(Ran out of the foolish, excessive hope I had that the reelection was going to be a rerun of 1964 -- huge rejection of the GOP -- or a flipped version of 1984 at least. And the greater fear is that the senate stays under Moscow Mitch's control in which the nation is really, really fucked.)
You know what's depressing? The fact that Trump and the GOP think the solution to covid is advertising. Not "Hey, here's a real-world problem that's killing Americans, so we need science and research." Instead it's just "Wow! This thing is making Dear Leader look bad, so how can we convince people that contracting a potentially fatal illness is a good thing?"
You know, my dad used to give me candy bars and toys, sometimes, after he'd rape or beat me. Because the problem wasn't the abuse, it was that I was hiding from him and making it harder to get ahold of me for the next round, and if he could just get me to associate it with a reward sometimes, he could keep abusing me and in his mind I was basically agreeing to the trade-off. In reality, I was taking what I could get and trying to keep from pissing him off so he didn't flip into full on sadist mode, because the abuse was going to happen anyway.
So it's pretty easy to see what Trump is doing wrong here. It's frankly been pretty easy to see what the GOP has been doing wrong all my life. If you treat people like actual humans, they will forgive you for the small problems. If you treat them like shit, you cannot buy them off by making their neighbors jealous of the little favors you do them, or by telling them how brave they are for letting you treat them like shit. Not all of them, anyway. Eventually it's going to occur to the MAGATs that they don't even have access to the small comforts they were using to make themselves forget that they haven't had a raise in years despite working harder and record profits. It won't occur to them until after the election, and then they'll have whole new shit to be angry about, but it's going to occur to some of them.
Reminds me of what I heard someone say about why interstate truck drivers don't (or at least didn't, back then) like the state of Pennsylvania. In PA, if there was a dip in the highway, they wouldn't fix it. They'd just put up a sign saying DIP.
Out here on the East End of Long Island, in the Town of East Hampton (where I live in the Village of Amagansett) the Town Board actually beat Trump to the punch. Back in May they hired a PR firm to redesign their website and handle communications about Covid. As a former communications and advertising person I didn’t quibble. (The website is awful; looks like something my dad designed after he retired, bless his heart.) The thing I opposed — and wrote a letter to the local paper about — was the language in the proposal that discussed the “communications.” This PR firm was to see to it that the public hear upbeat, positive stuff. Cheerleader open-up-those businesses stuff. At a tune of $60,000 a month. Which is pricey for out here. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the PR firm wasn’t a local one — it was based in New Jersey (!)
Ha! Doing "cheerleader open-up-those businesses stuff" and steering the contract for it to out-of-towners (with whom, I am guessing, some board members have a connection) is classic
The governor of South Dakota, Rodeo Barbie, does that sort of thing all the time. And like Azar she put on her cheerleader costume and told us that all we need to do to beat COVID is “put on your Positive Pants!” No word on whether she snapped her gum, flipped her hair, and applied Dr Pepper Lip Smackers after her serious address to the public.
About 8 years ago, my town decided it needed some local boosterism and some advertising to help bring the tourists in. So, the town board voted to commission the Chamber of Commerce to come up with it. And the Chamber of Commerce looked around at the local resources which included three advertising agencies, four sign shops, and a half dozen Web development companies. And then gave the biggest part of the contract to a sign company in New Hampshire, the second biggest part to an ad agency in New York, and the Web development component went to some guy nobody had every heard of just over the state line in New York.
When the then-president of the Chamber was asked why none of the money stayed local for a campaign of local boosterism, she claimed she did not know we had any of those capabilities in the local community.
Only thing that would surprise me is that anyone would be surprised. They're trying to bellow, bluster and bullshit their way through COVID because they bellow, bluster and bullshit their way through *everything*.
So are we pretty much thinking that when the Occupant was rushed to Walter Reed in the middle of the night, and Pence ready to take the controls, that Tubby OD'd? It seems like the best explanation to me.
Also, what was up with that weird "I won't be President any longer and you all will be dead" moment? It reminded me a closing soliloquy for a tyrannical ruler in a tragedy play, dying from a poisoned chalice & suddenly realizing his mortality in the most pathetic way possible. The only thing that could come after it is a stage direction like "Exit, pursued by Barr"...
Various people who theoretically might actually get Trump admin hangers on messaging them about what really happened in an attempt to rescue their careers or karma are saying he's had a series of mini strokes.
Otherwise known as trans-ischemic attacks (TIAs). Since then, his word slurring has gotten notably worse, as has his sense of balance and the need to use two hands to drink a glass of water. Hard to say what he's going to be like by October but it won't be pretty. I'm not sure he can do any of the presidential debates without embarrassing himself (not that that's ever stopped him before)..
I sort of want to point out that I've had those symptoms for tennish years (no, it's not a stroke, it's also not parkinson's or any of the a-list shit the neurologist always wants to rule out before going "Yeah, we have no idea. Have you considered seeing a quack?") but I'm also not running for president. I spent forty minutes trying to assemble six pieces of a Tinkerbell toy and I'm still pretty sure I got it wrong. I should not be in charge of getting my ballot filled out and in a drop box, let alone running the country.
There's a way to get really able-ist about this whole thing, but again, it just pisses me off because we, giving a shit about human beings, don't want to hurt others while we try to figure out what an effective response to Trump is, and he's willing to murder a couple hundred thousand at a minimum of our fellow citizens so he can trigger the libs and make his batshit morons cheer for him.
Like not wanting to kink-shame anybody and it still being okay to be gleeful about Jerry Falwell jr's undoing because of his publically judgemental pose and restriction on Liberty University student sex lives, I think it's okay to take positive note of Trump's physical deterioration without being disgustingly ableist because he's the one who decided to run on how physically and mentally robust he was compared to Biden. Also, I'm really sorry you've got those mysterious symptoms.
A petulant, childish Lear? “When I’m gone, then you’ll all be sorry!” [does huge bump of coke, or whatever they had in the dark ages when Lear was set]
Well, that's... gross. Roy, I'm gonna recommend sleeping with some tobacco leaves in a bag under your pillow to clean this kind of poison out of your soul after you write this stuff. I mean, we love you and appreciate it, but this can't be good for you, man.
It's not waning moon for a couple more days, but based on past experience, probably not well enough. Sometimes I see the point of atheism. But, hey, maybe it worked really well and I'm dodging a bullet on this migraine. I dunno.
I have a plan to defeat despair and inspire hope. It's to elect Biden and Harris and a majority of House and Senate Democrats and then have the law order all the Trumps, and all the administration factotums, and their spouses and their sheep and cows and household pets into quarantine until the courts and various House and Senate committees can ascertain guilt and assign appropriate punishment, which wouldn't have to include prison (but could!) but might entail horrors like having to listen to Donald Trump coronavirus election rally speeches on endless loop or be visited by the ghosts of 200,000 coronavirus victims (courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic) or attend high school in Georgia...
Maybe the pro-virus videos can feature some cameos from Herman Cain, or a touring hologram or something. They can do all kinds of things now. Herman could pop-up saying, "Hey! It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be!" which his Twitter account just tweeted yesterday (ICYMI). You can't get more upbeat than that.
Look, I know we're all just poor players strutting our hour upon the stage blah blah, but who the fuck wrote this play? This stuff is way, way over the top.
They're even recruiting dead "celebrities" like Zombie Herma "9-9-9" Cain to pooh-pooh the very virus that did him in. We've reached the Danse Macabre stage of the Trump Campaign. And we haven't even reached the traditional GOP October Surprise event yet, which I predict is being prepared by Vlad and his GRU buddies.
Unrelated, but they did use Hallelujah, not the Cohen version but that song, at the RNC. After his estate said no fucking way. And offered You Want It Darker.
It does make me wonder if they have any fucking idea what the song is about, because if nothing else it is not a song the repressive right should be singing along with, and playing it while Trump, Jared, and Ivanka are in the room seems deeply gross.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Ben Carson. I was a pediatric neurosurgeon, so of course now I'm Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And I'm here with some good news. Some people are worried about this virus that seems to be going around, but as a doctor, and a Secretary, I can announce that we've figured out how to beat it. Next time you're out with other people--at the ball game, or at school, or in a casino--just breathe less. You see, breathing is something we do automatically, but it's also something we can do on purpose. Isn't that great? So don't let your respiratory system boss you around. That's not what America is about. Use your freedom to take command of it. Inhale, and hold your breath for as long as possible. Because the less you breathe, the less chance you have of inhaling the virus. And tell other people to do that, too. Together, we'll beat this virus, and pretty soon we'll be getting America working, and going to school, and breathing, again. Thank you."
I want to upvote this a lot of times, really.
Kill me.
(Ran out of the foolish, excessive hope I had that the reelection was going to be a rerun of 1964 -- huge rejection of the GOP -- or a flipped version of 1984 at least. And the greater fear is that the senate stays under Moscow Mitch's control in which the nation is really, really fucked.)
Ditto.
You know what's depressing? The fact that Trump and the GOP think the solution to covid is advertising. Not "Hey, here's a real-world problem that's killing Americans, so we need science and research." Instead it's just "Wow! This thing is making Dear Leader look bad, so how can we convince people that contracting a potentially fatal illness is a good thing?"
You know, my dad used to give me candy bars and toys, sometimes, after he'd rape or beat me. Because the problem wasn't the abuse, it was that I was hiding from him and making it harder to get ahold of me for the next round, and if he could just get me to associate it with a reward sometimes, he could keep abusing me and in his mind I was basically agreeing to the trade-off. In reality, I was taking what I could get and trying to keep from pissing him off so he didn't flip into full on sadist mode, because the abuse was going to happen anyway.
So it's pretty easy to see what Trump is doing wrong here. It's frankly been pretty easy to see what the GOP has been doing wrong all my life. If you treat people like actual humans, they will forgive you for the small problems. If you treat them like shit, you cannot buy them off by making their neighbors jealous of the little favors you do them, or by telling them how brave they are for letting you treat them like shit. Not all of them, anyway. Eventually it's going to occur to the MAGATs that they don't even have access to the small comforts they were using to make themselves forget that they haven't had a raise in years despite working harder and record profits. It won't occur to them until after the election, and then they'll have whole new shit to be angry about, but it's going to occur to some of them.
Reminds me of what I heard someone say about why interstate truck drivers don't (or at least didn't, back then) like the state of Pennsylvania. In PA, if there was a dip in the highway, they wouldn't fix it. They'd just put up a sign saying DIP.
Please tell me the whole thing— including the news item— is satire.
Out here on the East End of Long Island, in the Town of East Hampton (where I live in the Village of Amagansett) the Town Board actually beat Trump to the punch. Back in May they hired a PR firm to redesign their website and handle communications about Covid. As a former communications and advertising person I didn’t quibble. (The website is awful; looks like something my dad designed after he retired, bless his heart.) The thing I opposed — and wrote a letter to the local paper about — was the language in the proposal that discussed the “communications.” This PR firm was to see to it that the public hear upbeat, positive stuff. Cheerleader open-up-those businesses stuff. At a tune of $60,000 a month. Which is pricey for out here. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the PR firm wasn’t a local one — it was based in New Jersey (!)
Ha! Doing "cheerleader open-up-those businesses stuff" and steering the contract for it to out-of-towners (with whom, I am guessing, some board members have a connection) is classic
The governor of South Dakota, Rodeo Barbie, does that sort of thing all the time. And like Azar she put on her cheerleader costume and told us that all we need to do to beat COVID is “put on your Positive Pants!” No word on whether she snapped her gum, flipped her hair, and applied Dr Pepper Lip Smackers after her serious address to the public.
but to be fair, she thought "Meth: We're on it" was a good anti-meth slogan, so she's maybe a taco short of a combination plate
About 8 years ago, my town decided it needed some local boosterism and some advertising to help bring the tourists in. So, the town board voted to commission the Chamber of Commerce to come up with it. And the Chamber of Commerce looked around at the local resources which included three advertising agencies, four sign shops, and a half dozen Web development companies. And then gave the biggest part of the contract to a sign company in New Hampshire, the second biggest part to an ad agency in New York, and the Web development component went to some guy nobody had every heard of just over the state line in New York.
When the then-president of the Chamber was asked why none of the money stayed local for a campaign of local boosterism, she claimed she did not know we had any of those capabilities in the local community.
Chambers of Commerce are just front sites for anti-labor & anti-regulation agitation
Only thing that would surprise me is that anyone would be surprised. They're trying to bellow, bluster and bullshit their way through COVID because they bellow, bluster and bullshit their way through *everything*.
So are we pretty much thinking that when the Occupant was rushed to Walter Reed in the middle of the night, and Pence ready to take the controls, that Tubby OD'd? It seems like the best explanation to me.
Also, what was up with that weird "I won't be President any longer and you all will be dead" moment? It reminded me a closing soliloquy for a tyrannical ruler in a tragedy play, dying from a poisoned chalice & suddenly realizing his mortality in the most pathetic way possible. The only thing that could come after it is a stage direction like "Exit, pursued by Barr"...
Various people who theoretically might actually get Trump admin hangers on messaging them about what really happened in an attempt to rescue their careers or karma are saying he's had a series of mini strokes.
Otherwise known as trans-ischemic attacks (TIAs). Since then, his word slurring has gotten notably worse, as has his sense of balance and the need to use two hands to drink a glass of water. Hard to say what he's going to be like by October but it won't be pretty. I'm not sure he can do any of the presidential debates without embarrassing himself (not that that's ever stopped him before)..
I sort of want to point out that I've had those symptoms for tennish years (no, it's not a stroke, it's also not parkinson's or any of the a-list shit the neurologist always wants to rule out before going "Yeah, we have no idea. Have you considered seeing a quack?") but I'm also not running for president. I spent forty minutes trying to assemble six pieces of a Tinkerbell toy and I'm still pretty sure I got it wrong. I should not be in charge of getting my ballot filled out and in a drop box, let alone running the country.
There's a way to get really able-ist about this whole thing, but again, it just pisses me off because we, giving a shit about human beings, don't want to hurt others while we try to figure out what an effective response to Trump is, and he's willing to murder a couple hundred thousand at a minimum of our fellow citizens so he can trigger the libs and make his batshit morons cheer for him.
Like not wanting to kink-shame anybody and it still being okay to be gleeful about Jerry Falwell jr's undoing because of his publically judgemental pose and restriction on Liberty University student sex lives, I think it's okay to take positive note of Trump's physical deterioration without being disgustingly ableist because he's the one who decided to run on how physically and mentally robust he was compared to Biden. Also, I'm really sorry you've got those mysterious symptoms.
A petulant, childish Lear? “When I’m gone, then you’ll all be sorry!” [does huge bump of coke, or whatever they had in the dark ages when Lear was set]
Well, that's... gross. Roy, I'm gonna recommend sleeping with some tobacco leaves in a bag under your pillow to clean this kind of poison out of your soul after you write this stuff. I mean, we love you and appreciate it, but this can't be good for you, man.
I dunno. How did the egg work?
It's not waning moon for a couple more days, but based on past experience, probably not well enough. Sometimes I see the point of atheism. But, hey, maybe it worked really well and I'm dodging a bullet on this migraine. I dunno.
I have a plan to defeat despair and inspire hope. It's to elect Biden and Harris and a majority of House and Senate Democrats and then have the law order all the Trumps, and all the administration factotums, and their spouses and their sheep and cows and household pets into quarantine until the courts and various House and Senate committees can ascertain guilt and assign appropriate punishment, which wouldn't have to include prison (but could!) but might entail horrors like having to listen to Donald Trump coronavirus election rally speeches on endless loop or be visited by the ghosts of 200,000 coronavirus victims (courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic) or attend high school in Georgia...
Maybe the pro-virus videos can feature some cameos from Herman Cain, or a touring hologram or something. They can do all kinds of things now. Herman could pop-up saying, "Hey! It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be!" which his Twitter account just tweeted yesterday (ICYMI). You can't get more upbeat than that.
Look, I know we're all just poor players strutting our hour upon the stage blah blah, but who the fuck wrote this play? This stuff is way, way over the top.
Apparently Cain is too busy tweeting from the grave.
They're even recruiting dead "celebrities" like Zombie Herma "9-9-9" Cain to pooh-pooh the very virus that did him in. We've reached the Danse Macabre stage of the Trump Campaign. And we haven't even reached the traditional GOP October Surprise event yet, which I predict is being prepared by Vlad and his GRU buddies.
I suggest they get Zombie Judy Garland
Pack up your troubles and just get happy
Ya better chase all your cares away
Sing Hallelujah, come on get happy
Get ready for the judgment day
Unrelated, but they did use Hallelujah, not the Cohen version but that song, at the RNC. After his estate said no fucking way. And offered You Want It Darker.
It does make me wonder if they have any fucking idea what the song is about, because if nothing else it is not a song the repressive right should be singing along with, and playing it while Trump, Jared, and Ivanka are in the room seems deeply gross.
These are the same people who think Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is another flag-waving Lee Greenwood song.
And Atlantic City is about how DJT turned around the casino business in AC
He made it safe for tourists from Saskatchewan again!
"If you would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven, you might be a MAGAt."
This is one of the REBID pieces that should be made free. It's short, punchy, and provides a great flavor of the full subscription.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Ben Carson. I was a pediatric neurosurgeon, so of course now I'm Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And I'm here with some good news. Some people are worried about this virus that seems to be going around, but as a doctor, and a Secretary, I can announce that we've figured out how to beat it. Next time you're out with other people--at the ball game, or at school, or in a casino--just breathe less. You see, breathing is something we do automatically, but it's also something we can do on purpose. Isn't that great? So don't let your respiratory system boss you around. That's not what America is about. Use your freedom to take command of it. Inhale, and hold your breath for as long as possible. Because the less you breathe, the less chance you have of inhaling the virus. And tell other people to do that, too. Together, we'll beat this virus, and pretty soon we'll be getting America working, and going to school, and breathing, again. Thank you."
I just got back from a week in the mountains - no news was good news. Yah, really. Gonna have to stop reading the news.
Thanks for the humor Roy, I don't know which endlessly deep well you're getting it from, but its balm for the soul.
"All excerpt Grandma Azar, God rest her soul. But she had a good long life." Good riddance to the old broad. She was costing too much anyway.