Thursday, October 17, 2024

TWGB: Fox and the Sour Grapes

 


What would you call the shade Trump painted himself for this? Terror Cotta? The "enemy within"--which Trump has suggested siccing the military on, includes (Democratic) US Congress members. It probably also includes former GOP US Congress members like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. It likely includes certain former White House personnel--his own former White House. IT includes people like Gen. Mark Milley.  And this "enemies list" is not about people who lied about him--oh no. They did something far worse.

They told the truth.  Trump has never been a fan of transparency--even though we can see through him. Russian interference was real and the Trump campaign had multiple Russian contacts, and the perfect phone call wasn't perfect. It was extortionate

So, how does Fox News, who was sued by Dominion not so long ago and settled for a really amazing amount of money for lying about the 2020 election, in the person of one Brett Baier, presumed serious interviewer, use this information--that Trump considers various prominent American public servants fair game for being rounded up by the military and punished for being the "enemy within"? 

He whitewashes it to try and make the Democratic 2024 Presidential candidate look like she's being extra. 

No, really. 

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Here's a Bit of History

 


This is the first president whose inauguration I can remember. Now, if you know my age, you might think that is improbable, but 1976 was a big year in Philadelphia with the Bicentennial and all. And I guess I imbibed political sensibility a bit from my mom. In 1977 I had a turntable, a Kiss album alongside my Sesame Street records and was a fan of Happy Days and watched some documentary about the 25th anniversary of rock and roll on PBS about a dozen times, it felt like. 

I remember the 1970s. I was already me by the time I was a toddler cleaning up shot glasses after parties (the taste of blackberry brandy and the sound of Steppenwolf) and listening to the Midnight Special. when I definitely wasn't supposed to still be awake and turning on the sole tv in the house and was lifting cold pizza out of the fridge. Mom finding me zonked on the floor with the farm report or Chief Halftown on in the morning.

He reminded me of Mr. Rogers then, and that was all right by me. He still does, and I don't have a greater compliment. He cares, and he acts on his sense of caring. It's the best thing you can say anyone ever does. 

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

TWGB: Occupied America

 

Trump seems to be closing in on the finish line by wallowing in increasingly "blood and soil" fascist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, so I want to point out that there is a kind of irony that he wants to pretend there is an "occupied America." This depends upon a Pizzagate-level bit of idiocy--that a whole town could be occupied by a gang and it wouldn't be front-page news. Just like there could supposedly be a rash of pet-murders and it wouldn't be a major thing if it were actually true. And just like the mayor of Springfield had to come out and debunk Trump/Vance lies, the mayor of Aurora had to do the same. 

"Occupation" is an interesting term. I can think of, for example, the Bundy ranch militia occupation, which had checkpoints and everything. But you know what I really think about? MAGA occupation of the public sphere in terroristic ways. Like way FEMA operations in North Carolina were recently disrupted by a local RW militia. One man has since been arrested

You want to know who has also been threatened? Meteorologists. That's insane. But they are getting threats for talking about climate change. As opposed to, I guess, talking about weather machines in the possession of Zionist Communist multi billionaires, or whatever the stupid conspiracy theory is today. 

You could well ask, as former President Obama thoughtfully asked--"When did this become okay?" This is certainly not how it used to be. We didn't, for example, think of a riot at the Capitol as Speaker Mike Johnson recently stupidly put it, part of the election process. Maybe we could have once counted on responsible adults calling out Italian satellites, Venezuelan voting machines, German servers, Chinese thermostats and the like as being deadass stupid. 

Monday, October 14, 2024

TWGB: Burning of Babylon

 


The whore of Babylon. You see, I take this personally. The Rod of Iron Ministries is a cult that descends from Reverend Moon, and loves guns, and I guess loves Trump? But where you see "Whore of Babylon" here--see also "Jezebel Spirit" elsewhere--like in the church of Lance Wallnau where weasel-human hybrid JD Vance briefly rallied. Where people spoke from the pulpit to proclaim Kamala Harris was using witchcraft to appear to be a competent leader. 

What if, though, female humans had the same entire mental capacity for leadership? Like Deborah and Judith? They could be intelligent and accomplished. They were better than the men around them. You say "any prophet" and I say Rahab. 

And the walls came tumbling down--very selectively. So much for your "Jericho marches". 

I have spoken of how I think "Fight Fight Fight" is just a desire to see carnage acted out by a deranged mind. But many people following Trump seem to be self-deranging. And are looking at him as a kind of Messiah figure. The casino bankrupt pussy-grabbing guy. Like his redemption redeems something else. 

Sunday, October 13, 2024

JD Vance is a Bother of a Father

 

Knock some sense into his kids?

My parents are from good old working-class stock with fathers that worked in manufacturing. My dad climbed utility poles, and my mom very briefly was a nurse before she had me. Maybe they got whupped themselves occasionally growing up, but that wasn't even their regular reality. And they never, not ever, whupped me or my brother. We learned sense from my parents because they demonstrated sense. They taught us how to ask questions respectfully and when to stay quiet and learn with our eyes. They asked us what we thought when we were wrong so they understood how to help us get right. 

JD Vance has a lot to say about who should have kids. Man, it isn't like my brother and me are fucked up if we never had them--I think it would be worse if we had kids and somehow didn't recognize we were fucking them up because of some extremely unfortunate hang-ups. 

Saturday, October 12, 2024

This Man Wants People to Be Killed

 


Trump is calling migrant people murderers, rapists, deadbeats, everything but a child of God. He's going harder than he has before on his ethnic cleansing plan. He's associating people of color with low IQ and cultural incompatibility, and insists every one of them is a danger and a failure of a permissive immigration system. 

They--taxpayers and members of the communities they live in, are hogging up your services, he implies. I don't know about you, but I don't go to the hospital unless I need it. Health care in this country isn't free. I assume anyone taking up a hospital bed is actually sick and not looking for some luxury treatment--that is stupid. I believe all children should have access to education, and I truly argue that this can't get your kid into a school thing is actually mindbogglingly stupid. 

Of course you can. Maybe public schools are strained, but they exist, and they take your kid. And migrants are paying taxes, so let's do something about funding public schools better.

Trump doesn't know anything about that real-life situation because he never lived a life where his kids went to public school. When Obama talked about this man never changing a diaper--he is expressing something about the out-of- touch unreality Trump has ALWAYS lived in. Has he bought a loaf of bread in a store? Does this idiot really think people who don't speak English are dangerous? 

This man is talking about revoking birthright citizenship and rounding up all kinds of people to get deported. Even people determined to be here legally before. This is no joke to me--my husband of 22 years is the son of two green-card holders. He was born here. But for political reasons? I mean--he's married to me.

Ae we back to the late 19th century or early 20th asking ourselves who is White enough to be here? What about Italians? What about the Irish? What about Slavs? What about the Jews Trump thinks are the bad kind who have lost their minds and don't support him? 

Friday, October 11, 2024

What Real Strength Looks Like

 


Former President Barack Obama gave a hell of a speech campaigning in Pennsylvania for Harris/Walz and Senator Bob Casey today. and there were some things that really struck me. For one thing, he did address that Trump's pretend wonderful economy was the one that Obama and Biden rescued from the collapse in 2008. 

 How would we say it? Oh, right. Trump didn't build that. He didn't build the wall, he didn't end "American Carnage" and his fumbling foreign policy he gave to "read 25 whole books" son-in-law Jared Kushner obviously didn't hold. And he certainly can't be considered some economic stable genius when he gave us double digit unemployment and deliberately made the stock market about himself. 

This man Tweeted to manipulate the market. I swear I am not making this up. That's crazypants, but it's some shit he did. He has also used his "bully pulpit" to try and antagonize corporations--especially media corporations, that have disagreed with him. 

You know, like his beef with CBS over his weird paranoic ideas about the 60 Minutes interview with VP Harris.. 

But more than Trump's basic and obvious incompetence, which his followers refuse to see, is his entire lack of character, which should be obvious to them, and they dismiss. In my mind, part of the dismissal of Trump's badness comes from the phrase "Orange Man Bad." It's dismissive of everything. You hate Trump because he wears bronzer and is a jerk, therefore, I don't care whether um--

He really is actually bad?  Because that is just stupid. It should matter to you whether the guy is basically competent (increasingly questionable every day) or has ever given a good goddamn for anyone but himself. Where, literally, WHERE! do you see him doing this? Where is his much-vaunted competence? Where is his supposed heaven-sent genius rescuing anyone's ass? 

TWGB: Fox and the Sour Grapes

  Media needs to play this clip for GOP candidates and say NOW YOU HAVE HEARD IT--and get them to respond. Because he is using people's...