Suggested Line of Questioning

John Bolton, he of the hilarious facial hair and questionable sex history, really is the worst of the worst -- vainglorious, full of shit about every-goddamned-thing, the stereotypical fake-tough armchair warrior. So he's perfect for this steaming choad of an administration.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the ultimate outcome of Bolton's selection, if only because Bolton has always been such a toxic presence, such an abysmal boss whose subordinates fucking loathe his very existence, that it will take him most of the spring and summer to "clean house" of people who might dare to disagree with his rush to sacrifice other people for his own bullshit principles. And all during that time Bolton's even more toxic boss will be doing and saying any number of stupid things, further alienating and demoralizing the margins of his own base, while further motivating the determination of opponents to push these motherless fucks into the outhouse of history, where they belong.

It seems like a roughly 99% certainty that Bolton was selected entirely because it would piss off the usual caricatured libtard snowflakes, as well as anyone with a triple-digit IQ. But as they are finding out the hard way, that's not really how you govern a country, because you can't get much of anything done. Good for everyone else, but good luck making a case that the only thing you've been successful at so far is monetizing all your Cabinet posts.

One thing that Fuckface Von Clownstick can lay claim to is a dogged repetition in his stump rhetoric. He says the same things over and over and over again, braying like a sunburnt mule about the same handful of imaginary grievances and positions. One issue he has been consistent about is his (false) claim about opposing the Iraq War, how it was a disaster, how his unique genius made him so prescient he just knew better than all those generals and smart-guy planners.

Well, as most of us know, one of those smart-guy planners was John Bolton, who still makes no bones about his feelings on the rightness and necessity of that war, the rest of the world be damned, the rest of that war's own architects be damned. Journalists can and should ask Bolton at the next opportunity about that, and ask him to elaborate. Bolton's a gaping asshole and a strategic moron, but he can think and speak extemporaneously.

Obviously there are any number of legitimate reasons to ask a new National Security Advisor to elaborate on his continued support for the unmitigated disaster of that war. So they need to do just that, and then they need to turn right around and ask Clownstick (if he's available), or one of his simpering dogsbodies about this vital inconsistency.

For once, take these jabbering idiots at their word -- if the emperor so fervently believes that the Iraq War was one of the biggest mistakes the US has ever made, then why for fuck's sake has he made one of that war's most ardent cheerleaders his national security adviser? It's a serious question that needs to be asked. This asshole wants war with Iran and North Korea, and is not above doing so pre-emptively. It's easy to learn nothing from the previous mistake, when you have no skin in the game.

Because our media entities are mostly crap, they will not bother with such important questions, besotted as they are with the more salacious details of the Stormy Daniels case (ignoring, of course, the most interesting detail by far -- that Clownstick's NDAs read like poorly transcribed Nolo templates, and he has his staff [illegally; they work for us, not him] sign NDAs as well, thus potentially opening the floodgates for tell-all books that will make Fire and Fury look like My Pet Goat). But someone needs to ask, and soon. Stop transcribing shameless lies, and start forcing these assholes to answer some real questions.

It's a Start

It appears that Laura Ingraham's endless supply of snide comments has finally gotten her ass in a wringer. It couldn't happen to a more deserving person, and it's hilarious to watch how quickly she took to groveling soon as she realized her bullshit was finally going to cost her money.

Which is really all that's important to any of these useless idiots, Alex Jones and such like. Never forget that at the end of the day, it's all a fucking scam. The only thing these cock-smokers sincerely believe in is getting paid. Everything else is just filler between ads for catheters and pills and ambulance chasers "helping" you with your legal claims for mesothelioma or displaced vaginal mesh.

And what David Hogg initiated with his tweet is remarkable in its simplicity and effectiveness. Again, these young people are reminding us all that we don't have to take their shit -- really, we never did need to take their shit. He's reminding this smug smartass that it's not a joke, that his friends were murdered and for people like Ingraham and Loesch and the rest of the Jugend to crack wise about it is not going to fly anymore. Somebody had to do it.

The MSM are collectively cowed by "tradition" and "process" and "expectations" and "norms," while faithfully stenographing the comings and goings of an administration that is completely unencumbered by those things. They'll keep showing up to the "press briefings" for Baghdad Barb's daily sack o' lies, right up to the bitter end, whining in mock horror every time she, y'know, fucking lies about everything. Great. That and eight bucks will get me a nice artisanal mochachino.

It's vital to remember that, like her cult hero, Laura Ingraham is merely a symptom, not the disease. Considering she labors in the typhoid factory, she's little more than a voluntary carrier, spreading the pandemic around as much as possible, blowing her nose into the sandwiches and soups she sells to unwitting customers.

Like Facebook users, Fox viewers are not the customers -- they are the product. These tiresome fist-shaking codgers cling bitterly to the vestiges of life long after the thrill of living is gone, as their bodies and minds betray them full-tilt. Many of them have already collected more from Social Security than they paid in, and will tell you right away that they are entitled to all of it and more, even if they spend the next twenty years marinating in their own filth and decrepitude, watching lifelong losers like Geraldo Rivera spew lies at them non-stop.

So Ingraham sucks, but let's not forget Tucker Carlson, let's not forget that fatheaded turd Hannity, who actually has some sort of informal advisory role with one F. Von Clownstick, aka King Shit of Turd Hill.

Imagine that for a hard second -- it is well-known fact that a person unjustly thrust into perhaps the most important job on the planet spends his mornings poop-transcribing Fox and Friends on his Twitter account, then has dinner with Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro (who makes Ingraham look like Oprah Winfrey in comparison) on a regular basis. He solicits advice and counsel from these weasels.

Seriously, 'murka:  your domestic and foreign policy is literally being affected by Steve Doocy, who doesn't have three brain cells to rub together. We can all duly note, in the classic style of Yakov Smirnoff, that in Russia the leader controls state teevee -- but here in America, it's the other way around.

There's always the argument that "free speech" is being coercively squelched by reactive boycotts like this. But people like Jones and Hannity and Ingraham are impervious to the rigors of normal debate and argument. They are not interested in mustering facts or exchanging ideas. Upton Sinclair would recognize this nonsense for exactly what it is, people whose careers depend on them pissing and shitting into the well of public discourse.

Ordinarily you might say they are heedless or reckless in their disregard for what they're doing, and what effects their lies have on people and events, but you would be very wrong. They know exactly what they're doing. It's in their job description.

All of which means that maybe it's time to go after the big guns -- the Murdochs and their vile media empire. Maybe it's time to boycott the regular Fox network as well; I'm tired of football and Family Guy anyway. Truly, the old man is the worst sort of scum, and his sons are about as much of a "moderating influence" as Clownstick's awful brood. I wish them all long lives -- as poor, broke, miserable bastards. It would be nice at least once in this lifetime to see privileged scumbags held accountable for what they've done.

The Kids Are Alright

Maybe instead of getting annoyed with Sanctimonium Santorum trolling high school students with his sage "take CPR in case aderanged shooter drops in with an AR-15" advice, maybe we should ask CNN why they keep having in on to spout nonsense. The fact that he was once a You Ass Senator only means that Pennsyltuckians have a knuckle-dragger contingent like every other state in the union.

Look, this is an industry, and CNN has no problem selling the nutritional equivalent of deep-fried twinkies, under the usual guise of "let's hear both sides." Again, when the issue is how can we stop or at least reduce the frequency of school shootings?, recommending CPR classes and posting five-gallon buckets at strategic locations is not a fucking "side," it's inexcusably stupid and borderline deranged.

So you might say to yourself, "Self, I wonder why the supposedly librul lamestream media keep having liars and morons peddle nonsense and cheap invective? I wonder why the nation's leading newspapers keep making bi-weekly pilgrimages out to talk to handfuls of fist-shaking codgers in dilapidated diners in decrepit towns?"

The mediots are dedicated first and foremost to peddling clickbait, things that will infuriate all the usual people and get them squawking. They are marketing a product, just as surely as Frito-Lay or Smirnoff or Applebee's or Tampax is marketing a product.

It is our collective decision whether we wish to consume the media product -- and more importantly, the products of their sponsors -- or not. It's also our decision whether or not we wish to take note that the person who runs CNN is the same person who ran NBC when Fuckface Von Clownstick had his stupid fake-tycoon celebritard fuckfest, and if that's all just a big coincidence.

The Parkland students have managed a formidable accomplishment, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people in hundreds of cities around the world, with just a month to organize things, with the right-wing propaganda machine and its various scumbags and dogsbodies [paid crisis actors!] focused squarely on them. Obviously the ultimate outcome of the marches remains to be seen, but the students have already demonstrated one very important principle that everyone can take note of:  you don't have to take shit from these people. At all.

These young people have had hideous, hateful nonsense hurled at them, in social media and on the teevee and probably in their local communities, death threats and invective from people they don't know, and therefore have no idea if they're "real" or just outrage trolling. And they've shrugged it off completely, refusing to acknowledge the assholes, calling out politicians at every level.

There are really only two ways to make the vile scumbags pay attention:  the ballot box and the wallet. And people can and should use both of those things, and not be afraid to dig deep. The Parkland students were effective in that arena as well, without really even trying; once the NRA rushed to show just how monstrous they truly are, it didn't take long for their corporate sponsors to distance themselves.

So who are the sponsors of the CNN show that had that dipshit Santorum on to burble his abusive nonsense? Maybe they need a friendly reminder about where their advertising dollars ultimately come from. That's what got that fuckhead O'Reilly banished to podcasting out of the den in his empty house. The gun-humpers have no compunction about pissing all over the First Amendment in order to "protect" their fevered vision of the Second Amendment. Maybe it's time to show that everyone can play that game.

Or, to dig a bit deeper, remember who produced the aforementioned fake-tycoon celebritard fuckfest? I've said it before and I'll say it again:  social media and reality teevee have wrecked this country, and the foremost purveyor of the latter form of televised diarrhea is that limey turd Mark Burnett, who also produces Survivor, which seems like it oughta be years past its sell-by date even for the inert gastropods who still watch that dreck (in between Bachelor marathons and intravenous mayonnaise feedings).

So who sponsors Survivor, and can they (and CBS, of course) be leaned on? Personally, I can't boycott something I've never watched, but they don't know that. This is what it's come to, because this is what they've insisted on. It's long past time now to give it back with both barrels. And we've all just been given a crash course in how to do that.

Rube Awakening

"One never knows how loyalty is born." -- Bert Cooper, Mad Men

Conor Lamb's recent victory in the PA-18 special election not only exposes very real fault lines in the crumbling Gooper claque, but also serves to bring some of the apostate rubes back home. Like all Cletus Safari articles, nothing more than anecdata can ever be churned by talking to a half-dozen people in a town whose name you've already forgotten by the end of the piece.

Still, the comments all point at the same thing:  they've grown tired of the shitshow, exhausted by the daily antics of ineptitude. The guy's a toxic asshole who can't get anything done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is reflected in my own anecdata, talking recently with a couple of Clownstick-supporting friends who, while still supporting him, separately offered the exact same qualifier:  I wish he wouldn't tweet so much.

It's difficult to top that complete lack of awareness, and I said so, made sure to remind each of these people of that fact:  This is who he is, what he is. This is how he's always been. Lying about everything on his Twitter account is literally what got him into this. He's never not been a bullshitter. He lies about everything, no matter how small or inconsequential. Politics has nothing to do with it. He's a diseased soul.

Two things yesterday hammered those very points home.

• Using the legal system to harass stripper/porn star Stormy Daniels. Apparently there is a clause in the non-disclosure agreement that Daniels signed and David Dennison Fuckface Von Clownstick didn't, stipulating that each breach incurs a fine of $1M. Most sentient humans with at least some knowledge of the legal system agree that the amount is laughably unenforceable in an agreement that paid only $130K total in the first place, and wasn't signed by one of the agreeing parties.
• Firing Andrew McCabe, less than forty-eight hours before McCabe would have retired anyway. Whether or not McCabe gets some or all of his pension and benefits, the fact is that Clownstick sent his paid perjurer Jefferson Beauregard Sessions the Thuhd to do the dirty work yesterday specifically to fuck McCabe out of what he had earned in his civil-service career.

This is the cruel, petty, vindictive side of Clownstick that again, fucking everyone warned the morons about. I know I call everyone I don't like an asshole, but this guy is a fucking asshole. If he had been born poor he would have been the neighborhood creep that spent his teens torturing stray cats, before moving on to hunting humans.

McCabe will land on his feet regardless; as one might assume (unless you're a doddering narcissistic moron), he kept notes of all their interactions, will probably see his inevitable book advance double or triple what it would have been otherwise, and is most assuredly on his way to Mueller's office Monday morning. He's not an idiot, and now he's been motivated by the world's worst boss.

Beyond the anecdotal down-punching, the immersion in the impotent god-emperor's temper tantrums and incoherent volatility, the fan club has to be seeing the catastrophic decisions affecting the bigger picture. He shitcanned Tex Drillerson while Drillerson was literally on the shitcan; he's pushing H.R. Haldeman Pufnstuf out the door, possibly for John Bolton, or some other swamp thing that'll make us wish for Bolton. Think of that:  by the time this abortion of an administration is eighteen months along, it will be on at least its third National Security Director, its second Secretary of State, probably its third FBI Director. And at least three other high-level positions are looking to be shuffled around, and possibly filled by dipshits from Fixed Noise.

And let's not forget who the dotard appointed as his economic advisor:  a cokehead with a history degree and a long track record of not knowing what the fuck he's talking about when it comes to the economy. The economy is actually doing relatively well [fake numbers!] for now, and two-thirds of the country still despises this motherfucker. But we're already overdue for a recession, and even the diehards might take some issue when Captain Eight-Ball fucks the dog and that extra twenty bucks in their paychecks goes away, along with the rest of their paychecks.

Then again, the economy won't much matter once we're tangled in North Korea, Syria, and Iran simultaneously, because Group Sex McPornstache wants to flex nuts for Cadet Bonespurs.

What struck me about the Pennsyltucky voters from the Times article was this common thread of "let's try something new," without bothering to even minimally vet that new something. Well, now they know, and at least some of them are willing to change their minds, and maybe even remember next time that stoves are hot, and that when someone tells you who they are, maybe you should believe them.

I think (though I'm not always certain) that I've come to accept that I will always be mystified by how otherwise intelligent, sensible people got gulled by this transparent snake-oil dipshit. I mean, we've all become accustomed to the screaming goobers with their Fuck Your Feelings t-shirts, barking slogans like trained seals at the Two Minutes of Hate rallies.

But there are some supporters (really!) who have good jobs and careers and skills and college degrees. They run their own businesses. Some of these folks are book smart and street smart, the kind of people who can hit a used-car lot and come out with a solid deal, not get rooked on the undercoating by Jerry Lundegaard.

And yet they fell for....this fucking clown, a serial failure who has to call the New York Post pretending to be someone else, to brag about how great he is in the sack, to shame his first wife and impress his mistress. These are people who care about "character" in their politicians, and they went for someone who, if nothing else, is entirely forthright about his completely amoral character and utter lack of business ethics.

This will never fail to baffle me. I feel like I'm missing some enormous financial opportunity, in not finding a way to scam them further. I get why they can't admit they fucked up, but how did they fall for it in the first place? It's like one of those internet-romance-finance scams, where some lonely divorcee sends a ricockulous amount of money to some guy with a nice photo and a smooth rap.

You read about these things and say, who are these fucking people? There's a similar pathology at play with the Clownstick dupes. They know they fucked up but can't admit it, even to themselves. So they keep doubling down and making excuses, until they run out of both.

At any rate, it seems to be finally starting to sink in with some of them, that he really is a barstool drunk -- inept, mouthy, right about every fucking thing even after being proven wrong every time. And he's an obnoxious asshole and a tiresome crybaby on top of all that.

It should speak volumes that they flooded the zone with Clownstick and his vile children, poured over $10M dollars into a race for a congressional district that won't even exist nine months from now. It should raise the antenna of Republican operatives and strategists that in Clownstick's me-me-me rally, illegally talking himself up for 2020 when he was supposed to be stumping for Rick Saccone, that neither he nor the teevee ads bothered talking about the tax cuts.

There's something in the air, and they can smell it, and they know it's not the smell of victory. We're about to see if the Democrats can actually learn something from all this.

Both Sides Now

I don't really have much to offer on the subject of MSM concern trolling of "liberals" and "leftists" as those definitions even still exist as we might have understood them ten or twenty years ago, because whether it's coming out of James Bennet's troll farm or from the soi-disant conservative end, the results are the same, and you shall know their sloppy thinking by their works. Their crapulence should be self-evident enough that you don't need some random numbskull such as yours truly to connect the dots.

But the opening example from the above-linked AmCon essay deserves attention:

Earlier this March, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivors David Hogg and Cameron Kasky appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Kasky used the opportunity to respond to those like NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch who he feels have used the activists’ young age as an excuse to say they don’t know what they are talking about. Kasky boldly declared: “We’ve been locked in a classroom. We have seen our friends text their parents goodbye. We are the experts. We know exactly what we’re talking about. How dare you tell us we don’t know?” Having endured a horrific and traumatizing experience, it’s understandable that Kasky would answer critics with emotion.

The bigger problem is that such emotional arguments have become the norm in our society. As Charles C.W. Cooke recently argued in National Review, it is wrong and belittling to dismiss Hogg and the other activists from Parkland simply because they are young, just as it is wrong to say that they should be immune from criticism on account of their age. If these students want to chime in on a national debate, it is their right to speak their minds and enter the scrum. Accordingly, their ideas should be criticized and praised under the same criteria as anyone else’s. In that spirit, it is rather difficult to accept Kasky’s claim to expertise solely by his being present at the scene of a horrific crime.

This is disingenuous enough to give a bad name to concern trolling, which is saying something. Let's break down the operational phrase "NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch," shall we? The NRA lobbies on behalf of gun manufacturers, not gun owners. It's a crucial difference between customer and product -- gun owners are the product that the NRA brings to their customers, by pushing booga-booga nonsense about so-and-so coming to take your arsenal, which you totally need in case you have to fight off the eeevil gubmint you claim to revere. Something like that; it becomes increasingly difficult to parse their self-contradictory jabber.

Anyhoo, Dana Loesch is the (urp!) spokesmodel peddling said paranoid jabber to old white men who buy into such guff, and regard her as eye candy. Loesch regards herself as eye candy as well, as she has also tried to pitch a sitcom idea for herself to star in as a "hot young mom." Um, okay. Can't believe they passed on that one.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that not only is Dana Loesch delusional, she is a carny peddling gun paranoia to Dale Gribble burger-militia types between "jobs" out in BFE. Loesch's thinly veiled threats of armed insurrection may give the Cletii a chub, but the main thing is that she is making nakedly emotional appeals to the rubes she's selling to the gun manufacturers.

You see, it turns out that orange is not the new black after all -- since Fuckface Von Clownstick slithered into orifice, gun sales have tumbled, and Remington has filed for bankruptcy. The reasons have a cultural component, but it's mostly just math -- most people purchasing a gun these days already have one, or ten, or fifty, and so are not incentivized to buy more without something tickling their prostateparanoia gland. Enter Dana Loesch. [giggity]

So this glib chuckler walking past Loesch's role in all this really is not only inexcusable, it's the crux of the biscuit in this here argument. True, Cameron Kasky's role as victim/bystander in a tragic mass murder does not automatically confer upon him the role of "expert" in determining Second Amendment policy. His arguments can and should be scrutinized and contested where they might be flawed, just like anyone else.

But Dana Loesch is no expert either. She's a paid shill for a group that by its own inflated estimation accounts for maybe 5 million people, which is not peanuts, but is also a drop in a bucket of 320 million citizens. The NRA wraps themselves in the fucking flag and claims to represent all Americans, when in fact they represent weapons manufacturers, and count (probably falsely at that) a thin sliver of Americans as paid members. It's actually a pretty impressive racket when you think about it.

I'm not sure what the ultimate intent or endgame of the Parkland survivors will be; it's possible they don't even know for sure yet. They're probably still in "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" mode, and they should be. So far what they've done is impressive, and I hope they are able to accomplish more. Even if I end up disagreeing with the specifics of this or that policy proposal, I respect the fact that they've organized and mobilized and made it clear that they're not taking shit from any of these scumbags. Because that is exactly what Loesch and Wayne LaPierre and all the politicians they rent really are. Their gun fetish and the money it brings in are much more important to them than the safety of schoolchildren, every time.

We should be disgusted that not only is this the only nation on the planet that has these events occur, much less with regularity, but also that when they happen, there is always a claque of paid actors (such as Loesch, whom you can be sure does not work pro bono) who will scuttle out of the woodwork and claim that the survivors are paid actors.

Forget the false equivalences and the harrumphed pronunciamentos about arguing from emotion instead of reason: the real problem here is that when these tragedies occur, equal time and footing is given to horrible people, who are not yoked to any moral compass, who have no sense of shame or common decency, who are comfortable arguing from bad faith, peddling lies and hypocrisy.

And then you have the professional commentariat trotting out with their same tired-ass chin-stroking both-sider template. We'll see how creative they get when Loesch's calls for armed rebellion turn into bouts of domestic terrorism, because that's really the demographic she's been stoking all along, trying to gin up gun sales in a down market.

Let's cut the shit here, folks: what we've been watching here is a bunch of high-schoolers taking on one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country, as well as all of those rented political weasels. There's no fucking equal footing here; no one is paying any of these kids to stick their necks out on this, but every single one of the talking heads pitted against them is paid quite well, count on it.

Fuck those people, every last one of them. At this point, I don't care if gun-control advocates do start wanting full confiscation, as improbable as that might be, as impossible as it would be to carry out. Because no matter which party is power anymore, I want to see these motherfuckers lose, every time, from here on out. If they order a hot pastrami sandwich from a deli, I want them to get shit on a shingle.

Enough is enough. This nation has been held hostage by a handful of fetishists for far too long, and they need either to accept some very reasonable and modest checks on their "inalienable right," or we need to start revisiting the whole concept. The other 315 million people who are not NRA members do not owe that 1.56% sliver a goddamned thing.

Yes Man

The NY Times' op-ed page is a big bowl of boiled ass these days, but once in a while they cook up an article that breaks out some useful info and details. If half of what's here is true -- and there's no reason not to believe it's 100% accurate -- we are in deep shit.

There's no way to overstate how much the US strategic position in Asia has been abruptly diminished by these fucking morons running the show now. This is much bigger than two fat guys with fucked-up haircuts battling over who has the coolest comb. The world is already headed toward a period of dominance centered around the Indian Ocean. The morons are simply accelerating that trend with alarming quickness.

This is what happens when you start your tenure as [fart] chief executive by gutting your entire foreign service apparatus, through a potent combination of spite, ignorance, mendacity, and negligence. When I've referred to Clownstick as a "barstool drunk," the sort of nasty idiot who thinks he knows everything and provides no evidence at all to back it up, this is Exhibit A. Clownstick has jabbered on and on and fucking on about how much they are shorting us on the security invoice, as if the US military was just a bunch of mall cops hired out to contain the shenanigans in the galleria food court.

It literally does not occur to the dotard that we have logical reasons for carrying more of the burden in NATO and the UN, that the greater outlay buys us far more credibility in calling the shots and providing direction. There are reasons we stay in Germany at greater expense to us, as well as Japan and South Korea. All of those countries would just as soon we packed up and went home, even as they grudgingly recognize that in the end, we do serve as a bulwark against Russian and Chinese hegemony. And the fact is, humanity is just at that point where there is going to be a hegemon regardless, so it might as well be the Americans.

But none of these things have any meaning to someone whose every thought and move and impulse is purely transactional, on a level that a crack-whore kneeling in an alley for her fifteenth blowjob of the day doesn't operate at. All the dotard sees when he looks at a map is how many more venues he can slap that worthless name of his on. He couldn't care less if he steps on the toes of allies he may need for something else in the future, or if he fucks up generations of established international diplomacy norms that have kept billions of people safe, however imperfectly.

These things were already in motion regardless, as we are now nearly four generations removed from the post-WW2 arrangements. Japan in particular has seen a resurgence of right-wing militarism and nationalism; the current generation clearly no longer has any use for the terms of surrender acceded to by their great-grandparents. Germany, like the rest of Western Europe, have already had enough of Mister Man's bullshit, and are trying to figure out a way to deal with the bear without our guns parked in their backyard. They seem to figure that they can trade and finance their way into some sort of arrangement, and given that Russia faces a serious succession crisis whenever the 65-year-old Putin retires or dies, they may be right.

All of it points to the same thing:  the other powers under our longstanding security umbrella have been growing restive, and were in the process of testing the waters anyway. Obama was reflexively conservative (in the old-school sense) about flexing US military power, and his over-reliance on soft power set the stage for the current volatility in the MENA region, and no doubt emboldened China and Japan at the very least to start charting their own courses.

The dotard's approach to North Korea, as detailed in the Times article, will eventually serve as a template of this group's disastrous approach to international diplomacy. It's one thing for him to bluster about ignoring Democrats and liberals on the foreign policy front, but this guy is undermining his own team, and it's a shortchanged team to begin with.

Think about it:  their big diplomatic feint with the Norks was to send his knockoff-handbag-peddling brandbot daughter to the fucking Olympics to stare them down. There is no official presence in the diplomatic corps for this part of the world, no ambassador to South Korea, no Undersecretary of State for the region, a shortage of qualified interpreters and translators in the foreign service.

Considering the various consequences and ramifications, and the singularly inept track record of the moron and his gang of dopes and fools, there's too many ways for them to fuck this up royally -- even if Kim and Clownstick never actually meet -- and only a couple ways to get it right.

Fucking Traitors

Remember these names. They hate their own country, and sold it down the river. We'll see how they split and spend their thirty pieces of silver.

But keep their names in mind, because some of them may try to slither away from what they've done. They might read the tea leaves and "retire" early, though many of them are in safe districts and/or are longtime incumbents. They might even get voted out in November, at which point some of them will try to come back in some form or other, most likely as lobbyists of some sort, since scum merely change form as needed.

That's when you write the companies that employ them, the teevee networks that give them guest spots, the newspapers and magazines that grant them op-ed space, and fucking boycott them as well. This cannot go on anymore; these motherless fucks must be held accountable for what they've done, and the only thing they really listen to is financial ruin.

It's shameful that these things -- they are no longer human, afaic -- have freely chosen to do what they've done. But it's downright baffling and pathetic that they've chosen to do so for someone so clearly unworthy of such devotion, because Fuckface Von Clownstick would throw each and every one of them into a wood chipper, if he thought it would make another half-empty airport hangar of losers and goons chant along with him.

This was clearly a desperation gambit on the part of these puling weasels, and from the looks of every one of their Twitter feeds, it's going to backfire bigly on them. Every single post on most of the pages is absolutely livid. This bullshit will not stand. These fuckers need to be put on the street, and their corrupt, treasonous party needs to be put down for good.

At the Movies

We're only reviewing one movie this time around, but it's a long review, and you should take the spoiler warning seriously.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

(***spoilers***)

This one presents a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, you have a Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) project with a top-notch cast, and solid performances throughout; on the other hand, the whole thing is wrapped in a tendentious Swiss-cheese plot that gets more annoying the closer you think about it.

By now, even if you haven't seen the movie you probably know the broader strokes -- a mother puts up billboards outside her small town, asking why her daughter's rape/murder from a year ago remains unsolved, and the town (especially the police force) turns against her. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

Tooth and Consequences

It would be easy to work up any number of hard-hitting riffs about this busted-grill asshole trying with all his meager might to intimidate a niche lefty bookstore located in -- wait for it -- Berkeley, but life is increasingly short, and there are always better things to do. People are freaking out about this dope, and they really shouldn't, because he's about as threatening as a fart in a hurricane.

I am, however, small enough to freely admit that you don't need to be Ace Ventura to observe that this snaggle-toothed dipshit is not, to put it mildly, one of life's heavy winners, and that that fact brings me joy. This is the prototype of every tiresome Cletus safari article that's been foisted on us thus far -- broke-ass loser in a broke-ass town, trying desperately to find someone else to blame their troubles on. Who's keeping an eye on the meth lab while Goober is sliming up Durant Avenue with his jabbering nonsense?

I warned well before the election and probably since then, that the genuine magat cultists (as opposed to the mere professional opportunists, your finance-weasel types and such like) would be sore winners just as much as they'd be sore losers if Hitlery had won. This is proof of that very thing, if your Facebook feed hasn't convinced you yet. You'd never guess from listening to this mouthful-of-dice knock-off-lid halfwit and his nutty sidekick (what books, exactly, has anyone been burning?) that their side won.

I've lived my entire life in Cali, and been in Northern Cali since 1974. I know every area of this state, and the people in each area. So believe me when I tell you that there's no fucking way these bozos live within fifty miles of Berkeley.

So you do the methmath:  these assholes -- again, their god-emperor won and has majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court -- drove probably close to an hour each way into the city to harass an indie bookstore. Do they think they will convince anyone, change any minds? Do they think that their tiny group of moron-rabble-rousers will intimidate a business into closing its doors?

I mean, I'm skeptical as a matter of principle as to the efficacy of street protests to being with. But it's impossible to discern what the goal is here. What do they intend to accomplish, or even dream they might accomplish? Outside of maybe Barbara Lee or a local supervisor or two, there is no politician at any level that is going to make any effort whatsoever to represent the concerns of Revolution Books and its customers. Hell, by definition the "revolutionaries" have committed themselves to working outside and away from the system as much as possible; there is no upside for any "establishment" politician to expend any political capital looking out for a handful of Antifa types.

So this much is true, in the most literal sense possible:  every second the insane clown posse spends, driving to the store and cluttering up the sidewalk for however long and schlepping back home, is a complete waste of time. It can have no possible net political outcome for their lost cause. At most, it might incite a couple of like-minded losers to waste some of their time moseying down to the lose-in. Okely-dokely then. Good luck with that.

I would like to think there is indeed a demographic force-ten storm brewing; if so, it will happen in spite of, rather than because of the Democratic Party, an entity in need nearly as much as the Republicans of a controlled demolition. Both parties are like decrepit Vegas hotels at this point, built on blood money and in business only to fleece customers and grease palms. The Republicans are traitors and enablers, but in the face of treason the Democratic leadership is as feckless and gutless as ever. They can all go straight to hell.

I'm going to use a lot of quotes here because people need to really think about what they want each word to mean:  If "we" "want" "our" "country" "back", it will have to be reclaimed at a true grass-roots level. Whatever is left of this nation will have to be wrested from the greedy, insatiable maw of the corporate scumbags who own and operate both parties.

But the fact is that regardless of the outcome in November, the true cultists like these losers on the sidewalk will be back in some form, unless gingivitis or the die-uh-beet-us does 'em in while they fester out in Opioid Flats. Because that's what Gomer and his empty tough-guy threats are really all about -- the impotent rage of someone who failed utterly at the business of life and knows it, and who needs to constantly find windmills to tilt at in order to distract him from an existence of abject failure.