Category Archives: ItMFA

elections have consequences, sort of

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Ordinary Dude: Why aren’t we impeaching Comrade Trump?
Moderate Democratic Member of Congress: I don’t think we have quite enough information to begin impeachment proceedings.
OD: Is there credible evidence that he obstructed an investigation into possible wrongdoing by him and his staff?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he lies every day to the American people? That he lies so consistently and shamelessly that nobody can trust or rely on anything he says?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he was elected with the aid of a hostile foreign power? That he welcomed that aid in 2016 and might do so again in 2020?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he’s abusing his office to increase his personal wealth?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that Comrade Trump has cozied up to Mohammed bin Salman, who had a critic tortured, murdered and dismembered? And that he’s repeatedly bypassed Congress in order to sell weapons to him?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: And that’s he’s playing footsie with other leaders of hostile nations, while insulting and demeaning the leaders of friendly nations?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he’s abused the office of the president to settle personal grievances?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he’s used his office to consistently undermine federal law enforcement agencies and the US intelligence community?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: And doesn’t that make the US less safe?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that Trump violated campaign finance laws by paying hush money to women with whom he’s had affairs while married to his third wife?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: What about neo-Nazis and white supremicists? Is there credible evidence that he’s encouraged these groups, either openly or through example?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he’s attacked the freedom of the press and called the news media ‘the enemy of the people’?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that he’s created policies that separate children from their asylum-seeking parents? That he’s housed both the children and their parents in appalling circumstances? That he failed to insure there’s a method for re-uniting those children with their parents? Is there credible evidence that some of those children will likely never see their parents again?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that the Trump administration is the most corrupt, most inept, most conflicted, most incompetent administration ever?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: Is there credible evidence that Trump is a racist?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…

Democrats fleeing the swarm of Republican accusations of partisanship.

OD: Don’t all these facts taken together amount to the biggest betrayal of the United States by a president in our history? And isn’t that betrayal still taking place?
MDMoC: Well, yes, but…
OD: So why aren’t we impeaching the motherfucker already?
MDMoC: Because we’re not sure impeachment is a politically wise position to take.
OD: …
MDMoC: If we try to impeach, Republicans will accuse us of being partisan.
OD: …
MDMoC: And even if we do impeach him, the Senate probably wouldn’t vote to convict.
OD: Jesus suffering fuck.
MDMoC: Hey, don’t blame us. You elected us, after all.

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my plan to deal with dog ass republicans

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I have a plan. Well, not a ‘plan’ plan, since I’m in no position to implement it. It’s more of a suggestion for a plan. Would you like to hear it? If not, then stop reading, on account of I intend to reveal my suggestion for a plan in the next paragraph.

Ready? Okay. Here it is: impeach the motherfucker already.

I know, it’s not original. And I know, you’re going to say “Greg, old sock, even if the House impeaches the motherfucker already, the dog ass Republicans in the Senate will never convict the motherfucker, so what’s the point?”

I’m glad you asked. First, stop calling me ‘old sock’. Second, the fact that the dog ass Republicans in the Senate will never vote to convict the motherfucker is actually part of the plan. Or the suggestion for the plan.

My plan suggestion for a plan, in slightly more detail, is as follows: announce right up front that we know the dog ass Republicans in the Senate are already in the bag (by ‘in the bag’ I mean ‘so devoid of patriotism and so unconcerned about democracy and governance that they’ll do whatever Comrade Trump wants’) but that it’s SO GODDAMNED IMPORTANT to publicly hold Trump accountable for his many crimes that we’re going to impeach the motherfucker already anyway. Announce right up front that we fully expect the dog ass Republicans to continue to support Trump’s criminality and enable him to fuck up representative democracy, but we still hold some truths to be self-evident, and among those truths is that the United States should NOT be run by a cruel, ignorant, narcissistic bully who is completely lacking in morals and lies as frequently — and with as much forethought — as he blinks.

If we announce right up front that we’re doing what we believe is the right thing to do even though we fully expect it to fail — not because the effort isn’t worthwhile, but because we know the game is rigged — then we have absolutely nothing to lose. And if/when the dog ass Republicans refuse to convict Trump, we can say “This is why we call them dog ass Republicans.”

So, that’s my plan. My suggestion for a plan. Whatever. What do you think? Cool, huh?

Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia!

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Your probably one of those snowflake liberals who think paying off porn stars to keep them from publicly stating the prensidential candidate they had sex with while he was married to his third wife (having cheated on the first two) in order to avoid a scandal before the election ought to be illegal or against the law. Hah. This is the big leagues, and if the water’s too hot, get off the bridge before it hatches.

Now it’s been confirmed that Donald J. Trump — the greatest prensident god gave the planet earth in his lifetime and much more — knew about the payments his lawyer (who, by the way, is a born liar who can’t be trusted to know when to keep his mouth shut) made to the porn star (and c’mon, who’s gonna believe a porn star, who is a slut who can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut when she’s been paid to keep her mouth shut) even though he totally denied knowing anything about those payments. Which, okay, means Trump lied, but who wouldn’t lie to protect his wife? It’s proof of how much he loves Melanie (who is totally hot and classy in a way most women with big tits wish they could be that classy).

So there’s nothing really there, right? But the liberal maimstream limp-wristed commie media keep bringing it up and bringing it up in an effort to ‘prove’ that committing a felony to protect his hot wife ought to be against the law. They hate women.

I wanted to see what real patriots and America-loving Americans thought about this so-called “issue” so I checked in on FreeRepublic, which is as American as mayonnaise. And here’s what they said.

— So what would the crime be? It’s his money?

— is there anything illegal about paying a hooker not to tell your wife? seems like good business practice to me.

— Basically, FBI was being used to do oppo research for Hillary. Paid for with taxpayer money. While other serious crimes (like Hillary’s server, bribes delivered to her “family foundation,” etc.) weren’t investigated.

— Yup……she admitted she lied. Which makes Trump the VICTIM.

— trump better start indicting these jokers before the election rolls around, as a supporter,i am tired of not seeing hillary in jail.

— it is widely believed that Michell aka the Wookie, lived on the streets as a prostitute when she was about 17. She was saved by a Chicago pimp who realized she was too ugly to generate sales. The pimp signed a sealed affadavit that is in Chicago DA custody.

— The FBI is a branch of the Dem/Antifa party and they believe altogether too much.

— Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia!

I couldn’t have said it any more better than that. Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia! Why can’t the libs just accept the fact that they lost and deserve to be in the dust bin of history with all the other losers like Russia China Viet Nam and Venevuela (sp) down there in South America where all the illegal immigrants come from who are all or mostly gang members and drug deals. Or have vans with tied up women gagged in the back? Why?

The Deep State FBI should just go back where they came from so Prensident Trump can continue to make America Great Again MAGA and Keep it that way for ever until the Rapture or even after.

 

yeah, he’s lying

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Comrade Donald J. Trump is a liar.

Every president has told lies. Every person on earth has told lies. We all lie. Most of our lies are social lies — lies told to lubricate social interactions. “No, the pie crust wasn’t overbaked.” “I’d love to visit, but I’m running a bit late.” “Yes, of course, I’d be happy to help.” “Please, stay as long as you’d like.”

But Trump isn’t just a social liar. He will lie about anything to anybody for any reason without any compunction and without any concern for consequences. He’s an unrepentant liar. A serial liar. An inveterate liar. Worst of all, he’s a dangerous liar. I mean that quite seriously. Trump’s repeated barrage of lies are damaging the stability of our democracy.

Yeah, he’s lying.

Back in 1978 the French writer Roger Errera interviewed Hannah Arendt for the New York Review of Books. Among the things they discussed was the role played by lying in totalitarian governments.

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.

We are still sometimes shocked by the viciousness and cruelty of some of Comrade Trump’s lies. We’re sometimes amused by the absurdity of his lies. We’re occasionally baffled by the pointlessness of some of his lies. But it’s been a long time since we were shocked by the fact that he lies. He’s normalized lying. And increasingly, the result is exactly what Arendt said: it’s not that anybody believes most of Trump’s lies; it’s that a lot of people no longer believe anything.

In the last election we elected a Democratic House of Representatives because they told us they would act to hold Comrade Trump accountable. They haven’t. And because they haven’t, we’re less likely to believe them when they promise they will. It’s getting harder and harder to believe anything.

Yeah, he’s lying.

As Arendt said, it’s getting harder and harder to act. I’d intended to join the protest at a local detention facility last Friday. But I had company coming for a few days. Instead of inviting them to the protest, I stayed home. We cooked a meal, drank some locally brewed beer, talked, laughed, enjoyed ourselves. We did this while families seeking asylum are being separated and detained in appalling conditions.

This is how the fatigue caused by Comrade Trump’s constant lying and hate damages the nation. This is how a weary population surrenders. This is how democracy dies.

Yeah, he’s lying.

One last comment by Hannah Arendt.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.

Most of still make those distinctions. Most of us aren’t ‘ideal subjects’ for totalitarian rule. But many of us — I hope it’s not most of us — are just tired. We’re just so goddamn tired. But I truly believe we’d find our energy again IF the Democrats in the House would begin impeachment proceedings.

So today I’ll struggle to find the energy to call my member of Congress and, once again, encourage them to pressure Nancy Pelosi to do her fucking job. Democracy depends on it.

in which i buy a hat

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I needed a new cap. Wait…first let me say this: I’m not a hat guy. Some folks can wear a hat; some folks just can’t. Some folks look like dorks whenever they wind up beneath a hat. I am one of those folks. Except baseball caps. Anybody can wear a ball cap. Even me.

Right. So I needed a new cap. And I decided…wait. Maybe need is an exaggeration. I actually had two ball caps. A nice one bought at the ball park, with the logo of the local minor league team (Iowa Cubs). It’s a good cap, moderately expensive, but when I bought it I had long hair. I’ve cut my hair since then; now the cap doesn’t fit. A stiff wind will swipe it right off my head.

The other cap is what I call my ‘Commie Coke hat’. It’s moderately cheap grey cap, adjustable, has a Co-cola logo with a red star on the front. I mostly wear it when I’m in the woods. Or doing some sort of manual labor. Which means it’s pretty beat-up and stained. Not something you’d want to wear in public.

Co-cola Commie cap.

As I was saying, I needed a new cap. The problem was finding one with a logo I could tolerate. I tend to logo-resistant. I wouldn’t wear that Co-cola cap if it didn’t have the red Commie star (which I assume wasn’t intentional, but still). I mentioned my logo problem to a friend, who gave me the following advice:

Go look on Etsy, you putz.

So I looked on Etsy (which, if you don’t already know, is an online marketplace). There are easily a gazillion ball caps on Etsy. A mind-numbing selection. An overwhelming number of choices and options which left me…well, overwhelmed. I was about to exit the site when I noticed a seller who’d let you put your own lettering on a cap. That had potential. Plus the cap looked fairly nice. Plus it only cost like US$15.

Then I saw it was a seller in South Korea. How could somebody in Korea customize a cap and mail it to the US for about twenty bucks (including shipping)? The answer, of course, is because the Korean seller doesn’t have to fuss about with inconvenient stuff like a livable minimum wage for their employees, a safe working environment, worker health care costs, reasonable working hours, or child labor laws.

So fuck that, right? There was absolutely no way I could ethically buy a cap made under those conditions. Here’s a confession: my ethics can get a tad elastic when my curiosity is engaged. And I was curious. If I ordered that cap, how long it would take for the order to be delivered? Would the product be what I actually ordered? Could a $15 cap made by oppressed workers in Korea be anything but shoddy?

So what the hell, I ordered one. I ordered a specific color, with ITMFA (Impeach the Motherfucker Already)  on the front in a specific font.

You guys, it arrived in ten days. It’s a better quality cap than my Co-cola commie cap. It’s the color I ordered. And while the lettering isn’t perfectly centered, it’s still pretty good and it’s in the font I ordered. In fact, the entire experience was so good that it’s discouraging.

I’m mostly a writer, which means I’m relatively poor. I come from a working class family, which means I feel solidarity with working folks. I can understand why poor folks would opt to buy a quality product from the Asian market for a bargain price instead of a quality product from a US source for a higher price. I think it’s still ethically wrong, but understandable. In the long run, this hurts the poor and working class — but let’s face it; the poor and working class can’t always afford to think about the long run. They’ve got bills to pay now.

So here I am, a relatively poor American wearing a cap made by significantly poorer and much more oppressed Korean workers. Here I am, wearing a hat calling for the impeachment of a man who not only endorses but enthusiastically utilizes the oppression of foreign workers for his own personal profit.

I like the hat. I like the message. I sort of regret buying it. I hate that I don’t regret it more. I deeply regret that global conditions exist that allow one group of workers to be exploited like this, and that allow other workers to justify exploiting less fortunate workers. We can say it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but it’s mainly that way because the rich are starving the dogs. I regret that I contributed to starving the dogs.

If YOU want an ITMFA cap, don’t do what I did. Instead, if you can afford it, kick out the extra coin and buy one made here in the US. In fact, I encourage you to kick out the extra coin and buy a ball cap from a source who’ll use the profits to support worthy causes. A source like, say, the ITMFA Store.

existential threats

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Interesting bits and pieces of the George Stephanopoulos interview with Comrade Trump had been scattered all over teh Intertubes over the last couple of days. So I decided to watch the interview on television.

Okay, I need to digress for a moment. I don’t watch a lot of television. I like television and I’d like to watch more of it, but there’s just so many other things to do. I watch a couple of hours of television a night (except, of course, when the World Cup is on; I watch the hell out of that). And when I say ‘television’ I generally mean something on Hulu or Netflix. I can’t recall the last time I watched a show on commercial network television. Until last night and the interview with Comrade Trump.

It was awful. I mean, Trump was Trump — a despicable human being incapable of relating to any aspect of life and the world around him except through a lens of how it affected HIM. He lied, he was arrogant, he denied reality, he asserted ‘facts’ that didn’t exist, he kicked his own acting Chief of Staff out of the Oval Office for coughing during the interview, he accused his so-called ‘enemies’ of treason, he maligned President Obama, he said the Director of the FBI was wrong in stating that political figures should report contacts from foreign nations who offer ‘dirt’ on political opponents, he claimed to be ‘an honest guy’, he insisted he had polling data that showed he was winning ‘everywhere’, he accused his former White House Counsel of lying under oath, and he complained that he’s been treated more unfairly than President Lincoln (who, it’s worth remembering, was shot in the back of the head).

It was, as I said, completely awful. But here’s an indication of how Comrade Trump has normalized lying, hypocrisy, victimization, and the abuse of power: to me, the most shocking thing about last night was how completely and irredeemably horrible commercial television is.

It was an hour-long show purportedly based on thirty hours of material of which maybe 40-45 minutes of actual interview was presented, and which was routinely interrupted in order to sell products. The commercial interruptions were not only annoying and disruptive to the flow of the interview, they were LOUD. And stupid. And repetitive. There were, for example, at least two commercials for some sort of miniature golf-based game show.

Think about that for a moment. An interview in which the President of the United States makes a number of startling admissions that in ordinary times would lead to immediate impeachment proceedings is interrupted to promote a sort of celebrity miniature golf contest. How fucked up is that? (Hint: pretty fucked up.)

I make an effort to expose myself to a variety of political opinions; I make an effort to have a variety of experiences; I make an effort to avoid the existence-in-a-bubble mentality that I believe makes communication so difficult between folks who hold different opinions. But it turns out I do live in a sort of bubble — a non-commercial bubble.

I don’t know how anybody could process any information or narrative in a meaningful way when it’s presented in the way commercial television presents it. No wonder we live in such a fragmented, disorganized, disruptive, and jangled society. And no wonder Comrade Trump is able to get by with so much bullshit. The whole experience left me struggling to properly place Trump’s unabashed awfulness within a context of luxury car adverts and mini-golf promotions.

After we impeach the motherfucker, we need to think about addressing commercial television. It’s also an existential threat to society.

mueller — itmfa

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I watched Robert Mueller’s brief public statement yesterday. And dude, the operative term there is ‘brief’. Under ten minutes. He slid over behind the DOJ podium, said his piece, then was gone like Kyzer Soze.

I know a lot of folks were disappointed by his statement. I guess they were hoping for something dramatic — some sort of revelation maybe, or a political call to arms. But that’s not Mueller. Mueller’s a professional prosecutor. Here’s the thing: political processes always involve some level of passion and partisanship. But we’re supposed to keep that shit out of legal processes. Legal processes are supposed to be sober, deliberate, and dispassionate.

This is where the problem lies. Because Mueller’s legal process has big-ass political implications. In his statement yesterday, he said his report:

“…contains our findings and analysis, and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself.”

But the work doesn’t really speak for itself on account of 1) it’s a prosecutor’s document and even though there’s juicy stuff in it, the report is written in a legal fashion that’s boring as fuck to read, and 2) the report is almost as long as a Game of Thrones novel, and as a result of 1) and 2), we get 3) ain’t hardly nobody actually reading it.

And that’s a damned shame, because the report is pretty fucking clear. It says Russian military intelligence agents interfered with the 2016 election to help Comrade Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. It says the Trump campaign was hip deep in Russian contacts, all of which had some sort of connection to Russian intelligence agencies. It says folks in the Trump campaign lied their asses off about those contacts. And it says Trump and his people obstructed the investigation in lots of ways, but since he’s the president (and the DOJ has a policy that a sitting president can’t be indicted) they couldn’t consider charging him with a crime.

In his statement yesterday, Mueller reminded everybody — including Congress — that there are options to charging Trump with a crime. He said,

“[T]he Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing.”

That’s about as close as Mueller can get to saying, “Congress, y’all need to impeach the motherfucker already.” And let’s face it, when he’s saying ‘Congress’ he basically means ‘Democrats’ because nobody, including Mueller, expects the Republicans in Congress to hold Trump responsible for anything.

I think that’s at least partially why Mueller made a public statement. He’s a Republican his ownself, and I sorta kinda think he’s trying to shame Republicans into stepping up and earning their paychecks. I think Mueller is telling everybody that serious shit took place, and as a nation we can’t allow that to happen. That’s actually the very last thing he said in his statement:

“I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments—that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American.”

Every American. Including Republican-Americans. If gutless Democrats refuse to start impeachment hearings, they’re freeing gutless Republicans from having to take any responsibility for Trump’s behavior. Impeachment proceedings will force Republicans to state publicly if they’re willing to allow the ratfucking of US elections by hostile foreign nations if it helps them win elections.

Mueller isn’t going to show up at demonstrations wearing a ITMFA tee shirt or appear with Colbert drinking from a ITMFA mug. He’s not going to write an op-ed in the New York Times or Washington Post advocating impeachment. That was never his job and he’s not that sort of guy. He’s written his report and he’s made a statement. He’s said what he can say and done what he can do.

It’s up to us and to Congress now.