article on NYTIMES
Have you ever wondered: What do mega-rich Republican Captains of Industry who are not elected officials actually do these days? Do they build libraries like Robber Barons of the past? AS IF. No one should have nice things that they didn’t personally buy. Rather, they are rescuing us from the tyranny of public libraries.
Are they using their vast wealth and love of God to spread the word that greenhouse gases is tantamount to wanting to “kill about 5.7 billion people”? Nay, they are making up words about the industrial revolution, driven by coal and petroleum, made population growth and economic development possible, how exploitation of fossil fuels is a miracle, enabling transnational markets for food, widespread travel and education, heavier-than-air flight, full-time employment for left-wing commentators, and even the abolition of slavery.
Are they investing in the next generation by investing in our public schools? Ho-ho. They are making up words about how if your kids learn history in the Government Schools, they will be indoctrinated in the Marxist belief that the Industrial Revolution resulted from some confluence of economic and technological developments, and where the secular student might read about the “Gilded Age” as a time of great wealth and privilege for some, and exploitation and tainted meat* for most?
Do they go to weird gatherings of a “Secret Society” (rich people code for “club ludicrously wealthy dudes use to try to fill the gaping hole where their humanity is supposed to be), to plot against democracy and talk up their plans for the apocalypse (do you buy the converted missile silo and spend a billion dollars on upgrades? or do you buy a huge tract of land in some remote New Zealand wilderness, and work on a contingency plan to keep your servants from murdering you and taking over after the collapse of civilization?).
At these weird gatherings, do they callously hunt for sport as part some sort of specially imported endangered species, like the world’s most adorable emperor penguin, or a pregnant panda that knew the cure for lymphoma with armor-piercing bullets until they are dead?
At these weird gatherings, are they jazzing over solid gold idols of John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan, successful entrepreneurs who, they believe, in their drive to increase their own wealth, brought manifold benefits to others and helped to provide the world with much-needed commodities to help create better, safer, and more enjoyable living conditions for mankind, or at least, those members of mankind who didn’t develop black lung disease or get their arms ripped off by machinery?
Or, more practically, do they convene at weird gatherings to strategize on how to squeeze ever more money out of the taxpayers (that’s us), via the government they now own lock, stock, and lying, treasonous, reactionary barrel, from John Roberts to Mitch McConnell to nutso fat Donald, that creature from Hell, and all points between?
Yes, this is what they are doing.
For forty years, more or less, these fat white penis -Americans felt obliged to come up with a whole genre of Bullshit Financial Fan Fiction to justify their attack on democratic governance and their insatiable hunger for public money. Trickle down works! A rising tide lifts all boats! I never heard of a poor man creating jobs! This swill swarmed across the front pages of America’s great newspapers and billowed into the studios of network and cable news and spewed out, largely unchallenged, for decades: blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, ya. It’s years since even they believed any of it, although to be sure, the Koch people keep argue bargling the words and stuff: but then, they have a huge grift machine fueled by articles and white papers and chairmanships of economics departments and economists who regularly appear on PBS, they can’t help themselves, they don’t know how to stop.
* Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, aka a “socialist writer” who “charged America’s industries with being ‘oppressors’ of common workers.”
Who else is sick and tired of hearing about the holy family farm? How did a job most often acquired by birthright become some national symbol of meritocracy? Almost every farmer I know inherited their farm. The great majority of American agriculture is controlled by large corporations. This welfare is going to them.
Remember when Republicans lost their fucking minds when Obama bailed out the Detroit auto makers? Never mind that that was caused by a world wide recession, not a self inflicted policy. Never mind that all but 9.7 billion was recouped by the government- less than the 12 billion we’re about to shell out (and we’ll never see a penny of it back). Never mind that we were talking about over a quarter million GM and Chrysler direct employees, a million or more other parts supplier employees and millions more in related industries vs about 100,000 soy bean farmers. Republicans still to this day HATED that bailout.
The key difference is obvious- those helped by the auto bailout were mostly blah people, union thugs and libtards. The people helped by Trump’s bean bailout will be white Trump voters, so this is different. Suddenly it’s OK when the government is picking winners and losers and getting in the way of free markets.
The Republican Party: A choice between double standards or none at all.
I have’t blogged anything since March, and probably would never have again. Then I watched Donald Trump stand next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the official sponsor of the White House reality show, glibly debate America and its institution in exchange for a soccer ball.
I feel like I say this a lot, and with varying degrees of hyperbole during these dark days, but WHAT IN THE HOLY MOTHERFUCKING FUCK DID WE WATCH? And how in the hell can anyone who claims to give a shit about this country be OK with what surely is, the final breath of our Republic? Could the original pee tape be more disgusting than what we watched?
The trained KGB spy and the fat, yapping dipshit who binge eats KFC and doesn’t like reading intelligence briefings were not even trying to hide it. You would think they could pantomime slap each other around a bit–all in good fun–to make it look like something other than a craven surrender on Trump’s part. Get a stuntman, if you have to. The only impressive thing about this presser was how Trump was able to speak despite having Putin’s load in his mouth (was I the only one who caught President Twitterfarts saying, “I speak for Russia”? Did I hallucinate it? Because I wrote it down as soon as I heard it).
Only one journalist had to be bum-rushed to the door, as the president* talked about the goddamn Electoral College and how the Mueller probe is bringing us closer to nuclear war, while Vladimir Putin’s face seemed about ready to explode with delight. On the bright side, Putin gave Trump a soccer ball that probably has a listening device in it. That’s pretty cool, right?
Meanwhile, congressional republicans were meeting in Moscow on the 4th of July with Putin’s top men and The Beltway Media treated it as perfectly normal.
They hacked the DNC. This all began with a cyber-Watergate. Any GOP lawmaker who does not denounce the shambolic, humiliating, treasonous performance we just saw from Donnie Dementia is tacitly admitting that they are disloyal to the United States of America. Something like this should be followed by government-wide mass resignations. It won’t be, though, because nobody wants to give up their Obamacare.
This meeting came on the heels of the most disastrously embarrassing performances in the UK since Mitt Romney, where Trumps did his damnedest to damage America’s traditional alliances. Of course, that’s what Putin wants, so it’s probably a mission accomplished moment for the president. Trump shambled around the UK, making fart noises at America’s foes in the EU, and shit all over our traditional enemy, the United Kingdom. When he was with the Queen and walked past her and then ahead of her, like a goddamn lunatic. Not even once did he acknowledge that she was there or might have needed an arm…it was as if he were imagining that he was the KING and those were his little toy soldiers who were there to pay homage to his gloriousness.
To be honest, Republicans likely had no expectations of Trump behaving like a normal person from either party and expressing even mild annoyance that Russia, under Putin’s direction, had hacked the DNC during the 2016 campaign — as well as probing the election vendors and voter rolls of an unknown number of states. This was probably why Rand Paul, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” argued that all countries “meddle” in foreign elections. Yeah, it’s not just the kleptocratic, authoritarian regime: We’re just a bunch of snoopy Gladys Kravitzes!
Trump, a so-called “businessman at heart”, ranks “taking advantage” of the US in trade above attacking the very heart of our democracy. I don’t know why he’s so hacked off about countries in NATO not “paying their bills” when Trump’s notorious for stiffing people.You’d think they’d bond over their mutual assured deadbeat-ness. This all leaves Trump’s fellow Republicans scrambling to rationalize the president’s soft spot for a major geopolitical opponent that did more to us recently than Britain ever did, even when it inflicted Piers Morgan upon us.
Donald’s right about one thing, he didn’t directly collude with the Russians as he’s too fucking stupid, and the Russians know this. Rather Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopolus, Donad Jr, Wilber Ross, Erik Prince, Michael Cohen, Jared Kushner, and many others did on his behalf.Last Friday, special counsel Mueller indicted 12 Russian officers of the GRU, also known as Russian military intelligence, for alleged election hacking offenses. President Putin of course personally ordered that operation, as well as the poisoning attacks in the UK, a thing that’s been happening. Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said out loud that the lights are “blinking red” on incoming Russian cyberattacks on the upcoming midterms, and just on America in general. He compared it to the warning signs our intel community got before 9/11, you know, the ones that were ignored. So of course, Donald Trump had to have his little All By Myself meeting with Putin, who is probably literally his handler.
I am starting to admire the Russian’s approach overall. Seriously. Which party do you infiltrate? Which organization? Not the party that is constantly having its patriotism questioned, not the organization that is accused of undermining the rule of law. No – not the Democratic party or the ACLU: The Republican party and the NRA. Stupid Americans will never see it coming. The NRA is a weapons selling organization. One of Russia’s only two real exports is weapons. There was no real infiltration needed there. I mean, the GOP’s White Evangelical base have been Putin puppets since at least 2012. They love his crackdown on the wheys and he embodies the virile, muscular leader thing they claim Jesus was. This is an outgrowth of the bog standard racism and hate of the base. No GOPer pol is going to cross the Tea Party crazies unless they want to get primaried by an even nuttier candidate from further right. Also no real infiltration needed. Both groups voluntarily walked into Putin’s embrace. The propaganda network was already in place. It was only necessary to subvert it.
It’s oddly, bitterly instructive: when Russia was formally communist, it was, in many dimensions, less dangerous to its neighbours. Sure, if mostly because the rest of the world were more on their guard. The trouble with Putin’s kleptocracy is, in a world in which money and information flow easily, they _have_ money (or enough to get some pretty good leverage over the for sale, post-madcap looting of the former state, notwithstanding their now generally flatlined economy), and they’re accomplished exporters of misinformation…
They know the game. The lunatic right wing worldwide is pretty much the same easy mark, the same ready fifth column, Italy to Alaska. Talk their talk, stoke their fears, join them in the same wedges: scary Islamists, scary immigrants, dirty gays, slutty, county women, the wrong kind of internationalism will kill us all (they’re fine with the kind where the rich move filthy money around without ramifications, and at the expense of everyone else, less so with actually beneficial trade or cultural exchange). Marry up the flag and Christian chauvinism, whether Orthodox or evangelical, play to white nationalism, boom, you gots yourselves some ready and willing allies, ready to lick the boot of the strongman.
The seeds for that propaganda network can be traced all the way back to Nixon, thanks to his PR man Roger Ailes who waited patiently until Nixon killed the Fairness Doctrine and got Murdoch money to create his own “Republican CNN” right smack-dab in the middle between the ’94 Gingrich backlash and Monicagate. Monicagate begat Shrub. Fox dials up the crazy after 9/11 and thumps the drums of war. A breathless America elects Obama to clean up Shrub’s mess, so Fox dials up the crazy to unbearable levels and we get the Tea Party. They continue delegitimizing and dehumanizing Bamz and Hillary for the next six years. They infiltrated naive progressives and pounded their message into their unformed brains. Until, finally, Fox begat Trump. The GOP has been cultivating media as propaganda for a fascist coup for at least 50 years. Fabian fascism, the Business Plot and Powell Memo made flesh. Russia by way of the new media outlets Facebook and Twitter put them over the top!
Sad/Hilarious story on Buzzed bout how a bunch of the underlings who work at White House fucking hate it there and are looking for new jobs, but they can’t get new jobs, not even at Sizzler or Wetzel’s in the airport, because nobody wants to hire somebody who worked at the trashy grifty failed Trump White House. Perhaps they should claim they were serving jail time, instead of putting Trump Administration on their resume? It sounds classier and they’d probably have a better chance of getting hired.
Tell us how bad it is, “former White House official”:
“Things are still pretty bleak inside the White House,” the source said. “I’ve talked to several people in the last week trying to find a way out, but they can’t get out because no one is really hiring people with Trump White House experience. Not a fun time to say the least.”
It used to be that no decent, self-respecting person wanted to work in the Trump Administration. Now he can’t even keep the crooks in there. Sad!
So-called “conservative women” need to reject the 170 years of women asking for autonomy, from the Seneca Falls convention, until today.
Because the women who organized Seneca Falls were not “conservative”. Because the women who attended Seneca Falls were not conservative. Because Lucretia Mott, a Quaker, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, social reformer and brilliant orator was not a “conservative”. Because the suffragettes were not conservative
Not voting, not getting involved in anything outside of their home, only doing what their husbands told them to do, is what conservative women did. Voting, organizing, protesting, having a job and not handing your paycheck over to your husband, being able to get a credit card without your husband’s approval, those are all liberal/feminist plots that radically changed what is defined as acceptable. If you truly want to be conservative, please reject the last 170 of years of feminism.
Stop voting, stop caring about your gynecologic health, stop having a life outside of your husband and family, and please quit talking about how you are conservative. You are not. You are opportunistic, taking advantage of the work of liberals/feminists for your personal gain
FACT: Feminists are pro-choice. Whether or not for themselves — they do not tell other women what to do with their bodies. Feminists are smart! They understand that abortions happen whether they’re legal or not. And the causal effect of illegalizing abortion is rich women traveling somewhere it’s legal and having it done safely, and poor women turning to less safe measures. Personally, I don’t believe you can be a feminist if you support something in effect being legal for rich women and illegal for poor women. If you sincerely want to reduce the incidence of abortion, try advocating for things that actually help with that, like making sure all women have access to birth control. Isn’t it better to do what actually works? Conservative women do not think so!
ALSO FACT: It’s not anti-male to discuss the ways men kind of have it easier in our society. Acknowledging that makes you a person who pays attention to things, not a person who doesn’t like men! When I was 9, we moved to a new house in a new neighborhood. My brother and I were offered to tag along with the neighborhood boys down in the woods where there was a cool tire swing that swung over a little creek. When it was my turn, I was passed over. When I grabbed the rope one of the boys said “Oh, are you one of those feminists?” Confused, I later asked my dad what a feminist was and if I was one? He told me to think about how I walk into situations expecting to be treated the same as everyone else. And that that made me a feminist. So naturally I was very confused when the media – this was the 1970’s – kept trying to paint feminists out to be strange, man-hating psychopaths. We just wanted to be treated the same!
Declaring oneself not-a-feminist means assuming the rights and privileges thereto while simultaneously pandering to the forces that would deny those same rights and privileges.
Conservative women I know love to talk about how they look at themselves as products of their choices, not victims of their circumstances. And who gave these righteous ladies the opportunity to make those choices? They act as if the choices they had have always been there and were always accessible to women when the truth is that many, many, many women who came before them fought and struggled hard to make those opportunities exist. Assuming that choices are part of nature’s abundance, like low-hanging fruit. (Okay, not a very succinct analogy, but I’m a woman and therefore mentally limited.)
I hate this choices/circumstances thing so very much. First, because it takes for granted that the particular choices are available to all women, when we know they aren’t – and one doesn’t even have to be all worked up about “identity politics” to know that. And second, because it so totally demeans any analysis of any of the barriers to having those choices, sexism among them. And racism doesn’t exist, either. STOP COMPLAINING LADY LIBTARDS!!!
She spent the better part of her career trying to out sexy everybody else. Then it all came crashing down on the national stage at the NBA all star game.
Every American wants the same thing from the pre-game national anthem. Clear, in-tune, over quickly. No frills, no off-script, no warbling. On-and-out and onto the main event as quickly as possible. We want the song portion of the sporting event out of the way. If we had to have any anthem on Monday night, we wanted Whitney Houston’s Super Bowl performance, ten days the US commenced the first major military action of the post-terrorism age. Whitney stood on the 50-yard line in a casual white tracksuit with red and blue stripes and sneakers, her natural curls pulled back in a wide headband, looking more like an Olympic athlete than a bonafide pop star. It was soulful, supremely confident, and rousing. As she hit the final climactic high note—an E-flat above middle C—on the word “free,” four F-16 fighter jets performed a ceremonial fly-by in the skies above. In a shitty moment for our country and the world, It was a moment of unforgettable drama and pride.
Onto Sunday’s All–Star game, and another tense and horrific period in American life. Less than one week after one of deadliest school shootings in modern American history. One year into a presidency of a monstrous Horror Klown – certainly the most grievous blow that the American Idea has suffered in my lifetime – who has publicly said about (primarily) Afrian American pro athletes:
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired!’”
It is February, 2o18, and we are intertwined with desolation and decay. Children are being slaughtered in school. Racism has run amok, seeping into even the holiest corners of American life (sports). To paraphrase Trump’s famous campaign appeal to African American voters: With their lives and communities in such ruin, what the hell did they have to lose? Basically, his past week, in its slow-motion calamity, is what becomes of the bitterness and dull horror of American life. in a time of. We are looking for any sign of relief from society’s imminent collapse, that those of us unprepared for our post-apocalyptic future are destined to die alone in the street
Fergie had a momentous opportunity.And she decided to go back to the sexy well.
She couldn’t just sign it. No, of course not. She had to go there. She had to inject the stupid anthem nobody wants to sit through with strange inflections, a growly baby voice, and bizarre vocal gymnastics, dragging it out and creepily trying to seduce America with the war song. A strange and sad app tempt at achieving Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to JFK status. Just a total misfire in conception and execution.
Cold War Olympic gold medalists skating for the USSR, Natalia Bestemianova & Andre Bukin brought it at the 1995 Legends Pro Figure Skating Competition. Bukin is of course Rasputin; it seems Natalia plays Tsarevich Alexei. It really has it all, from crucifixes to mortar fire to hemophilia, gunshots and the re-enactment of the revolution (the execution of the Romanovs? No Canadian 50 Shades of Moulin Rouge/Roxanne for these two!
What was up with all the pearl clutching about the siblings? They are athletes like everybody else. I guess I missed the part about ice dancing being, not an athletic event, but a live sex show.
At this year’s ice dancing final in the Olympics, the lyrical, elegant French team, Papadakis and Cizeron, danced to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, while tacky Canadians Moir and Virtue gyrated and gesticulated to The Police pop hit about a prostitute. Even The Canadian Press was scandalized by the couple’s bawdy moves. Ultimately, nobody cares. We’re all soulless and brain dead from too much hyped up sex and sensationalism. The 5o Shades of ice dancing won the gold. Even the Olympics has turned to cheesy porn maneuvers in the hunt for GOLD.
