Things You See on Twitter About Foreign Policy

 

I just screen capped a thing you can click to embiggen, which is pretty much the state of the stupid horseshoe fringe--Ann Coulter re-tweeting Max Blumenthal fluffing RFK Jr. because he's excoriating US policy supporting Ukraine's self-defense against the Russian invasion, because of course Kennedy is wrong because he's full of himself and of course Blumenthal is a useful idiot who spouts Russian propaganda anymore and Ann Coulter is, and always has been, an utter bitch. 

I used to wonder what happened to Max Blumenthal. Did he experience a conversion experience because he wanted in Rania Khalek's pants or WTF? I used to speculate. How do you hate Israel apartheid and also think maybe Bashar Al-Assad is misunderstood? He was a good journalist for a whole minute. But look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He used to be a credible-ish environmentalist. Now he's an anti-science crackpot who sucks up to the dictators of petrostates and basically has the worst opinions in existence. 

RFK Jr. talks in front of cultists who think maybe his cousin JFK Jr, is a five o'clock shadow dipshit with a porkpie hat who has no resemblance other than white and brown haired. This does not seem to faze him. 

I have never wondered what happened to Ann Coulter. Oh, no. I never, ever, ever have. She's her own thing, all daddy issues and GOP manly hero-worship aside. If she has a Putin fetish I would not wonder at it for a second. 

Anyway, Ann Coulter, Max Blumenthal, and RFK, Jr, and for what it's worth Dennis Kucinich, can all go autocopulate until they are desperately chafed. Their weird fringe "bold" controversial, contrarian opinions are only relevant to their wankery, not to anything happening in the actual world we live in, where Russia is trying to commit genocide and Ukraine is fighting against that because of course they are, and being a democratic nation that has some kind of morals, the US should oppose that. 

People who don't understand that basic calculus flunk my tolerance right now. If you don't know Russia is the bad guy and more than diplomacy is required (like making Russia bleed because bullies only know that language) you are wasting our time with wishful thinking. There is no negotiation that is not some degree of surrender, and a pass for future violence.  Fuck off Tinkerbells. Ask not for who I clap, it is not the entire fuck for you. Who have shitty opinions with no stake at all, at all. 

Ann Coulter Gets Paid for Her Political Opinions

I'm posting a screen print because she will delete it eventually, but in the Tweet, she tries to refute the information in @catturd2's Tweet by ALL-CAPS stating Tulsi Gabbard is a SENATOR.

Tulsi Gabbard is not a US Senator. Ann Coulter is...well, extremely Ann Coulter, because she surely doesn't come in any other flavor.

I missed blogging about the State of the Union

Missed President Obama's final #SOTU last night? Check out his full remarks. https://t.co/7KHp3EHK8D

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 13, 2016

I always do this--I find there's some major event to do political blogging about, blow it off for something more interesting like getting a decent night's sleep, and then find that I am blog-blocked until I get a few paragraphs about it out of the way. So here goes:

It was a good speech in that it was optimistic about what the US can achieve together as a nation. President Obama said it would be shorter than previous SOTU speeches, and I think it was, barely. I think expressing a commitment to investing in a cure for cancer is a an admirable goal, and putting VP Biden in charge of it is a great idea because he is a very motivated person of great capability. This kind of government pledge to start a "War on Cancer" had been previously declared by President Nixon, but I think the past four decades have given us more reason to be hopeful--take a look at the immunotherapy that has resulted in President Carter's cancer being undetectable.

I think one of the more positive things about the evening was that there wasn't a whole bunch of rebuttals--SC Governor Nikki Haley gave the Republican rebuttal and I think she did fine. It's not an easy act to follow, she was maybe a little stiff, but she didn't say anything weird, reach about for beverages, or wear a really distracting tie. For a position where the bar is "not screwing up"--she gets an A for not screwing up. She spoke in favor of the US being a welcoming and diverse nation and for civility in politics. It kind of astounds me that this was found objectionable by some far-right voices like Ann Coulter (who Tweeted that her Fatherland Figure Donald Trump should deport the Governor of SC--who was born here! Seriously?)

Conflicted about Ted Cruz

You know, I was all about to write a "poor Ted" piece about what a shame it is that folks as diverse as Sen. John McCain (who has no real love for "wacko birds")and Ann Coulter (the Electra of the Wronged Right who finally has found her Fatherland Figure) are now questioning Sen. Cruz's citizenship requirement to be President in the wake of Donald Trump playing a game of "just asking questions"--I was gonna, but wow:



Something about him makes even decency just a little difficult.

Where Does Trump Go from Here?

Donald Trump's campaign would like to deny that the candidate was mocking the disability of a reporter whose recollection of certain disputed events differs from the candidate's own recollection. The campaign would prefer that one believe that the candidate does not know what the journalist in question looks like.

Oh, really? Because the exact words out of Trump's mouth before he scrunched up his right arm were:

“Now the poor guy, you ought to see the guy,” he said as he gestured, drawing condemnation from the Times and disability advocates.

Right. You ought to see the guy, like Trump knows what he looks like, and in case you don't...?

Tacky. But this is an interesting thing--why did Trump single out this reporter's disability? To discredit him. Why use this to discredit him? Because in Trump's mind, any weakness is to be exploited. Naturally. Of course the disabled guy's reporting is faulty. In the Trump regime, don't actually expect that weakness will be suffered or cozened. Actually, expect that if you have weakness, you are suspected of trying to weaken the entire corpus Americanus. There won't really even be a place for charity towards the ill.

What the hell does that sound like? See, when I hear "Make America Great"--in part I hear, "Make Americans Pure". And that purity might not entail someone you know.

Trump doesn't need "sensitivity training". He isn't being chided for being less than politically correct. He knows who the hell that reporter is, and he mocked him like a child who knows no better might mock someone before being advised that he lives in a world with a lot of other people of varying strengths all of whom have value. But he is not a child. And he shouldn't have to be taught like one.

Ann Coulter's Next-level Schtick

THIS Pope's philosophy of worshiping the poor, blaming the rich leads to Latin American poverty. American Catholicism leads to success.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 23, 2015



There's something that hovers in the vicinity of endearing about the desperate note with which Ann Coulter begs for relevance these days. At the top of her form, she overcompensated for the weakness of her arguments with a kind of bravado that double-dog-dared motherfuckers to search her footnotes. Search those goddamn citations. Read the damn footnotes. We gonna take scalps and make a fucker say "Republican Jesus". The creepy undertone existed, of course, but people could sort of ignore it.

And it feels like it's harder to do that, anymore.

Sure, I've been noticing her decline for a little while. But in the Age of Trump, she's become more grating and less fey about her extremism/or performance art of same.

A rigorous read of Latin American history might make one skeptical of the relative benefits of Catholicism in several instances. But the neo-colonialism of the industrial revolution that wrought the worst of the income inequality issue was driven by a purely WASP Puritan work ethic. Which is why the "Electra of the Right Wing Father Figure Perpetually Betrayed who tried to resurrect McCarthy with her dry-ass reptile tears"' hero Ronaldus Magnus and his Volken supported every nun-and baby-killer right-wing fascist Latin America ever had--to keep the spice flowing.

I feel her pain. I do. But it doesn't affect me with other than a kind of cheerleading glee for her to take her philosophy, finally detached from any umbilicus of reason, and spike it across the ultimate endzone and at last, go ahead and go full-frontal-fascist. Not because I never saw it coming.  Because of the slackjaws who thought she was okay and never saw it coming. Because it was never not there to begin with.

Her Tweet is the philosophy that killed Father Romero. Her ignorance is beyond lampoon. The irony of her performance escapes the right-wing audience she's always performed for. It only makes a kind of sense to us lefties. And the worst kind. But no, Ann. I understand.

Ann Coulter Would Make Susan B. Anthony Gag

Ann Coulter has been visible lately, so I guess she has another book out. Her style has always been kind of appalling to me in the sense that she's like a toddler who has learned the word "fuck" and is completely delighted when people gasp at the things she says. She is encouraged by negative attention--it's all good. So if she says that fat girls shouldn't be allowed to immigrate to the US (I'm not persuaded she was joking about that) or that disabled people should not be able to become US citizens, it's a little hard to separate her toddler-like delight in receiving gasps from the serious people from her honest views (if she has any), but I really despise her when she says things like women's voting rights should be taken away.

That isn't even funny. Arguing for the disenfranchisement of just a hair over half of the eligible voting pool--all of them citizens in good standing, people obliged to pay taxes, serve on juries, and observe the various laws of the land, is nonsensical--but it certainly isn't funny. Women marched, starved, put their bodies on the line, for the right to have a say in politics. That obnoxious elitist Coulter can indicate that its quite alright for token ladies to run for office, or for some ladies to write books (of the most edifying and moral nature, I'm sure!) isn't even connected to reality. What she is fiddling with in saying women should be locked out of the vote, is what Susan B. Anthony articulated best--issues of our very citizenship and personhood.

She appalls (well, me, obviously) with her facile, show-offy, disingenuous, superficial, highly partisan bullshit. And as she gets older and more desperate for attention, she only becomes more disturbingly provocative. Is this working for her, somehow, still?

Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh--OFFS

Honestly, some days I wonder how we'll explain these people to future generations. Because I'm pretty sure somebody is surely going to ask what the hell was that all about.
At best, I'd have to say they were about conservative identity politics to the bitter end, where ultimately, the only truth was that which served their version of conservatism, the only good people to them were people who served that cause, and that any demonstrable fact or contervailing opinion that undermined their version of conservatism was to be destroyed. Also, sometimes they failed to recall their own words, even the really gutless intellectually devoid lying ones, in order to support one of their very own.

I find that I have a real intolerance for one thing--intolerance. If people of color, people of differing religious viewpoints (like Islam in the US--or like atheism, nearly everywhere) LGBT*QA people, etc. are maligned, I feel like I need to go stand with them. When I see people like Limbaugh and Coulter go wrap themselves up in Hermain Cain as a matter of race, I see red. Where are they for any other person of color?  And where do Mr. Feminazi and Ms. Phyllis Schlafly Jr. stand regarding the rights of women to not be seen as sexual objects in the workplace? Are they saying it's okay if it were Bill Clinton and Paula Jones? (If it were.  Not that I say it were...but hypothetically?)

I'm sorry, Rush, Ann....but we know you. And really. Stop reminding us of what we already know.