Huis Clos

Jesus Christ, fucking go already. Really, do us all a favor. Get gone, Texas. Take the rest of the south with you. See how you and Florida like supporting the freeloader states.

Every goddamned year or so Texas "threatens" to secede, and then there's floods, or a town explodes because illegal levels of explosive fertilizer become, you know, exothermically volatile. Then their fucking hands are out for FEMA dollars.

But I sincerely hope that if enough of these mouth-breathers want out, that they get their wish, and that they take their whiny neighbor states with them. Maybe they can resume owning and selling other people, and taking their labor by force and murder. Whatever's clever.

I think the crying baby would make a perfect flag for them.

Nihilism

Britain's vote to leave the EU has everyone in a panic, and it seems almost certain to cost them (as it has already, between stock losses and the pound dropping like a stone). Larger questions like whether Scotland will re-vote for independence (probably) or other countries may start opting to the leave the EU (probably not) are open to speculation for now. In the meantime, the country already seems like the proverbial dog that finally caught the car it was chasing, only to realize that it has no idea what to do with it.

What's perhaps more interesting is the apparent parallels in voting "philosophy" between "Leave" voters and American Drumpf voters. The socioeconomic contexts appear to be very similar, in that the people likely to be hurt the most economically by those respective policies are the most enthusiastic for them.

While it may be one thing for an investment banker to understand that they ‘benefit from the EU’ in regulatory terms, it is quite another to encourage poor and culturally marginalised people to feel grateful towards the elites that sustain them through handouts, month by month. Resentment develops not in spite of this generosity, but arguably because of it. This isn’t to discredit what the EU does in terms of redistribution, but pointing to handouts is a psychologically and politically naïve basis on which to justify remaining in the EU.

There have been any number of similar assertions from Drumpfsters interviewed over the past year, many of them bizarrely attesting that Drumpf is "one of us". Presumably "one of us" in this context can basically be taken to mean, much like "speaks his mind", something along the lines of "not afraid to be a toxic asshole".

Hack Attack

What do you think the odds are that Mark Halperin knows whether or not Drumpf uses bronzer on his shriveled old-man penis? I'd put some actual cash on that, podna!

Is this a serious question? How many different ways can we answer that?

• Who does Halperin mean by "popular" and/or "qualified"? Newt Gingrich? Sarah Palin? Oh yeah, please pick either one of them. Bob Corker? Jeff Sessions? Establishment hacks. Hell, Sessions useta be a Democrat.
• Anyone who is actually popular and/or qualified has enough career sense to stay clear of the listing Trumptanic.
• Halperin is one of those idjits that needs a horserace to cover, so even if Clownstick picked one of the remedial kids (Rick Perry, Scott Walker), Halperin would do his damndest to spin it as an "inspired" choice.
• This "change DC" meme. Specifics please. Drumpf's central thesis is that he's not of these people or their corrupt world (although baked into that thesis is the convenient brag that Drumpf used to rent said pols he despises). So how exactly do you "change" an entire culture that you proudly know nothing about?
• Of course Drumpf will lean on the "Hillary=status quo" trope. HFC has already laid the groundwork to counter that argument, by improving on what currently exists.
• Halperin probably believes quite sincerely that a genuinely popular, qualified veep pick would magically make everyone forget about the last year of toxicity, of Drumpf's forty years and counting of public buffoonery. Too late. Drumpf's constant in-your-grill media presence has now baked in the irreversible perception of a privileged, loudmouth moron. Yes, despite what Dilbert says on the matter, Drumpf's a toxic idiot, not a brilliant persuasive strategist.  #drunkonbarstool
• Here's a counter-question:  What if -- and I'm just spitballin' here, so bear with me -- HFC also picks a "popular, qualified" running mate? Would that offset Drumpf's supposed veep boost? Would light matter and dark matter collide and explode and destroy the political universe? The possibilities are endless!

Also, too:  Can we just collectively agree to boycott MoDo, and maybe she'll finally be sent on her way? How the fuck do these people manage to stay gainfully employed?

I'm With Stupid

Until the votes are cast and counted, it's always too early to get confident and smug, but it seems like Mister Man has fallen off a cliff since clinching the Gooper nom. More specifically, it appears that the precise date was Drumpf's speech on May 27 (my birthday, as it happens, so you'll forgive me if I consider it a small gift from the universe) excoriating Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Since then, Drumpf has only compounded his problems, most notably with his tone-deaf insinuations after the Orlando massacre.

At this point, it's easy and tempting to consider the popular meme that Drumpf is really a plant from the Clinton campaign; after all, even Drumpf himself noted that he had a conversation with Bill Clinton shortly before making his fateful descent on the escalator and throwing his hairpiece into the ring. It makes a certain amount of perverted sense, and really nothing would surprise most of us anymore. The only reason I don't quite believe it is because Drumpf has always been a man of tremendous ego -- yuge, really -- and it's difficult to see him deliberately spend a year becoming a complete jerkoff for someone else's benefit. It's much easier to look at his history and see that he's always been a complete jerkoff.

See You Next Tuesday

It's just sad to consider the remote -- but still, in a nation of 320 million people, many of whom are simpletons, all too real -- possibility that someone out there still takes Sarah Palin seriously on any subject at all. She's a liar and a calumniator and a fucking dunce, and the world will be a better place when she finally fucks off and goes home for good. We should all just chip in five bucks and bribe her to go the fuck away already. It would be money well spent. Whoever these brain-dead morons are that still listen to her nonsense, they would seriously be better off if they went back to eating their own poop and impregnating their siblings.

For the millionth time:  no one wants to take your precious guns away. Nobody in their right mind even thinks it's possible. But it's not unreasonable to say that if you're not allowed on an airplane, you probably shouldn't be allowed to purchase a gun, likewise if you're a raving lunatic who's been investigated by the FBI.

Say the Magic Words

The right-wing obsession with politicians -- particularly, of course, Democratic politicians, who are always and forever having to prove their loyalty to this country, never to any avail -- using the phrase "radical Islam" to describe incidents of domestic terrorism, is nothing short of pathological. It is the lapel flag pin of this decade. They are as pathetic as Stallone saying "cup my balls, say my name" to an extra giving him a blowjob in his trailer. (Best hot mike incident ever? Yes. Best. Ever.)

Any attempt to tease out the practical ramifications of the obsession with this magic phrase is almost certainly wasted motion, yet reveals much about the people who insist on it. Obama, of course, has wisely resisted their imprecations, for the same reason that we don't (officially, at least) negotiate with terrorists. (HFC, on the other hand, had no problem with rightly throwing the phrase right back in their faces.) You delegitimize yourself when you give idiots equal standing, or validate their moronic arguments.

It Takes a Thief

From Clownstick's Twatter feed yesterday:

Cool story bro! Is that the same Don King who literally stomped a man to death on a fucking sidewalk back in the day? Sheeeiiit, between him and convicted rapist -- not racist, rapist -- Mike Tyson, you got the black vote nailed down, yo!

I would definitely encourage Drumpf to keep schlepping down this particular dirt road. See, a serious observer would realize that Drumpf is not truly a racist nor a sexist, despite the recent portrayals. Other humans are simply role-players in whatever scenario he happens to be in at the moment -- in the Dungeons & Dragons sense, they are simply NPCs.

In this light, Drumpf's travails with Judge Gonzalo Curiel become clearer. Despite Drumpf's plaints about building that fucking wall, Curiel's heritage really doesn't matter. He could be Irish or Polish or Swabian or Ruthenian -- the problem is that he disagrees with Drumpf's little real estate "university" scam, and as such is The Enemy. Curiel could be a sixth-generation "real" 'murkin of lily-white Yer-a-peein' heritage, and Drumpf would find something to complain about because Curiel is not buying the monorail. Individuals are meaningful only insofar as they heartily endorse the Clownstick ethos. Otherwise, regardless of race or ethnicity, they're something Clownstick scrapes off the bottom of his shoe.

I'm not going to claim to be locked into the "black community" as such, but I know this -- people are people, wherever you go, whatever they do to get through the day. If Drumpf wants to tout his main black endorsers -- King, Tyson, Dennis Rodman, the jive turkey bloggeristas Diamond and Silk -- let him. I promise you that no black person serious about getting ahead in this one life we're all given has more than half a fuck to give about what any of those people think about anything. In fact, most of them look at a thieving, murderous piece of shit like Don King and are embarrassed, not that they should be. King is no more representative of black people than, say, Meat Loaf or Gary Busey are representative of white people. (Wait, maybe those guys do represent a certain swath of Cracker Nation.)

When Clownstick gets an endorsement from a black person that isn't a sellout or a card-carrying shitbird, then we can be impressed.

Stay Classy

So a psychopath murders and injures dozens of people at a nightclub, and the first thing this asshole can think of is you people got what was coming. (Apparently Patrick posts a bible verse every Sunday morning on his Twitter account, so it is actually possible that this wasn't specifically in response to Orlando, but it's hard to buy that his office needs to plan ahead three days in advance for a bible verse tweet. Come on.)

More importantly, this is the sort of thing that Clownstick lies in wait for, to beat his dead "radical Islam" horse. Never mind that the killer was a US citizen, and that his support for ISIS is a rumor so far, and is likely one-way anyway. Clownstick seems to think his willingness to say the phrase is a badge of honor, and Democrats' supposed unwillingness to use the phrase is a sign of cowardice, rather than more ecumenically based.

(It should also be noted that a massacre, planned to take place at today's Gay Pride Parade in Los Angeles, was averted by good police work. The would-be killer was -- get this -- an angry white asshole from Indiana. If we could only ban those motherfuckers.)

It's a predictable routine now, in the wake of tragedies like this; all the political opportunists come out of the woodwork. We're not banning guns or Muslims, so both sides will be disappointed. But between this incident and another one in Florida just the night before, where some stalker creep piece of shit walked up and murdered a singer after a concert, maybe it's time states asked themselves what they are or should be doing to keep the ability to murder dozens of people in a matter of minutes out of the hands of psychopaths.

Rational Self-Interest

Interesting convo in the comments section over at Steve's jernt (guest-posted by aimai). On the broader points made by aimai in the post and comments, I think most sensible people would agree -- a flawed but generally supportable candidate is better than the Drumpfster fire being floated by the other party. Staying at home and clutching one's purity shawl does no one any good.

I would take some issue at the "it's not about you" meme, however. Not to sound like some asshole Randroid off the pages of Atlas Shrugged, but I vote for my own self-interest first. The very rich own the government, and the very poor have a number of programs available to them to help. Folks in the middle tend not to have those things.

So while I support the ACA, and will continue to do so, I resent the fact that the insurance my (government) employer provides sucks rhino balls, and costs me (and my employer) more and more every year, an entirely foreseeable consequence of enacting the grotesquely mutated final version of the ACA. When a cornerstone legislation is literally written by the industry it's designed to regulate, it's stupid not to expect consequences.

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

Money quote for the weekend, courtesy of Michelle Goldberg at Slate:

The spectacle of self-proclaimed Christian conservatives cheering a foul-mouthed ex-casino owner for his pledge to turn away refugees tells you pretty much everything you need to know about what the religious right has become—or maybe what it always was.

Fuckin' A. Look, Hillary Clinton (aka HFC from here on out) is not exactly a kindly nun, but come on. It's bad enough if a secular person cannot distinguish between HFC and DMB, but a religious person? The best one could politely suggest to such a person is that they are not nearly as principled as they pretend to be.

HFC might be an irredeemably corrupt, power-mad grifter with a "foundation" that best resembles The Human Fund, but there's no disputing that the foundation actually has done some good for some people. DMB, on the other hand, talks a good game about supporting the vets and all, but withholds actual funds until he gets media scrutiny.

Turds of a Feather

Completely agree with Driftglass' assessment that professional asshole Newt Gingrich will get tabbed by the Drumpf-Miller-Barron (DMB) Group for running mate. I can't think of anyone (besides, of course, Sarah Palin) who would be more well-suited for the job. Like DMB, Gingrich is a hypocritical serial monogamist, and like DMB, Gingrich has made a career out of perverting the English language for his own nefarious purposes.

In an alternate universe, DMB and Gingrich are married to each other, with the former sincerely thinking he can impregnate the latter with thrice-weekly raids on Gingrich's doughy, pale buttocks and prolapsed rectum. Alternate Universe Gingrich, on the other hand, understands how biology works, but is content with letting his paramour mount him at will because he figures there's a pot of gold at the end of the cornholed rainbow.

Wait till he finds out that DMB's business model is mostly predicated on stiffing creditors, shareholders, subcontractors, and employees alike, just because he can. By the time Gingrich gets all the spray-tan wiped off his ritually abused ass-cheeks, the election will be over and DMB will have gone back to the tower to plot his next mega-grift.

They are both useless cocksuckers who would seriously be doing the world a favor if they self-exiled themselves to a polluted Siberian outpost, never to be heard from again. As such, they would be the perfect ticket for what's left of the Republican party.

Implosion?

Well, well. Looks like sort-of-fuckable Florida AG Pam Bondi solicited campaign contributions from Mr. "When I call, they kiss my ass" right before her office coincidentally decided not to pursue charges against Fatboy's glorified flipping seminar. Timing is everything, you know.

That this information comes out on a day that also featured an in-depth report on what a clusterfuck dumpster fire his campaign really is, and an additional report on how he called out his own staff for not adopting his bizarre strategy of doubling down on his baseless attacks on Judge Curiel, is just too good to be true. Keep fucking that chicken, asshole!

It really is a borderline insane tack to take, this continued attack on the judge. How precisely has Curiel been "unfair" to Drumpf, in a case that has yet to be adjudicated, and in fact was pushed back past Election Day by the judge? Curiel could just as easily have insisted that Clownstick spend valuable campaigning time skulking into the deposition room to lie further about his scam.

I think it's important for whatever's left of the sanity of this nation that Drumpf -- and more crucially, his cult followers -- get blown out in the election. A squeaker won't cut it; they'd just whine that they were close enough to win it, but it somehow or other got stolen from them. No, they need to get absolutely crushed, and learn a lesson.

It's not as if Drumpf isn't doing his part to throw it by twenty points. He barely bothered lobbing back at HRC after she delivered a blistering rebuke last week, preferring instead to focus on whatever underhanded maneuvers the unfair Meskin judge has done to poor Donny. He seems fixated on the guy, at the expense of everything else. He's supposedly got cretins like Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer on his veep short list. The "plans" on his website for various things are just the same old incoherent nonsense we've come to expect from Dopey Dumb Old. There really is no there there. Sad!

It's way too early say that this is finally getting fun, because the outcome looks more possible (if not yet nearly certain), but it might be starting to.

French Tickler

At some point, I expect Bill Kristol, after some inevitable dipshit "idea" or "observation" in the near future, to break character and go, "Aaah, I'm just fuckin' with ya!". I mean, has this guy ever been right about anything? How bad at your "job" do you have to be before you have to go out and earn an honest paycheck?

Wake Me Up Before You MoDo

The fact that Maureen Dowd still writes for what is still considered this nation's flagship newspaper is an indictment both of the condition of our corporate media and of our collective willingness to allow idiots to do jobs that should be done by rational people. Seriously, between her, Bobo, Douthat, and Friedman, one could reasonably get the idea that "meaningless, dithering equivocation" is literally part of the job description.

I don't have the gut to willingly read any of those folks, but on the rare occasions I do, I always come away with the same sensation I get when watching, for example, the head coach of a winless, incompetent NFL team on the sideline during a game, in the middle of a 55-0 blowout:  I could do better than that, and for a lot less money. 

But He's Our Asshole

The one and only Ben Stein affirms his de facto role as conservative intemellectual type perfectly, in managing to simultaneously rake Drumpf-Miller (a division of Clownstick University LLC) over the coals as a (get this) know-nothing buffoon who doesn't "[know] a goddamn thing about economics," would start economically devastating trade wars, and attempt to "bring jobs back" that cannot be brought back. (Gee, sounds like Stein's been reading this blog.)

And yet, in the end, despite praising Hillary Clinton to a much greater extent than he does Clownstick, Stein says that he will be voting for the evil clown. Why?

Are you surprised that Trump is basically the nominee of the Republican party?

I am absolutely … I am open-mouthed, gasping, unbelievable. But he has his charms. There must be something people like about him. I don’t get him but there must be something people like.

I’ll vote for him, by the way. I’ll vote for him because I think he does personify a kind of national pride which I think has been lacking in the Obama days and would be terribly lacking under Bernie Sanders and terribly lacking under Hillary Clinton. But I think his economics is way, way out of whack and he seriously needs some education about it.

Wow. Quite a bit to unpack there, but let's just hit the main notes:

• Stein (rightly) is uncomprehending of Drumpf's appeal to his flock, and so he punts with what might be called the "50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" theory, which especially in this case is even less comprehensible. There is not much middle ground on Drumpf -- people either love him, hate him, or may begrudgingly vote for him only because they despise HRC more.
  
  None of that means that someone who doesn't "get" his "appeal" is missing something. It doesn't mean that at all. In fact, more people hate him than love him, so even by Stein's own twisted logic, it would make more sense for Stein to take that tack wrt Drumpf. I mean, if it's a fuckin' popularity contest, then be consistent about it.
• What kind of "national pride" specifically has been "lacking" under Obama, yet would be magically restored under an isolationist pelf-grubbing dupe like Drumpf? I have yet to see a single critic who raises this sort of nonsensical issue, who seems equipped to elaborate on such a fatuous accusation. Obama's great sin seems to be the fact that he understands that globalization has made the world multipolar and interdependent, and that we may regard ourselves as first among equals, but we still have to deal with the lesser mortals of other nations, who incidentally have mostly been around for centuries or millennia longer than we have.
  
  A much bigger sin than supposedly not exhibiting enough bluster and arrogance in the name of "national pride" is the sin of thinking that you already know everything you ever need to know. That, more than anything by far, was Fredo Arbusto's biggest problem, and it's why he didn't take his office seriously, except when it was time to play dress-up. Not to mention that there's nothing in anything Clinton or Sanders has ever said that would indicate that they don't take pride in this country. That's just Stein spouting the usual conservatard propaganda, probably something he either read or wrote in National Review or one of the other wingnuts welfare rags.
• At the end of his final sentence and elsewhere in the interview, Stein seems in the context of the conversation to believe that Drumpf can be "educated" on his fatally flawed approach to economic prospects. I am not being the least bit snarky when I say that I have no fucking clue where Ben Stein would have gotten that impression. Not because Drumpf cannot be educated (though at this point I doubt that he can be educated on any substantial issue to any meaningful extent), but because he has made a point for many years, well before this nightmarish campaign began, of lying, misrepresenting facts, selling bullshit by the truckload, and generally making it clear that he keeps in own counsel on everything.
  
  Seriously, this is the guy who fucking said with a straight face, "I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me." So again, what exactly makes Ben Stein think that Drumpf could be "educated" on anything? He says what he wants to say, doesn't care if it's true or not, doesn't care if it would be economically or politically devastating to this country, defies you to fact-check him, and when you do, usually just denies he said it or changes the subject.

This sort of shit pisses me off on a lot of levels. For one, Stein is just the latest in a long line of oh-so-principled conservatives who rightly expressed skepticism about a reality-teevee blowhard clowning his way to the highest office in the land, and then quickly changed their tune soon as he weaseled his way to the nomination.

But worse than that, Ben Stein is someone who consistently presents himself as a serious, educated voice of (in his mind) sensible moderation. And he's completely abdicated that role here.

I mean, no one gives a shit that Rick Perry called Drumpf a cancer on the party and now is nervously fellating him for some sort of cabinet post. Nor does anyone care that an unprincipled fuck like Chris Christie sold his soul for a possible shot at Attorney General in a Drumpf regime. People expect weasels to act as such, every time. That's what makes them weasels. It's just hilarious that every goddamned one of them lost their spines practically overnight. You can bet that if Drumpf had rightly been laughed off six or nine months ago, he'd still be trash-tweeting every last one of them.

Stein, on the other hand, presumably is not jockeying for any position in a Drumpf regime. He has no mercenary reason to sell out his common sense for bullshit. Which somehow makes it worse, in that neither his rationale for voting for him, nor his stated logic in arriving at that rationale, are intellectually honest, or even make any sense.

The Republicans are riding a very dangerous dragon with their presumed nominee, because of the coalitions of disaffected yahoos he has cobbled together to support him. They are damned whether or not he wins: if he loses, there could be unprecedented down-ticket losses to go along with it; if he wins, it legitimizes what are turning out to be some of the worst, most ignorant and bellicose voices in American politics for close to fifty years. And Drumpf is turning 70 in less than two weeks, so he is not going to be a long-term presence regardless. But the brand will be stained all the same.

A Perfect Fit

Political fanfic scrivener PrickDick Morris has a new home, at the National Enquirer, which is owned by the equally aptly named Drumpf butt-buddy David Pecker. Yes, it's just too bad Morris and Pecker don't get married, at which point Morris could be Dick Pecker.

Morris is one of those lowlife scumbags for whom the terms factotum or dogsbody or toady or fuckface doesn't quite capture it. He doesn't have an eye for the real grift, the way fellow shitbird Karl Rove does. Morris' primary skill is ball-licking, giving verbal rimjobs to the highest bidder.

It seems only fitting that Morris now shovels shit for a manure factory, but it's equally fitting that, since he first came to prominence as hatchet man for the Clintons, they now have to deal with him. Karma doesn't exist, but every once in a while you have to wonder.

Acceptance Speech

scene from the near future

[INTERIOR SHOT:  The floor of Cleveland's QUICKEN LOANS ARENA is packed and thrumming with activity. THE CANDIDATE is about to be introduced. The sense of anticipation is palpable, electric. The stage is empty and brightly lit.]

M. BUFFER:  Lay-deeeeez and gentlemen, please welcome your nominee for President of the Yew-nited States, from New York City, standing six-feet-one and weighing in at two hundred and seventy-three pounds.

The Glower in the Tower, the Con King of Queens, the Son of Scam, the Bastard of Disaster who will eventually be enshrined in plaster. He likes his women rare and his steaks well-done. The Headmaster of Trump University, Donald Joooohhnn TRUMP!

[THE STAGE LIGHTS suddenly point toward STAGE RIGHT, where THE CANDIDATE emerges, walking to the podium, briskly but not hurriedly. He is in his element. The crowd rises to its feet all at once, applauding their new messiah. They are ALL IN, fully invested in this man.]

[THE CANDIDATE approaches the podium, looks left and nods benevolently, looks right and center and nods benevolently to each. He waves at some, points at others, making each person feel as if he is waving and pointing at them. He is ready to confer his grace upon these people. He soaks in the adulation, feels their love, feeds off their energy. THE CANDIDATE is in his moment.]

[THE CANDIDATE pulls a live chicken out of his suit jacket, holds it aloft, brings it down and bites its head off, all in one quick, smooth motion. He spits the head out of his mouth, and it flies just over the podium, rolls an extra few inches near the edge of the stage.]

[THE CANDIDATE looks out to the crowd, as they reach a fever pitch, and grins, blood running out over his chin and jowls, his teeth now coated with blood and a few feathers. This is his dream and theirs, and THE CANDIDATE pauses for maximum effect, ten seconds, twenty, thirty. Finally, he drops the chicken carcass and approaches the microphone, arms outstretched to the crowd.]

THE CANDIDATE:  The Aristocrats!

Six Words That Explain Everything

We would also have accepted, "You fucked up! You trusted us!"