Category Archives: current events

is the pope wet?

Posted on by
17

“Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer of power after the election?”

In a normal, functional, representative democracy, that question would never be asked. It wouldn’t even be considered. It’s like asking ‘Is water wet?’ or ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ It’s a question that doesn’t need to be asked because the answer is glaringly obvious. To almost any other political figure, the question itself would be an insult. The fact that a reporter — any number of reporters and a big chunk of the voting population — felt the need to ask that question is a measure of how far we’ve moved toward an authoritarian regime.

But even so, Comrade Trump’s answer should have been immediate and straightforward, because there’s only one acceptable answer. “Yes, of course, I’ll commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Is the Pope wet? Is water Catholic?”

That wasn’t Trump’s answer. Instead, he said this:

“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.”

The horrible thing about that answer — one of the many horrible things about it — is that we already know what’s going to happen. We don’t know how the popular vote will turn out, but we know what’s going to happen. We don’t know what the electoral vote will be, but we sure as hell know what’s going to happen. We don’t know who’ll legitimately win or lose the 2020 election, but we absofuckinglutely know what’s going to happen.

What’s going to happen is this: Comrade Trump will declare himself the winner.

We know that’s going to happen because he’s publicly stated that’s the only election result he’ll accept. He’s said that repeatedly. It’s one of the few things he’s said that we can believe. Worse, when he says, “The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” he’s not just declaring any other result would be invalid, he’s also prepping his followers to take the same position. He’s prepping his followers to take action.

They will take the election from us. That’s it, right there. Trump’s power depends on dividing the nation. It depends on his followers seeing themselves as victims. It depends on scaring his followers. Frightened people are easier to lead.

Trump is entirely shameless about frightening his followers and laying a foundation to declare the election invalid. He’s willing to make up the most ridiculous lies and spread them as widely as possible, without any sense of embarrassment or guilt. He’s not afraid of getting caught in a lie because he knows his supporters either don’t care about the lies or stupidly believe them. Like this one:

This is about the stupidest fucking thing possible. Foreign countries (and others? WTF does that even mean? other what?) printing millions of ballots. That’s stupid on about nineteen different levels. Even if foreign countries (and others) DID print millions of ballots, how would they get them to the voters? Do they mail them from North Korea and Iran? How much is postage for a million ballots from Tehran to Kansas City? Do they fill container ships with ballots and ship them to the US and…what, take them to the post office in rented semi-trucks? Wouldn’t somebody notice that?

The scandal of our times isn’t that foreign countries will print millions of fake ballots; it’s that we have a president who can say astonishingly stupid shit like this and get away with it. The scandal of our times is that his followers will repeat it — and maybe even believe it.

Actually, the scandal of our times is that Comrade Trump is the President of the United States. The scandal is that he’s willing to do and say almost anything to remain in power. It’s that he might actually succeed.

We know what’s going to happen. We know that regardless of what the votes say, Trump will claim a victory. We know, regardless of the voting, he won’t concede.

As a nation, we aren’t prepared for that. We’ve always assumed our presidents would be decent, honorable, conscientious people. We were wrong.

The Pope is wet. Water is Catholic.

hard put and desperate

Posted on by
6

I like Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He’s a solid Democrat of the old school. He’s a nice guy with liberal beliefs and has, as far as I know, always tried to do the right thing. So would somebody please take him aside and slap some sense into him?

Wait. I’ll do it.

First off, Chris, those people across the aisle? They’re not your friends. Not really. They may be nice to you, they may laugh and joke with you, they may even say they agree with you, but don’t think they’re your friends. Down at the bone, they’re Trump Republicans. They may disagree with Trump, they may actually despise him, but they’re going to do what he wants. Trump Republicans support Trump, period.

Second — and Chris, I shouldn’t have to tell you this — they’re not going to respect tradition. They’re not going to respect precedent. They’ve shown you that repeatedly. What in the hell makes you think they’d start respecting those things now? What they respect is the exercise of raw political power.

And finally, because they’re not your friends and because they’re not going to respect tradition or precedent and because at this point they only respect political power, they’re not going to be persuadable. They’re just not. A few may be willing to agree that it’s wrong to rush a SCOTUS nomination through 43 days before election day (votes are actually being cast right now, for fuck’s sake), but Chris, they’re not motivated by respect or friendship; they’re motivated by the only thing they fear more than Trump: losing their election.

I hate to say this, Chris, I really do. But right now the only way to get Congressional Republicans to do what’s right is to use their own tactics against them. Do it reluctantly, but do it. Let them know that if they replace Justice Ginsburg before the election, you’re going to go Outlaw Josey Wales on their ass. Tell them that, and mean it. Follow through on it.

Don’t waste your time trying to persuade Trump Republicans. Instead, persuade your Democratic colleagues in the House to go Josey Wales with you. And let Trump and his Congressional co-conspirators know you’re willing to burn the motherfucker down.

If they hold a confirmation hearing, Democrats in the Senate and House should walk out. Walk right the fuck out, and don’t go back. When they want to pass the next continuing resolution in order to fund the government, tell them to piss up a rope. Start another round of impeachment hearings in the House. Impeach Trump again. Hell, impeach Justice Kavanaugh for lying to Congress. Launch an investigation into how Kavanaugh paid off all his debts before his confirmation hearing. Investigate the Russian bounty on troops in Afghanistan. Investigate the Trump family’s alleged financial crimes. Investigate and call witnesses and don’t do a damn thing else until the election.

I really hate to say that. I can’t think of anything more corrosive to effective governance than deliberate sabotage by one political party. But that’s just it. That’s exactly what Republicans have done since Obama was elected. If Democrats win in the 2020 election — if they take the White House and the Senate — then we can try to return to some sort of normal governance. If Democrats lose — if Trump remains in office — then normal governance will be dead. It’ll be four more years of fighting a losing battle against authoritarianism.

The Josey Wales Way is a lousy way to run a government, even for 43 days. But as Granny Hawking said, Josey Wales was “a hard put and desperate man” and that’s where we are as Democrats. Against the blatant power grab of a hurried SCOTUS nomination, J. Wales might be the best chance we have. Because things are looking bad, and “when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.”

EDITORIAL NOTE: I don’t know if I’ll feel this way tomorrow. But this is how I feel today. Republican hypocrisy and double dealing will only get worse if we try to play by normal rules.

the difference between grief and mourning

Posted on by
1

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead.

The grim and sorrowful constellation of thoughts and emotions we’re experiencing right now, that’s grief. The word comes from the Old French term grever meaning “afflict, burden, oppress,” which is from the Latin gravare, which meant “to make heavy.” Grief is heavy; it weighs us down.

The outward expression of grief, that’s mourning. Mourning has a more complex origin. It comes from a Proto-Indo-European root which, because of linguistic convention, is usually written as *(s)mer. It refers to the act of remembrance, reflection, recollection. Mourning is how we use our memories and understanding of the dead to gradually reduce the awful weight of our grief.

Grief is what we feel; mourning is what we do.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about that. Our grief is both personal and communal. We grieve for what she means to us personally, we grieve for her family and friends, we grieve for what her death might mean for the concept of equal justice under law in the United States. It’s good that we grieve; it’s right that we grieve.

But our grief is less important than how we mourn her — how we collectively express our grief and how you as an individual will express your grief. Is making RBG your Facebook icon enough to lighten your grief? Will wearing your Notorious RBG t-shirt alleviate your grief? What about voting, will that help? What about getting others to vote? Volunteering to drive others to the polls? Donating money or labor to a candidate? What about calling both of your senators on Monday, and asking them NOT to vote on a successor to RGB’s seat until after the election/inauguration? Will that do it?

Here’s a True Thing: your grief is your grief. Nobody gets to tell you how to express it. Nobody gets to tell you the proper way for you to mourn. Nobody gets to tell you how much you have to mourn or what that mourning should include. Nobody gets to tell you what RBG would want from you. Mourn her in your own way.

But mourn her. Right now, it’s enough to grieve. Right now, it’s okay to give into your grief. Let yourself fully experience your grief. Then start actively mourning.

Obscure and Semi-inappropriate Addendum: That Proto-Indo-European root *(s)mer is also the source of the name of Mimir, the Norse god who guarded the Mímisbrunnr, the Well of Wisdom. Mimir, not surprisingly, was known for his judgment, his sagacity, his knowledge. None of that, unfortunately, prevented him being beheaded in the battle between the Æsir and the Vanir (don’t ask; we’re talking Norse mythology, so it’s complicated). After the battle, Odin found Mimir’s body and collected his head (as gods do). He did some sort of god-thing to Mimir’s head so he could tote it around with him and continue to get Mimir’s advice.

Metaphorically, we can do the same with RBG. We can carry our memory of her around with us. We can ask ourselves ‘What would RBG do?’ and then try to do it. That’s proper mourning, right there.

hocus pocus hoax

Posted on by
4

Let’s just acknowledge this reality: anybody who seriously uses the phrase ‘Russian hoax’ can be immediately disregarded. Doesn’t matter whether they’re referring to the Mueller investigation or just generally talking about Comrade Trump’s insidious machinations with Russia, if they say the terms Russia and hoax together and mean it, anything else they say can be dismissed.

I know, I know. That sounds extreme. And it is. Under normal circumstances, I’d argue against a policy like that. But the phrase has been in use long enough that anybody who offers it as a serious explanation for Trump’s various scandals has lost all credibility. In fact, the notion that there is such a thing as the Russia hoax is, itself, a hoax.

Okay, wait. We need a tangent here. A big meandering tangent taking us back to the 17th century and a guy named Thomas Ady. Ady was interested in witches and witchcraft. Not in the standard 17th century ‘How to Catch a Witch and Do Terrible Things to Her’ way, but in a more intellectually rigorous way. He wrote a couple of books to expose of the various bullshit techniques used in that time to identify and convict alleged witches. He also wrote that what passed for ‘magic’ or ‘witchcraft’ was mostly either natural phenomena or trickery.

In his book A Candle in the Dark he wrote about “common Juglars, who go up and down to play their Tricks at Fayrs and Markets.” He spoke about one such person:

[M]ore excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself, the Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus tabantus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery.

A ‘juggler’ back then was an entertainer who performed tricks of dexterity and sleight of hand. Not just the sort of toss juggling we see now, but also ‘magic’ tricks. The name by which this one most excellent Juglar performed gave us the term hocus-pocus as a sort of ‘magical’ invocation. And hocus-pocus is where the term ‘hoax’ comes from. A hoax is deliberately creating a malicious fabrication and convincing people to believe it.

Comrade Trump’s entire career has been built on a foundation of hoaxes. The hoax that he was a good student, that he was a successful entrepreneur, that he was a financial genius, that he was a savvy businessman and a brilliant negotiator. His history suggests none of that is completely true, and much of it is a lie.

Perhaps his greatest hoax has been convincing his followers to believe that secretive Deep State government officials and career federal law enforcement officers (most of whom are lifelong Republicans) in conjunction with leaders of the Democratic Party collaborated to create a massive cabal designed to thwart the improbable presidential campaign of a failed businessman and reality television showman. He’s convinced his followers that these three groups, despite their long-standing ideological differences and hostility, came together in the short time after his nomination but before the election and agreed to impede his agenda by waiting until after the election to accuse him of colluding with Russian intelligence agents.

Now that is some serious hocus-pocus, right there. That’s a hoax on a galactic scale. Anybody who believes that — anybody who is capable of believing that — is somebody whose opinions can dismissed. Normally, I’m willing to entertain almost any argument if it forces me to support my position. That’s healthy, I think. But there comes a point at which you just have to accept that verifiable evidence doesn’t matter to Trump’s most faithful followers.

He said he pulled a rabbit out of his hat. I believe him. Why would he lie about that?

Let’s go back to Mr. Ady for a moment. He had to deal with the 17th century version of Trump supporters.

[T]hey ingage me to answer to a story, which they would compell me to beleeve, or else to goe see where it was done; but if it happeneth (as often it doth), that I make it appear by Scripture, that it is absurd or impossible…or that I shew them the story, in any of the afore said Authers, who have been the Authors of many vain fables, then they presently fly to another story, as vain and absurd as the former, and that being answered, they fly to another, saying, Sir, what do you answer to this? in which manner of disputes I have heard sometimes such monstrous impossibilities reported and affirmed to be true, (for they had it by credible report) as would make the Angells in Heaven blush to hear them.

This morning Comrade Trump is frantically trying to defend himself against the revelations in Bob Woodward’s soon-to-be-released book. His defense is full of ‘such monstrous impossibilities…as would make the Angells in Heaven blush.’ I don’t believe in angels or heaven, but I do believe in an open exchange of ideas and views. However, that sort of exchange is no longer possible with anybody who, at this point, believes in the ‘vain fable’ of a Russia hoax.

a constant cascade of calamities and coincidence

Posted on by
9

The thing about Comrade Trump and his Constant Cascade of Calamities is that they come at us so fast that we don’t have time to process any given scandal because there are two or three other scandals slamming into us. Not only that, but we have scandals nestled inside of other scandals like Russian matryoshka dolls. The result is we exist in a perpetual state of calamity-shock.

What? It’s a coincidence. Could happen to anybody.

Here’s an example. Last week we learned that Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf…okay, wait. According to the Government Accountability Office, Wolf was not a legitimate Acting Sec. DHS. Why? Because his predecessor, Kevin McAleenan was not legitimately appointed as Acting Sec. DHS. Why? Because his predecessor, Kirstjen Nielsen, bungled the paperwork attempting to change the rules governing temporary appointments to ensure McAleenan (Trump’s pick for the gig) would get the Acting position. BUT even if Wolf had been legally appointed to the Acting position, he’d still be invalid since he was appointed under the Vacancies Act, which clearly states an Acting secretary can only serve for 210 days from when the position was made vacant, and Wolf has been doing the job for more than 250 days. Two weeks ago Trump said he’d officially nominate Wolf for the Sec. DHS position — but he hasn’t actually done it.

Okay, so last week we learned Chad Wolf had personally blocked publication of an unclassified DHS memo reporting that “Russian malign influence actors” would be trying to interfere with the US election by “denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health.” This, of course, just happens to be one of Trump’s primary arguments against Biden. But it’s probably just a coincidence that Trump’s DHS chief buried a memo that showed Trump was using a campaign attack also being used by Russian intelligence agencies.

What? Shit happens, what’s a guy to do?

But wait. Last week another unclassified DHS memo was leaked to the news media. That memo reported that in March “Russian malign influence actors” began “spreading disinformation” about the absentee and mail-in voting system. The memo stated “Russian state media and proxy websites…criticized the integrity of expanded and universal vote-by-mail, claiming ineligible voters could receive ballots due to out-of-date voter rolls, leaving a vast amount of ballots unaccounted for and vulnerable to tampering.” The Russian proxy websites also claimed “vote-by-mail processes would overburden the U.S. Postal Service…delaying vote tabulation and creating more opportunities for fraud and error.”

And hey, guess what. Comrade Trump has also been attacking the integrity of voting by mail, saying it increased the potential for fraud and would overburden the USPS. Another shocking coincidence between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence agencies.

What? How should I know? These things happen.

Speaking of coincidences (and the Constant Cascade of Calamities), Louis DeJoy, Trump’s hand-picked Postmaster General, has made significant structural changes to the US Postal Service, which…okay, wait. It needs to be said that DeJoy was supposed to divest himself of financial conflicts of interest before accepting the Postmaster General gig. But he apparently still retains a stake in XPO Logistics, which has charged USPS about US$14 million in the past 10 weeks for managing transportation and providing support during peak times. It also appears that DeJoy became influential in GOP circles (and therefore a candidate for positions in the Trump administration) by urging his employees to donate to Republicans and attend political fundraisers at his home, then manipulating the company’s finance and payroll systems to give ‘bonus payments’ to employees who donated to help reimburse the cost — which is what folks in the law enforcement biz call “a crime”. DeJoy is being investigated for this now.

Anyway, DeJoy implemented significant structural changes to the US Postal Service which has resulted in delays in mail delivery. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what Trump AND Russian intelligence malign influence actors said would happen.

A suspicious person might think all these coincidences aren’t all that coincidental.

What? I mean, come on, what? Would I do that?

BUT — and this is the important thing — all of those nested matryoshka scandals were just one part of the larger matryoshka scandal that included the ‘Troops are suckers and losers’ scandal and the 190,000 Covid-19 deaths scandal and the roughly 29 million people unemployed scandal and the Trump advising voters in North Carolina to vote twice scandal and the withholding of funds to ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ scandal and the fake camera store owner in Kenosha scandal and the ‘planeload of Antifa’ scandal and the scandal about the 600 loans totaling $100 million of the Paycheck Protection Program that went to companies that are barred or suspended from doing business with the federal government. And those are just the scandals I can remember. You know, from the last week.

It’s been like this for nearly four fucking years. The Trump Administration has been beating the American public senseless with their coincidental Constant Cascade of Calamities. And he promises, if re-elected, to keep it up for four more years. At least. MAGA, and all that.

people in the dark shadows

Posted on by
11

I watched most of Comrade Trump’s interview with Laura Ingraham last night. It was surreal, even by Trump standards. We expect him to tell lies and exaggerate stuff, but lawdy. Y’all should watch it for yourselves and make your own judgments, of course, but I’ll say it once again. Lawdy.

I’m going to ignore most of the exaggerations and lies. I’m going to ignore the claim that Portland, Oregon has been “burning” for decades, and the claim that he “solved” Kenosha (whatever that means), and the claim that if Biden is elected “you would have riots like you’ve never seen,” and the claim that there were “horrible race riots” during the Obama years (there were two in eight years), and the claim that “one company is giving hundreds of millions of dollars [to BLM],” and the claim that he’d signed an executive order that punished folks with “ten years in jail if you knock down a statue or monument,” and the claim that he’s done more for African-Americans “than any president in the history of our country, except for maybe Abe.”

I’m going to ignore all that and focus on what I consider the craziest claim made in the interview. Comrade Trump claimed Uncle Joe Biden is “a weak person. He’s controlled like a puppet.” Ingraham slid right by the irony of Putin’s puppet claiming Biden is a puppet, but to her credit, she asked who was controlling Biden. This was Trump’s reply:

“They control him. People that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows. People that you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane.”

Ingraham was sort of goggle-eyed at that. But she asked where this was taking place, which was a valid question. Trump said,

“I’ll tell you sometime, but it’s under investigation right now, but they came from a certain city, and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention, and there were like seven people on the plane like this person, and then a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage. They were coming for–this was all — this is all happening.”

That’s NOT your basic Trump exaggeration; it’s NOT your basic Trump lie. It’s flat out batshit crazy conspiracy paranoia. People nobody has ever heard of, people in the dark shadows, controlling Joe Biden, sending a a cadre of gear-laden thugs in dark uniforms on…well, apparently on a commercial flight to DC.

“…thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black unforms with gear…”

Like any reasonable person, I went to FreeRepublic to see how those patriots responded to Trump’s claim. The first report on Freep included a link to this video clip on Acyn Torabi’s Twitter.

Initially, the posts were skeptical about the report. Some of them didn’t believe Trump would say something that loopy. When a lot of Freepers couldn’t access the video, it sparked another instant conspiracy theory.

— Apparently twitter blocking going on — by Cold Heart (Legalize Hydroxychloroquine)
— OK twitter is censoring this! UNREAL! (I’m not surprised) — by RandFan (3C)

But once it became clear that Trump DID, in fact, say this, most Freepers quickly fell in line. Of course there was a plane full of thugs in black uniforms.

— He sounds like he is describing a plane filled with Antifa, which makes sense since they are going from city to city. by CaptainK (‘No collusion, no obstruction, he’s a leaker’)
— As much as I do believe, a 3rd party or parties, are using the riots to bring down this country, I don’t believe a majority of Americans will accept that idea – yet. And shouldn’t be talked about – yet. by 11th_VA (Don’t Be a thug, if you can’t take a slug)
— He is talking about a terrorist organization most likely tied to Barak. by bray (Pray for President Trump)
— Trump said it. I believe it. That settles it. by Governor Dinwiddie (Guide me, O thou great redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land.)
— Trump says nothing without solid knowledge. Name once when he’s been wrong. by getitright (Finally- a president who offers hope!)
— I Heard days ago about antifa going on planes to different states funded by soros by Sarah Barracuda
— [W]e have a world-wide pandemic which is probably a hoax, riots all over the country and the world which were ostensibly kicked off by “police brutality” which turned out to be a hoax, mandatory mask ordinances except when rioting, not to mention murder hornets, hurricanes, massive wildfires, and the US government dropping huge hints about aliens and UFOs. There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory anymore. by fr_freak
— As far as a planeful of ANTIFA NAZI’s traveling interstate to cause mayhem at the RNC convention being investigated by the SS and FBI are very believable to me. by phoneman08 (qwiyrqweopigradfdzcm,.dadfjl,dz)
— I remember seeing an old photo of Soros and a younger Obama in the same room. by RealVirginia

I was only mildly surprised by this response. After all, a lot of these folks believed (and many still believe) Hillary Clinton organized a cannibalistic Satanic child sex-torture ring and ran it out of an underground series of tunnels and bunkers beneath a DC pizza parlor. That’s a solid platform for believing Uncle Joe is a puppet for a cabal of dark shadowy rich perverts who fly BLM-Antifa shock troops all over the nation on…okay, I’m still having trouble with all of this happening on commercial airlines.

Whatever happened to black helicopters? I mean, if you can build an underground network of Satanic sex bunkers under the nation’s capitol, surely you can afford a black helicopter or two.

trump has things on a plate

Posted on by
15

What does it say about Republicans that their new hero is an out-of-shape 17-year-old white kid who armed himself with a borrowed semi-automatic weapon that he didn’t have the training, discipline, or emotional maturity necessary to handle effectively, and who inserted himself into an intensely chaotic, emotionally charged, violent situation he lacked the experience and situational awareness to handle, and who panicked when he was overtaken by events he wasn’t prepared to deal with?

I suppose it makes some sense. I mean, these same Republicans support an out-of-shape president who doesn’t have the training, discipline, or emotional maturity to handle his office effectively, and whose lack of experience creates intensely chaotic, emotionally charged, violent situations, and who panics when faced with situations he’s not prepared to deal with.

To maintain order we need the aid of emotionally underdeveloped 17-year-old boys with guns.

Kyle Rittenhouse and Donald Trump have a lot in common. They both seem to believe they’re more competent than they actually are. They both seem to share fantasies of being heroic. They both have issues with women. And they both adore Trump. In his defense, Rittenhouse is at least willing to get his hands dirty (no, I don’t mean by shooting people; I mean Rittenhouse spent some time cleaning graffiti off a building — can you imagine Trump doing that?).

What happened in Kenosha is perfectly on-brand for Trump. He values loyalty above competence and expertise (and by ‘loyalty’ I mean ‘boot-licking’ and ‘groveling’ and ‘hero worship’). It’s hardly surprising, then, that Trump and his followers would praise a 17-year-old loyalist for picking up an AR-15 and heading to Kenosha to help ‘maintain order’ in a situation that’s confounded trained police officers. It’s not surprising that Trump, when mayors and governors refuse his unwanted offers of assistance, will encourage caravans of truck-drivers and motorcyclists to invade a community to help ‘maintain order’. Trump is less interested in results than he is in having people follow his orders, whatever they are.

This is the Bizarro world we live in. It’s a world in which Trump can tweet ‘Law and Order!‘ as he fights a subpoena to provide DNA in an alleged rape case (which, if he was innocent, would clear him). It’s a world in which Trump shouts about election fraud even as he refuses to act against a hostile foreign nation that’s actively rat-fucking the election in Trump’s favor.

Future GOP member of Congress?

If Kyle Rittenhouse doesn’t spend the next few years in prison, he’ll very likely have a successful political career with the Republican Party. This is just a guess, but I suspect Kyle is probably more articulate than the president. A few days ago, when asked by the NY Times what his plans were for a second term, Trump said,

“But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.”

There you go. If you were looking for a reason to vote for Trump, now you have one. He has a plate, and that plate has things on it. One of those things is a 17-year-old boy who’s killed two people. Vote Trump 2020. MAGA.

the sink trap of politics

Posted on by
2

Last night Comrade Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president. He gave a speech, which I read this morning since I couldn’t bring myself to actually listen to him. Like all of Trump’s speeches, this one was filled with exaggerations, half-truths, suppositions, grimdark fantasies, and bald-faced lies. But he did say something I actually agreed with, something I truly believe.

“This is the most important election in the history of our country. “

It surely is. It’s important on so many levels. It’s important to end the most brazenly corrupt administration in US history. It’s important to remove a president who was elected with the help of a hostile foreign nation, and in return has refused to hold that nation accountable for any misconduct — including putting a bounty on the lives of US troops in Afghanistan. It’s important to remove a president whose rhetoric and policies are intended to divide the nation, who has celebrated convicted war criminals, who has advocated war crimes, and who has defended past and present racists and white supremacists.

The United States under Comrade Trump.

But it’s also the most important election because removing this president is one of the first steps we need to take in order to inoculate the nation against being so damned stupid. It shames me to say this, but the United States has become a profoundly stupid nation. This is bipartisan stupid, by the way. Although I believe conservatives exhibit it much more than liberals, the stupid is ubiquitous.

To be clear, when I use ‘stupid’ in this sense I’m not talking about a lack of intelligence. I’m not talking about an inability to learn and integrate new information. I’m talking about a collective refusal to learn and integrate new information. I’m talking about the rejection of common sense, comprehension, and perception. I’m talking about people who adopt an impermeable barrier to fend off common sense, comprehension, and perception. People who actively resist common sense, comprehension, and perception.

Trump policies.

It’s not just the quantity of stupid (though there’s a lot of stupid out there) or the quality of the stupid (it’s milspec stupid — stupid that’s been tested and re-tested to insure it will operate under extreme conditions). It’s the ubiquity of the stupid. It’s the overarching scale and scope of the stupid, the never-ending cascade of stupid. There’s no chance to pause and take a breath of common sense, because there’s more stupid coming, and it’s coming from every direction, and it’s coming from thousands of different sources.

We’ve become stupid about history, stupid about religion, stupid about science, stupid about the law, stupid about public health, stupid about governance, stupid about race, stupid about biology, stupid about the military, stupid about gender, stupid about the Constitution. We’ve become stupid in part because we no longer distinguish between opinion and fact, because we substitute faith and belief for evidence.

Look, there’s no disgrace in being stupid about some stuff. Everybody is stupid about something. I’m massively stupid about the internal combustion engine. I’m deeply stupid about basic household plumbing. But here’s the thing: most of us are willing to learn. If I’m having a new sink installed and the plumber — the person who’s been trained to think about plumbing — tells me I need a sink trap, then explains to me that a sink trap prevents debris from forming a clog deeper in the plumbing system, that a sink trap stops stinky sewer gas from entering my house, then I’ll make sure my new sink has a sink trap. You don’t have to blindly trust an expert, but you should damn well listen to what they have to say and try to understand it.

Voting Democratic.

That’s one of the reasons this election is so important. Donald Trump doesn’t know jack shit about plumbing. But he’s got a lot of plumbing supplies that fell off a truck and he wants to unload them. He doesn’t care if our sinks get clogged or sewer gas stinks up the house. Hell, he wants the sinks to clog. He’s chunking wads of hair and bacon grease down the sinks to make them clog, so we’ll want his plumbing supplies. He’s not concerned about us or our house; he’s just got plumbing supplies to unload and wants to make a buck off our ignorance.

Uncle Joe may not be up-to-date with the newest plumbing tech, but he’ll hire good plumbers and listen to them. He’ll make sure the US has a damned sink trap.

Editorial Note: Yeah, I know, it’s an awkward metaphor — but it’s not like I plan these essays. They just sort of happen. Then I find photos that fit. I like to think of it as ‘my process’.

Another Editorial Note: After I wrote this I learned that the University of Arizona has used wastewater to predict Covid outbreaks. It turns out folks who’ve been infected with the coronavirus quickly begin…uh…pooping the virus. (I am NOT making this up.) So by monitoring dorm sewage systems, the university was able to quickly discover an outbreak in one of their dorms. Yay science! Yay plumbing!