Category Archives: “funny”

A bit of media framing, cluelessness and a nice “tell” from Susan Collins

The major mass media (the organized, lockstep right’s phantom “liberal” corporate media) has been instrumental in bringing our democracy to the doorstep of open, proud, defiant, vengeful fascism. Sometimes it’s done in-your-face, but most of the time it’s subtle, framing, omitting, pretending objectivity, sometimes to the point of absurdity. Here are three headlines from the influential Washington Post:

Plays right into the narrative, Americans want the “center” and those who endorse programs that bring children out of poverty (thanks to Manchinema four million young beneficiaries of the Child Tax Credit immediately returned to poverty when they blocked the Democratic Build Back Better bill) and fund long overdue measures to protect us all from devastating climate catastrophe — those are far LEFT ideas that, according to the moderate centrist narrative (both Manchin and Synema — “moderate centrists”), a radical minority is trying to ram down our throats, a la Amy Coney Barrett. OK, fine, Jeff Bezos owns the newspaper, after all.

Heh, there we go. The GOP and Manchinema blocked DEBATE (filibuster doesn’t just block a vote, it cuts off all public debate in the Senate) on increased IRS enforcement funding to bring the billions of dollars tax cheats steal every year (mostly wealthy ones — poor ones always pay, with interest and massive penalties) back into the public fisc. The larger goal of the right is to de-fund and cripple the administrative state, to “shrink government small enough to drown in a bathtub.” They’ve been working hard at it for decades. The sole remaining plank of the GOP platform (outside of whatever the big Orange Guy wants) is lowering tax for the wealthiest among us, because, you know, fair is fair. At midnight during the last session of the Bush-Cheney Congress they passed a law making the US Postal Service fund retirement benefits for all employees, even those employees not yet born. It immediately put our public mail service billions in debt. The results: predictable. The moral: private corporations rule and the government is the problem to be solved. Sure, that’s what democracy is all about, ask impartial corporate lawyer John Roberts.

How does this happen, in a chamber where McConnell got rid of the filibuster to ram through illegitimate Supreme Court picks? Fuck if I know, but again, the headline suggests that Democrats are fearful cucks who cannot even use their majority to fill important government vacancies, like the Fed. Again, who is controlling the narrative here?

And two from the New York Times. The first is from an article on the rising pedestrian death toll from drivers speeding, running lights and stop signs. The only drivers ever pulled over by police for such infractions seem to be drivers of color who have a tail light that’s out, and we only hear about these traffic stops when they turn deadly, usually for the people in the stopped car. The authors and Times editors are apparently unaware that the massive disruption of a once a century pandemic, with an insane would-be American strongman whipping up citizen outrage, has increased anxiety, anger and insanity among many of us. A walk in this quiet neighborhood often features cars racing on side streets, running stop signs, traffic lights, roaring with seeming rage (have many drivers actually removed their cars’ mufflers?)

The Times takes it usual objective, highly intelligent tone, after describing how it is easier to be aggressive in a car than face to face. I have to say, I love this sentence:

Then we have Susan Collins (R-Maine), the bipartisan defender of Trump (he learned his lesson after the first impeachment), and Boof Kavanaugh (he is actually much more moderate and less intemperate than he seemed when hissing and snarling about a dark money funded far-left partisan plot to ruin his life) penning an op ed for the Times that was a surprisingly well-written case for fixing the broken Electoral Count Act. In tandem with Judge Luttig’s recent op-ed (Luttig was the judge January 6 legal mastermind, and Fifth Amendment-citer John Eastman clerked for) these conservatives make a strong case for fixing the problematic law that Trump tried to drive a convoy of trucks through after losing the 2020 election.

Then we get the Susan Collins tell, a bit of inaccurate but precise-sounding (“relitigating”) language to describe the filibuster that cut off all discussion of restoring the Voting Rights Act that her party unanimously reauthorized in 2006, before the black guy became president, and then had the Supreme Court overrule the 98-0 Senate and a Republican president, because, well, a black guy had become president. The proposed laws were not litigated once (again, thanks to Manchinema, the greatest blue obstructionists money can buy), but, here’s pinhead Susan (and this one I can’t blame the Times for):

You said it, girlfriend.

where the facts and the law take us

Merrick Garland promised on January 5th, 2022 to follow the facts and the law wherever they take us, excluding no one from the operation of our laws by reason of power or wealth. Glenn Kirschner lays out a grievous tale of two arguably identical crimes, one petty (carrying a three month prison sentence) the other massive, pervasive, ongoing and part of a long pattern of corruption and obstruction of justice– with profound national security implications.

In the first case, prompt prosecution, conviction and sentencing. In the second case, not so much…

Here’s Glenn, in the description of his most recent youTube video presenting the law as it regards the mad former president:

In an astounding double-standard of justice, the Department of Justice issues a press release today, February 11, 2022, announcing that a federal employee named Asia Janay Lavarello removed classified documents and was just sentenced to 3 months in prison, whereas Trump removed classified documents (documents that were classified “top secret” as compared to those improperly handled by Ms. Lavarello, which were classified as “secret”), yet Trump is not held to account.

Here is a step-by-step comparison of the two cases, showing how there are two standards of justice at work in our nation.

Note: in the video, I mispronounce Ms. Lavarello’s name as “Laravello.” Apologies to Ms. Lavarello.

Random comment, on target

Sloppy Steve Bannon advocates flooding The zone with bullshit, so much shit is spraying out of a high-powered hose at all times that nobody can ever orient themself to the attack which is ongoing and relentless. Roger Stone is a practitioner of flooding zone with bullshit, misdirection and weaponized lies, as was Trump’s original mentor, Roy Cohn, master of the tabloids, a homophobic horn dog who currently sits on the right hand of Satan.

Of course both Putin and Trump confiscated and destroyed all notes of their meeting in Helsinki. I don’t know why they wouldn’t, I mean, I don’t know why they would. You continually flood the zone with incoherent blather, and then destroy the evidence, of course, I don’t know why you would, I mean, I don’t know why you wouldn’t. Obviously.

Profile in Courage

Cowardly sidekick takes a break from licking his master’s boots to state the obvious, only thirteen months too late.

I suppose this also qualifies as “legitimate political discourse.”

Trump-enabler Pence, pious, orthodox homophobe, famed champion of so-called Gay Conversion Therapy (subsidized by Indiana taxpayers), ought to enroll in Ambitious Sycophant Conversion Therapy. Both therapies are no doubt equally effective.

The truth is one thing, and essential, but outgassing from a costive asshole, it takes on a disgusting aspect.

Madness, anyone?

Those who believe in the End Times have much reason to celebrate: a mass death pandemic has driven people to extremes, street crime is on the rise, after two years of surprising restraint by the criminally inclined, the earth is experiencing an unprecedented number of climate catastrophes, the anti-Christ leads one of the two major political parties in the longest running democracy in the world, armies of angry believers, driven by infuriating lies, are on the march all across the globe.   It’s a great day for those who believe a Messiah will return to cast unbelievers into eternal hellfire while the faithful go up to heaven for an endless celebration.

The rise in crime is an interesting one, it has taken a long time to burst forth, given the nation’s pain, deprivation, desperation, the fact that most people are wearing the identity-obscuring highwayman masks anyway.  Crime, defined by statutes, is written by our best citizens. Crime enforcement is famously selective.  Wealthy citizens are allowed to negotiate deals most of the time, the poor never are allowed to negotiate anything but how many years they will spend locked up (and the “deals” are marginal there).  White men who commit deliberate voter fraud are given a stern talking to, and probation, a Black woman with a felony record, apparently cleared to vote by local officials, is sentenced to five years in prison for voter fraud.  Anyone who finds such things clearly racist is clearly the racist.  Up is down, black is white, if you believe your own eyes, you are a traitor. 150 police officers were injured, maimed, during “legitimate political discourse” that halted the constitutional business of Congress, so what is your point if you are a cop who lost an eye?

Unless you believe this raging chaos is a harbinger of the coming Apocalypse, it’s natural to believe we are pretty much fucked.   No matter how much evidence comes out — about the rapidly approaching point of no return with our fossil-fuel doomed planet, about the deliberate indifference to the hundreds of thousands who die deaths of despair from highly lucrative opioids, from guns, about the 98X higher likelihood that you will die of Covid-19 if you are not vaccinated, about the ignorance that comes from banning and burning books, from the parliamentary trick that cuts off all DEBATE of any issue that one party deems inconvenient (anti-lynching bills, voting rights bills, Human Rights bills), about the destructive force of an internet platform that spreads lies to billions in its influence, to a mad criminal blowhard who is still blowing as hard as he can, with every breath — there is no accountability for any of the open crimes of the super-rich and well-connected.   The only cause for optimism, if you are given to monkish superstition, is that all those who deny Christ will be finally and forever cast into the pit of hell, while believers will go on to eternal, joyous life in heaven.  For the rest of us: a mental health crisis.

Which is not to say that madness and a belief that all this horror is actually good news, as it heralds the prophesized return of Jesus Christ, are mutually exclusive.  Many mentally ill people are fervent believers.  Many other mentally ill people do not believe in an all-powerful, all-loving divine being who, though He loves humanity as His greatest creation, tolerates torture, starvation, rape, murder and all the rest.  The line between madness and sanity turns out to be blurry as hell, highly permeable.   

“The Truth,” quoted Christopher Walken, in a great interview with him in the NY Times, “is good, interesting is better.”  Madness?  Fuck if I know. 

Fed Soc Follies

The other day Mike Pence gave a speech to the Federalist Society, the Koch-funded legal fraternity that spawned the united 6-3 Trump Court majority, finally stating the obvious:  Trump was wrong, the Vice President does not have the legal right to overturn election results.   

Had he made this statement a year ago, hats off to a man of integrity.   This career ass-sniffer, backed by the Kochs for his entire obsequious career, once again wreathes himself in shame as he insults the intelligence of the American public, this time by telling the simple truth, belated by a hate-filled year.


Also addressing the Federalist Society’s annual meeting, though his speech was given secretly, Fed Soc alum Neil Gorsuch.  Last year’s keynote speaker was Federalist Society member Samuel Alito, who also spoke at the members only event in secret.  You want secrecy for your totally non-political speeches in front of a partisan legal fraternity you belong to, it’s common sense!  Look what happened to Crooked Hillary for speaking frankly to Wall Street!

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee censured both of its members who traitorously insist on calling the MAGA riot a riot (when, obviously, the only Blacks involved were law enforcement) uniting behind the idea that investigating the insurrection is “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” as you do, if you’re a Nazi (or klansman), and snarling lynch mobs united behind a proven lie are merely a preferred form of legitimate political discourse [1].

The rightwing legal establishment (as opposed to MAGA nation) is positioning itself to pivot, once the Trump dead-enders are, possibly, brought to justice, fully outed, disgraced, hopefully prosecuted and convicted for the seditious conspiracy they participated in.  Note that Trump was as useful an idiot to the far right as he was to his friend Mr. Putin, though the craven Pence’s speech might signal his master’s usefulness is nearing an end. Mainstream movement conservatives will continue marching on with their larger plan, to capture a permanent majority, particularly on the federal bench, a dependable activist majority that will rule in favor of the best of society and against that pesky 95% that causes all the problems here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

[1]

Trump to Pence: “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy,” Trump to Pence: “If these people say you had the power, wouldn’t you want to?” Pence: “I wouldn’t want any one person to have that authority,” Trump to Pence: “But wouldn’t it be almost cool to have that power?” Trump to Pence: “You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.” Trump to Pence: “If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago … You’re going to wimp out.”