I can't tell you how refreshing it has been to see the Democrats tack from finger-wagging at fascism to mockery. Yes, of course the approach has to be two pronged, it's important to communicate the dire consequences of Project 25 and a second Trump term. But the Dems should actually be LEADING with "look, these guys are freaks. You know it. I know it. But that doesn't mean freaks can't be dangerous and do significant harm, because it's their very weirdness, not good faith, that is driving them."
Also, fascists LOVE you to be worried and frightened of them. They hate it when you make fun of them, because deep down, on some level, they know who they really are. MAGA is a conglomeration of middle school bullies, the *victims* of those bullies who think they'll protect themselves by cozying up to them, and the nerdy weirdos who didn't get the girl they wanted, and now all those bitches will pay. And deep down, likely unconsciously, they know that's who they are. So mockery stings.
I don't think most of them were middle school bullies. I think it more likely they were kids that got picked on in middle school. The ones I know personally come from that category.
Acting in bad faith has become a badge of honor. Look at me, I'm cynical, I get it.
It's pathetic. My scorn isn't just tribal, I aspire to earnestness and integrity. If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, then I guess they can feel the sting. I hope!
You say that now, but there you'll be, in the Great Hereafter , chilling with Rousseau, Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffen and they're all " "Statue or it didn't happen Edroso"
Roy Edroso National Forest. "If you seek his monument, look around you." Nice mixed hardwoods and evergreens, with an ongoing Restore The Elm Tree Project.
"like Sade, I'd be content to have all trace of my existence wiped out."
I'm actually amusing myself with knowing some of my fiber art work will present conservation and cleaning problems long after I've joined the Norwegian Blue...
I've been trying since the mid '80s, watching the rise of Conspiracy culture (mostly fanned by the NRA, with an assist from the POW/MIA crowd who thought J.Carter sold out US prisoners in Vietnam, and the crazy preachers, like Hagee..) to get Dem party types to notice that insanity was being brewed among the credulous yokels...
Now, the apparently regrettable (to the J Carville/Clare McCaskill types) necessity of calling out this corrosive crazy, designed to make any reason or certainty possible.
Maybe Harris, ably abetted by the likes of Walz and Buttigieg, can do it.
Speaking of Walz, I'm more impressed every clip i see if him: solid good sense stated so any Joe or Jane could understand.
I had been flogging my own really good governor Roy Cooper for the VPs slot, but Roy is a bit boring and I don't really think he wants the job. I mean he's done a really great job in a gerrymandered state and made real progressive moves. He also killed Gov. McCrory's transgender bathroom ban.
Maybe he'll feel like taking on idiotic Sen.Thom Tillis, he of the "There shouldn't be a lawthat you have to wash your hands if you work in a restaurant, because Free Market."
"If Harris gets in, it will be the end of America," says one union member who's voting for Trump. The hapless CNN reporter did NOT ask that man to explain himself. But as near as I can tell from talking to conservatives, it goes like this:
Harris becomes president.
All guns are confiscated, followed by everyone being forced to get vaccinated against whatever disease Fauci and Gates cook up next. Once people have been made to accept being obedient, all private property will be taken away from White people and given to Blacks and illegal immigrants. For-profit businesses will be nationalized or outlawed, followed by bans on meat eating. From there, communist dictatorship and every White man enslaved.
I have a cousin who lived in abject fear that if tRump lost, she'd face some Truth and Reconciliation commission for the racist way she's gone out of her way to treat black folks.
"Once people have been made to accept being obedient"
This it the part that cracks me up. Did you drive to work today? You obeyed about a hundred signs, rules, laws and just general norms of civilized behavior to do that. We're social creatures, we're genetically programmed to cooperate, to get along and get by, to be obedient.
Says the guy who pulls carefully up to the box to shout his order loudly and clearly, then proceeding to window TWO, not ONE, because there's nobody at that window.
I got into it with one of these "LOL, objective reality is a fiction" assholes over at Tooze's place. And it struck me that these jerks don't live their lives any differently than the rest of us. When they get to the checkout at the grocery store, they don't do some hand-wave Jedi Mind Trick about how the value of money is a shared delusion, they just pull out their debit card and have the money deducted from their bank account according to the normal rules of arithmetic.
That shit's a pose, solely for use on internet discussion boards and nowhere else.
Yep. Just wanting to argue. Stupid sons a bitches. It's a SYSTEM dumbass. Libertarians are notorious for that kind of thinking - why, with no rules, everyone would just get along! What kind of fucking bubble do you live in? Have you *met* people? Social outcasts thinking they can run society.
Maybe I'm nuts, but I like to live my real, non-internet life according to the same principles and values I espouse when I'm talkin' to people on the internet. It's a useful check, let's me know when I might be spouting bullshit so I can stop.
I was just arriving to say that. There were some around San José, Ca back in the '80's - '90s, and they were often seen driving cars with weird home-made license plates. And the cops never pulled 'em over (probably didn't want to deal with the lecture).
Tee hee. You got it. "We got rid of The United States of America! Now our cash will actually mean something?" Uhh, you mean that silk reinforced toilet paper in your wallet? I know you're anti-learning, but you might want to checked out a little thing called 'fiat money'.
Trevor Howard holds him hostage with hidden bottles of (Black & White) scotch on the island he stranded him on. Trevor Howard needs a favor (go pick up Leslie Caron on a far away island) sooooo
Walter Eckland: All those miles of open sea and back again, a man would need something to keep warm, now, wouldn't he?
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Two bottles.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Three.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Five.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Got a pencil?
"All of them, Frank" is a standard quote hereabouts.
You forgot making gas stoves and internal combustion engines illegal. And churches. And brainwashing children to become "trans". It's a long list of taking things away from them.
"There shouldn't be a law that you have to wash your hands if you work in a restaurant"
Such a good example. Consumer choice among restaurants is supposed to fix the problem, I guess. Or am I overthinking.
Take manufacture and distribution of goods to market. Supply chains and shit are sssoooo complicated. We can't assess what we're consuming, we can barely act on what we might learn, meanwhile the situations polymorph. Regulation is practically all we've got on our side.
"POW/MIA crowd" hooked, lined, sinkered in a delightfully nasty okey-doke by the very sorts of igniter/acceleration-istas who are ascendant nowadays. That whole scam was a blueprint for how to lie your way near to the top.
A lot of the cray-cray was obvious if one cared to accept what one saw.
But one of my older old fart theories is that we're hard-wired to assume that people that look like us are in fact like us. (Among other ignorance-supporting biases.) And then we have mainstream media that prefer to push stories and fantasies than report ugly truths; see, Trump, D., 1973 to date. Still waiting for the reporting that he's some combination of dangerously insane -- although, Team Kamala made it clear enough in that recent statement:
Of course, as a life long, continually reinforced misanthrope, I presume a BS artist pushing some nasty and/or insane crap is exactly the POS thy appear to be...
It's not so much a "too little too late", maybe more that the media are now suffused with enough showing Trump unfiltered that enough voters can suss out* that he's no shit insane, monstrous, and is promising us true American carnage (to coin a phrase). (*H/t as always Dean Baquet.)
Meanwhile, I marvel that the ideal candidate against him is a woman of color who laughs freely--and, to put it inelegantly, has been professionally trained to be a bitch when needed. (Again, see that image of Team Kamala's statement. Elegantly dismissive of the crazy old fart.)
Nah. Corporate Media is scared absolutely shitless of Trump. Alternate media is the way to go, especially since the young folk appear to be energized over Kamala, and I think (hope, pray) the campaign is aware of that.
They've been giving the GOP a pass -- carte blanche -- since Reagan.
As I keep ranting, when it comes to reporting the important issues, the mainstream news media are actually harmful. They reflect the sociopathy of our leadership elite or caste or whatever.
Yes, need to repeat every now and then. Can't go all out and say they're sick fucks or even just insane. Somewhere along the line of crazy uncle or other old fart is pretty much the sweet spot.
The parents of my generation fought and died by the hundreds of thousands to stop Queens Man's direct predecessor from doing to the world what the Queens Man proclaims he would do to us. That is for me uncrackable nut. It is as if the Family Firster grifters and followers are deliberately scorning what their own parents did to save this country and coincidentally the world.
If you mean WWII, the West’s war against fascism ended with Operation: Paperclip, the birth of the CIA and the replacement of the New Dealers by conservatives.
Trump’s never vote again crap is his way of saying that once elected there’s no need for any election in which he can be voted out.
But meanwhile, R state legislatures are doing their best to make states one party state.
Related: why I say people who exercise decency only amongst their own aren't truly decent. OTOH, as an Old Testament guy, I twist the eye for an eye thing to having full contempt for my haters. Of course, should they see the light...
I come from a family of con men, trained by the best. I assume *everything* is a con until proven otherwise. That belief has stood me in good stead all my life.
Pointing out that they are weird is an improvement, but it still sugarcoats what they really are, which is something more akin to toxic, if you have to pick just one word. That's part of the problem though. They are not just one word, they are many, and when you start listing them all it turns into a word salad and the overall point gets lost.
I thought Harris was on the right path in her little speech about how she'd prosecuted rapists, frauds, etc., people like Donald Trump. I think she's got to lay out that real case. Name the real crimes. Name the real names. Would you vote for someone you wouldn't leave your child alone with, or your wallet on the table when you leave the room?
I know we liberals hate to go there, but I'd throw in how these real crimes and real names fit in the worldview of real Christianity. Rape is not.a Christian value. Lying and cheating are not Christian values, etc. And taking away women's rights is not a Christian value. Those are Taliban values, Revolutionary Guard values.
As you note, the Democratic Party strategy has been to let the Republicans hang themselves with their craziness, but that has failed spectacularly. I've always thought that to tell the plain truth about what they are and what they are doing. is the most effective strategy. People know they are wrong to be a part of that shitshow, they just need to know that everybody knows and that it's not justifiable.
What do we know? Trump is a shit stain on American history. If Harris were to say those words, I'm pretty sure the election would be over.
I think it was tough for the Dems to call out the weirdness on the right because for a long time, it was the Democratic Party that welcomed, or at least accepted, people that were generally thought of as weird (or, usually, worse). Y’know, gays, commies, potheads, POC and, of course, women. But things changed over the last half-century. Now gays can get married, a socialist from Vermont mounted a legit presidential campaign, legal weed is mainstream and a black man was elected President. (Women are still icky and have cooties, but we’re working on that!)
Ultimately this is why the right is so angry. Over the last 50 years, *they’ve* become the weirdos, and they know it and hate it. So they are trying to “re-weird” the left by gutting the gains of the last several decades. It doesn’t work like that but that won’t stop them from trying and likely inflicting a lot of pain in the process. But yes, it’s nice to see the Dems glom on to this. More, please.
They bring up drag queens, we mention their Maybelline ticket. I’m beginning to wonder if their issue with drag is professional jealousy. (P.S. Wear make-up if you want. Freedom!)
It's so feeble. They've been showing pictures of drag queens forever and no one besides them gives a shit. I think that's why they freaked out about the Paris Olympics display -- they were, to use your term, trying to "re-weird" drag.
I urge you, if you have the stomach for it, to Google photos from Mar-a-Lago. The lowliest carnival operator never had a sideshow line-up that freaky and gruesome. The hair, the make-up, the clothes, and especially the plastic surgery. And this is the Real America? I want someone to make a commercial out of that.
Matt Wayne Gaetzy seems to be a new passenger on board. Altho the recent pix could be just semi-clever (hey, what to you expect for half-wits?) photoshops.
The crazy uproar about the opening ceremony of the Olympics pinpoints exactly why we need more education in Fine Arts and the Humanities. The ignorant, narrow-minded freaks believe civilization and history and culture began (and end) with Christianity! Their toxic world-view is breathtaking in its limitations. It's weird, and rather sad.
What I found hilarious is nobody even knows what the last supper looked like. It's not like it was filmed or photographed. So they were getting mad because people posed like a famous painting, lol.
Thus proving that the TV sitcom formula was invented by God. I try to explain this to people, that you must put your couch in the middle of the room, as God intended.
My mother was a "push all the furniture to the margins" person, as a kid I used to gaze on the living room of Rob and Laura Petrie with wonderment, to have so much space that you can put your sofa sectional right in the middle of the room. This, more than anything, signified upper-middle-class affluence.
Weirdly (channeling today's subject), it is feasible to design an interesting roomlet with the couch smack in the middle of that small room, if one cares not about breaking toes and falling over the furniture in the middle of the night.
Dems are getting better at messaging but still let golden opportunities pass unaddressed. E.g., it was a Republican with an AR-15 who tried to assassinate Trump. If some guy who had any connection whatsoever to a Democratic entity, BLM or Antifa had taken a shot at Biden, Republicans would have been yelling about the dangerous Leftist Policies Democrats Support. There should’ve been a Donald J Trump Gun Safety Bill banning assault rifles submitted last week so the Republicans had to admit they love guns more than Trump. Where are the proposed National Reproductive Rights Acts that could be submitted so Republicans have to oppose them? Jokes about couch sex don’t hit as hard as constant references to Trump the Felon, Trump the Insurrectionist, Trump the Rapist. Republicans have so many weaknesses, Dems need to hit them over and over. Attacks on Harris will be nothing compared to what we already have available to throw at the Republicans up and down the ticket. Inflation is down, crime is down, Republicans blocked border reform - if the media won’t say it, Dem ads and speeches must so more voters wake up from the false messaging Republicans are relying on.
Hold on a second, buddy! I was reliably informed by a commenter over at Adam Tooze's place that Trump isn't a convicted felon until he's sentenced.
I stand corrected, and wish the Republicans would buy billboards all over the country with "He's not a convicted felon until he's sentenced." I'd even be willing to chip in something for the effort.
Likewise, he's not a convicted rapist, that was a civil trial and the jury only found that he had committed sexual assault. "Not a rapist, only convicted of sexual assault" is another billboard campaign I'd help fund.
One of the reasons I like Walz so much is he doesn't shy away from his "radically liberal" policies. He lists the policies themselves, such as free school lunches for all, and says that if this is the kind of thing that is considered "radically liberal" then he accepts the label graciously. This is how you do it - identify exactly what your opponent is defining as a negative and let anyone with a brain recognize that the policy is a GOOD thing, regardless of whatever pejorative description they use. Only weirdos would say that feeding kids lunch at school instead of using the money to buy another tank for the Fritters Township Police is a bad thing.
"using the money to buy another tank for the Fritters Township Police is a bad thing"
This reminds me of how post-9/11 windfalls were spent. Nothing says seriousness about terrorism like outfitting every Bumfuck P.D. with an armored personnel carrier. (Or something equally ridiculous.)
But did BPD's defensive weaponry deter the millions of illegal terror/rapists from invading? Why of course, which is why Sensible City, the little burgh down the road, was left a smoking cinder by the marauders, who saw all that money plowed into libraries and school lunches and day care and thought "easy pickin's!".
I was recently in a local grocery store in a town of 7000 on a sweltering summer day and saw a cop decked out in body armor and a helmet and the weapon heavy utility belt. I’m not suggesting that vision gave new meaning to the old term “sweating like a pig,” but man, he was sweating. Or maybe he was sweating in fear that someone would shoot him at noon in the grocery. I can’t really say.
Ah, but we need the Republicans to keep these liberals from going TOO FAR. From giving school lunches to TOO MANY kids, from forgiving TOO MANY student loans, from giving TOO MANY people health care. These are the excesses of liberalism.
I'm enjoying this moment when Harris can contemplate which state she'd like to get a nice little boost in, which is mostly all a VP pick is good for. Not something Biden got, and not something Trump will get. I'm like a kid in a candy store: "Ooh, do we want to lock in Arizona? Or Pennsylvania? Maybe we should stretch ourselves and make a play for North Carolina?"
Q Anon is super weird. Same with Alex Jones. Both get respect from the highest levels. Reflecting vast distrust in mainstream institutions and expertise. They don't know how knowledge works. Logical fallacies characterize the mindset. Through them it's unassailable.
I still struggle to understand how someone put off with outcomes of imperfect, provisional, and often biased processes would throw out adequate babies in exchange for watery vomit. I have some idea what's gained thereby, and it doesn't reflect well on the social makeup of the species.
I like good weird. I hope I'm the good kind. This shit is disturbing and depressing.
"throw out adequate babies in exchange for watery vomit" lol.
With you on good vs bad weird. Some dipshit was saying "well you guys say keep Austin weird" and to that I say there's Emo's weird and then there's the creeps in the Texas statehouse weird.
My wife likes the gentle side of Captain Beefheart (Safe As Milk for example). As for Trout Mask Replica, I am not allowed to play "Pena" in her presence - it disturbs her.*
I recoil from these creeps like I would a second dose of bad acid. They're no fun.
The incentives are all wrong. Right-wing "discourse" is driven by YouTube personalities whose goal is to get attention so they can monetize it, so of course they've got to be outrageous and boundary-pushing. But if the loony-bin shit they're putting out takes down the party they claim to support, what does it matter? We always get more clicks for our survivalist shit when the Democrats are in power anyways.
I’ve been reading you since the turn of the century (!?!?—that’s a long-ass time) precisely because you’ve always been on to these nutcakes, and do the best (and most humorous) job of unveiling the nutcakiness. (Sadly, no! used to be a close second back in the day)
I can't tell you how refreshing it has been to see the Democrats tack from finger-wagging at fascism to mockery. Yes, of course the approach has to be two pronged, it's important to communicate the dire consequences of Project 25 and a second Trump term. But the Dems should actually be LEADING with "look, these guys are freaks. You know it. I know it. But that doesn't mean freaks can't be dangerous and do significant harm, because it's their very weirdness, not good faith, that is driving them."
Also, fascists LOVE you to be worried and frightened of them. They hate it when you make fun of them, because deep down, on some level, they know who they really are. MAGA is a conglomeration of middle school bullies, the *victims* of those bullies who think they'll protect themselves by cozying up to them, and the nerdy weirdos who didn't get the girl they wanted, and now all those bitches will pay. And deep down, likely unconsciously, they know that's who they are. So mockery stings.
Good comment.
I don't think most of them were middle school bullies. I think it more likely they were kids that got picked on in middle school. The ones I know personally come from that category.
Hearted for the veracity rather than the bullying...
Stockholm Syndrome
"Somewhere, there's a boot stamping on a human face forever, and I really want to be friends with the wearer of the boot."
Acting in bad faith has become a badge of honor. Look at me, I'm cynical, I get it.
It's pathetic. My scorn isn't just tribal, I aspire to earnestness and integrity. If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, then I guess they can feel the sting. I hope!
Rather than shoot up the school, they waited thirty years so they could shoot up the country.
You don't want to Statue.
Birds poop on statues.
How about a tree? A nice Linden tree or maybe a Zelkova or Japanese Maple. Or a redbud tree with a small stone bench.
I can provide the tree ,the bench, installation and a perpetual care maintenance package for a reasonable sum.
A shrubby?
Nobody wants topiary. Topiary is mimes with garden tools.
A mime makes itself useful, and you look it in the mouth?
Plant torture.
A shrubbery! Ni!
You're the man for the job! I was just kidding tho; like Sade, I'd be content to have all trace of my existence wiped out.
You say that now, but there you'll be, in the Great Hereafter , chilling with Rousseau, Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffen and they're all " "Statue or it didn't happen Edroso"
You can't be too careful with your
legacy.
2 marks.
We Southerns invoke a statue every time we call somebody.
Yellow? 'Statue?
Roy Edroso National Forest. "If you seek his monument, look around you." Nice mixed hardwoods and evergreens, with an ongoing Restore The Elm Tree Project.
And Larch.
If Queensman gets in again be prepared for the USDS:
When trees are devalued by Trumps
Even James Watt gets down in the dumps
The butchers of forestry
Cut even the poorest tree
IT'S THE US DEPARTMENT OF STUMPS!
"like Sade, I'd be content to have all trace of my existence wiped out."
I'm actually amusing myself with knowing some of my fiber art work will present conservation and cleaning problems long after I've joined the Norwegian Blue...
Assuming anyone's left to care.
I’ve always admired Cicero’s line about how he’d rather have future generations wonder why there weren’t any monuments to him than why there were.
The Larch.
The Larch.
The. Larch.
I've been trying since the mid '80s, watching the rise of Conspiracy culture (mostly fanned by the NRA, with an assist from the POW/MIA crowd who thought J.Carter sold out US prisoners in Vietnam, and the crazy preachers, like Hagee..) to get Dem party types to notice that insanity was being brewed among the credulous yokels...
Now, the apparently regrettable (to the J Carville/Clare McCaskill types) necessity of calling out this corrosive crazy, designed to make any reason or certainty possible.
Maybe Harris, ably abetted by the likes of Walz and Buttigieg, can do it.
Speaking of Walz, I'm more impressed every clip i see if him: solid good sense stated so any Joe or Jane could understand.
I had been flogging my own really good governor Roy Cooper for the VPs slot, but Roy is a bit boring and I don't really think he wants the job. I mean he's done a really great job in a gerrymandered state and made real progressive moves. He also killed Gov. McCrory's transgender bathroom ban.
Maybe he'll feel like taking on idiotic Sen.Thom Tillis, he of the "There shouldn't be a lawthat you have to wash your hands if you work in a restaurant, because Free Market."
What a difference a week makes...
"If Harris gets in, it will be the end of America," says one union member who's voting for Trump. The hapless CNN reporter did NOT ask that man to explain himself. But as near as I can tell from talking to conservatives, it goes like this:
Harris becomes president.
All guns are confiscated, followed by everyone being forced to get vaccinated against whatever disease Fauci and Gates cook up next. Once people have been made to accept being obedient, all private property will be taken away from White people and given to Blacks and illegal immigrants. For-profit businesses will be nationalized or outlawed, followed by bans on meat eating. From there, communist dictatorship and every White man enslaved.
These people have some really bizarre fantasies!
Wait—no re-education camps? No programme of mass gender correction? Honestly, the time for half measures has passed.
I have a cousin who lived in abject fear that if tRump lost, she'd face some Truth and Reconciliation commission for the racist way she's gone out of her way to treat black folks.
Sadly, it won't happen..,
Technically, one cannot be re-educated without first being educated.
Mass gender correction abortions, please!
"Once people have been made to accept being obedient"
This it the part that cracks me up. Did you drive to work today? You obeyed about a hundred signs, rules, laws and just general norms of civilized behavior to do that. We're social creatures, we're genetically programmed to cooperate, to get along and get by, to be obedient.
Even in a revolution, all those revolutionaries marching on the Capitol are obeying somebody.
The freedom to obey suggests there is no freedom in not obeying, which leads to – oh, yeah...
This is one of the reasons they went berserk over masking. "They're TRAINING YOU!"
Says the guy who pulls carefully up to the box to shout his order loudly and clearly, then proceeding to window TWO, not ONE, because there's nobody at that window.
Says the guy who'd never light up a cigarette in an elevator, even though his dad did that all the time.
They want anarchy until they have to go to the bank.
I got into it with one of these "LOL, objective reality is a fiction" assholes over at Tooze's place. And it struck me that these jerks don't live their lives any differently than the rest of us. When they get to the checkout at the grocery store, they don't do some hand-wave Jedi Mind Trick about how the value of money is a shared delusion, they just pull out their debit card and have the money deducted from their bank account according to the normal rules of arithmetic.
That shit's a pose, solely for use on internet discussion boards and nowhere else.
Yep. Just wanting to argue. Stupid sons a bitches. It's a SYSTEM dumbass. Libertarians are notorious for that kind of thinking - why, with no rules, everyone would just get along! What kind of fucking bubble do you live in? Have you *met* people? Social outcasts thinking they can run society.
Maybe I'm nuts, but I like to live my real, non-internet life according to the same principles and values I espouse when I'm talkin' to people on the internet. It's a useful check, let's me know when I might be spouting bullshit so I can stop.
Sovereign citizens beg to differ.
I was just arriving to say that. There were some around San José, Ca back in the '80's - '90s, and they were often seen driving cars with weird home-made license plates. And the cops never pulled 'em over (probably didn't want to deal with the lecture).
Tee hee. You got it. "We got rid of The United States of America! Now our cash will actually mean something?" Uhh, you mean that silk reinforced toilet paper in your wallet? I know you're anti-learning, but you might want to checked out a little thing called 'fiat money'.
Bitcoin, man. Bitcoin. And Trump had promised we'll have the largest reserves of Bitcoin. Or maybe DogeCoin? Or was it WeaselCoin?
TrumpCoin. Going the way of Trump Water, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Wine, Trump casinos...
IIRC he said the U.S. government would hold onto all the Bitcoin it currently has, forever.
Which raises the question: do we have any yet?
The so-called paper IS nice. I'd pay, say, $10 for 160 square inches of it.
I need a shirt with that on it.
Yeah. It's called Civilization. Republicans are objectively against it.
Just like it was under Obama?
To quote Cary Grant from the excellent movie "Father Goose": Sounds great!!!
"the excellent movie Father Goose" is the funniest thing I've seen yet today.
Now look friend boy, them's fighting words. Damn. Good. Movie. And the banter between Cary Grant and Trevor Howard is priceless.
Trevor Howard holds him hostage with hidden bottles of (Black & White) scotch on the island he stranded him on. Trevor Howard needs a favor (go pick up Leslie Caron on a far away island) sooooo
Walter Eckland: All those miles of open sea and back again, a man would need something to keep warm, now, wouldn't he?
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Two bottles.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Three.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Five.
Walter Eckland: All of them, Frank.
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: Got a pencil?
"All of them, Frank" is a standard quote hereabouts.
You forgot making gas stoves and internal combustion engines illegal. And churches. And brainwashing children to become "trans". It's a long list of taking things away from them.
PLASTIC STRAWS
Many of the evangelicals I know think liberals want to force everyone to have an abortion or two
Freedom means spreading disease but not choosing your own gender expression.
As Jesus intended.
Big J's response is "Don't blame me for these stupid fuckers. Me Harold Christ!"
So the H. stands for Harold?!
Sure. Our Father, who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name.
I'm holding out for Hampus.
Interweb sez:
"Hampus 'hampus' Poser (born November 26, 1998) is a Swedish professional Counter-Strike 2 player."
Freedom's just another word for nothing left... ACHOO!
"There shouldn't be a law that you have to wash your hands if you work in a restaurant"
Such a good example. Consumer choice among restaurants is supposed to fix the problem, I guess. Or am I overthinking.
Take manufacture and distribution of goods to market. Supply chains and shit are sssoooo complicated. We can't assess what we're consuming, we can barely act on what we might learn, meanwhile the situations polymorph. Regulation is practically all we've got on our side.
You can take all yer freedoms and let ‘em ride
But look out below when on that slippery slide
Take freedom too far and it’ll tan your hide
Regulation is all we've got – on our side
If Woody Guthrie worked for OSHA.
If a restaurant kills me, I’ll never go back. The beauty of the market.
Hey, "Don't kill your customers" works for Fentanyl dealers, don't it?
"POW/MIA crowd" hooked, lined, sinkered in a delightfully nasty okey-doke by the very sorts of igniter/acceleration-istas who are ascendant nowadays. That whole scam was a blueprint for how to lie your way near to the top.
Conspiracy culture has been an American tradition since the Colonial days and their fretting over "Popish plots".
"I'm not a pope, I'm pope-ish", as Woody Allen might have said it under different circumstances...
People keep misattributing Yogi Berra quotes to other people.
A lot of the cray-cray was obvious if one cared to accept what one saw.
But one of my older old fart theories is that we're hard-wired to assume that people that look like us are in fact like us. (Among other ignorance-supporting biases.) And then we have mainstream media that prefer to push stories and fantasies than report ugly truths; see, Trump, D., 1973 to date. Still waiting for the reporting that he's some combination of dangerously insane -- although, Team Kamala made it clear enough in that recent statement:
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:krbmsfrp3myps26c2drgt4og/bafkreifzt67hwqhc3wicfc2gbgw43sg72w4cc6icswywgcyn2btpqjxp7m@jpeg
Of course, as a life long, continually reinforced misanthrope, I presume a BS artist pushing some nasty and/or insane crap is exactly the POS thy appear to be...
Came here just to spot if you'd drop "too little too late" but I see you've a different tack which I heartified heartily.
It's not so much a "too little too late", maybe more that the media are now suffused with enough showing Trump unfiltered that enough voters can suss out* that he's no shit insane, monstrous, and is promising us true American carnage (to coin a phrase). (*H/t as always Dean Baquet.)
Meanwhile, I marvel that the ideal candidate against him is a woman of color who laughs freely--and, to put it inelegantly, has been professionally trained to be a bitch when needed. (Again, see that image of Team Kamala's statement. Elegantly dismissive of the crazy old fart.)
Of cooouuuurse, time will tell...
Nah. Corporate Media is scared absolutely shitless of Trump. Alternate media is the way to go, especially since the young folk appear to be energized over Kamala, and I think (hope, pray) the campaign is aware of that.
Won't help you Jake Tapper. c u n d gulag.
The owners support Trump, more so the party.
They've been giving the GOP a pass -- carte blanche -- since Reagan.
As I keep ranting, when it comes to reporting the important issues, the mainstream news media are actually harmful. They reflect the sociopathy of our leadership elite or caste or whatever.
and the intent to be the state media (inevitable messaging solution of a corporate state).
Not exactly: they're voluntarily playing the role of People's Daily or Pravda willingly -- obviously only Republican state media.
Horserace, Horserace Uber Alles
😂
Yep, that's a good statement. They just need to keep screaming it to the rafters.
Eh. They have to balance things.
Yes, need to repeat every now and then. Can't go all out and say they're sick fucks or even just insane. Somewhere along the line of crazy uncle or other old fart is pretty much the sweet spot.
and yet...
The parents of my generation fought and died by the hundreds of thousands to stop Queens Man's direct predecessor from doing to the world what the Queens Man proclaims he would do to us. That is for me uncrackable nut. It is as if the Family Firster grifters and followers are deliberately scorning what their own parents did to save this country and coincidentally the world.
If you mean WWII, the West’s war against fascism ended with Operation: Paperclip, the birth of the CIA and the replacement of the New Dealers by conservatives.
Trump’s never vote again crap is his way of saying that once elected there’s no need for any election in which he can be voted out.
But meanwhile, R state legislatures are doing their best to make states one party state.
But I know you know all that.
Which is why I say their "family values" extend only so far as their newfound love of fascism allows. Bad faith all the way down...
Related: why I say people who exercise decency only amongst their own aren't truly decent. OTOH, as an Old Testament guy, I twist the eye for an eye thing to having full contempt for my haters. Of course, should they see the light...
The uncle who gets handsy at the family gatherings and his son, the nephew who throws lit firecrackers at small animals.
I come from a family of con men, trained by the best. I assume *everything* is a con until proven otherwise. That belief has stood me in good stead all my life.
because if you do not know who the mark is...
Precisely! You are wise.
Pointing out that they are weird is an improvement, but it still sugarcoats what they really are, which is something more akin to toxic, if you have to pick just one word. That's part of the problem though. They are not just one word, they are many, and when you start listing them all it turns into a word salad and the overall point gets lost.
I thought Harris was on the right path in her little speech about how she'd prosecuted rapists, frauds, etc., people like Donald Trump. I think she's got to lay out that real case. Name the real crimes. Name the real names. Would you vote for someone you wouldn't leave your child alone with, or your wallet on the table when you leave the room?
I know we liberals hate to go there, but I'd throw in how these real crimes and real names fit in the worldview of real Christianity. Rape is not.a Christian value. Lying and cheating are not Christian values, etc. And taking away women's rights is not a Christian value. Those are Taliban values, Revolutionary Guard values.
As you note, the Democratic Party strategy has been to let the Republicans hang themselves with their craziness, but that has failed spectacularly. I've always thought that to tell the plain truth about what they are and what they are doing. is the most effective strategy. People know they are wrong to be a part of that shitshow, they just need to know that everybody knows and that it's not justifiable.
What do we know? Trump is a shit stain on American history. If Harris were to say those words, I'm pretty sure the election would be over.
Weirdly toxic? Toxically weird? Tune into Bolt Upright’s next show and be told.
Saying that would be 𝘴𝘰 uncivil. It would send the prestige press, and maybe even Trump’s running mate, straight to the fainting couch.
Oh that poor couch. Due for a hate fuck.
I think it was tough for the Dems to call out the weirdness on the right because for a long time, it was the Democratic Party that welcomed, or at least accepted, people that were generally thought of as weird (or, usually, worse). Y’know, gays, commies, potheads, POC and, of course, women. But things changed over the last half-century. Now gays can get married, a socialist from Vermont mounted a legit presidential campaign, legal weed is mainstream and a black man was elected President. (Women are still icky and have cooties, but we’re working on that!)
Ultimately this is why the right is so angry. Over the last 50 years, *they’ve* become the weirdos, and they know it and hate it. So they are trying to “re-weird” the left by gutting the gains of the last several decades. It doesn’t work like that but that won’t stop them from trying and likely inflicting a lot of pain in the process. But yes, it’s nice to see the Dems glom on to this. More, please.
They bring up drag queens, we mention their Maybelline ticket. I’m beginning to wonder if their issue with drag is professional jealousy. (P.S. Wear make-up if you want. Freedom!)
Maybe she's born with it....
I remember after Biden's famous debate somebody criticized his makeup.
Just goes to show you: whatever the topic, there's an orange elephant in the room that ought to be mentioned as well.
It's so feeble. They've been showing pictures of drag queens forever and no one besides them gives a shit. I think that's why they freaked out about the Paris Olympics display -- they were, to use your term, trying to "re-weird" drag.
I urge you, if you have the stomach for it, to Google photos from Mar-a-Lago. The lowliest carnival operator never had a sideshow line-up that freaky and gruesome. The hair, the make-up, the clothes, and especially the plastic surgery. And this is the Real America? I want someone to make a commercial out of that.
Kimberly Guilfoyle. That is all.
Matt Wayne Gaetzy seems to be a new passenger on board. Altho the recent pix could be just semi-clever (hey, what to you expect for half-wits?) photoshops.
Is it Photoshop or is it Botox? Only his plastic surgeon knows for sure.
Both, Shirley.
[Check's in the mail]
Where did they put the payphone?
Booth, Shirley!
Hazel!!!!
I hate to be lookist, but she's as ugly as a mud fence. Her inner being shines through, and it sure ain't pretty.
She males me think of the plastic surgery scene in the movie Brazil.
She male? I thought her Adam's apple was pretty prominent. Explains a lot.
Whoa, did not mean to go THERE. Was thinking of when the guy's mom is having her face pulled to and fro as if it's made of rubber.
Leave it in.
Seconded. You have to see those people to believe they exist, because its Fellini on Fentanyl. Freaks directed by Baz Lurhmann.
The crazy uproar about the opening ceremony of the Olympics pinpoints exactly why we need more education in Fine Arts and the Humanities. The ignorant, narrow-minded freaks believe civilization and history and culture began (and end) with Christianity! Their toxic world-view is breathtaking in its limitations. It's weird, and rather sad.
People in Oklahoma and Alabama are vowing to never visit France. Paris is going down!
What I found hilarious is nobody even knows what the last supper looked like. It's not like it was filmed or photographed. So they were getting mad because people posed like a famous painting, lol.
They all sat on the same side of the table, as God intended
Thus proving that the TV sitcom formula was invented by God. I try to explain this to people, that you must put your couch in the middle of the room, as God intended.
My mother was a "push all the furniture to the margins" person, as a kid I used to gaze on the living room of Rob and Laura Petrie with wonderment, to have so much space that you can put your sofa sectional right in the middle of the room. This, more than anything, signified upper-middle-class affluence.
Weirdly (channeling today's subject), it is feasible to design an interesting roomlet with the couch smack in the middle of that small room, if one cares not about breaking toes and falling over the furniture in the middle of the night.
Dionysius presiding over a bacchanalia: totally the og Last Supper. Lol. Stay butthurt Christianists.
Given that at the time meals were eaten from a reclining position around low tables, Leonardo was absolutely full of shit.
What else was on the menu. 'Cause I've had my fill of shit for the week, and it's only Monday.
Sadly, we appear to be in a shit-centric society. Poor old bulls in the pasture say "Look man, I never did ANYTHING like that. Stop the hate!"
I came here to kick ass and turn water into wine and I'M ALL OUTTA WATER.
Try painting that. Overhead view?
Dems are getting better at messaging but still let golden opportunities pass unaddressed. E.g., it was a Republican with an AR-15 who tried to assassinate Trump. If some guy who had any connection whatsoever to a Democratic entity, BLM or Antifa had taken a shot at Biden, Republicans would have been yelling about the dangerous Leftist Policies Democrats Support. There should’ve been a Donald J Trump Gun Safety Bill banning assault rifles submitted last week so the Republicans had to admit they love guns more than Trump. Where are the proposed National Reproductive Rights Acts that could be submitted so Republicans have to oppose them? Jokes about couch sex don’t hit as hard as constant references to Trump the Felon, Trump the Insurrectionist, Trump the Rapist. Republicans have so many weaknesses, Dems need to hit them over and over. Attacks on Harris will be nothing compared to what we already have available to throw at the Republicans up and down the ticket. Inflation is down, crime is down, Republicans blocked border reform - if the media won’t say it, Dem ads and speeches must so more voters wake up from the false messaging Republicans are relying on.
I love the DJT Gun Safety Bill. If Mark Kelly is the veep candidate, he would be perfect for taking the lead on the gun issue.
Their relative silence on the shooter's affiliations says something.
Trump so guilty that he's totally dependent on 5 guys on the Supreme Court for staying outta prison.
Trump so guilty he buried his wife on the golf course.
Trump so guilty his own vice president won't endorse him.
Trump so guilty fellow Republicans take pot shots at him.
Trump so guilty we've forgotten about the ear already.
Trump so guilty his own wife holds her nose behind his back.
Trump so guilty...
[Your turn]
Hold on a second, buddy! I was reliably informed by a commenter over at Adam Tooze's place that Trump isn't a convicted felon until he's sentenced.
I stand corrected, and wish the Republicans would buy billboards all over the country with "He's not a convicted felon until he's sentenced." I'd even be willing to chip in something for the effort.
Likewise, he's not a convicted rapist, that was a civil trial and the jury only found that he had committed sexual assault. "Not a rapist, only convicted of sexual assault" is another billboard campaign I'd help fund.
Judge Engoran called him a rapist, so rapist he is.
Opinions differ! Rapist or merely sexual assaulter? Let's debate the question as frequently and publicly as possible!
She couldn't tell whether it was his finger or his penis that penetrated her
Whether it was his LITTLE finger.
Guilty or not, the creepy burying his wife on his golf course is something to work with.
Play 18 holes, whaddya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't you take me cuz I just cain't go
I left my wife on the eighteenth hole.
That's very good. Brother Ernie would be proud.
Play the front nine, I'm gettin' on fine
I'm 3 strokes up without even tryin'
Then Trump trots out, drops a wife in the hole
I'm winnin' this round but losin' my soul
One of the reasons I like Walz so much is he doesn't shy away from his "radically liberal" policies. He lists the policies themselves, such as free school lunches for all, and says that if this is the kind of thing that is considered "radically liberal" then he accepts the label graciously. This is how you do it - identify exactly what your opponent is defining as a negative and let anyone with a brain recognize that the policy is a GOOD thing, regardless of whatever pejorative description they use. Only weirdos would say that feeding kids lunch at school instead of using the money to buy another tank for the Fritters Township Police is a bad thing.
"using the money to buy another tank for the Fritters Township Police is a bad thing"
This reminds me of how post-9/11 windfalls were spent. Nothing says seriousness about terrorism like outfitting every Bumfuck P.D. with an armored personnel carrier. (Or something equally ridiculous.)
But did BPD's defensive weaponry deter the millions of illegal terror/rapists from invading? Why of course, which is why Sensible City, the little burgh down the road, was left a smoking cinder by the marauders, who saw all that money plowed into libraries and school lunches and day care and thought "easy pickin's!".
I was recently in a local grocery store in a town of 7000 on a sweltering summer day and saw a cop decked out in body armor and a helmet and the weapon heavy utility belt. I’m not suggesting that vision gave new meaning to the old term “sweating like a pig,” but man, he was sweating. Or maybe he was sweating in fear that someone would shoot him at noon in the grocery. I can’t really say.
I'd take offense at that, except I do sweat like a pig.
Pig recognize pig.
Chapeau.
If there's a way of sweating that's different from what pigs, presumably, do, then I don't know what it is.
Ah, but we need the Republicans to keep these liberals from going TOO FAR. From giving school lunches to TOO MANY kids, from forgiving TOO MANY student loans, from giving TOO MANY people health care. These are the excesses of liberalism.
Some of those kids don't deserve lunch, on account of their parents. How do you propose to solve that problem?
[Cues the crickets]
Better all the children should starve than one unworthy child be fed. Said some 19th century British aristo, probably.
Captain Boycott would like a word.
Don't interrupt me when I'm about to carve this fine Irish baby.
Never let it be said that I would fail to leap at the chance to blame the parents, when...ah.
Hmmm. This parent-blaming thingy is getting complicated...
Gentlemen, gentlemen, can we not all come to an agreement on "Blame the parents, feed the kids"?
Ah c'mon, man – blaming the kids and feeding the parents has been aces for thousands of years! What are you, some kinda troublemaker?
It's never to early to teach a child about "moral hazards."
I'm enjoying this moment when Harris can contemplate which state she'd like to get a nice little boost in, which is mostly all a VP pick is good for. Not something Biden got, and not something Trump will get. I'm like a kid in a candy store: "Ooh, do we want to lock in Arizona? Or Pennsylvania? Maybe we should stretch ourselves and make a play for North Carolina?"
Q Anon is super weird. Same with Alex Jones. Both get respect from the highest levels. Reflecting vast distrust in mainstream institutions and expertise. They don't know how knowledge works. Logical fallacies characterize the mindset. Through them it's unassailable.
I still struggle to understand how someone put off with outcomes of imperfect, provisional, and often biased processes would throw out adequate babies in exchange for watery vomit. I have some idea what's gained thereby, and it doesn't reflect well on the social makeup of the species.
I like good weird. I hope I'm the good kind. This shit is disturbing and depressing.
The respect is game recognizing game.
"throw out adequate babies in exchange for watery vomit" lol.
With you on good vs bad weird. Some dipshit was saying "well you guys say keep Austin weird" and to that I say there's Emo's weird and then there's the creeps in the Texas statehouse weird.
My wife likes the gentle side of Captain Beefheart (Safe As Milk for example). As for Trout Mask Replica, I am not allowed to play "Pena" in her presence - it disturbs her.*
I recoil from these creeps like I would a second dose of bad acid. They're no fun.
*From 0:38 onward: https://tinyurl.com/y7jcjnwc
Note to self: Nominate Roy for the Vinnie (the Vince Fusca Award) - Given for extraordinary lifetime achievement to the study of wingnut batshittery.
Huh. First and last time I've heard of Vince Fusca.
Isn't he jfk Jr?
Apparently.
SOMEBODY hasta be JFK Jr.
Especially considering the problems we're having with the RFK strain and that Lab Leak.
Once the labs begin to leak, you might as well just move outta the house. Black labs, especially...
Why do you ask? ISN'T THE UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE TWO ENOUGH FOR YOU?
Weirdly, I failed to click on the link...
The incentives are all wrong. Right-wing "discourse" is driven by YouTube personalities whose goal is to get attention so they can monetize it, so of course they've got to be outrageous and boundary-pushing. But if the loony-bin shit they're putting out takes down the party they claim to support, what does it matter? We always get more clicks for our survivalist shit when the Democrats are in power anyways.
I’ve been reading you since the turn of the century (!?!?—that’s a long-ass time) precisely because you’ve always been on to these nutcakes, and do the best (and most humorous) job of unveiling the nutcakiness. (Sadly, no! used to be a close second back in the day)
I wish all those freaks felt that way! Over-tourism in Europe is awful.
Will endeavor to make "maladroit chucklefuck " a trending phrase.
Yes We Can