Captive Audience

Back in the Eighties [Hail Reagan!], when I was in high school, a bizarre and shocking local story gained national attention. A married couple a half-hour away had kept a woman as a sex slave for seven years. The husband had kidnapped the woman (named Colleen Stan) in 1977 when she was hitchhiking, and had brainwashed her early on during her captivity into believing that he worked for some secret "Company" that would murder the woman and her family. The husband had already been treating his wife as a sex slave, and she, battered and broken, acquiesced to his perversions (probably a bit relieved to not be focus of his perversions for a while).

Imagine -- this woman was kept in a locked wooden box under their water bed, twenty-three hours a day most days, brought out only to be raped and fed. That went on for several years.

Perhaps most inexplicably, Colleen Stan was "allowed" to go visit her family in 1981, after four years of captivity. Stan was so brainwashed by her captor's empty threats that she returned to him after the family visit.

The old cliché is that we humans only use ten to fifteen percent of our brains' capacity. Obviously they are very powerful, our brains. But that power is a double-edged weapon, in that it can be turned against its owner by someone craftier, wilier, crueler. Other elements such as passivity, inertia, fear, careerism, or just lack of will, can also factor into an individual being persuaded not to use their wonderful brains, to not see what is right there in front of them.

Things keep happening in and around the White House, the administration, its minions and dogsbodies and agents of misfortune, and I find them baffling.

If you are a World War 2 veteran being "honored" at the White House with some meaningless jabber and a borderline slur right in front of a portrait of a literal force for Native American genocide, you can leave. You do not have to stay; no one can force or intimidate you. You have agency.

Similarly, and more ongoing, is the ugly dynamic of the utterly useless and completely demeaning pro forma ritual of the White House press conference. It is rare that anything genuinely informative has ever transpired at one of these things, no matter who's in charge, but under the current crew of sadists and morons, it is merely a tedious routine in cheap propaganda. Its perpetrators no longer even bother to pretend to try or care. Eat shit and go fuck yourselves is the prevailing tone, day after soul-crushing day.

So why do the career journamalists persist in this meaningless exercise? They know before they head into the room that nothing useful or informational will be uttered, that every word will be a lie, including and and the, that Huckabee Junior comports herself as a crude blend of Annie Wilkes and Nurse Ratched, a joyless sort who gets an endorphin rush every time she washes her kid's mouth out with soap for saying darn or gosh. What a job that must be, to stenograph lies and hope futilely that someone out there will give enough of a shit to do anything about it.

It's only a mater of time before Huckabee Junior makes it a standing rule that they have to wear dog collars and zippered gimp masks, and preface each question with Thank you sir, may I have another?

In the meantime, these Serious Journos really need to ask themselves:  Is this what I mean when I tell my parents that my job is interesting and important, that my role is vital to a free and open society?

One thing about these soulless fuckers running this shitshow is that they have given writers countless more things to write about than any previous administration. And the real fun isn't even starting yet. So why on earth would anyone want to sit there and be lied to and treated like shit by a truly nasty piece of work, to stenograph the lies she spews without batting a fake eyelash? That's not work, that's merely a routine.

You do not have to sit there and take shit from these horrible people. There is no value in being in the same room as they are; the atrocities can be recorded and analyzed from many other angles, any of them by definition more true and accurate than the one being spoon-fed to the crowd in the press room. They're afraid of losing access, but what value is access to these fucking reprobates? You would not want to be caught in the same room with Fuckface Von Clownstick or Huckabee Junior in a social engagement, and they are never going to share any useful -- or even true -- info with you. So what, again, is the point in playing their reindeer games?

Noted fake news org CNN has the right idea with declining the invite to the WH Christmas party. So far, the rest of the major news outlets are too cowed by their need to maintain "decorum" to grow a pair, but they should understand something by now -- the line has already been drawn. It is up to them which side of that line they prefer to be on.

They are not being forced to do their job under their self-imposed constraints. They are not being kept in locked boxes under waterbeds; their families are not being threatened. There is no outside coercion, physical or mental. Their limitations in this ugly instance are entirely of their own choosing. They have opted for the false hope of maintaining a sense of normalcy.

But none of this is normal, not at all, and journalists more than other occupations do a disservice to themselves and to their customers by continuing the pretense that any of it is normal. No one is making them sit there for their useless ritual of lies and abuse. No one is making them go on their stupid Cletus safaris -- again, an already useless pro forma exercise in reiterating ad nauseam the magical thinking and ignorant self-defeatism of your average slot jockey or meth addict. No one needs or wants a useless write-up of how "normal" and "average" the neo-nazi dipshit down the street turns out to be. Guess what guys:  he eats his cereal with a spoon, just like everyone else! Yeah, thanks for the heads-up there, Ed Murrow, I feel more informed by the nanosecond.

Meanwhile, there are millions of Hillary voters who would be more than happy to remind these wretched scriveners that every day is a reminder that we were right, that we are constantly vindicated in our blanket assumptions about this serial grifter, this borderline-retarded reality-teevee clown. Where's my article, where's my focus group, you bozo motherfuckers?

How many identical profiles of the stupid and the stubborn do we need to see in one lifetime? We get it -- there's no talking these assholes out of their trees. I lost count of these moronic articles months ago, but have yet to see even a single one profiling a few folks who voted against stupidity, against the evil clown.

This is when it's helpful to remember that despite their pious plaints, journos work for media conglomerates, and those companies are in the business of selling us giant pick-'em-up trucks and cheeseburgers and tampons and pills we don't really need. And the pitch they use to get us into the tent and keep us there is conflict. It's a surefire gimmick -- a ridiculous spray-painted man with ridiculous hair who says ridiculous things, defying people to correct or oppose him. Panel shows and common-taters have infinite job security in clucking daily at the malfeasance, while the ridiculous man knows that none of them have the balls to take him on.

The secret weapon of the bully is not the threat of force, or even the use of force. Bullies know instinctively that most people are passive, and wish to avoid confrontation. Normal people want things to go back to how they were, or at least to go easy. Things will eventually blow over, that sort of thing.

And that's what the bully counts on, that the victim would rather curl up and wish for someone to make it stop, than to stand up and fight back, or at least walk away. Now, most of us are never going to be in the same room as this pustulent pile of bile, and for that we should be grateful.

But the ones who are in proximity, they need to be reminded -- you don't have to accept it, you don't have to put up with it. Stop convincing yourself with nonsense about "respecting the office" -- he has no respect for the office or the country or for you, and unless enough people make it clear that they are not taking his shit anymore, it is his aim to change and twist the nature of the office to his liking.

When they talk about norms and rules and precedents and customs of the office and how the executive is supposed to do things, they are talking merely about expectations. None of the norms are legally binding, you see, so agreeing to abide by them is purely voluntary. This is bad enough when you have a ricockulous buffoon like Emperor Snowflake contorting those norms, but when you allow those precedents to be trampled without consequence, you allow the way to be paved for someone, smoother, slicker, smarter.

The healthiest thing for this country right now would be for its major media organizations, while they still can, to seize the remaining vestiges of their collective self-respect, and stop participating in these rituals and exercises that ad no value and only perpetuate the abuse and this overweening sense of unearned privilege this clown and his insane posse have cultivated for themselves. Nothing is stopping you from standing up and walking out, and investigating and reporting instead of merely transcribing.

Do it, for yourselves, for your readers and viewers, for the country you claim you love. Stand up. Walk out. Find the truth and write it and shout it, and do it again and again. Reclaim the self-respect you probably had before you set foot in that vile room with those vile fucking people. A "career" that consists of ritualized daily self-abasement is not much of a career, and is certainly not honest work.

Ridiculous People

Because he's a ricockulous, spray-tanned slab of shit, Emperor Snowflake deigned to spend Thanksgiving "visiting" some Coast Guard members with -- reader, I shit you not -- fucking turkey sandwiches and mini-bags of tater chips. Nice, right? Way to support Our Sacred Troops, asshole -- have Subway cater your bullshit Thanksgiving handjob. What a useless fucking chump he is.

During which, of course, because he operates in the washed-up never-was schlock-rocker "enough about me, what do you think about my album?" demi-monde, he regaled the hapless attendees with his illustrious accomplishments.

Fuckface Von Clownstick is the "political" equivalent of Meat Loaf trying to pick up chicks in 2017 by singing parts of Paradise by the Dashboard Light. He seriously has no idea just how goddamned ridiculous he is, every fucking time, every step of the way. First name's Jerk, last name's Off.

Hopefully, many of us have things to be thankful for, away from the feculent sewer of this man and his entire oeuvre of louche incompetence. At or near the top of such a list should be the fact that none of us had to spend one precious moment around this wretched excuse for a human being and his enabler. These people are fucking awful, and they're going down, and for that we can all be thankful.
 

Perspective

I think we all underestimated Fuckface Von Clownstick to some extent, but the real problem, both in scope and degree, is just how badly we overestimated our fella 'murkins. It's also true some extent that if people had been given better choices, they'd have made better decisions, but Jesus H. Christ. As Frank Rich helpfully reminds us, George Wallace had a decent chance at election until he got shot.

You wanna worry about underestimating things, worry about underestimating just how many petty, venal, vicious bastards there are still out there, and combined with how many people who are simply too ignorant or lazy to bother with any of it, these things will come to pass from time to time.

Runnin' With the Devil

So this is fun. Mo Brooks is a slimy sack of crap; it is truly a shame he didn't take a header down those marble steps and land on his face. These people would literally rather vote for a creep who sexually assaulted teenagers when he was in his thirties, and was literally banned from a mall, than for someone who sent murderous domestic terrorists to prison.

Alabama can get its collective back up and whinge about "Yankees" tellin' 'em whut ta do, but the fact is that this is a test for that state. They need to step up and decide what they're about. It's too late for Roy Moore (and the mediots need to stop referring to him as "judge" -- he's been forcibly removed from that position twice) to be removed from the ballot, so the choice is between Roy Moore and Doug Jones. Period.

So no nudging, Alabama, but what are you about as a state? Forget all the "dummycrats is sociamalists" mumbo-jumbo excuses -- you either support a skeevy pederast, or you don't. Either you stick with the Cletus the cousin-fucker stereotypes or you reject them. You're either the state of Bob Ewell or of Atticus Finch. You cannot have it both ways anymore.

Same goes for the Republican Party, which is still fundraising and canvassing for Moore, despite their public plaints; same goes for the GOP voters. Sometimes a moment comes along where you have to decide how you want to define your team, and this is one of those times.

The Goopers are really stuck on this one, and they know it. There are a couple of longshot scenarios to consider here, but they're not completely out of the realm of possibility:

1. Jeff Flake's seat in AZ is up for grabs, as is Bob Corker's in TN, and "Everybody Hates" Ted Cruz has to run for his seat next year as well. Things are not rolling the Goopers' way lately, and these are all gettable for the Dems.
2. Moore loses or is pre-emptively disqualified per the actions of the leaders of his own party, and he rallies the same breed of deplorable who are chomping at the bit to kill and/or die in the service of Fuckface Von Clownstick. A schism is created in the Republican party, and a breakaway "populist" party takes on the "establishment" party. Popcorn companies do record business, and the Dems sweep the midterms hard. Clownstick goes into full Downfall bunker mode, watching his idiot MAGA fantasy go up like a tire fire.

The second one is admittedly a very long shot, because no matter what these weasels say, politics is really more about the money than the ideology, and it's hard to imagine the sort of genuinely wealthy person who wants to invest in a Howdy Doody-looking asshole like Roy Moore, with his totally-not-a-closet-case leather vest and the pew-pew pea-shooter he needs in order to feel safe buying his Starbucks. But there's always some douchebag Robert Mercer / Foster Friess type out there who didn't work hard enough for his money to have any respect for it.

Either way, what a difference a year makes, especially when your enemies are so consistently ridiculous. It is truly a joy watching these assholes screw the pooch and turn on each other. May the aneurysm fairy start making the rounds, and they all ride the escalator to hell sooner rather than later.

хаос

It has become (rightly) an article of faith that Russian troll farms and social media strategies helped the Clownstick campaign close the deal. Part of the rationale is Putin's well-known dislike of Hillary Clinton, part of it is Putin's ability to see that he'd have a much easier time manipulating Clownstick to remove sanctions and do business.

Arguably the most significant and substantial reason for the Russians to get involved in the 2016 campaign is the same as their logic for disseminating influential propaganda throughout Europe to influence their elections. Fomenting chaos works in the Russians' favor, as far as geopolitical strategy goes. In a vast country with a dwindling population, chaos is a force multiplier for them.

So let's pose a hypothetical, in context of the Democrats and liberals currently fulminating against the perfidy of the Clownstick campaign's cozying up to what should have been obvious attempts by a foreign power to influence an American presidential election. Let's say that in keeping with the prime directive of sowing chaos, the Russians decide to influence the midterms in favor of Democratic candidates. No secret meetings, no kompromat, none of that, they just independently decide to put the trolls to work to flip the Senate and or House back to the Dems.

Beware of Russians bearing gifts, is all I'm saying. They are not specifically pro-Clownstick or pro-Republican, except insofar as that party and its current leader are more malleable in terms of temperament and venality. They are pro-chaos, simple as that. Chaos and disruption lead to paralysis, especially in terms of foreign policy. We are already there, and this is just the start.

And in the longer-term areas of foreign policy, we are becoming more screwed by the day. This doddering old moron is dragging this country under, through the sheer force of his utter stupidity. He thinks he's some sort of genius because he supposedly has some verbal handshake with the Chinese to back down their economic support of the North Koreans.

Never mind that China -- and the rest of the world -- doesn't have the same Viagra-fueled boner for NK that Old Man Clownstick does, and that the Chinese are content to continue with checkbook diplomacy to move their "One Belt One Road" great project along.

(George Friedman's strategic analysis, claiming that OBOR is "doomed to failure," is worth checking out, but the fact is that China is ready to take twenty years and hundreds of billions of dollars to make this project happen, and a lot can and will happen in that time.)

Never mind that the one person Clownstick is too afraid to criticize with a rage-tweet -- Vladimir Putin -- will just step in and help the Norks out, because he can, because the history of Russia is one of buffer states and proxy wars. Maybe Clownstick really thinks Putin is his friend, or that they can be business partners; he clearly seems to believe that since Putin insists he "didn't meddle," that should be enough for us. (Or maybe he really thinks everyone's that stupid. More likely he just doesn't give a shit either way. Remember, everything about this asshole is an act of defiance. What are you gonna do about it, prole?) Either way, the only role he has for the Russians is as a complicit dupe.

Everyone who thought this dumb old bastard was some sort of genius deal-maker because of his stoopid teevee show should be forced to, I dunno, live in one of his scam housing developments, bear the direct brunt of his serial idiocy. That seems only fair.

This guy "does deals" like old people fuck. His approach to "business" is the old saw about how when you owe the bank a million, you have a problem, but when you owe the bank a billion, the bank has the problem. Similarly, his approach to "making a deal" boils down to lying through his teeth and hoping the other guy is stupider than he is. Winning!

So don't be too surprised if the Russian interference in 2018 and/or 2020 extends to the Democrats -- or more likely, to both parties. The idea is to pit us against each other, heighten the already dangerous levels of polarization. And because you can't have a scam without willing marks, it's going to work, and the imperial death spiral will continue apace.

Less Is Moore

So let's see if we have all this straight:  Roy Moore has been fired twice from his judgeship because he's an incompetent christian sharia fascist, has taken campaign money from neo-nazis, paid himself a fat six-figure salary from his "charity," opined that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress and homosexuals should be jailed -- but now, now, now that some Clownstick-voting mouth-breather has finally stepped forward after forty fucking years and talked about a 32-year-old Moore diddling her when she was 14 [so, in fourth grade? -- Ed.], he's finally considered unfit for the fucking job? Really?

Reminds me of the South Park episode right before the election (in the wake of the pussy-grabber tape), where Mr. Garrison/Clownstick went on an insult-comic tour and starts talking Dice Clay-style about sticking his finger up women's asses. Women start leaving the audience, glaring at their husbands to follow suit. Garrison cuts into his monologue and says, "Oh, you were fine when I talked about fucking all the illegal immigrants to death, but you have a problem with me sticking my finger up a woman's ass! Good to know you have boundaries!"

Much is being made of the Goopers' pussy (pardon the pun)-footing around this story with the two word qualifier if true. Friends 'n' neighbors, let's just dust off the ol' chainsaw and cut straight through the proverbial bullshit here -- it doesn't matter if these ancient allegations are true or not. Moore is manifestly unqualified and unsuitable for the job of US Senator many times over, on things we know with absolute certainty and which Moore has made no secret of, without ever needing to chase down the forty-year-old rabbit hole of whether he had a taste for teenage girls when he was in his thirties. Disgusting, sure. But he's already disgusting in many other more legally problematic ways.

Jesus H. Christ, he's literally compared the legalization of gay marriage to the Dred Scott decision, which only underscores the fact that he should never have been let anywhere near a courtroom in the first place, except perhaps as a defendant. A competent media would not be letting dipshits like Ben Sasse and Jeff Flake seek rhetorical cover over their sudden case of the vapors; they would be asking every single Republican senator how they feel about all the other things Moore has said over and over, and will say again with minimal prompting. He's proud of his 18th-century views of the world.

Fuck this shit. That state and this country deserve a turd like Roy Moore in the Senate. Hell, I'll vote for him for preznit. This country needs a goddamned enema, and this Howdy Doody-lookin' motherfucker is just the man to stick his hose up 'murka's stuck poop-chute.

More seriously and less polemically, this is and should be a very clear litmus test as to which side lives its principles. Think about all the recent "sexually inappropriate" scandals that have come out recently. Harvey Weinstein is done, and probably facing criminal charges. Kevin Spacey's career is likely over. Louis C.K.'s movie got dropped, and his show hasn't been funny in several years anyway. On the other side, Roger Ailes got a $40m golden parachute, Moore has a decent shot at a seat in the US Senate, and Fuckface Von Clownstick got elected. Only Bill O'Reilly had any consequences as a result of his behavior, and that was only after Fixed Noise shelled out tens of millions of dollars for multiple settlements.

And there are plenty of animals out there who would be happy to vote for Moore even if he had been caught red-handed fucking that 14-year-old, because decades of immersion in Hutu Power Radio has conditioned them to believe that Democrats = sociamalism, and a sociamalist is literally worse than a pedophile or even a murderer. That is not an exaggeration.

I have no idea how you even respond or relate to around-the-bend idiots like that, nor is it worth the effort to try. Leave them alone, let them fester in their bitterness and racism, life's losers in their fucking hick towns, refusing to learn about the world outside their clapboard existence, refusing to retrain for a skill that is actually valuable. Do not try to win them over, do not rub it in with I-told-you-so's -- but also don't fall for the Michael Moore schtick that we have to listen to them.

Seriously, what the fuck are we supposed to listen to from someone like Pam Schilling, from the Politico article, with the charming bit at the end about what NFL really stands for? How do you meet halfway with an idiot in denial? And why don't they ever have to meet anyone else halfway, ever? They are in the minority, after all.

The media don't seem to know this simple empirical fact, though. Every few weeks another one of these stupid "Cletus safari" pieces turns up, giving voice to these awful fucking people, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I don't care what jabbering idiots think about anything, and there is nothing informative about these pieces, except maybe to affirm what we all know -- that you can't fix stupid.

Fuck 'em All, Let Billy Graham Sort 'em Out

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it. -- Voltaire

The fuck 'em never stops:

More people in some key counties [Fuckface Von Clownstick] carried in the 2016 presidential election say the U.S. is worse off now than say it is better off, according to a new survey.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll surveyed residents of 438 counties that saw a surge last year for [Clownstick] or flipped to vote Republican in the 2016 election after previously going for President Obama in 2012.

The poll found 32 percent of people in those "[Clownstick] counties" think the country is better off now than it was before [Clownstick] assumed office.

But 41 percent think the country is worse off.

A majority of people surveyed, 53 percent, don't think the [fucktard] has a clear agenda.

Nearly half of respondents, 48 percent, said they approved of [Clownstick]'s job performance. But 50 percent of respondents disapproved of the [fucktard]'s job performance.

I recall making a similar Voltairean "prayer" when these incompetent rubes elevated their incompetent doofus to a job that actually requires some skills and traits that are not easy to come by: intelligence, discipline, compassion, patience, focus, curiosity, empathy, honesty (with oneself at least), a sense of humor, a knowledge of history and context, the ability to see the big picture, knowledge of how things get done in the mechanics and procedures of gubmint. That plea to an indifferent void can be summed up thusly: I hope these idiots get exactly what they voted for. And they are, they have, they will. Because he has none of the skills enumerated above, not even one.

And he is not going anywhere, not anytime soon. The walls are starting to close in, the edifice starting to crumble, the clothes turning to mostly imaginary rags and tatters. Mueller is going to skull-fuck this administration, whether or not he is able to root out the rotten head of this mafiya lineup. But Mueller is methodical, and plays this out slowly, patiently, carefully. He leaves nothing to chance. This will take some time.

So if this trend in polls and events and arrogant stupidity continues, the angry rubes will get to watch their hero reveal himself as the moron most of us knew he was all along. But they'll be the ones stuck with him, in their no-way-out dead-end destitution.

I don't know what to tell ya, folks. This is what you wanted, this is what you got. He is exactly what he told you he was -- a drunk on a barstool, full of volume and bluster, and completely unencumbered by knowledge or facts or even basic decency. You fell for it. Maybe you should let your lawnmower mechanic remove your brain tumor, since expertise don't matter, and reading is an elitist activity. Good luck with all that.

Fuck You, Emperor Snowflake

Looks like in spite of their complete inability to cobble together a coherent proactive message, or unify around any sort of figure to move them collectively forward, Democratic candidates swept the field in a variety of races on all levels all over the country. The message is clear, and hopefully gains momentum as Mueller keeps flipping the Russian rats, and more people simply get tired of Preznit YouTube Comments Thread.

What makes it even more hilarious is that Snowflake, balls deep in monkey-fucking our Asian trade arrangements, couldn't help but take a moment and bury Special Ed Gillespie in his (at the time of this post) nine-point loss to Ralph Northam.

As the Post article spells out, this is the sort of thing that will end up being Snowflake's undoing. Unlike Luther Strange, Ed Gillespie openly embraced the scaremongering and fear-jabber that has endeared Von Clownstick to his rube base. It didn't work (no, make that it really didn't work), and Snowflake unnecessarily went out of his way to piss on Gillespie's electoral grave. (Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, sez I.)

So he doesn't help electorally, and is disloyal to a fault, even when he doesn't need to be. The Republicans still running their anti-freeze lemonade stand maintain the delusion that their dementia-addled fake tycoon can get them across the finish line on those fucking tax cuts (for people who hide their money in Bermuda in the first place). They are as monomaniacal in their obsession as the emperor is in his.

The contest will become one concerning which faction is more beholden to their respective obsession -- the McConnell-Ryan faction to their damned tax cuts for people who don't need them, or Fuckface Von Clownstick's unshakeable self-regard. Tonight's electoral debacle will rattle the so-called GOPe weasels, but not quite enough to stop pushing for their donors. They'll keep going until it gets snapped off in their asses in the midterms.

Edroso also has a nice take on it from the "cultural" angle. In the wake of the second major mass shooting in less than five weeks, the rightard scriveners' claque may have gone to the "thoughts and prayers" well once too often for too many people. Only a complete dipshit would seriously think that "leftists" are mocking prayer in and of itself by ironically spitting the trope back at them.

Listen close, assholes, just so there's no confusion, real or otherwise:  Faith without works, according to the New Testament, is dead. Empty prayers aren't changing full coffins -- this time, in the case of Sutherland Springs, including more than a dozen children, including a fourteen-month infant. That's not to insist on confiscating all guns or some such; rather, it is a challenge to the empty-prayer folks to either do something, anything, or just shut the fuck up.

Only a full-on certifiable halfwit would be anything but repulsed by the sight of two disgusting people opining on how church is the best place to be shot. As the saying goes, that's a special kind of stupid, but it's also pretty fucking revolting. It would be one thing for them to go through the usual routine of shoulder-shrugging "whaddaya want us to do?" plaints about how the shooter got his guns legally, yada yada. But it's intolerable to decent people to watch these scumbags use the lives of slaughtered children to created twisted rhetoric for the sole purpose of impugning the folks who are simply wondering how many more times?

I've always taken some measure of pride in being a cynical bastid, but seeing the crude gestures of conservatard lowlifes from David French to Ainsley Earhardt, clearly I have some catching up to do.

Surplus Population

Humans ruin everything. Pray for the meteor.

куклы

Hopefully the beginning of the end is nigh, but hope is neither a plan nor a shovel. It's more like the beginning of the beginning, and which way this goes is going to depend on a lot of factors. The Republicans -- including the newly anointed "mavericks" Corker and Flake -- are willing to go down with the SS Clownstick, so long as they push one more tax cut for the rich fucks who count their money by weight.

If you believe that the conduct of this maladministration is treasonous (and Seth Abramson has painstakingly constructed such a case for months with countless Twitter mega-threads), and you believe (reasonably) that most or all US Senators know even more of the details than we peons, then it's simple math to figure that the Goopers that still support these treacherous fucks are at best opportunistic bastards, but really just willing accomplices.

(The Uranium One story sounds like the usual distractive bullshit, but let's just state for the record that if Mueller wants to investigate that as well, that's fine, and regardless, if any criminal conduct is found in that, then those involved should face appropriate criminal prosecution and justice. Period.)

So the majority party in this country has already made it abundantly clear that rules, norms, and laws mean little. They stole a Supreme Court seat in broad daylight, for fuck's sake. Overlooking a little bidness treason is just something friends do for each other, when there's tax cuts on the line and they're scared shitless of the rube base.

All of which makes it very difficult to be optimistic about the Mueller investigations and impending indictments. Clownstick will pardon the people indicted, including himself, the Republicunts will let him, and what the fuck are you gonna do about it? Vote? If they let you, if they decide to count it. Ask Jon Ossoff about all that.

Or maybe #TheResistance will take to the streets. Okay, good luck with that. Remember that glorious weekend of Pussy Power, record demonstrations across the country, biggest protest ever? What did it change? Not a goddamned thing. They can wait you out, the way they waited out Occupy Wall Street and the pussy-hat protesters and all the rest. They are pure muscle and gall. They don't give a shit what you think.

Everyone points out correctly that Emperor Snowflake is not the disease but a symptom. That's true but incomplete:  America is beset by multiple diseases, not the least of which is that a significant portion of its inhabitants have the intellects of farm animals, and vote in the dumbest motherfuckers they can find, at all levels.

Nearly all of what ails this country can be alleviated by a very modest amount of economic redistribution from the assholes that have more than they can spend in a dozen lifetimes, many of whom didn't even work for it in the first place. But their ever-increasing hoarding has driven the country into a deep hole.

Snowflake wants to drop the top tax rate to 20%. Fine, eliminate all the loopholes, and you got yourself a deal. And I mean all the loopholes. Straight twenty, no exceptions or discounts, no bullshit write-offs, no offshoring profits indefinitely. Call their bluff, because there's no goddamned way any of them, corporations or inherited Walmart layabouts, will go for it. Their goal is zero tax, and the proles pay for privatized services that work for shit.

And the worst part of that particular disease is that it's shamefully simple to get the rubes to go for it. Steinbeck may not have known how perfectly on-the-nose his observation was about poor Americans seeing themselves as temporarily displaced millionaires. The most People of Walmart dipshit is convinced that they're just one lucky lottery ticket from the good life.

That is not an exaggeration, and once you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear how people keep voting against their own rational self-interest every time. They seriously believe that if they give the Koch Brothers another fucking tax break, that will somehow translate into an extra buck an hour at their soul-deadening widget-stamping job.

So there's a very good chance that Mueller will unroll a metric fuckton of irrefutable facts, and it won't matter. And there won't be anything you can do about it. You wanna talk about hope, well, I hope I'm wrong. But there are no surprises anymore. We're the frogs in the water, and it's been warming the whole time. This is right out of the "how empires fall" playbook.

You'll Need More Snowflakes for That Avalanche

Any day these useless closet cases get outnumbered 2-1 is a good day. It's hard to get outraged when they are, as a heckler noted, "the Cleveland Browns of political movements." Still, one hopes at least that they finally receive an important message from the universe:  You are a bunch of fucking losers, each and every one of you. Shame on you. Go home and get some sleep, think about what you're doing with what passes for your lives.

And that's really all there is to them:  tubbies and morons who have already failed at life, bigly, and have nothing left but to occasionally take their armchair tough-guy static into the real world with some cosplay. They should go back to re-enacting WW2 and the Civil War as nazis and confederates. That's the best way for these chumps to work out their issues.

But, to return their favorite bullshit back on them, if they hate this country so much, why don't they get the fuck out already? It would be their fondest desire to start up Nazilvania or Kekistan or whatever, but good luck making a go of it when your main imports will be donuts and cheeseburgers, and the exports will be the choicest whines.

Flake Factor

No doubt Bob Corker and Jeff Flake want some sort of medal for speaking Truth To Power Incompetence, in retiring relatively young to find a mountaintop and contemplate their supreme integrity join or start a lobbying firm. The worst part about insufferable twats like those two is that they think they're being respectable statesman, that they're actually doing something purely out of love for country.

You don't even need to fire up the olfactory lobe of your brain to be able to smell that bullshit from miles away. I suspect there is a core of sincerity in their plaints; they really do not like Emperor Snowflake, and are sick of his endless schoolyard twittering.

But at the same time, one might suggest that if Corker and Flake were truly concerned about the country, and the direction the raging man-child is taking things, they could, I don't know, switch parties and stay in the fight? An imperfect solution to be sure, but what sort of idiot thinks they'll be more effective on the sidelines, at most lobbing the occasional rhetorical appetizer in the Times or the Post, than hanging in and helping the loyal opposition?

These guys are assholes, through and through. Hopefully Flake and Corker will spend their remaining time in the Senate making Snowflake as miserable as possible, but up to now, they've been 95% in his pocket -- they voted for all the health-care shenanigans; they voted for Gorsuch's stolen SCOTUS seat; they voted to confirm all of his dangerously inept cabinet weasels.

Now Flake and Corker claim to be tired of the nastiness and bullshit emanating from the toxic turd stinking up the White House, and their solution is to walk away and leave their seats open to true fanatics like Kelli Ward and Marsha Blackburn. Hell, with friends like that, who needs enemas?

Even a Stopped Clock

While the ideological fanatics in this hopelessly incompetent excuse for an administration are too stupid and single-minded in their Islamophobia, the fact is that when it comes to the World Health Organization, we are talking about an agency that just appointed Comrade Bob, the ne plus ultra of doddering oafish tyrants, as a "goodwill ambassador." I assume this is only because their first selection, Moammar el-Gadafi, is, you know, dead.

[Update 10/22/17 4:00 PM:  Mugabe's invitation has been rescinded. So fucking what -- the fact that he was even on the list, as a failed dictator of a failed state with a health-care system that might be the envy of the Congo or Somalia, but not much else, tells you everything you need to know about the decision-making of organizations such as the WHO. This is why people hate the UN -- they seriously think that by embracing thugs and thieves, by putting the Saudis on their human rights commission and other such nonsense, that they can change their behavior. Obviously no nations are perfect, but good grief.]

Weekend Warriors

So which congressional loser's turn is it to spend the weekend letting Emperor Depends win at golf? It's a beautiful fall day, perfect for spending it driving the golf cart on the fairways, and watching a doddering, incompetent, incontinent old man waddle around and cheat at a meaningless game. Fun!

Dishonorable Discharge

This past week should prove to be fateful, as in foreboding impending doom for this shitshow of an administration, but because the universe hates us and nothing matters anymore, we'll just have to see. But consider this recap of how things unfolded:

1. A twelve-member Special Forces team on a Foreign Internal Defense (FID) operation near the Niger-Mali border was ambushed by about 50 Islamic terrorist types. Four Green Berets were killed. That happened on October 4th. The fourth Green Beret, LaDavid Johnson, was found 48 hours later.
2. By October 16th, nothing had been said by the administration about the mission or the fallen soldiers. Clownstick held a Rose Garden press conference to spread some manure, and got asked about that lack of communication.
3. Instead of some anodyne bullshit about how we're looking into things and our thoughts and prayers are with our heroes and all that, Clownstick immediately went into default what-about-Obama mode, hastily concocting a hilarious -- and easily fact-checked -- lie about how Obama and other predecessors didn't call or write.
4. Tuesday, because these people are all a bunch of unprofessional retards, they went into panic mode and Clownstick calls Johnson's widow when she's on her way to see her husband's coffin, tries to pull that tough-guy "he knew what he signed up for" bullshit that veterans tell each other, but leaders should never say to a grieving widow in a condolence call. Then Clownstick compounds the fuck-up by lying about it, saying he has "proof" he didn't say that.
5. By Wednesday, Clownstick and his trusty mutt John Kelly are trashing Representative Frederica Wilson, who also happens to be a lifelong friend of the Johnson family. Clownstick even has the balls to use Kelly's son Robert, who was killed in action in Afghanistan, as rhetorical cover in the escalating argument.
6. Thursday, Kelly one-ups his boss and uses his own son in the same fashion, in a bizarre tirade that included reminiscing Archie Bunker-style about the good ol' days when people -- especially uppity black women -- knew their place and respected their betters. Kelly also flat-out fabricated Rep. Wilson's role in dedicating a law enforcement center in Florida, but hey, facts schmacts, amirite? Incidentally, Kelly also inadvertently revealed that Clownstick actually did say what Rep. Wilson and LaDavid Johnson's widow said that he had said in the first place, just that Clownstick's tone was misunderstood or something. Pro tip:  There is no "right tone" for what was said in that context to a grieving widow of a fallen soldier.
7. To her credit, Rep. Wilson immediately aired her own grievances and explained exactly how Kelly was LYING about her. When that was brought up at the White House press briefing today, cankered soul Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned against challenging Kelly on his lies. Because for these assholes, as always, "free speech" means the freedom to swallow their FUCKING LIES.
8. Turns out that Dickhead's blow-up daughter-in-law, who runs his internet swag 'n' propaganda arm, read an actual transcript of the announcement and calls that were supposed to have taken place well before the Rose Garden press conference on the 16th, but for whatever reason had not occurred. Only the best people, folks.

Maybe the biggest thing to take away from this unfortunate sequence of events is that the whole thing was completely unforced and unnecessary. There is something wrong -- completely off and wrong -- with this fucking clown. No matter how large or small the stakes, he cannot simply take a hint and allow for corrective action. He has to escalate needlessly.

Since he's always had that reverse Midas touch, the ineffable ability to fuck up things that should be slam dunks, everything and everyone he contacts with his leper touch gets the disease. It's funny how someone whose fans love that "he says what he means" keeps having to send out subordinates to explain what he said and what he meant.

It's General Kelly's turn to be exposed as a cynical, polluted soul. Whatever else he's done in his 67 years on this planet, selling out his son's tragic death for a worthless boss is what he'll be remembered for most.

Not that Kelly was a "good guy" anyway. Consider how much the bar has been lowered in just nine months, that since Kelly took over as White House Chief of Staff, people have been lauding the supposed "efficiency" and "seriousness" of the military junta running the joint, as if Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster didn't attain their ranks by being consummate company men.

The other thing people are sporting some wood for is the stray dissenting voices in the gloom -- Fredo Arbusto, Poor Ol' Straight Talk, and now Chocolate Hussein Thunder, the latter of whom we dearly miss. These men have all, in the past few days, given speeches expressing clear disdain for the way things are going. But none of them name any names.

Every horror-fantasy reader knows the trope of using the demon's name:  it is both dangerous and necessary. Saying the name aloud summons the demon, but using with power and conviction is also necessary to banish it back to the pits of hell.

Fredo Arbusto is stumping for Ed Gillespie, a lifelong Gooper machine hack who's running a Willie Horton campaign in the Virginia governor race. Gillespie is about as close to being a human shit-stain as possible, without having the last name of Von Clownstick. And Straight Talk was more than happy to vote for the budget, and has a history of going along after squawking for the cameras. He is sounding more and more like a man who truly has nothing to lose, and hopefully continues along that path.

But the point is that you either call out the asshole, or you don't. Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. In the continuous trashing of intangibles like "norms" and "decorum" and "institutions," the danger is that the office itself is going to be severely undermined. Executive power has steadily over-reached since the Cheney reign of error, but it is increasingly likely that Clownstick will eventually do something catastrophic, and the power of future executives will be rolled back too far.

And let's face it -- a brazen oaf like Fuckface Von Clownstick doesn't happen without Fredo and Straight Talk paving the way. They don't get a pass just because they don't like the cut of his jib. He's simply saying aloud the things they used to tell each other more quietly. Arbusto is still a fucking idiot, and Straight Talk lowered even that bar with his veep pick. So a couple of speeches where they don't have the guts to summon the demon by name is barely a start in making up what they've done to this country. Let's not forget that.

The ironic capper on all of this is that the Niger ambush may very well end up being Clownstick's Benghazi. There wasn't nearly enough air cover for the FID mission, and in fact a no-bid contractor only had one fixed-wing and one rotary-wing aircraft in the area, neither of which were armed. After the aircraft came in and grabbed the squad, including three of the dead, they inadvertently left LaDavid Johnson behind. Johnson's beacon went on, meaning that he was still alive. His casket had to remain closed, meaning that he was probably mutilated, dead or alive.

So a private contractor fucked the dog on this thing, and left a Green Beret behind to be brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists. It's a giant fiasco from snout to tail, and we're just starting to hear the details.

Again, this all could have easily avoided with a few simple phrases:  We're looking into that, and will announce when more information about the tragic incident becomes available. Our nation deeply appreciates your husband's service and sacrifice. We apologize if our sincere condolences were taken in a way we didn't intend, and we hope the family finds peace during this tragic moment.

It's not that fucking difficult, if you're a human being. It should be abundantly clear by now that that was always too much to ask of these vile people. Every goddamned one of them needs to be living in a van down by the river, and selling oranges at the freeway off-ramp, when we are finally deloused.

Also, too.

The Check Is In the Mail

So let's see if we have this straight -- back in June, Emperor Snowflake promised a check for $25,000 from his personal bank account to the parents of a soldier killed in Afghanistan. The check never arrived (of course) until now, four months later, or at least the emperor's spokes-weasel is saying it's "been sent."

None of this could possibly have anything to do with the emperor -- whose clothes, it must be noted, are from the finest and rarest silks, believe me -- finding a way to shit on one of our last sacred cows, fallen soldiers, not once but three times in the space of twenty-four hours, dragging the son of his own chief of staff into the mess. You might think Snowflake is concerned about how this will go over.

You would be thinking wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. He has nothing to worry about from his base-tards, and he (and they) know it. Because it's all an act with them, this feigned hero-worship for military personnel. They don't give a fuck about the troops, except the ones they're related to (which for Snowflake is fucking nobody; Snowflakes only carry weapons to kill endangered species, joining the Army is for teh poorz who don't have dads to grease the palms of admissions directors).

They do not care about this country, nor its military service personnel. They care about symbols and totems, the visual components of authoritarian virtue signaling and political correctness. But the principles that those symbols represent, and the people who fight and die for them? Fuck no. Snowflake and his diehards care far more about giant flags and empty gestures than they do about anything that has meaning or depth or intention.

They claim to love them some Jesus, but nothing that he actually said or did in the New Testament. And it's the same with the United States of America -- it's much more important to them to wave a traitor slaver flag and rant about professional athletes, than to think about what "free speech" really means, and why it's a special, rare right to have in this world.

He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway. Every recruit who signs on the line which is dotted, to join their nation's armed forces, certainly understands the inherent risks. Special Forces personnel understand this perhaps more than anyone. But only a soulless creep completely bereft of basic human empathy would say such a thing to the grieving wife -- a young widow with two young children and a third on the way -- of a soldier ambushed and killed in a secret combat mission.

It is a thing said by someone who has never known real sacrifice or commitment or a loss that hurts and never quite goes away, someone who has no concept of putting others before themselves. It is a thing said by someone who thinks they can pretend to purchase the grief of a family, as if it were a comically large painting of oneself purchased with the donated funds of one's own fraudulent charity. It is a thing said by a spoiled child who needed to have his ass kicked good and hard before being inflicted on an unsuspecting world.

But if a four-star Marine general is okey-doke with this spoiled, brainless clown using the general's dead son as a cynical poker chip in the clown's endless dick-measuring contest with the previous occupant, then that should be a clue as to how the brain-dead rubes who are still on board with this shit will react. They don't care. They don't care about what their hero says about dead soldiers and grieving families. They didn't care when he mocked a tortured war hero, they didn't care when he trash-talked a Gold Star family, and they don't fucking care now.

The ongoing cold civil war is ratcheting up, bit by bit, and this is a big one that everyone should pay attention to. This is an issue not of optics or precise political verbiage, but of basic decency and competence. Only a complete dipshit could find a way to fuck up a condolence call several different ways, and only an indecent person could continue to support this nonsense.

It is events like this that help clarify who the real deplorables are, and how it would be a waste of time and resources to try to court their votes. They're just in it to troll libtards at this point, and I hope each and every one of them gets saddled with an expensive, useless health plan, and their kids get sent to Iran or North Korea to make a fat, impotent, spray-tanned buffoon look tough to his hangers-on. I don't want to win them back. They can kindly go fuck themselves already.

The Czech Is In the Male

The first Mrs. Fuckface Von Clownstick, who in the thirty-some years since the end of their marriage has plied her trade as a....well, let's say a spender of her ex-husband's alimony payments and a waster of good oxygen, has plastered her name on a book, or perhaps a "book."

At least the poor Atlantic reviewer got paid to wade through what sounds like a catty, self-serving mess, but you have to wonder what sort of damaged psyche shells out good money and time to do such a thing. Are they thinking there will be some sort of revelation about Herr Clownstick? Come on, that would constitute a violation of the NDA she signed at the divorce to get her lifetime stipend.

A common theme when it comes to public couples comprised of awful men and their trophy wives is to make some piteous assumption about what the wife has to put up with. The most popular current iteration of this is the Saturday Night Live skit portraying the current Mrs. Von Clownstick as some poor trapped bird in a gilded cage.

To put it mildly, such assumptions are beyond stupid. It's one thing if couples get married young and/or impetuously, before having enough time to get to know each other, and one of them turns out to be an asshole. It happens, and it's not always easy to extricate oneself from such a relationship.

But even by his first marriage he had already been sued for housing discrimination against minorities. All of his wives had ample warning that he's a terrible person. The simplest and most likely explanation is that the women are also terrible; they may not engage in the exact same types of behavior, but there is at least an implicit admission on their part that his money helps offset his awfulness.

Well, sorry, but that also implicates you, dearie. It takes a terrible person to stay with a terrible person and publicly enable their nasty behavior. That there is a financial calculation baked into all that does not absolve you from moral complicity. When that person literally is in a position to ruin the entire world, and constantly acts temperamentally disposed to do exactly that, the complicity is all the more concrete.

Countess Von Clownstick's main skills appear to be an ability to find rich available men, a desire to instill a sociopathic level of competitive behavior in her children (especially for completely useless activities such as Easter egg hunts and lemonade stands), and a bottomless well of unearned self-regard. She could be the honorary queen mother of the endlessly leg-humping Kardashian klan, especially in terms of adding utterly zero value to the world or what's left of a culture.

Maybe It's Just a Coincidence

If you haven't read Jane Mayer's excellent piece in the New Yorker on Mike Pence, get on it post-haste. Lots of good stuff in there, especially Jared Kushner's machinations to get rid of Chris Christie in favor of Pence, and let traitor Michael Flynn in the door after Christie had already warned about him.

But what's perhaps more interesting is the little tidbits of info Mayer includes about Mike Pence's older brother Gregory. He runs an antique store, he cites The Wizard of Oz as a metaphor for his mother's change in political views, and he uses the descriptive "fabulous" at one point.

I think you get the picture. I wonder if his fanatic brother has tried to "cure" him.

Season's Beatings

I'm gonna go ahead and get out in front of the inevitable moron war on Christmas bullshit right now, considering Snowflake decreed that we would all be saying "Merry Christmas" from now on, since the Kenyan Moooslin had forbade us under penalty of death to do so during the long cold winter of his two terms.

During the holiday season, I typically do say "Merry Christmas," but not this year, and maybe not again for quite some time. You don't tell me what to fucking say or not say, old man. Period.

Like the cynical use of the troops to push against basic First Amendment rights to openly dissent, to be a rebel or even an asshole, those lying closet-case valyews voters can kiss my entire ass, and then go eat shit and die in a fire. They are not christian in any real, honest sense of that word -- they hate poor people, want more guns, and have aligned themselves with a lifelong thief and liar, someone who bears false witness routinely, who violates at least three or four of their so-called commandments before his second brunch.

So they can take their Merry Christmas and fuck themselves in the goddamned neck with it -- I'll say it when I fucking well feel like it, and there's not a thing they or he or anyone can do about it.

Thank You for Your Service

Nearly two weeks ago, four Green Berets were ambushed and killed in action on a mission in the Saharan country of Niger. During that period of time, HRH Emperor Snowflake has visited his golf resort five times, and took Rand Paul out for a "make sure you let him win and tell the media what a great golfer he is" round (last week it was Huckleberry Closetcase's turn with Dear Leader). But he has neither called nor written the families of the fallen soldiers, nor publicly addressed their sacrifice. (Don't know or care if he tweeted about it; that doesn't count as formal communication from the office of the country's chief executive.)

So when he was called on it at today's hostage video with Mitch the Bitch, Snowflake started dancing like a kid with a late book report, first saying that he'd written letters over the weekend and that they'd be going out today, then falling back on the tried-and-untrue tactic of Making Shit Up About The Blah Guy. "Someone told him" that Obama didn't call or write, or maybe they didn't. It so hard to be sure when you're making it up as you go along, just pulling it out of your ass and not even bothering to brush the peanuts and corn off.

This is at least the third time this fucking guy has said something completely disrespectful to military personnel specifically. The first time was when he mocked John McCain, the second time when he trash-talked the family of fallen combat veteran Humayun Khan. There are no doubt other incidents, of varying degree of seriousness, that I'm forgetting for the moment. (Honorable mention:  "I know more than the generals about ISIS," when he clearly knows jack shit about anything, and it's disrespectful to their position, as well as the work they've put in to fighting that enemy.)

But of course as far as Snowflake and his retard fan-base are concerned, the real disrespect for the troops and the country comes from professional athletes silently taking a knee in principled dissent during the national anthem. That should tell you everything you need to know about him and them -- that their flag-humping and troop-pimping is as cynical as you can imagine. The military is nothing more than a prop to him, and like good little cult monkeys, his base lives and breathes in rhythm with him. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

On the one hand, this lying criminal monster is exactly the chief executive that a fat, illiterate empire deserves when it's fallen and can't get up. On the other hand, we need more voices like Gregg Popovich to speak up and tell him to fuck off already. Few things are more shameful than cynically hiding behind and lying about military personnel, particularly when they've given their lives for this country, for a senile moron who's never done a goddamned thing in his life for anyone else.