This is from a few weeks ago on one of the Security State Advertising Platforms the networks run on "our public airwaves" every Sunday morning (ie: the shit that nobody with any real sense watches for any reason other than giggles and /or a morbid curiosity about what the death of democracy actually looks like).
So anyway, there's some obviously clunky scripted prattle in what O'Malley has to say, but once he gets past the obligatory pablum that helps the Press Poodles pay for their groomers, the guy gets more real more often than anybody I've seen in a while.
Not disappointed yet - which is high praise from me right now.
This guy is a perfect example of why you should always carry at least one extra large condom - when you feel like launching into this kinda tantrum, pull that rubber over your head cuz you're being a huge dick, and ya need to take precautions for your own safety's sake.
Some interesting things going on here. First, the firefighters seem to be very well-trained in the Customer Relations aspect of their profession. Good on 'em for that. I wonder if certain select police departments might take a cue from this - yeah, that may be too much to hope for.
Anyway, second is that this jackwad seems to think everybody thinks exactly the way he thinks. He says as much - although he pulls up a little short of "everybody" when he says something like "90% of the people in this county would agree with me...".
And it's really interesting; when the bystander starts taking the video, the ranter first assumes he's in the right and that his exultant righteousness is being perfectly preserved, but then he realizes the witness isn't on his side and he looks a bit surprised because he's been getting constant reassurances that of course everybody feels this way and if everybody would just behave like complete assholes we'd soon be living in the Utopian America of our Beloved Koch Brothers' Founders' Dreams - so instead of stopping to consider the possibility that he might be wrong about something (which is simply never allowed) he flips over and assumes the role of persecuted underdog; and besides, he's in too deep now, so he's gotta double down.
The guy has totally internalized the lessons of DumFux News and Breitbart and WND etc to near-perfection. It's as though he just can't help himself - the triggering stimulus has been received and if he doesn't respond according to the conditioning, the negative pressure of the resultant cognitive dissonance would cause his brain to implode.
So let's allow it to percolate for a minute - this douchenozzle is loudly bitching about the cost of feeding firefighters; the guys who will drop everything, come to his house, run into a fire, and pull his dumb ass out of a FUCKING FIRE. But none of that matters because it's way more important to complain about 6 bucks worth of diesel fuel(?)
It's called "Punching Down", and it's the logical extreme of the bullshit policies of Trickle Down Economics. "The Nobles" have been pissin' on this guy's head; they've got him convinced it's rain; and now they're telling him to make the local fire department buy an umbrella for him.
I guess I can keep hoping guys like this Ranter Guy will eventually figure out he's mad at the wrong people, but...
There are likely a number of factors for why Clinton went from a critic of these corporate-written trade agreements to a supporter while in the Obama administration to more or less neutral today. But one very important factor for voters to know about is the role her own personal wealth might have played in the matter.
Because spousal income is shared, cabinet officials are required to report not only their own personal financial data but also incoming income their spouse receives. While Clinton was Secretary of State, her husband continued his lucrative corporate speaking tour, receiving millions of dollars from both foreign and domestic corporations.
I'd like to hold out just a tiny glimmer of hope that this one thing would spark an open and honest discussion about what these trade deals are all about, but I think we all know by now that it's much more likely to be politics-as-usual, and we'll have to hack our way thru all the media/consultancy/advocacy bullshit first, which means we'll run outa time way before we get to learn anything of substance, which means 100 million Americans will vote for somebody whose position on this fairly important policy will be almost complete unknown. And that's not to mention the shitty little feeling everybody has that there's a buncha stuff in TPP that has nothing to do with trade. We might get a good look at how adept Hillary has become. I'm not giving her a lotta props yet because she still sounds pretty clunky to me, but if she can manage a turn-around on this one and make something good for herself out of it, I'm willing to lay off a little.
LSU and many other public colleges in Louisiana might be forced to file for financial exigency, essentially academic bankruptcy, if state higher education funding doesn't soon take a turn for the better.
Louisiana's flagship university began putting together the paperwork for declaring financial exigency this week when the Legislature appeared to make little progress on finding a state budget solution, according to F. King Alexander, president and chancellor of LSU.
"We don't say that to scare people," he said. "Basically, it is how we are going to survive."
Moody's Investors Service also announced this month that it was lowering LSU's credit outlook from positive to stable based on concerns about the university's overall financial support. The lowering of LSU's credit rating makes it more likely the university will have to pay more for its building projects in the future.
This kinda crap doesn't happen by accident, kids. Try to resist thinking Jindal and his Client Cronies aren't doing this on purpose. LSU is a prestigious joint, which makes it a valuable property, which means it should be awarded to a Corporate Friend who'll take it under his benevolent wing and blah blah blah.
And in case anybody needed the reminder, LSU was very much up front about calling out BP for the Deep Water Horizon fuck up - along with any number of other monumentally shitty things that go on in Louisiana in the name of freedom and Unfettered Market Economics.
So let's see if we can identify the basics here - your Environmental Science guys get all uppity about how Big Petro-Chem is making it next to impossible for actual human-type people to live anywhere near The Gulf, so what we'll do is buy lotsa face-time with a yokel governor who wants to run for president, and trade him a pile of campaign cash for looking the other way while we also pour money into the pockets of state legislators (not to mention US Senators & Representatives) so we can cut the school's budget to the point of no return - and then use that little bit of convenient leverage to get our buddies at Moody's to put the squeeze on their credit - all of which drives the price down to where we can swoop in and "rescue" the failing failure from the failures of the failing eggheads who've failed utterly in their failed efforts to make all of God's America fail. And before ya know it, our schools will be turning out good wholesome young academics who know the real value of a dollar and who won't be having their minds poisoned with all that boring science-y stuff, which everybody knows is the devil's propaganda anyway.
Marco "Big Gulp" Rubio (see tengrain at MockPaperScissors) gives us the standard smarmy dodges when asked about Climate Change ("hey, the climate's always changing - what's the big deal?"). That one's bad enough, but the real fun starts when he kicks in on Marriage Equality (at about :45).
And here's the smarminess revealed thru translation: Marriage (ie; Civil Rights) can be regulated (ie: Denied) by the states.
For just a moment, let's disregard Big Gulp's total abandonment of a GOP Article of Faith - Thou shalt not regulate - and focus on the fact that he bails on the question with the typical States' Rights bullshit. He's saying the individual states have the authority to deny equal protection under the law. Of course, that's not really news because it's also a GOP Article of Faith that they get to fuck people over at the state and local levels, which they've been doing (whenever they're in power) for a very long time. And they get to do that again now because they own most of the governments at the lower levels, so they're right back to playing the Nullification card, saying the Federal Gov't ain't the boss of me; you're not my real gubmint - I can do what I want.
But then again, he's not abandoning anything - nobody in the GOP has any more distaste for Regulation than any other Ruler Wanna-Be; they're perfectly down with regulating, but they lie about it by calling it exactly the opposite. Anyway, he's just turning it inside out, and then he's giving the rubes a little language massage that helps ease the pain of all that Cognitive Dissonance.
Repubs fully intend to regulate the fuck out of like-gender marriage while pretending that that kind of regulation doesn't actually reinforce the Wingnut Notion that a government has the power to restrict everybody's rights for any reason the government pulls out of its ass at any given moment. So they hafta disguise it. They Orwellian-ize it - The Freedom To Buy Puppies For Your Grandkids Act. That should do it - let's see those stupid libtards vote against that one.
In the end tho', it's just distraction. We need to be given something to argue about so we won't be paying attention to how all this connects up with why it seems we can't figure out some way to deal with the world that doesn't involve bombing every fucking thing in sight. And why every police and sheriff's department here at home looks and acts exactly like the US military looks and acts everywhere else in the world.
This is what creeping authoritarianism looks like once it gets up on its hind legs. This is the transition from Nanny State to Daddy State to Bully State.
It ain't easy - nothing really worth doing is ever particularly easy. First, you pick a day; you commit to it; and then you get yourself off of that stoopid fucking merry-go-round. It can majorly suck at first, but almost before you know it, lotsa things have gotten better, you're saving money, and c'mon - there really isn't anything more important for us to be doing, is there? Be nice to your mom - she's the only one ya got.
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met." --Abe Lincoln
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.'" --Teddy Roosevelt
''In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.'' --John Adams
''If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.''' --Lyndon Johnson
''My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.'' --Jimmy Carter
The rich person speaks and all are silent; they extol to the clouds what he says. The poor person speaks and they say, "Who is this fellow? "And should he stumble, they even push him down. -- Sirach: 13:23
If Hillary wins the nomination, I'll shove a coupla pounds of Limburger in each nostril and vote for the Queen of Triangulated Favor Trading, but then again, I may hafta write in Martin O'Malley. Starting at about 4:00, he gets to the heart of the problems with the GOP's "economic policy", and the payoff is right at 4:30.
This guy'd best be more careful with that whole truth-telling shit. That's not the kinda thing these Press Poodles are equipped to handle.
(from the NPR website)
hat tip = JR And one last thing, NPR - that headline you guys put up on the piece - O'Malley: America's Economy Needs 'Sensible Rebalancing,' Not 'Pitchforks' - that's a lie, fellas. That's not what he said, and that's not what he meant. And now ya know one more reason so many thousands of us stopped sending in our nickels and dimes.
"Make no mistake. This is your father's Republican Party. This is the exact same trans-vaginal ultrasound, all-white-guy committee chair, aspirin-between-your-knees Republican Party we've have fighting for 30 years. Shame on them. They're trying to fool women. And shame on us if we let them get away with it. They don't support women. They don't respect women. So don't tell me that there's no "war on women". And don't bother asking for a truce. We didn't start this fight, but mark my words - we are going to win it. But if we don't show up for this battle in 2016, we will pay the price for a generation to come. Just imagine what a Republican President and a Republican Congress would do."
