Handy word for disgustingly greedy

A bit of context for the current day user of this word, suddenly depressingly handy in our world of Gates, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Murdoch, Koch, Leo, Crow, Bloomberg, Kushner, Mnuchin, et als.

And a five second bit of etymology because sometimes that shit is very interesting

It must be the idea of snatching it from other people so that you can acquire and hoard 100,000 times more than you need that makes it so irresistible to these rapacious motherfuckers.

Jim Jordan, pugnacious contemnor/scumbag, Chrumpie’s choice to replace “My Kevin”

Clearly, the mad former reality TV star and very stable genius, under increasing pressure by the day, is calling the chaotic shots in the Chaos Caucus. He would like to replace his spineless Kevin with a stronger, more loyal, pugnacious, ever-fighting bantam rooster, Jim Jordan. Jordan’s claim to fame, outside of always showing up to work in shirtsleeves, is that as a collegiate wrestler he was never pinned, never lost a match, his record was something like 100-0. The crablike Jordan was born to grapple, though he took a pass at passing the bar exam after law school. Good to know your strengths and weaknesses.

Jordan tap-danced, stuttering in response to a FOX reporter’s question on live TV about how many times and exactly when he talked to the Boss on January 6th, the day Chrumpie urged the angry patriots of MAGA to fight like hell or they wouldn’t have a country anymore. Jordan later wiped his ass with a subpoena from his House colleagues, wasn’t referred for criminal charges like Bannon and Navarro, and, after the RED WAVE gave MAGA a narrow House majority, became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Now he’s the one with subpoena power, so there! This was part of his reward for his steadfast loyalty to the man he tried to help overturn American democracy back on patriotic January 6, 2021.

We know Jordan was among the loyal insurrectionist Republicans in Congress who Chrumpie told his DOJ would “do the rest”, carry out the batshit crazy plan to decertify Biden’s electoral college victory, throw it back to the states, the “Green Bay Sweep” we heard Peter Navarro discuss with Ari Melber, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Here is the great Heather Cox Richardson quoting Liz Cheney, 99% hateful in most of her political positions, 100% on the money in regard to the danger posed by the insane wannabe dictator and his fungible, disposable, endlessly power-craving myrmidons:

Trump today endorsed Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) for the speakership. There is an important history to this endorsement. On January 11, 2021—five days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the attempt of some Republican lawmakers to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election—Trump awarded Jordan the Medal of Freedom without a real explanation of why he deserved it. 

On January 6, 2021, then-Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) told Jordan to get away from her because “You f*ck*ng did this!” 

Yesterday, in a speech at the University of Minnesota, Cheney explained: “Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives. Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election…. There was a handful of people, of which he was the leader, who knew what Donald Trump had planned. Now somebody needs to ask Jim Jordan, ‘Why didn’t you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned? You were in those meetings at the White House.’”

She concluded: “If the Republicans decide that Jim Jordan should be the Speaker of the House…there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”

source




Heather raises an important question, why was Jordan given the Medal of Freedom, instead of a full pre-emptive pardon and a million dollar job in a think tank created just for him? I guess we’d have to hold a seance and ask Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh.

President Donald Trump awarded conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, at the State of the Union address on Feb. 4. The White House website says the award is for people “who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/feb/05/10-fact-checks-rush-limbaugh-medal-freedom-winner/

And from the fighting cock’s Wikipedia page:

Despite his support for Kevin McCarthy in the 2023 Speaker of the House of Representatives election, including nominating McCarthy on the second ballot, Jordan was nominated on the second ballot by Representative Matt Gaetz. He received 19 votes, enough to deny McCarthy the speakership in the second round.[54] Jordan was nominated again on the third ballot by Chip Roy.[55] He won 20 votes in the third ballot, with Byron Donalds switching from McCarthy to Jordan. This was enough to necessitate a fourth ballot, but Jordan got no votes on ballots 4 through 11, as all his supporters switched to Donalds. On the 12th ballot, Gaetz nominated Jordan again. He received four votes, enough to necessitate a 13th ballot when combined with the three for Kevin Hern. He was not nominated on the 13th or 14th ballot, but received six and two votes on each, respectively.

After the House removed McCarthy from the speakership on October 3, 2023, Jordan launched a bid for the speakership.[56][57]

The name of the political party might change, but Nazis will be Nazis.

In happier times…

After only a few hours lapping at the crusty posterior of his master, shortly after the riot at the Capitol, no more worries about a deadly attack on democracy, fake smiles all around!

On second thought, McCarthy’s expression can be read as the expression of a spineless man on his way to hell. Now it’s time for him to join his fellow “Tea Party” “young guns” Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan.

The Fundamental Terror/Beauty of Life

The most terrifying thing humans are up against is the erasure of our right to exist.   This is why my grandmother used the phrase “screamed bloody murder” so often, why she drank so heavily as she got older, why she got tearful when her vodka-fueled gestures of affection toward us made us uncomfortable.   She had good reason to feel this way, her entire family had no doubt screamed bloody murder, though their screams were drowned out by drums, out of tune brass and drunken catcalls, in the ravine where they all met a nightmare end.

Death is one thing.  We can be philosophical about it, since it is inevitable, but until we find ourself in unbearable, unrelievable pain it is not an option anyone finds palatable.  Life is the precious, irreplaceable thing, and feeling grateful for our place in this ongoing miracle, breathing and loving for the wink of an eye that we exist here.

The most painful thing, as far as I have experienced, is having your feelings erased, contested, fought to the death by people who claim to love you.   It is a pain I recall well from my childhood, it is a pain I revisit every time something I say is met with silence, dismissed, contested, fought to the death.  I don’t want to fight to the death, but many cannot restrain themselves, they must fight to the death, these clueless gladiator fucks.  The alternative is the humiliation of being wrong, admitting imperfection, which is unbearable to this type. 

I can fight as well as any clueless gladiator fuck who has ever come against me with a sword or ax.  I have had to fight, from my earliest memories.  My life has been a long, slow journey away from the need to fight these senseless, idiotic battles with people who profess to love me.  I spent decades learning to control my temper, with some success, although never enough sometimes.  For example, I still suffer from instant Tourettic outbursts whenever I am buggered by technology.

Having a supportive social network is one predictor of longterm health.  Sadly few people have these networks in our modern, corporate world.  There is an epidemic of loneliness in America, which expresses itself in deaths of despair.  If nobody gives a fuck about you, after a while you conclude “what the fuck?” and whatever you must do to answer that question seems legitimate, even if it kills you.

The only antidote to this life threatening isolation is talking to someone who cares.  It is a true horror that so few get this chance to be heard when they need it.

If you have a painful medical procedure and find yourself abandoned by your social network, amid recriminations and expressions of your unworthiness to be loved, your recovery will be slower than if you are visited, checked up on, wished well, sent jokes and funny videos.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. observed “in the end it is not the words of our enemies that we remember, it is the silence of our friends.”  Dig it.

An anguished soul can be a heavy burden to carry from day to day, even for people who love you.  I have to be sensitive to Sekhnet’s frayed nerves and her endless worry for me.  I isolate myself today and tap here, speaking silently to the universe of anyone who may stumble on these words, instead of troubling her.  We all need a day off.

This is where imagination and creativity come in.  I noticed at a very young age that I was closing myself in my room with the intent to set my dismissed feelings out on a page.  My drawings were often disturbing.  My writing was grandiose and rambled, trying to cover every subject in the world at once.  Sixty years on my drawings are often oddly cool, my writing focused and somewhat compressed.

The beauty of writing is that you can go back as many times as you like, comb through ambiguity and weak expression to make your writing as clear and elegant as possible.  A piece of writing is as perfectable as our delicate, malleable human souls. 

The phrase neuroplasticity is used to describe the ability of a pain damaged brain to heal itself.  It doesn’t happen without hard work, but what better work is there, during the wink of an eye we get to participate in this ongoing, if often tragic, miracle?