“It's the most wonderful time of the year…” And what could be more heartwarming and chock full of the seasonal spirit than a Christmas greeting from that perennial spreader of yuletide joy, Donald Trump? This is, after all, the Xmas savior who made it possible for Americans to once again...
Fail
When former child protégé the late Billy Preston, affectionately known as the fifth Beatle, released Nothing from Nothing (leaves nothing) in 1974, it instantly became my theme song. As I have gotten older, my sensitivity, as well as my passion for politics, has grown. As a result, Billy Preston’s composition...
If you haven’t seen Netflix’s Squid Game yet—well, what are you waiting for? If anything is a parable for our time, this is it. Too often meteoric cultural phenomena that purport to capture the zeitgeist fail to capture my interest, but this one is different. If you believe, as I...
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words, terrorism? 9/11? ISIS? The Taliban? While these examples are certainly just, they don’t always represent terrorism in its entirety. Dan Brown said, “History is always written by the winners”. Stereotypes and generalizations often cause the public...
Schumer Says White House Talks with GOP on Infrastructure Hit ‘a Brick Wall’. Politico reported: Bipartisan infrastructure talks between President Joe Biden and GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito are over, according to an administration official. The president will now focus on working with a bipartisan group of 20 senators. Biden...
Several hundred million pounds of the UK Treasury may get allocated to a new, replacement yacht for the Queen, likely to be used more by Prince Chuck. Because that’s where national wealth should go. Most of the announcements have resembled Trumpist PR for Space Force. The "national flagship" announcement has no...
MFP is neologisms that get sticky. Cheugy is the latest, being a term that Generation Z calls Millennials, perhaps it’s the revival of more postmodernism. Generation Z consumer-brand attacks on Millennials consumption habits may be all that Gheugy is about. Proud Boys and their golf polos may be Cheugy, if only...
Fail: REALITY BITES: That didn’t take long. Reality TV star and political neophyte Caitlyn Jenner was about 24 hours into the rollout of her California gubernatorial campaign this weekend when she posted her first major campaign gaffe on social media. Jenner, expressing outrage about a San Francisco Chronicle story involving SF DA Chesa...
I was raised Lutheran i.e. by the doctrine of Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Sola Scriptura. The only part of which spoke to me was that my neighbour needed more of my “good” deeds than god, being omnipotent that made sense, the rest not so much. I was aware of...
After all the excitement surrounding the launch of Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell’s Frank Speech vanity project, things appear to have died down quickly. Earlier in the week, the site at least featured the collected works of the biggest ‘lection loons in the U.S., and there appeared to be a sign-up screen...
Apparently the spree killer in Indianapolis was also a “Brony”, a follower of My Little Pony as reported by the Wall Street Journal. We are in our pandemic (l)anguish, even more confused by a sad shape for online culture. Not unlike the infantile imagery used by Boogaloo Boys, racism and sexism filter into...
Is US progressive politics, especially in cultural issues, incapable of attracting majority support. Not so much in terms of the usual self-fulfilling marginalization, but there are absolute limits to the mutability of moderate ideologies in order to build working majorities. In these conditions, it seems almost certain that tit-for-tat will...
The future of a delusion: barrel-time coming soon for previous guy, among others, as there will be more revelations about Florida sex-trafficking and the GOP. ”You and me ain’t nothing but animals…” Discovery in the Zervos case could unearth the Apprentice tapes held by Mark Burnett that Trump tried desperately to...
So much thick-headed media activity this past week. OTOH Chuck Todd panders to the center again, or perhaps it's the college drop-out demographic. x A @MeetThePress fail today: talking about anti-Asian violence and racism – without any Asians on the panel. I can’t imagine MTP having a discussion about anti-Black...
Jason “Plan B in your Smoothie” Miller tried to pimp Trump’s anticipated social media platform. Unfortunately the major social media platforms are reconsidering their ban of Trump, which would determine whether Trump would try to create his own propaganda platform. “Qwitter or HicTok”? Keep grift alive. Jason Miller, a spokesman...
Because armed struggle in the actual 1776 to cancel a monarchy wasn’t enough for one right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation’s usual reactionary silliness now extends to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, apparently because of Biblical miscegeny. x Heritage Foundation mocked for defending British monarchy from American 'radical left”...
I watched Jake Tapper yesterday repeatedly try, and fail, to get the Mississippi Governor to say plainly that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. We all see this same variations over and over – “Joe Biden is the president. He was elected president by a majority of the electors.” Tapper (or...
Every year, there’s an anti-Hollywood screed from the right that bemoans the plethora of late-night comics, movies, and television series that have a “liberal” slant. Usually, this just means having diverse casts, positive anti-hate messages, or a low tolerance for actors who are openly bigoted. This year is no different....
The sparse number of actual carbon capture and sequestration projects plus weak carbon markets amplify the problems of the climate crisis yet to be revisited, post-Trump. Two heartland examples in North Dakota and Texas show how there are several interlocking problems addressing the climate crisis that must be included in future environmental policy. More specifically...
The one thing that will directly help the working poor is the $15/h promise. Few Rewards Today, more people than ever are working in jobs that pay too little and offer too few benefits: nearly half the workforce earns under $15 an hour. This isn’t right, or inevitable. We should...
GOP AGs have been busy supporting the Trumpian delusion and sedition. The 1/6 Commission will have plenty of narrative content. Not unlike the mania for appointing Trump judges, the GQP AGs are a cabal that for some evangelicals, theocratically leads to a dominionist (fascist) state. Not unlike the QAnons who believe...
Texas is the coalmine canary of failures in the GQP’s industrial policy. The “clusterfuzzle” appears to be only in Texas: perhaps they skimmed on costs and failed in winterizing their plants. The structural failure comes from the anti-federal, deregulatory policy of the Texas grid which reveals itself in the disinformation...
Beto O’Rourke (D. TX) had some harsh words yesterday: x “We are nearing a failed state in Texas. And it has nothing to do with God, or natural disasters. It has everything to do with the leadership and those in the positions of public trust who have failed us,” says...
Lat week was my birthday and I took most of the week and weekend off so I am playing catch up here with my e-mails. Received this e-mail on Friday from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I. VT) group, Our Revolution: Yesterday, because of the incredible grassroots pressure that you helped...
Justice? Did someone say there’s still some justice in the world? I was really starting to wonder. The New York Times: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and three of its popular anchors are the targets of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed on Thursday by a company that became a prominent...
Fucking idiot: The Florida senator once again found himself in Twitter-roasting territory on Wednesday with his misguided tweet blaming the media for the rise of QAnon-sympathizer Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) within the GOP — conveniently ignoring his own history of enabling former President Trump to run wild with false...
What, sophistry or what sophistry. That Trump deposition will be a doozy. Brakes will not be pumped as Trump’s lawyers fail to deny that he incited violence against the Government of the United States. The utterance ‘Sit Your Ass Down!’ however performative, is only an example of symbolic violence. Trump impeachment response...
Republicans are intimidated by the size of Joe Biden’s bills. Maine Sen. Susan Collins and a group of likeminded milquetoasts are balking at the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package Democrats appear determined to pass through budget reconciliation. Seems they’ve either noticed the giant deficit Donald Trump amassed both pre- and...
I guess when your entire shtick is based on fantasy and lies, the people you lied to get upset when you fail to overturn your election loss by ordering Space Force to beam Joe Biden off the inaugural dais at the Zero Hour. Now the Proud Boys of all groups...
It’s now moving toward that Trump resignation, because impeachment is moving forward and even McConnell has appeared to favor it. Unlike Nixon, perhaps the death of Sheldon Adelson, a major Trump backer, among other defections will not require the approach of major GOP luminaries to pressure Trump to resign. For...
“Trump at this point should welcome someone using the 25h amendment, an insanity defense is about all he has left.” Trump’s best defense could be insanity or ignorance. x 4 criminal laws that Trump may have violated in his Georgia election call | By Ian Millhiser https://t.co/G5E3thhlzx— SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) January...
Speaking of criminal behavior, protesters left placards and votive candles at Josh Hawley’s house, which he called vandalism by antifa. 4 criminal laws that Trump may have violated in his Georgia election call | By Ian Millhiser https://t.co/G5E3thhlzx — SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) January 5, 2021 Four criminal laws that Trump may...
Rep. Ted Lieu spoke with MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin today and told the host why Lieu and fellow member of Congress Kathleen Rice opted to refer Trump’s recent call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to the FBI. (Hint: Because Trump is a gangster doing a bunch of gangster shit. That’s...
Bandy X. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist, editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, and president of the World Mental Health Coalition, a group of mental health professionals who have “come together in historically unprecedented ways to offer our consensus view that Donald Trump’s mental state presents a clear and present...
As Admiral Akbar sez: “It’s a Trap”. This stunt will fail but the Trumpian GOP base will want to give them thirty coins at least. Disingenuity writ as largess in order to grift for donors. A growing number of Republican senators — led by Ted Cruz — announced today they...
Politico says Trump has told his political aides to monitor statements by Republicans that oppose his efforts to hold onto the Presidency with an eye toward supporting primary challengers in 2022 and maybe beyond. High on the list would likely be the governors and other Republican state office holders in Georgia...
Philip Bump has the goods: it is nearly impossible for the fraud claimed by Trumpists to have occurred in 2020. No evidence has emerged to support an already conspiracy-ridden and ignorance-addled group of crypto-fascists bent on creating a dictatorship for a game-show demagogue. Yet they are even grifting money from...