Tara Reade Doesn't Live Here Anymore

 

In news that shouldn't surprise anyone with the attention span of a guppy, Tara Reade will not actually be testifying before Congress about her allegations against Joe Biden, but will now be defecting to Russia, because she just doesn't feel like she has a choice (between perjuring herself over a dead-horse op and, I dunno, not doing that). Her good friend Maria Butina will be helping her with this, because of course. Maria Butina seems to like many Americans very much. 

(NOTE: She's just very friendly, you guys.) 

Look, I tended to disbelieve Reade from the start as what I thought was an obvious homebrew ratfuck (and one that misused Me Too and survivor stories), but seeing her sitting with Butina makes a weird kind of sense. I mean, her attitude is just "use me".  And there are people who are very comfortable using people like Reade. The Russians certainly would in continuing support of Donald Trump, a thing which has long lost plausible deniability except for the very self-deluding.

So when she complains about America's unpaved roads in a country where not everyone has indoor plumbing, or talks up Hunter's laptop, and so forth, all I can say is, take it with a grain if you have any inclination to believe it. Of salt or polonium-210. Whatever floats your boat.

We Don't Need Your Culture War

 

Target kicked out an Info Wars fan who relocated all the pride items to the back of the store. The man harassed employees and customers and yelled, “your kids can’t be gay” while exiting the store. pic.twitter.com/pixyVT2Unp

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 29, 2023

It feeds the rich while it buries the poor--does this feel to you like a wholly grassroots deal?  It doesn't to me. This whole thing is viral in a kind of "ice-bucket challenge for shitheads" kind of way, but the thing of randos vandalizing or taking "direct action" against department stores--including bomb threats? That has a lot of LibofTikTok kind of energy. That kind of ecosystem echochambering nonsense is anything but organic. 

It feels like we're in the midst of an escalation from rabid parents being told that drag and trans-awareness was a "contagion" for their kids, to hating the whole rainbow. Nothing new happened. 

Other than Trump lost an election. See, in one cynical. shitty sense, attacks on the LGBT community are about reigniting a wedge issue of marginalizing people like the 2004 attempt at gay marriage bans or the rear-guard protection of DADT in the military (probably why social conservatives are being stupid about "wokeness" in the military right now, when radicalization is the real danger, not admirably serving queers). If they can just give local bigots the high sign to deny pumping gas for suspected gays or making them cakes or whatever, they feel like that little bit of sanctioned bigotry is a "win".

Ken Paxton Got Himself Impeached (UPDATED)

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) impeached by Texas House of Representatives 121-23 pic.twitter.com/wlNtCgGlB2

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 27, 2023

I believe that is the Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan who was censured for being drunk on the floor but frankly, when I watched this without audio, I thought the man would have more slurring because I'm not saying I know drunk when I see it, but I have known drunk when I've been it. Drunk or sober, the count is what it is, and Ken Paxton got hugely impeached by the supermajority Texas House. This wasn't about liberals trying to get him, and this wasn't about RINOS trying to get him. This was about the creep of Ken Paxton's various problems becoming not just his problem, but the State Leg. problem, and they did not want that for themselves.

Climbing One Hill After Another

 

A Florida School Has Banned the Poem Read at Biden’s Inauguration

Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb is restricted after just one parent complained about it.https://t.co/AMLRSaUSOA #BannedBooks #IStandWithTheBanned

— PEN America (@PENamerica) May 23, 2023

There is some back and forth over what we count as a "ban" for purposes of conversation--so let's go with "restriction". One parent complained about this poem. One confused parent, who thought it was written by Oprah Winfrey (which right there is a bit of a red flag--no?) And so it was decided on the basis of one opinion that maybe the younger ones would be "confused" or "indoctrinated" by a poem that was read at a presidential inauguration for all the world to hear. 

So, let's talk about the parent--who apologized for promoting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a notorious anti-Semitic hoax that still has a lot of play among a certain set of conspiracy theorists. She admits she's not much of a reader. One could argue what sort of thinker she is. But the point is--she's one person.

And she has the ability as a parent to restrict her own's kids' reading. I can wonder about what sort of strange, unwell bonsai her kids' curiosity might be pruned to as a result. But my own parents pulled messy romance novels and Mad Magazine out of my sweaty little hands as a kid--it was their right. At issue is whether a very few, and possibly very cranky few at that, should have veto power over all the kids' reading. 

After all, just eleven people filed most book bans across the country. Maybe these people need new hobbies, because that sounds like an industry, if not its own agenda.

I can't say age restriction is wholesale bad--I definitely question things of a sexually explicit nature being in the hands of kids and think maturity restrictions do make sense, in context. But, for example, nudity was used as a reason for banning the graphic novel "Maus" in a context that had no sexual conten. And I can see where there are challenges to LGBT+ content on the basis of "sexual references" where nothing is explicit. (I want to put out there that not all "coming of age" novels are for the people who are coming of age themselves, but for people who have also been through it.)  But also, just because something is contentious doesn't mean it's wrong, as in the case of, I dunno, the grand sweep of American history.

Those decision aren't one hill to climb--but one after another. And shouldn't be lightly decided just because school officials can't be bothered to fend off random cranks.

TWGB: Sedition and Espionage

 

Before I talk Trump, I just want to discuss the sentences of Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs. The Oath Keepers were found to be guilty of a seditious conspiracy. They acted in the belief that it is acceptable in a civil society to take up arms in the case of a political disagreement over an election on the basis of lies--and I don't think they cared whether those lies were lies or not. The "tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots" types never seem to note that in a representative government, sometimes your particular flavor of "patriot" isn't winning elections and violence isn't so much a revolutionary action as a pity party gone badly wrong. They said, basically, "Fuck who voted for Biden, we want our Trumpy Bear," and somehow convinced themselves that was exactly on a par with what our founding fathers would have wanted. 1776, you guys! 

Stewart Rhodes, Yale-trained lawyer, was especially prolix on the subject of a "divided nation", and in reply, the judge pointed out that Rhodes presented an ongoing threat and raised the "t-word"--treason. To undermine our government because one can't fathom that other people differing in opinion are allowed to protest, speak, and vote, even win elections lawfully, and not have those elections overturned by the force of a determined few, heedless of the knock-on effects to our civil society, is an exceptional lack of a grasp on basic civics, let alone law. 

The Jebbening! of Ron DeSantis

 

pic.twitter.com/H7G6q4TtKq

— Secular Talk🎙 (@KyleKulinski) May 25, 2023

You know, I love the sunny optimism of people who want to push the theory that Ron DeSantis will most surely fail because he's a weird fucking glitchy AI trained on Orwell as a handbook and White Christian supremacy as a goal who sort of can't stand like a man who has always had arms and regularly unhinges his mouth when he laughs like he's about to devour a sacrificial goat. I mean, sure, all that is really off-putting, but if one has the backing of enough big money donors and is somehow the largest tool in the shed after the other big tool gets majorly law-hammered (because the conviction of Trump for anything at all and legal removal from the primary pool springs eternal in the minds of those who have engaged in the contest--although they would never, never say something so obvious aloud) who you gonna settle with? 

Would I Call it Weaponization?

 

Somewhere, deep down, I feel like nothing is ever over with Republicans. Forget Benghazi or tan suits. They are going to get weird and bring up Chappaquiddick or Alger Hiss or Robert Byrd's Klan connections out of the blue.  So what do I think when Jim Jordan thinks maybe he'll target Hillary Clinton with a new investigation?

If Hunter Biden wasn't already done to death, why would the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy turning their lonely eyes to Hillary Clinton again hit any different?  I mean, Kevin McCarthy, the current and obviously temporary Speaker of the House explained out loud where people could hear that the email investigation hurt Clinton intentionally. And current crank James Comer admitted in the same vein that the investigation into President Biden's family members is supposed to help Trump. 

He still hasn't found what he's looking for, of course. The GOP can't keep track of their whistleblowers. To the extent they exist they are being paid by Trump insider Kash Patel who is a witness in the Mar-A-Lago document scandal and the first impeachment over the Ukraine president's being extorted. So that's not obviously sleazy as hell, right? 

But in the funny old round world kind of way, it comes out just now that the Trump DOJ was already investigating the Clintons via the Clinton Foundation, and they had nothing. See, unlike Trump's slush fund that he called a charitable enterprise which had to be shut down, and his kids had to go to mandatory don't run a charity as a slush fund school? The Clinton Foundation has been on the up and up. 

So--see how that seems like weaponization? And the thing where Trump get tried in courts and actually has done stuff is not weaponization? And how Durham had nothing, and most Republicans seem to be kind of distracting from 1/6 or the documents scandal by deflecting and whatabouting to other stuff? 

It's like they want to pretend "both sides" are equally as bad and they really aren't. And I would through very gritted teeth like to suggest the media report it that way, because sometimes, there are not two sides to everything (sorry current CNN management!) but one side is actually very bad, even seditious. And even undermines the very concept of rule of law via extreme partisanship. 

And what I mean by that isn't hard at all to see or hear if you're paying attention. 

TWGB: Rumbles in TrumpWorld

 

So, what if it seems like Trump's lawyers are "dropping like flies?"  What does it mean if Trump's kids are getting stripped from a lawsuit so that the law can focus on the former president himself? What are we looking at when Allen Weisselberg, recently released from his sentence, is faced with going back in on a perjury charge for protecting you know who? 

I know what Trump himself would call it--"Rigged!"  But maybe the problem is with the client himself. He's just, how do I delicately put this? Probably guilty of so, so much? 

See, let's talk about the exit of Tim Parletore. He says it's because one of Trump's other lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, was interfering with searches for government documents--I guess like he thought there was  good reason for some docs to remain unfound, which would be some very serious obstruction, right?  I mean, he would know what stuff he wanted to remain buried as a longtime Trump associate? (I don't trust this MF as far as I could throw him). 

But what am I going to do, pretend Parlatore isn't also a big lying Trump apologist kook here? He's the guy who pretended Trump using a former classified docs folder as a coverup for the little light on his bedside phone was a reasonable thing. That's nuts. You could use duct tape, a Post-It note, a sock. Why a classified docs folder?  

This is the kind of crazy out where the buses don't run kind of logic you employ when you know your client doesn't have any excuse. This is why the lawyers are rumbling--

They are running out of tables to pound. Eventually, someone is going to look at the bare facts of, say, what Trump even did in office, and maybe connect the dots to what docs were taken and understand why.

DeSantis is Not Sanitary

 

Ron DeSantis wiped his snot on a man in Iowa pic.twitter.com/1sme5S2c23

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) May 19, 2023

Look, if you can get beyond "pudding fingers"--great and good on ya.  But if you can't draw the line at snot fingers, I don't know where to go with you. Because stunad just wiped his nose on his hands and his hands on a wheelchair. 

Now, that isn't the worst about DeSantis you'll see recently.  There's the utter torture his anti-abortion bullshit is putting pregnant families through. The Washington Post has a story about a lovely family that had to watch their little baby die because they could not mercifully end that pregnancy before their child was born to suffer a horrible death, and you will never, never, never convince me this is pro-life. 

There will be other stories just like this. This asshole's politics is about people suffering for his culture war bona fides. I don't know what he or his conjoined twin wife Casey believes as a Catholic or a Republican, but I know he doesn't give a shit about whether other people suffer for his ambition. They are against public schools, because wow--why sanctify education, right?  If critical thinking makes you less conservative, more liberal, more inclined to dissent--and wow! Does this prickly pants hate dissent! 

(But while he absolutely hates protests outside of homes of officials, he really likes depositing immigrants outside of where liberal officials might be.) 

Suffice it to say--his hands aren't clean.

The GOP on George Santos

 

Every single House Republican voted to protect George Santos from expulsion. pic.twitter.com/VKnldKhCrd

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) May 17, 2023

George Santos has been indicted, so the Ethics Committee (which was investigating Santos) is not doing shit.  AFAIK they defer to DOJ. So this was a "pass" on the GOP admitting that corruption offends them, which is obvious, because they support Justice Thomas being the beneficiary of billionaire support and Donald Trump despite his several indictments and potential indictments and civil trials.

There is nothing new here. The GOP decided a long time ago that the problem with Watergate was anyone ever admitting there was a problem and not all staying hush. Bill Barr organized a mass pardon for all the Iran-Contra folks. Intelligence failures and other problems that lead us into the Iraq War post-9/11 and little details like our treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, Bahram Air Base, Abu Ghraib, were swept away.  Tapes were burned, investigations quashed. 

It's been my whole life I don't trust Republicans, and frankly, I never will. For frauds and corruption little and big. Even the "good" ones lack the gunas to be great ones and try to fix their stupid, corrupt, amoral specter-infested White/Christian Nationalist ridden bullshit party. 

They can't even toss out a freshman congressman who pled guilty to stealing a checkbook in Brazil just a minute ago. 

They hype the nothingburger of a Durham report and conveniently forget everything that was in the Senate Intelligence several-volumes report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

They know the truth, but they can't even come clean, fix their house, expel the troublemakers. They stay loyal despite knowing they stand for shit that is dumb and wrong. Too afraid to admit the dumb wrongness. Like Nikki Haley, unable to call out Trump's sexual assault or note the challenges his various scandals pose for him. This is no way for her to challenge an opponent in a primary. Or any other creature of the GOP. Pence. DeSantis. They can't come for open corruption directly. They swim in those waters too much themselves. 

Their corruption is without bottom--and it should all be considered viable election material. What are they going to do--sue for defamation? Against the truly real things--no. They would not. 

I see Stupid People, But They Don't Know They're Stupid

 

Musk doubles down on his claims that there's no evidence the Allen, Texas mall shooter had white supremacist beliefs, and that @bellingcat "does psy-ops" professionally. pic.twitter.com/60yvbbspYZ

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) May 16, 2023

Do the big fucking Nazi tattoos confuse Elon, here? Because to the extent we have a potential motive, it looks like this shithead was fucked up about Asians. Also, Musk wants to pretend his weird Twitter obsession is somehow like Inigo Montoya but I don't think Elon's father got killed by the woke mind virus or he's doing anything especially brave by being a shitposter. An actually shit, shitposter. 

TWGB: The Quality of Mercy is Priced at $2 Million

 

So, lawsuit against Giuliani just got really graphic, and if you want to read the whole thing, I recommend having a sick bag or bucket handy because the parts where he emotionally and physically abuses a female employee is nasty and I wish my read on him didn't feel validated. She says she has texts and emails and even recordings of his abusiveness and more.

But the part I notice is the claim that she can validate that Giuliani was asking $2 million for pardons, because this wasn't new. It's just amazing we have validation now. Also, it appears that as early as 2019, Trump was scared enough of Dark Brandon that he was going to have a plan for losing, but claiming the election was stolen anyway. 

Wow: In *Feb. 2019*, Giuliani had "voter fraud" claim planned if Donald Trump lost the election, according to the complaint.

"Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy that Trump’s team would claim that there was 'voter fraud' and that Trump had actually won the election." pic.twitter.com/qU0pDJUwIK

— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) May 15, 2023

And if that doesn't remind me of anything?   

Yeah. We knew. It was always about fuckery. Undermining democracy. Damaging what makes our democracy effective and unique. 

A Tale Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, etc.

 

I'm not literally calling John Durham an "idiot", mind you, because I don't think he is. I also think Jake Tapper probably has the capacity to read and think critically, and you know--I can technically use stairs and take the elevator at every opportunity. What I think is that Durham was given an assignment that was distinctively difficult: try to make an investigation into a critical national security issue seem like it was unnecessary and unfair to a particular 2016 Presidential candidate.

And the very best Durham could do was suggest that, although DOJ and the FBI don't need to do anything different, and even though out of three cases he got exactly one conviction (sentence: probation) the bottom line is his opinion is that the FBI could have been a little slower before going into an investigation that was like, probably just great to be a preliminary investigation based on the little they knew from Downer and the Aussies. 

And after all the Mueller investigation convictions and the Senate intelligence report into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the DOJ IG investigation report, I'm going to just laugh and say: "Well, you tried." 

Because that's me, a person who has been paying attention. And I know that for people who were inclined to believe the Russia, Russia, Russia thing was a hoax based on whatever Trump had to say about it are very inclined to take Durham's word that despite the lack of any connecting of dots to support his conclusion that the investigation still seems hinky to him and will fast-forward to that conclusion whether there is any strength to that argument. 

The Aesthetics of Manslaughter

 

Look at him--the National Police Association bids, "Behold the man." His golden curls lit by the sun, his rugged jawline, without obvious benefit of mewing. His head held high, his shoulders back. The V of his swimmer's build, the likely fruitfulness of his Aryan loins. I have never seen a police Tweet so obviously eroticized. Choke me out too, Big Daddy, it practically cries. I'm bad and totally down and you're gooooooood. A Good Samaritan who mercy kills sad-ass mentally ill poors. Do that T4 shit, Big Daddy with the mustache. Go like a killing machine. 

I'm not exaggerating what I'm seeing online.  Holy shit, this is spank material. No, let me unveil this:

Yeah, they used AI to make this art about the guy who clapped down his socials and who probably would get more hotter for these weirdos if he was milkshake ducked. 

I guess these are the same kinds of people who make Trump look like he isn't a fat ass who needs a golf cart, but is some kind of real man of genius (tm).  And also really strong and not a soft handed manbaby. 

They want a hero. They want a weird and obvious lie. They want to be told that Neely was an obvious threat because of course he was and that killing a man saved the day. They don't want to wonder what could have been if real Good Samaritan options, like feeding the hungry, were employed. Where is the payoff there--in the idea of someone else being salvaged from a terrible place? What if someone just said, "Brother, at the next stop I will buy you some food and drink."

Because that was what the Good Samaritan would have done.

You damn dumb asshats--that's Christianity--you were supposed to see Him in the least of these. Not in the exulting godhood of the slayer, but in the moment of desperation in the slain. He was the Son of Man Penny crucified by the cross of his own hands and he and a multitude don't want to know it. 

But I choose to see it. And seeing the humanity of another, however wretched, is a choice. We don't have perfect souls down here, and we don't have perfect victims, but what we have is one another. And this imperfect man got killed because another man heard his cry that he had not food and no water, and decided he didn't need air either. 

And I find that inaesthetic. Actually, I find that appalling, and the gorgeous face of the killer doesn't tell me something other than we don't tell the truth about the poor among us, or so many other marginalized--we let people somehow not exist on our book of the living. And we let others off the hook so easily, for superficial reasons. 

How can that be ok? 

What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Iowa?

 

The whackadoodles of Mike Flynn's travelling psyops parade decamped at the Doral where they were welcomed among the other bedbugs. It's an explicitly Christian Nationalist gimmick, and many Christians do not enjoy the political posturing. While Trump was not there in actuality, he was there in the form of his idiot son Eric and probably Lara Trump--they have been tight with this weird community of anti-vaxxers and convoy-promoters and school board and hospital protesters. And when his Iowa rally was called supposedly due to the weather, The Former Guy called in to let convicted and pardoned felon, the man who was collecting bucks from Russia and Turkey, Mike Flynn, know that he was definitely welcome in a second Trump Administration.  As he's been saying. 

Of course, one should be aware by now that Flynn is, to put it delicately, batshit. Someone who wants to overthrow the government, celebrates chaos, and thinks there's vaccines in the salad dressing isn't normal.  But this is Mr. 5th Generation Warfare, the guy who is telling his followers to look out because the internet is being used to tell people weird shit in order to manipulate them. Which is fun stuff from the guy whose son spread Pizzagate memes in 2016 and himself talked about Agenda 21, which is actually dead stupid. 

The coterie of kooks include Julie Green, who I almost feel sad for, because she is on a level of toxic dumb shit that is hard to divorce from thinking--is she okay? Why do people let her just be delusional like this? Is there money in it? 

(I mean like, fortunetellers do get paid sometimes, it's a reliable bunco. But when someone is so repeatedly wrong, shouldn't they they get moved to the next town by ripped-off and unhappy customers? Unless they have found the marksiest of the marks. And that is the Trump mishpocha. They want to believe.) 

Ron DeSantis Just Dropped Some New Racism

 

This signifying white supremacist just came out in favor of choking out homeless people of color by smearing progressive DAs as being controlled by a (((globalist))))? This is deeply racist. Manslaughter is not what a Good Samaritan does. https://t.co/QaJUiBXChO

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) May 13, 2023

In 2018, Ron DeSantis' gubernatorial opponent made the most succinct summation of what DeSantis was about: The racists believe he's a racist.  The racists had every reason to believe DeSantis was a fellow traveler. We know pretty well from what Tommy Tuberville thinks about MAGA and white supremacy what the score is with MAGA Republicans. If you want to score MAGA points, you have to signify white supremacy.

You have to deny the Ocoee Massacre and the Rosewood Massacre (they aren't even teaching positive Black history there, as far as I hear it.) You have to direct a policy of downplaying white complicity in a systematic degradation of people of color. You have to pretend this is because it's mean to depict white people as racist--and then, be this guy. The guy who can't say "Boo" when racists broadcast anti-Semitism all over his state. And then celebrate a guy who choked a homeless man to death for being publicly upset about an actually very upsetting reality: Hunger and thirst and no place to lay his head where the law would not call him a vagrant and penalize him for the sin of being an unhomed person.

 

Tommy Taterhead Calls them "Americans"

 

Revolting.

White nationalism has no place in our armed forces, and no place in American society.

GOP Senator Tuberville needs to state unequivocally that white nationalism is un-American, and drop his destructive holds on our senior military leaders.https://t.co/S0ZXXSo6ZA

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 11, 2023

It's pretty sick that one US Senator can, in pure self-regard and partisan signifying, decide to create a national security problem because he wants to impose limits on the rights of women in the military to seek reproductive care. It really seems to me like he wants to favor the recruitment of white supremacist men over capable women who might be concerned that the US government will be happy to let them serve, but won't have their back over their reproductive choices. 

He prefers potential domestic terrorist bigots over women who are not potential domestic terrorists, but just might want abortions for absolutely personal reasons. 

And let me point out that white supremacists are a real problem, and definitely include people who have served in the US armed forces and were not necessarily expeditiously drummed out. And are capable of being radicalized to the point of actual domestic terrorism.  

Taterhead goes on to be more explicit in his love of the white nationalists, to call them "MAGA". Well sure. I agree. MAGAs are somewhat like the Klan, but why are you thinking this is good, Senator? 

Are we just no longer copacetic that the Klan is bad? I mean, all the Twitter dipshits who post "Southern Democrats invented the Klan hur dur dur" are obviously free to eat farts, because why did all the southern states suddenly become red states and why does the Klan endorse Trump--right? 

Is this the problem good little MAGA soldiers have with the military and call them "woke" because they are trying to weed out the Mauricio Garcias? Because to be honest, weeding out potential problematic people is exactly the right thing to do. Is the military wrong to want to prevent the white supremacist equivalent of the Fort Hood mass shooting? 

I feel like an American in good standing is one who recognizes the value and contribution of all our citizens and would not damage the institution of our military for partisan reasons because love of country should eclipse that. Tuberville is...not doing that. 

Trump, CNN and the Power of Sufficient Cable

 

The CNN town hall featuring former president Donald Trump and former Daily Caller employee Kaitlan Collins was a shitshow as expected. The network stocked the audience with Trumpists because that's obviously fucking normal. And then he got to saw away at his special hobby horses, which was just fun to watch with little to no pushback when you pause to consider this is a twice-impeached racist sex pest who absolutely fumbled COVID-19 and the economy in his last year in office.

This bitter, lying, indicted, tarnished, twice-impeached, treasonous, shambling reprobate should in no way be considered a viable candidate for office and should, in fact, be made a figure of mockery everywhere his grotesque bulk lurches, and yet, he is also the best shot the GOP has for 2024, so the cable news dickheads are going to try and make him...credible? 

So, what we were treated to, one day after a jury unanimously after but three hours of deliberations awarded E. Jean Carroll damages for his sexual battery and defamation of her (and not rape, because it was uncertain whether she noticed his thimble dick actually penetrating her nor ejaculating, leading us to wonder if his small fingers actually brag on him, not the opposite--which is not intended to be defamatory because I am of a scientific aspect and am merely asking questions of a delicate anatomical nature) was more defamation, and rather gross as well.  And the Trump-friendly studio audience loved it. 

I don't know how that resonated with you, Gentle Reader, but it makes me bloody-minded, and I mean more so than usual. It's one thing to despise Trump heart and soul. It's another to take in the values of his fanclub in full and realize they are complete gutter-dwellers with little to redeem them. Deplorables, by choice. 

But maybe a silver lining exists in the sound bites created by the fact of Trump being given adequate cable (which, like saying "hoist on his own petard" suggests the concept of "enough rope"--which is what I think he definitely wished on 1/6 for his running mate, Mike Pence, not that that gormless SOB appreciates it).  He did admit Mike Pence did something wrong in his mind in this little chat. He said he believed that the Georgia SOS owed him votes. He reiterated that he did take documents to Mar-A-Lago, it was great of him to do that, and definitely had the right to declassify them--although whether he did and how and what he took and why he's so pleased with himself stays a mystery. 

We can wonder whether the fluke of this gasbag becoming president was the fault of outlets like CNN giving him "sufficient cable"--platforming him and taking him "seriously, not literally." The image of CNN cameras focusing on an empty podium where the celebrity candidate had grabbed their attention by its figurative lowest chakra remains a sticking point with me regarding their failure to be serious journalists because they wanted his ratings power. 

But in the course of this shitshow, he delivered several soundbites that would certainly be of interest in at least three of his ongoing criminal investigations and at least one civil complaint. 

Maybe it's possible that this creature could be both raised up and brought low by the quality of sufficient cable. 

E. Jean Carroll Got Her Vindication

 

The nine-person jury took less than three hours to deliberate. https://t.co/mcBxgevv7V

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 10, 2023

Trump can very well grumble to his little fan club about whether the verdict against him counts as some form of "witch hunt"--but his ridiculous claim that he was denied the right to speak on his own behalf was sheer imbecility--it's a matter of court record that he was given the opportunity to file to testify. He and his legal team did not. This decision today was not just a triumph for E. Jean Carroll, but for other women who know very well what Donald Trump was about. 

And there are dozens. 

Trump can claim women have made their assorted claims against him for mercenary reasons--but we can easily understand how the cost to them to mention his name was potentially high, right? There's a reason the judge in this case wanted the jury to remain anonymous and counseled against their coming forward for the sake of the story. 

I can't help but think of Christine Blasey Ford--who I hope by now has been able to settle and find peace, although she was targeted for abuse and made a threat-driven nomad for the sake of her telling her story regarding Brett Kavanaugh--and I still tend to believe her and am raw that he was not better vetted before being placed in such a position of responsibility. The thing I will always recall in high relief is that her own father seemed to have considered her a class traitor for telling her story. She was supported with faint damn, or maybe damned by faint support. I don't know. But my dad would have wanted to sock someone's nose the hell in for someone fucking with me, and O, the difference to me. 

When E. Jean Carroll talked about being part of the Silent Generation, or the idea of not screaming--it wasn't lost on me, a feminist of Generation X. I get why women don't report to this day, and why women don't scream--because rape is violence, and screaming makes it worse. Because the threat of violence suggests more violence can come your way--and that makes it worse. It doesn't matter what generation you are, you just need to know that sometimes, raising your voice in the moment doesn't help you--

But E. Jean Carroll raised her voice where it counted, and other women who had the experience of Trump's physical boundary breeching also found their voice. 

But as for Trump's political allies, they have decided to make very particular beds to lie in with respect to Trump. Marco Rubio and others simply scoff at the decision by a "New York jury" by which I will pretend I have no idea what they could so specifically mean. 

But I know full well what Republicans already think of women and rape, or women and their right to their bodies.  How can I be more aghast at the GOP than I've already ever been? 

Yeah, He's Pretty Much on the Nose

 

our dive into the social media accounts of Allen, TX killer Mauricio Garcia. online, Garcia shared content from far-right extremists. he also signed up for a major incel forum before the attack. me with @MichaelEHayden, @MeganSquire0, and rachel janik. https://t.co/efjAEXQtz5

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) May 9, 2023

So, like, this is me being on Twitter instead of having a healthy middle-aged lady social life, but I notice that Andy Ngo and folks of that nature like the proprietor of the Twitter bar where I hang out and drink and poast think that Garcia's bio is a little too on the nose. Like in "total false flag exactly proving all the shitlib points" kinds of on the nose. I don't know. I'm just saying, the SOB's massive Nazi tattoos really feel like a weird degree of commitment to a bit if the guy wasn't a whole Nazi admirer. 

I'm going with--this guy is a whole ass Nazi. Yep, also entirely buying the incel angle and the Libs of TikTok and Tim Pool follows. Not sure what the problem is--so, just asking questions:

Are the deplorables mad that a person who expresses admiration for Dr. Mengele is a mass killer because I have some seriously bad news for them about Dr. Mengele?

Are they mad he makes their movement look bad as in now we know what their movement is?

Were they kind of hoping it was supposed to be a mass murder attributable to a POC and therefore one they could pin on libs?

Are we supposed to believe Libs of TikTok, and for that matter, cats like Walsh and Knowles, aren't encouraging stochastic terrorism when people like this exist, who are willing to do horrific shit because of what they sopped up online? How much exposure, clicks and likes and homicidal-oriented followers, should equal legal exposure?

Remember when MTG thought Texiera was a whistleblower and not a whole ass Nazi also too? Why is she always up for defending Nazis? Inquiring minds want to know. 

I wish right wingers wouldn't leap to their own defense so quickly before they tried to figure out why their side keeps being these guys. 

UPDATE: You know, this is the kind of guy who was at the 1/6 insurrection.  I mean, this was the kind of guy.  Aaaaanndd the type of girl.

Are we still confused by what we are dealing with? 

Bleeding America

 

It comes out that the mass shooter at the Allen, TX outlet mall was a man named Mauricio Garcia, who was fascinated with right-wing politics and white supremacy, and wore a "Right Wing Death Squad" badge. So, cue up the right wing defenders of the faith, saying it's unpossible that a Hispanic man is also a white supremacist. Nick Fuentes and Enrique Tarrio and so on and so on aside.  Leave it to normie suburban Republicans to try and defend actual white supremacists by saying they wouldn't allow freaking mestizos in the country club. Why are our racists not more racist?  is quite the realization for the party that accepted Trump and birtherism and wanted Muslin bans and mass deportations. 

Of course, here at this blog, we've been aware of the love some right wingers have for Pinochet. And know very well why Garcia's politics might be swept under the rug. It doesn't fit the narrative that it's always and only mental illness, and Garcia also suffered from that.  

Just today, another incident in TX claimed lives without guns: an SUV rammed into a bus stop claiming eight lives and injuring multiple others. And it is both senseless and fraught with meaning--did someone decide that immigrants were just people who could be killed because it was politically determined to be fine? I mean, don't people plow into crowds and have other people deem it to be fine? They were only illegal aliens, after all. 

Look, I can be hard on Texas, but we have a violence problem throughout this country. Sure, it's a North Texas meteorologist who is on high alert because a six year old with a missing kitten might ***gasp*** ring his doorbell, for which he needs to be strapped and locked and loaded, but also, we just have trigger happy herpderps out here for non-being Texan reasons. 

Bleeding Texas

 

Mass Shootings in Texas
2023 Allen (9 dead)
2023 Cleveland (5 dead)
2022 Uvalde (22 dead)
2019 El Paso (23 dead)
2019 Odessa (8 dead)
2018 Santa Fe (10 dead)
2017 Sutherland Springs (27 dead)
2017 Plano (9 dead)
2015 Waco (9 dead)
2015 Houston (8 dead)
2009 Fort Hood (14 dead)

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 7, 2023

No, this is inadequate. Charles Whitman climbed the watchtower on the University of Texas campus in 1966 and the Luby Cafeteria shooting is infamous from 1991. This mass shooting thing in Texas is deep and makes the resolve of the elected officials there to just rely on "thoughts and prayers" to do anything at all while broadly supporting the NRA disgraceful. Of course, nice thoughts aren't fixing this. 

The culture is clearly fucked up. but the resort of fucked up people to utilize guns to manifest their fucked-upness is a critical problem. I don't want to criminalize folks just having guns, but figuring out who potential criminals are and not arming them would be great. 

I see people out there decrying the folks mocking "thoughts and prayers" as being spiteful about god. Nope, these people are critical of prayers being used hypocritically, to be seen on the street corner doing conspicuous prayer, while being in private doing conspicuously nothing at all. While real humans suffer.  Being shot in innocent surroundings. Sometimes dying, sometimes living with a forever affected life. 

Do you have thoughts and prayers for the permanently maimed and terrorized? Do you consider that survivors have trauma and feel different in public spaces, maybe for a lifetime? 

TWGB: Hoist on His Own Petard

 

He was indignant because he can't remember their anniversary. Also, his defense sounds like "Whatever she said happened didn't happen and also, she loved it" which is...disgusting. https://t.co/W3XPcG4hf4

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) May 5, 2023

The airing of Trump's belligerent and weird deposition should be required viewing for those who want an insight into who this once and possible future president is--he's fumbling between knowing what he did and wanting to plausibly disavow. He doesn't know who she is but their meeting can be proved. He can't remember groping or even raping her because maybe this is not rare? He "swooned her"--meaning she was supposed to be into it, when it didn't happen? She thought it was sexy when it never happened? 

The classic rapist line is supposed to be "You liked it. You wanted it." The rapist worldview skews towards the vindication of his penile misadventures.  After everything else, the idea that the victims liked it, that power or celebrity or stardom or privilege or however you want to put it, made the situation fine for some person to be violated by a person with social or financial leverage, is always disgusting. 

Trump is, for me, disgusting. Of course, as a many-times over identified sex pest, I find him appalling. As a mobbed-up money launderer for organized crime and foreign nationals, he's a national security nightmare. 

The Best Friends You Could Have

 

Yesterday's early news began with word that Clarence Thomas' good friend, Harlan Crow, paid for his nephew's $100K-plus tuition, and this was undisclosed (in the way the gifts of various trips and the real estate transaction regarding his mother's house, where she resides rent-free were undisclosed) and ended with news that he also obviously very good friend Leonard Leo arranged to make payments to his wife, Ginni, as a consultant via KellyAnne Conway as a cut-out, so as to keep the payment, uh, shall we say, hush?

Who in the world has such generous friends?

Thomas has his strong defenders and I've seen all the "whatabouts", but that so many of these transactions were sub rosa paints a less-than rosy picture--and shouldn't it?  They didn't want the appearance of impropriety, but Ginni and Clarence Thomas took the money nonetheless. 

I stared at the blank blog page wondering what I had to say about this, and I'm shocked anything needs to be. Thomas should be ready to resign, and if not, Senate Democrats should be ready to hold hearings and yes, even subpoena wealthy privileged people who don't want to show up if it comes down to that. 

All this time, we've seen Republicans go on the offensive even when they are holding trash cards. When Democrats have legitimate beef, I never hear sizzle. 

It gets tired. Put conservatives on the back foot. Get on them. It's the only damn way.

This Looks Really Fake to Me

 

Astonishing footage of last night's drone attack on the Kremlin pic.twitter.com/3rghCHdIed

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) May 3, 2023

This is definitely not an attack on Putin as in an assassination attempt.  I mean, look at the drone hitting the least little spire bit of that building that Putin doesn't even live in. If that was supposed to demonstrate anything about whether Putin has the means to protect himself from the Western weapons Zelenskyy has thus far amassed, this looks like, wow, Russia ain't shit at recognizing and stopping drones, really, because whoot, there they are! 

Do I think this is false flag? Ok, If so, it is stupid. It looks like Russia is so incompetent that wee little firework-enabled airborne gizmos can totally invade their airspace from Ukraine. Why would any competent military want to pretend they are helpless to defend the capitol city structures from literal children's toy-level technology? 

I would be offended if my government pretended this kind of thing, but I would be lying if I said I understood Russia propaganda networks and how battered their citizens' brains are to maybe think this is Ukraine doing this. Maybe they really would see the connection and believe Ukraine capable of this dumb drone thing. 

Maybe. 

But it looks fake. I mean damn dumb fake. Who are they trying to get over with this rubbish? I don't deny Putin is capable of pulling off some kind of stupid set up and this looks like one. Is this to get sympathy ahead of some push? Or the victory day parades? 

It just looks like some timely signifying to me, from the government that thought Ukraine would be a walk in the park,, and turned out to be a woodchipper for Russian conscripts.  I'm just saying. 

It Comes Down to Hurting Women

 

A Florida woman, unable to get an abortion in her state, carried to term a baby who had no kidneys. Her son died in her arms shortly after he was born, just as her doctors had predicted he would. https://t.co/f9kwtQ4dBH

— CNN (@CNN) May 3, 2023

The so-called "pro-life" movement isn't that at all. There was no good reason for her to carry this doomed child to this outcome--only a stubborn idea that being born is better than not, even when biology stubbornly also insists, sometimes--no. 

If we look at the snitching-based law in Texas that allows anyone to sue a person who obtains an abortion or aids and abets it--here's where we end up. The worst human ever gets to use this law to further abuse someone who certainly does not owe him offspring. The reality of what anti-abortion legislation is for becomes obvious. 

It's about control. It's about telling someone who is female-bodied they have no rights the state needs to respect. Women are shuttled from pillar to post as lawyers argue whether they are close enough to death to be given reproductive care. The law that says they can seek care to save their lives is disregarded for the sake of the anti-abortionists' imaginary fetal friends. 

We have states where women are told to wait even in a parking lot until they are close to death before they can seek care. 

The reality of their situation needs such careful documentation. Like once again, in Florida, where a rape victim needs a paper trail to prove her situation. Consider a minor child, a victim of incest. How easy is it for that person to document what happened to them? A person economically dependent on their rapist (a situation a groomer/abuser certainly tries to create). A person stalked, threatened with further violence based on their actions? 

There are people who can't easily demonstrate they are raped or even physically imperiled by their pregnancy until their situation is literally them--at death's door. And this is not where someone should be compelled by law to be for their care.  No one should be so compelled to save their own life, or negotiate the euthanasia of their own child, by way of a protracted argument in a biologically time-limited situation. We need to give this space to them. It should not be a debate.

Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown (Official Audio)

A real bard goes forth. The man did some classic lays, genuine remembrances passing into folklore. His songs have been covered and admired by the absolute greats he has shared this timeline with. He did really good.  Just beautiful poetic work.