN (@CNN) September 28, 2016
"When they go low, we go high." And ya know - the Obama's are just better people than most. Cuz me (and, I think, Luther) would most likely interpret that like this: "you go at my knees and I'm coming back for your fucking head".
Which is kinda how it works out - the way FLOTUS does it anyway. Glad I'm on her side.
Sep 28, 2016
Geez, These Kids
TPM:
First time for everything, I guess. But indeed, Eric , how proud you must be - as are we all, of course.
Eric Trump on Wednesday joined Donald Trump's surrogates in applauding the Republican nominee for not bringing up Bill Clinton's sex scandals during the Monday debate, even saying that the moment is "something I’ll always remember.""Gee - I'll always remember that time on national primetime TV, seen by 70 million Americans plus maybe twice that many around the world - I'll remember my dad deciding not to be a giant gold-plated monument to Total Douchenozzlery" .
First time for everything, I guess. But indeed, Eric , how proud you must be - as are we all, of course.
And if you open that window just a bit, you can hear me rolling my eyes so hard I can see what's left of my brain after having to acknowledge that even people like Donald Trump are allowed to breed.
What They Say
Repubs - the ones with most of the money and power - love to lead the bitch session about Dems and Libruls who're busy spending "Other People's Money". What they always conveniently neglect to mention is that the reason it's "your money" is that they don't contribute much at all, and they're always busy pimping us into helping them pay even less while getting a bigger and bigger share of the benefits.
All the little grey areas and loopholes in our ridiculous Tax Code; an economy increasingly tilted in favor of wealthy people - none of this happens if we stop allowing guys like Donald Trump to play us for suckers.
Sep 27, 2016
You Can Quote Me
Trump is that guy - kind of a passing acquaintance - who just shows up at the friendly neighborhood poker game, where he mooches everybody's beer, he bets with IOUs, and he has to be reminded to ante up every.fucking.hand.
--mike
Today's Chart
And for anybody still insisting on being hung up on the "Yeah, but she's still lying so it's OK for me to sit here doing nothing but pining over Bernie", spare me the purity crap.
Governments lie. Politicians lie. Insurance Salemen lie. Cops lie. Your wife and kids lie.
You lie.
The point is that we can sift thru it; we can make a fairly accurate determination as to what the lie seems to be about vs what the lie is really about; we can test the statements in various ways to assign values to the lies and the liars - we can, to an extent, quantify the rhetoric. We can then put all this on a spectrum, and we come up with an assessment - which gives us reasonable rationale for flipping a coin or just going with your gut feeling.
Yeah, hey, I'm funny. But, there are facts here.
Fact 1:
Hillary lies a little less than 30% of the time, while Trump lies more than 65% of the time.
Fact 2:
Hillary makes true statements more than 50% of the time, while Trump makes true statements less than 20% of the time.
Fact 3:
Hillary tells the truth more than twice as often as Trump, while Trump lies more than twice as often as Hillary.
Fact 4:
More is more, and less is less.
Look, I don't really know, but I hafta say this again - Hillary's been raked over the coals for 25 years, and she's standing tall. Trump spent 90 minutes on stage with her last nite, and he's a mass of welts and bloody blisters today.
Political Reality
From Vox:
Donald Trump is great at doing the seemingly unimaginable. He won the Republican nomination over 15 other potential nominees who looked better on paper, with a thin ground game, little cash on hand, and not much buoying him in the early going beyond his celebrity. On that level, maybe he’s a political savant?
But when he’s asked to do something that’s fairly standard campaign ritual — host a political convention, say, or compete in a debate — he very rarely pulls it off. He’s just not that good at the basics of politics, and that only underscores how flimsy and empty most of his policy proposals are.
And if there’s one big takeaway I have from his first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, it’s that Trump failed almost as much as a performer as he did a candidate.Turns out that real live politics is just not the same as hosting a game show.
Attempting A Modified Dahmer Defense
Trump:
Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials, some of it said in entertainment, somebody who's been very vicious to me, Rosie O'Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree she deserves it, and nobody feels sorry for her. I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate. It's not nice, but she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue.The guy is a 6-year-old who throws himself on the floor kicking and screaming if you don't tell him what a good little boy he's been because he didn't take a shit on the dining room rug and then wipe his ass with the cat.
Today's Tweet
"#TrumpWon!" - Said no one with eyes, ears or rational judgment - EVER. pic.twitter.com/ogzIn5GCNG— Pin Head (@PiercedSkull) September 27, 2016
Sep 26, 2016
Sometimes A Troll
I gotta say - I expected a push-back that was more in line with the usual rabid attacks from the fetishists.
Still early I guess - could be a lot more coming when everybody starts getting home from work tonite(?)
I'll update if anything interesting happens.
Good Cop, Bad Cop (updated 9-27)
There's a good reason Invisibility is considered the ultimate super power. It removes all possibility of being held to account. If there's no evidence, ie: if nobody can see what you're doing, there's no way to hold you responsible for what you've done.
So WTF, Danville cops?
I called the Danville (Virginia) Police Dept to ask for comment, and left a message. I'll try to update as soon as possible.
hat tip = FB friends MM-M & VW-E
Update:
Seems more or less reasonable to me - the local citizens' bunch will continue to keep on eye on this stuff. Way to go, guys.
Update:
Says purpose of lifting hood is to cool engine. Some cars have good vents, some don't. @ABC13News pic.twitter.com/pccPPVoWtz— Valerie Bragg (@ValB_WSET) September 26, 2016
Seems more or less reasonable to me - the local citizens' bunch will continue to keep on eye on this stuff. Way to go, guys.
Sep 25, 2016
Now We're Talkin'
Go get 'em, Dems.
HuffPo:
I'll take my share of the hit on that one - I spent a good 18 months calling the guy President Lawn Chair because I was pissed that he bailed on the Public Option without even trying, and made no move on Gitmo etc. Criticism may have been warranted, but what we shoulda been doing is working to send him the support he needed in the various legislatures - national and state and local.
My bad.
Hopefully, that pendulum could be starting to swing back in favor of an honest majority.
HuffPo:
WASHINGTON ― Democrats are finally paying attention to state politics.
Over the past few years, major donors, national Democrats, the White House and state officials have begun organizing to win back state houses that have been dominated by Republicans since 2010.
And even as the presidential race tightens nationally, Democrats are increasingly confident the party will be able flip a significant number of state legislative chambers, riding a wave of disgust with GOP nominee Donald Trump. At least 14 state House or Senate chambers are well within reach, according to a Democratic memo circulated this week.You can't elect a president and expect everything to be suddenly peachy. We put Obama in the White House and it's like we just left him there, thinking he'd do what we elected him to do with no further help from us, ignoring the fact that the Repubs really were turning out to be as shitty as some were trying to tell us they were.
I'll take my share of the hit on that one - I spent a good 18 months calling the guy President Lawn Chair because I was pissed that he bailed on the Public Option without even trying, and made no move on Gitmo etc. Criticism may have been warranted, but what we shoulda been doing is working to send him the support he needed in the various legislatures - national and state and local.
My bad.
Hopefully, that pendulum could be starting to swing back in favor of an honest majority.
Stay together
Work together
Get shit done
Today's Tweet
Trump's strategy for winning Monday's debate involves Rudy Giuliani distractin' Lester Holt while Trump hits Hillary with a foldin' chair.— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) September 25, 2016
Sep 24, 2016
Today's Deep Tho't
You can pray all you want, but if you expect that mountain to move, you'd best be figurin' out how carry some fuckin' rocks.
--mike
Today's Tweet
"My phone in the hotel room rings and it's the Attorney General... 'Who the hell is Diane Nash?'" #APeoplesJourney pic.twitter.com/x6ZRrhQAfX— American Experience (@AmExperiencePBS) September 24, 2016
Is it possible that PBS is trying to make a comeback?
Yesterday's Podcast
Doin' the Lord's work.
My big take-away today - stop allowing the conversation to get hung up on the controversy of what Colin Kaepernick is doing, and insist the discussion stay focused on the reason he's doing what he's doing.
My big take-away today - stop allowing the conversation to get hung up on the controversy of what Colin Kaepernick is doing, and insist the discussion stay focused on the reason he's doing what he's doing.
Sep 23, 2016
Today's Tweet
Conservative commentator @TomiLahren lashes out at NFL star Colin Kaepernick for protesting the national anthem. https://t.co/rFDTK5EgDf pic.twitter.com/dmyBAclogk— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 23, 2016
I Wonder
A while back, Donald Trump got some pretty good play by suggesting that if NATO allies don't pony up on their fair share, then maybe USAmerica Inc isn't required to come thru on its Article 5 commitments.
So, maybe someone should ask Mr Trump:
So, maybe someone should ask Mr Trump:
- If American companies doing business overseas haven't paid their fair share of taxes in the US, shouldn't we make sure the US Military isn't used to protect their interests on foreign soil?
- Shouldn't they have to pay a tax for the maintenance and operations of the facilities at Ports Of Entry?
- Shouldn't they be considered unworthy of police and fire protection here at home?
- Should they be allowed access to public roadways?
- How about Water and Sewer?
- Whenever they hire somebody, shouldn't they be required to pay a requisite amount to a school district to reimburse those schools for having educated those new employees for them?
If corporations are people (and if this isn't just one big Fuck-You-If-You-Ain't-Got-The-Juice proposition), then why do they get to play by a different set of rules?
It's a wonderment.
Sep 22, 2016
Ignoring History
That woman is not saying anything we don't hear almost every day. So I guess it's time for this one again:
Your God Can Blow Me
Radical Christian shit is no better than radical Islamic shit, which is no better than radical Judaic shit or radical Hindi shit or or or.
Right-wing pastor advocating for the killing of homosexuals. Jesus and his message of love. pic.twitter.com/LDzXRziKQi— Right Wing Talk (@RWTQuotes) September 22, 2016
Take away our belief in Imaginary Friends, and we take away that guy's power to get us to do stoopid things that he thinks our imaginary friend is commanding us to do.
Push for reasoning and logic and evidence, and bit by bit, we start to dismantle one of the main structural rationalizations for making people suffer.
Sep 21, 2016
Today's Tweet
“With guns you can kill terrorists—with education you can kill terrorism.” @Malala Yousafzai@MalalaFund pic.twitter.com/rmzIEviIGJ— Bryan Dawson (@BryanDawsonUSA) September 21, 2016
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