Get Somebody Working On This

Kelly fell flat and Rosie got after her.  And yet somehow the story became all about Rosie Perez being pressured first to make an on-air apology to Kelly Osbourne, and then more or less forced out all together.

A silly buncha baloney, and there's prob'ly way more to it than that - I think so because Bill Wolff is (or should be; or used to be) a shitload better producer than that - but mostly it was a big-time missed opportunity. Perez only heard the part of Osborne's comment that was sure to trigger a negative knee-jerk reaction. Certainly understandable, but it seems pretty obvious Osborne actually meant to show some solidarity with Latinos - in a typically clumsy and over-compensating way that privileged white librul legacy pukes have a knack for doing (been there. done that. got t-shirts, hats, key chains - all kinds of shit), but still.

Anyway, if we can figure out how to let people make the kinda mistakes Kelly Osborne and Rosie Perez made without the whole world blowing up in their faces, then maybe we can have a conversation that leads somewhere other than some fucked up twitter war or facebook feud or media spat or whatever. 

Ever notice how we never end up talking about possible solutions for any of these problems?

Gee, it's almost as if somebody is working really hard to make sure we're only allowed to choose a side and then talk shit about "those people".

So I'm not making excuses for Kelly Osbourne, and I'm not blaming Rosie for reacting the way she did, and I'm not doing any bullshit Both-Sides thing with it. I'm saying we need to take chances; we need to cut each other a little slack; and we need to try to do better.

Brother Jay:

Something To Remember

By way of an interesting piece at Yahoo Politics:

But Trumpmania may be telling us a lot less about the dominant mood in the electorate at large than we think. As one of the more astute liberal bloggers, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum, points out, Trump has been drawing the support of less than a quarter of Republican primary voters, who in turn make up less than a quarter of the voting public.

I suck at math, but I'm OK with 'rithmetic, so even I can figure out that ¼ of ¼ = 6.25% of the total vote.

So that means Hillary will win in 2016 by whatever substantial margin our Corporate Media Manipulators allow, which will be a landslide at about 52% - 48%.

Fair Warning - watch out for the Both-Sides crap that pops out near the end.  It's mild by current standards, but it's there.

Illusory Things

Carlin said it: "...we're given the illusion of choice..."

We see 22 different names on bottles of bourbon, and 30 different names on bags of potato chips, and 18 GOP candidates running for POTUS, and and and.

How pissed are the Teabaggers gonna be when they figure out they've been punked into pimping for Big Gubmint all along?  Just kidding - this is possibly the only place you're ever likely to find "Teabaggers" and "figure out" in the same sentence, so the rubes will remain safely encased in their Igno-rama-tron®, keeping the rest of us "safe", at least in terms of not being splattered by flying body tissue when the baggers' "brains" explode.

BTW: as always, just in case anybody's trying to take what I say and turn it into a Both-Sides thing - bullshit.  There's a difference.  And if you like to pretend you're above it all - stop it; just fucking stop.  

If you like the way things are; if you prefer having everything fucked up and getting more fucked up pretty much every day, then stay home and be the asshole who could've done something about it, but made a conscious decision not to.

More Oliver

Best thing to think about right now (and why we desperately need guys like John Oliver): there's something like 450 days before the next election, which means babies will be born before November 2016 whose parents haven't even met yet.

So Here I Am Again

Enjoyed my time away from most things.  I'm pretty much all moved into the new joint now,  so if I haven't lost everybody yet, I'll just try to slide on up in here and get back to pretending I'm making some kinda headway.

Listening to a Car Talk rerun last week while I was off in search of a laundromat, I decided to steal this bit, and try to add some of my own.  It was generally about women knowing what they know and having the good sense to say "I don't know" when appropriate, while a man will just jump into it whether he knows anything or not (stoopid men).

BTW, I guess this is where you should feel free to insert your rant about Reverse Sexism or Man Bashing or Men's Rights or whatever silly shit you can think of to remove all doubt that you really are a testosterone poisoned ape-child who's so blissfully ignorant of your own egocentric arrogance and so deeply in denial of being born to Manly Privilege that you're thoroughly terrified that somebody will gain some equality of power, which means, even tho' you don't know it - or you just can't bear to admit it - that you're simply terrified somebody could start treating you exactly the same as you've been treating them.

So anyway:

The guy who can't manage not to get into a screaming match with his own family over Thanksgiving dinner is the same guy who thinks he has the perfect solutions for problems in the Middle East.

The guy who never bothers to balance his check book, and has a world of trouble with his credit card debt knows what to do about tax revenues and budget deficits and the Federal Reserve system and fiat currencies and all things economic.

There are guys who'll tell us exactly what's needed to colonize Mars because they know how to ride a bicycle.

The guy who gave up on the whole parenting thing and sent his only kid to 3 different military schools is the same guy telling us how to fix public education and the prison system.

The guy who's spent his whole life enjoying the benefits of having been born to white middle class suburban parents in the 1950s knows everything there is to know about how to get things down in the ghetto all squared away in 2015 (hint - whatever else he comes up with, you know he's gonna sneak baggy pants and hip-hop in there too).

We've been hornswoggled.  We swallowed the myth of de-mystification whole.  "They've" been telling us we can do anything - from instant breakfast to walking on the moon.  And in the time it takes for one generation to grow old, we've managed to forget the second part of "we can do anything", which is basically that we have to have some education or training or experience; or just the tiniest bit of talent or skill or knowledge - it all gives us the misguided idea that anybody can step in and do any job - teacher, cop, mayor, NASA admin, POTUS, whatever.  Here's the deal, kids: No, ya can't.  You hafta to know something first.

"We can do anything" is not the same as "anybody can do that". 

Donald Trump didn't just come outa nowhere.

Today's Pix

Today's Oliver

And again - how come we hafta go to a comedy show to get some decent reporting on some of these kinda-fucking-important issues?

Quick Check

I've been wondering why nobody's squawking about the effects the Iran Deal might have on oil prices - 

Oil prices fell further Thursday a day after U.S. benchmark crude tumbled below $50 a barrel for the first time since April as bloated U.S. inventories and the prospect of increased Iranian crude shipments fueled concerns about swelling supplies even as demand is waning.

"We've had a lot of supply," says Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service. "Now the worry is that demand is going lower."

West Texas crude for September delivery fell 67 cents, or 1.4%, to $48.53 a barrel after dropping 2.3% on Wednesday. That's down about 20% from a recent peak of $61.01 in late June.

The Obama administration's proposed nuclear deal with Iran would lift sanctions and could allow that country to ship significantly more oil, adding to a recent surge in supplies from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. A Senate hearing on the agreement is scheduled for Thursday.

- and there it is.

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Scott Walker's been the most adamant about how the deal's so bad he's trying to figure out how to start bombing Iran the day after he's elected.  I guess maybe all that Koch money really is speaking pretty loudly.  Who doesn't see that BTW?

So now the notion pops into my feverish little noggin - Obama (and Kerry - full props for a guy I never tho't was the real thing, but anyway) Obama more or less neutralizes Iran basically by bringing them over to the good guys' side and getting them to promise they'll play nice for now; he precludes (at least for a while) that we'll get suckered into another clusterfuck war in western Asia, which makes it harder for War Incorporated to make money; and he puts the mechanism into motion that should drive Big Oil's profits down; which makes it a little less profitable for Wall Street; etc etc etc.

It just seems like it all adds up to one big old-fashioned bitchslap for an extraordinarily shitty system of legalized bribery that's had a stranglehold on our little experiment in self-government and produced a dumb-n-numb electorate that keeps sending Coin-Operated Politicians back to the trough at the expense of the people who keep saying they're fed up with sending Coin-Operated Politicians back to the trough...

Or maybe it's just a one-off stop-gap thing, and Obama's not the fucking genius I'd like to think he might actually be.

A guy can dream tho'

And just remember - ya heard it here first, muhthuhfuckuhs.

Still Not Back Yet

But I had to put up this passing thought:

Lil Donny Trump gets lotsa left-handed love from the Repub gurus - at least he does from the consultants who show up on certain TV shows to give us the appearance of "balance" (which is really just the standard Both-Sides-Baloney), even tho' most of these people sound like they're auditioning for a slot on somebody's campaign staff rather than offering anything of substance for us to contemplate.

Anyway, the theme seems to be that whatever passes for GOP leadership these days is not thrilled to hear Trump say the ass-wipe things he's been saying about Mexico or Latinos or Immigration in general, but that hey, he brings up some things that the Republican Base wants us to talk about blah blah blah.

No, guys. Not really.  Cuz here's what that sounds like to normal people: "Last Sunday at dinner after church, little Billy said 'Fuck you, Grandma', and you know - bless his heart - at least he had the courage to say what was on his mind..."

Not every thought is worthy of expression - especially all the weird shit that comes straight outa your id.  Learn something; grow the fuck up; you're not 9 years old, and you're not the only one in the fucking room - at the very least try to pretend you have enough higher brain function to be allowed out in public.

The Professional Left Podcast

There is no GOP.

And there is no actual news content in your newscast.

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Milbank On Trump

Dana Milbank seems to be partially recovering from his long bout with the kind of wishy-washy crap that's deeply infected Chuck Todd and most of the Both-Sides-They're-All-The-Same-Yeah-But-The-Democrats bunch of weak-minded 'librul' Press Poodles.

No - I'm Not Back Yet

...I just had to post a coupla videos.

Yeah, it's Russia TV so we hafta to be maybe a touch more skeptical than usual, but I'll take a nugget of truth wherever I can find it:

Some Changes In The Works

Sorry I've been AWOL.

Selling a house, looking for a new one, DIY moving, angsty kid troubles etc etc etc - all of the standard bullshit that goes on in just about everybody's lives.

Details are of no real consequence, and I'll try to be back at it by early August.

You're Free To Obey

Some Freer Than Others