Criminals aren’t always the brightest bulbs on the marquee, but even the least savvy of these fiends do what they can to cover their tracks. The ambulatory TruckNutz who planned the Jan. 6 Capitol coup, on the other hand? They’re like if Jeff Dahmer showed up at the church basement potluck...
This is the sixth set of notes for a reading group on Marx’s Capital, and includes a Volume I refresher for further reading of Volume II. There are links to earlier posts and texts that may be useful. Marx is probably too taken with a kind of scientism by proposing...
As the grandfather of 12 grandchildren, I worry about their safety, health, and lives in this time of excessive gun violence, denial of history, and the life-destroying spread of the virus. Despite their vulnerability, the children of America who frighten me most are the so-called responsible adults who have decided...
For some reason I don’t have complete faith in this vote audit they’re performing in Arizona. For one thing, hardly anyone heard of Cyber Ninjas, the company that’s performing the audit, before this farce commenced. For another, the company is named “Cyber Ninjas.” That’s like going with a wealth management firm called...
No one has ever tried to have me killed before (that I know of), but if someone did, I doubt I’d sing hosannas and paeans to him mere months after he’d sent a mob to my workplace to murder me—or after he’d ignored my plaintive cries for help when said mob...
Received this e-mail today from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party: The fight for fair electoral maps kicked off in earnest today, when the US Census Bureau revealed each state’s updated number of US House seats. And the bad news is that Pennsylvania will soon have one less representative in Congress. Republicans will...
I’m probably a lot closer on the political spectrum to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than I am to Joe Biden—and not just because I prefer a Starbucks triple venti nonfat soy caramel baby’s blood macchiato to whatever low-rent greasy spoon baby’s blood bevvie Biden drinks. Probably has Sanka in it. Pfft. So I appreciate what AOC is saying...
Republicans desperately want you to forget the events of Jan. 6 and their aftermath. Unfortunately, the guy who caused the riot (at least according to Mitch McConnell) is still the face of their party, and so they have to do an awkward little dance where they pretend he’s actually not a...
A new book suggests now the necessity of reexamining the historical materialist project of Walter Benjamin recognizing those moments of historical contact as acts of recognizing the constructed historical object. “Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
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...
So much still unresolved from the Trump era installed in 2016, and continued through 2020, a Russian intelligence operation. Hard to tell whether it ranks with Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, or even Operation Pandora, the plan to foment a US race war in the 1960s, although the Trump win could...
I’m not even sure what to do with this. I’m gobsmacked. Oh, he was a man, eh? I guess that means it’s okay for the cops to shoot him. What other conclusion can you possibly take from this ribbon of rancid tripe dribbling out the malignant maw of one Sean...
During last year’s second presidential debate, Donald Trump made certain to note how horribly things were going on his watch: “We have to open our country,” the big, dumb adobe mud hut brayed. “We’re not going to have a country. You can’t do this, we can’t keep this country closed. It is a...
Previous guy colluded with Russia, led a Capitol insurrection, and is not rotting in a prison cell. But if it happens, could there be enough secessionist nut-logs ready and willing to bust him out. “I think this blending of the far-right militia movement with overt secessionism is something I think we’re...
Weed o’clock struck early today. Not sure why. Something to do with daylight saving time, I think. Or the Maya calendar? Fuck if I know. It just felt like a day-tokin’ kinda day here in the Pacific Northwest. But this isn’t about me. Because there’s no way in hell I would...
“We might (and I stress might) have already reached and passed a point where there is really no turning back for Thwaites, no matter what we as humans do to our climate,” Alastair Graham, the University of South Florida and co-author of the study. New data from under the ice stream...
Can’t wait to see this asshole go: 📹On @FOX43, Sen. Toomey says he wants PA to adopt Georgia's new election laws. I ask what he says to BPOC who say those policies make it harder to vote? He said it's a "ridiculous argument." "Are we really supposed to believe African...
I’m not sure what Matt Gaetz expected. After all, the only exercise Donald Trump ever gets involves golf, languorous coitusTM, and throwing former “friends” under the bus. (Again, Trump has no actual “friends.” He has acquaintances he’s yet to shiv in the liver.) For years, people have filled Gaetz’s head...
As far as I’m concerned, allowing Newsmax reporters into the White House briefing room is a little like High Times asking Mitt Romney to write a guest column on how to score weed at Burning Man, but then the Biden administration is nothing if not fair (Peter Doocy’s Vesuvian whining...
He is risen! Suck on a hyssop stick, haters and losers! I’m not quite sure what’s going on here. Is she plugging the King of Kings’ uncensored comedy podcast, or are they finally letting Yeshua bar Yosef compete on cooking shows, even though he keeps using his loaves-and-fishes powers to fuck up...
This Matt Gaetz scandal is probably a good thing for our country. If his head got any bigger, it might rip a hole in space-time. As it is, things appear to be getting worse and worse for the flesh-toned Tootsie Pop. He should probably be scrubbing his Twitter account in...
Getting a personalized greeting from Donald John Trump is about on par with masticating Trump steak gristle or being spirited away to a Florida fen by a horde of Trump-branded bedbugs. It’s not for me, but hey, surely someone will bite. He may even be able to charge more than...
Of course, I’m being sarcastic when I say “popular.” In fact, the provision in Georgia’s new election law banning the distribution of food and water to people in voting lines is so unpopular and indefensible, even Lindsey Graham can’t defend it. And he defended Donald Trump for four years. I didn’t think...
Remember Infrastructure Week? It’s coming back—this time without an infrastructure weakling deflating the promise of a newly rebuilt America. Joe Biden is set to unveil his sweeping $3 trillion infrastructure plan, and according to Axios, top economists are simply “giddy” about its prospects. Of course, Republicans understand Keynesian economics as...
Ted Cruz continued his “Hey, look! I’m not in Cancun!” tour yesterday, traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border in search of a thatch of reeds that in no way made him look like a serial killer floating freshly harvested bodies down the river on jerry-rigged rafts comprised of peat bog residue and...
This is what you call bad optics. Like really, really bad. Oedipus seeing Jocasta bad. (Yeah, my references are really old, but I couldn’t find a way to plausibly work Match Game into this one.) So you know that awful, awful Jim Crow-style voter suppression bill Georgia just passed? Well, the way...
Assuming Jason Miller is a real person and not a failed Soviet-era experiment to cross the human genome with the formula for Axe Body Spray, he appears to be in some trouble. According to The Guardian, the former former-guy spox, who impregnated another Trump campaign adviser while engaging in an...
The US has vaccinated 70.3% of residents over the age of 65 with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine as of yesterday. The Center for Disease Control also has reports that show 33% of American adults and 25.7% of all Americans have been vaccinated with at least one shot. Vaccines already...
I’m not in a jovial mood today. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed … because my bed is still in America. If it straddled the U.S.-Canada border, I might have had a puncher’s chance—but no. I had to wake up here—in the land of the mask-free, gun-obsessed asshole....
The US has given at least one Covid vaccine dose to 24.9% of its residents as of yesterday, according to the Center for Disease control. Some 32% of adult Americans have received a jab and 69.2% of Americans over 65 years of age have gotten at least one shot. With Pfizer/BioNTech...
What’s funnier than Mike Pence being sent to the doghouse after spending four-plus years as Donald Trump’s captive purse poodle? I honestly can’t think of anything—though if Ted Cruz falls down an open manhole while looking at My Little Pony furry porn on his phone, I may have to reassess. Months...
It always seemed absurd to me that hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have no effective representation in Congress. And I’m not just talking about Alabamans. But to hear some conservatives tell it, that’s as it should be because, you know, D.C. doesn’t have a car dealership. And they already make their...
He’s not the only one, of course. For instance, I’m convinced Matt Gaetz has the largest head-to-brain-size ratio in the animal kingdom and that Louie Gohmert is the lamentable result of a failed attempt to breed a white supremacist lemur with a bowl of beets. Then there’s Lauren Boebert and Marjorie...
I don’t know, maybe this works for her. I’m not sure how Twitter’s trending topics actually become trending topics, but I can only assume that if, say, someone started the hashtag #AldousJPennyfarthingIsANoxiousShiteCrumpet, taking to Twitter to refute that notion while appropriating that same hashtag would tend to, I don’t know, amplify...
It’s Schaden-Friday, folks! Spin the wheel of GOP absurdities! Where oh where will it land? Oh, I know! How about “Donald Trump’s post-POTUS retreat is awash in COVID!” For fuck’s sake, Trump is like Pig-Pen from Peanuts, only it’s not a dust cloud following him everywhere he goes—it’s pestilence. AP:...
The Center for Disease Control reports that 115.7 million total vaccinations for Covid-19 have taken place in the US as of yesterday. Joe Biden had called for 100 million shots in his first 100 days, but about 20 million of the reported 115.7 million took place under his predecessor. Between...
The Center for Disease Control reports that 115.7 million total vaccinations for Covid-19 have taken place in the US as of yesterday. Joe Biden had called for 100 million shots in his first 100 days, but about 20 million of the reported 115.7 million took place under his predecessor. Between...
More than 110 million Covid-19 vaccinations have taken place in the United States, of which about 90 million happened after Joe Biden took office. The 100 million vaccination pledge will be reached about March 20. Alaska and Mississippi are the first two states to widen eligibility to all adult residents. But...
More than 110 million Covid-19 vaccinations have taken place in the United States, of which about 90 million happened after Joe Biden took office. The 100 million vaccination pledge will be reached about March 20. Alaska and Mississippi are the first two states to widen eligibility to all adult residents. But...
These kinds of stories drive me up the wall. There’s nothing heartwarming or cute about this, but it’s the kind of thing people in this country slurp up like syrup. Nothing against the journalist who brought this grotesquerie to light, but my takeaway from this tragic tale is that we...
Ron Johnson and a core number of GOP senators does the bidding of Russia for what seems to be the reasons that Kevin McCarthy attributed to Dana Rohrabacher and Donald Trump: Putin pays them. Russia seemed to be on Riley Williams’s mind when she indicated that she wanted to sell...
I’ve been paying only intermittent attention to this weekend’s CPAC event. Not much has changed since they choppered Donald J. Trump out of Washington like a zoo manatee being returned to its natural habitat. Ted Cruz is still awful, and the rest of the Trumpaloompas remain firmly ensconced inside the regal...
Though my spot on the introversion spectrum lies somewhere between Kleenex box-wearing Howard Hughes and urine-collecting Howard Hughes (and as I continue to age, I’m on a bullet train to raw-fish-eating Gollum), I still usually get sick in the winter, at least once. In the past, while grocery shopping or taking...
Holy shit. This aged worse than the lost wedge of Camembert that’s more or less permanently ensconced in Donald Trump’s clammy, pendulous moob flaps. Yeah, that was gross, I grant you. But I figured you needed to tighten up your gag reflex before you watched this: ”We will not see diseases like the...
According to reporting from The Intercept, the FBI secured the records of lawmakers and their staff just hours after the violent attempted coup by Trump supporters against the United States of America in the US Capitol on January 6th. Phone records include suspected collaborators within Congress. The data is non-content and includes “pings’ from cell...
According to reporting from The Intercept, the FBI secured the records of lawmakers and their staff just hours after the violent attempted coup by Trump and his supporters against the United States of America in the US Capitol on January 6th. Phone records include suspected collaborators within Congress. The data is non-content and includes “pings’...
I never thought to hear such snark from someone as genteel as Merrick Garland. And maybe he wasn’t trolling the poster boy of domestic terror and insurrection after all. But, damn, it sure feels like Garland, whose path to the Supreme Court was derailed by a metric fuck-ton of Republican...
Eric Trump appeared on Fox & Friends this morning with Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade. It wasn’t exactly the Algonquin Roundtable. During the conversation, they passed the lone brain cell they share together to whoever wanted to speak next—like it was the tribal conch in Lord of the...
