Beltway Syndrome

Story time, kids -- pretty sure I have not told this one before, if I have it was years ago. After sixteen years, the Blogheimers is kicking in with some regularity.

So back in the mid-'70s, when I moved from smoggy Los Angeles to the epic glories of the Great State of Jefferson, we lived for about two years out in a rural district, probably ten miles removed from what was then a town of about 3,500 to begin with. I was in second grade, rode the bus, which given the distance it had to cover took about thirty to forty minutes to get to the school. Fun times.

Even at that age, I was a voracious reader, and would walk to the library on the next block over from the school to grab three or four books for most weekends. I liked the Hardy Boys "mysteries" in particular; as cheesy and twee as they might be in retrospect, they probably provided an early synaptic pathway for my adult love of most crime fiction.

Mind you, I'm not saying that the Hardy Boys are a gateway drug to Dennis Lehane and James Lee Burke, but if you start reading that genre (even peripherally) at seven years of age, you might hard-wire yourself to later, more adult iterations.

Anyway. So one fine morning we're on the school bus headed into town. Most of the kids got along fairly well, but one kid, a former friend from up the road who was a year older, and had several meaner older brothers (one of whom later did nine years for rape, and was ultimately murdered by his own adult daughter in retribution -- take a wild guess for what) who enjoyed egging him on, decided to give me a hard time. You know, for being a reader. As Homer Simpson so poetically put it, Egghead likes his booky-wook!

So first a couple of taunts and head-slaps, then shoving my books onto the floor. Even at the ripe old age of seven, I could sense a couple of important things quite clearly:

• This was going to escalate, one way or another.
• I can get out in front of this, or I can curl up and wait it out.
• If I choose option #2, this is going to be a daily occurrence. Plus, since I go to the same school as this asshole, and he's only a year older than me, this might go on for a while.

As the bus, piloted by a crotchety tart lovingly nicknamed "Myrtle the Turtle," trundled its way past the rural district cemetery, I picked up the top book from the pile on the floor, and swung it directly into the other kid's face. Didn't break anything, fortunately, but there was blood suddenly. I dropped the book and started swinging wildly, the way a kid who's never thrown a punch yet will do, connecting maybe one in five but getting a message through -- don't fuck with me, I will fight back.

After what seemed like an hour but was only a few seconds -- we were, after all, still moseying past the maybe two-acre cemetery -- I had enough awareness to consider the possibility that fighting on the bus might Get Me In Big Trouble. I stopped for a moment and glanced up the seemingly endless center aisle of the school bus, toward that large rectangular mirror where you could see what or whom the bus driver was looking at. Myrtle looked directly at me, and beneath that grim squint I could see the barest trace of a tight-lipped smile. All bus drivers know who the troublemakers are on their routes.

So I did not Get In Trouble; as I departed the bus, Myrtle looked over at me and said, "Don't do that anymore," with that same tight-lipped smirk. "Okay," I peeped meekly, just relieved that whatever that Trouble was, it wouldn't find me that day anyway.

Better yet, those other kids left me alone after that. We didn't magically become all friends, but they at least understood that, for their purposes of cheap amusement, I was more trouble than I was worth. And for the entire next year, until we moved across town, there wasn't any guff from anyone.

By now, you see my broader point. It's a staple of every cheesy prison movie, from The Shawshank Redemption on down -- you don't have to be a brutal predator, but if you show yourself as a victim, there will always be a line of takers to treat you like one.

I'd like to think Joe Biden has seen, far more intimately than any of us can imagine, how the empty tropes of collegiality and courtesy and comity work out in reality, when the other side is actively invested in engineering your failure, and makes it clear that they couldn't care less about how it all affects non-elite citizens. I'd like to think he understands that he doesn't have to take suggestions from professional cynics, that if he wants to purge bad-faith weasels and little Eichmanns out of his offices, that is his prerogative, and it is entirely in his own rational self-interest.

If Biden hopes to get anything done, he needs to start with wiping the functionary scum, the bureaucratic enzymes that processed the previous maladminstration's endless fecal waste, out of the body. And he doesn't owe anyone any apologies for it; in fact, he -- and the rest of the octogenarians running his party -- need to step up and take credit for as much as they can, shout it from the rooftops.

The "performative" aspect of politics has been gone into at great length here and elsewhere, increasingly so over the past half-decade. It sucks that it matters, but it matters. Just like in that little-kid "fight" on the school bus nearly a half-century(!) ago, it was less important that I "won" the fight, than that I showed all those kids that I was willing to fight, that they weren't just going to roll me.

Biden doesn't need to ask anyone's fucking permission -- not Moscow Mitch, and certainly not some Beltway scriveners who are directly dependent on their access and their surface-of-the-sun hot-takes, suffused as they are with the hoariest of conventional wisdoms. Only Democrats need to seek the permission of the opposition party. Only Democrats need to seek "unity" with the hopelessly angry, hopelessly incoherent bloc that comprises the base of the opposition party. Only Democrats are expected to "moderate" with purposefully immoderate people. Every fucking time.

They need to operate as if their backs are against a great big immovable wall, because they are. They need to remember back to 2006, when they took a midterm win and literally managed to save Social Security from privatization. They fought like they understood that it was real life-or-death shit, that the usual gutless incrementalism wouldn't cut it anymore. That was engineered by none other than Nancy Pelosi, which proves she can do it.

But they have to stop fretting and prattling about how they're going to "explain" their moves to some hostile low-info dipshit out in East Overshoe, Arkansas. Those motherfuckers will never vote for you, even if you came to their doorsteps with duffel bags full of cash. Bokay? They just won't.

When the Democrats stop worrying about "explaining" and "framing" shit, and putting real energy and effort into motivating people, it's an ironclad guarantee that they'll be surprised at the results. Say what you will about the conspiracy-addled doofuses on the right, but they are motivated, passionate, and they show up. I mean, they're motivated and passionate about all the wrong things, but what would a motivated and passionate counterpart to them on the left look like, people motivated about things that would actually benefit them and their communities and regions, the country and planet as a whole?

What might that look like? Since we are not permitted to vote for any parties other than the two (or two wings of the same one) duly anointed by the holy dollars of Corporate America and its mediaopoly octopus, we'll never know.

But in the end, this will be the one true barometer you can use to determine whether the Biden administration has a chance at "success," however you want to define it, and whether the next decade in the US can start undoing the ravages of the first two decades of this wondrous new millennium, or if we have more 'n' better decline of empire in the years to come.

It all starts with whether Biden and his team understand that this is their one and only chance to fight, that when the zombie apocalypse comes, capitulation is really not an option -- you can only strive to find slightly safer ground, and take as many of them down as you can in the process. They are not going to negotiate with you on anything.

So whom and what do they intend to fight for? We're about to find out, and the answer will either raise or doom their party, whether they understand that or not. But they need to decide, or Moscow Mitch and his merry brand of treasonous bandidos will be happy to make that decision for them.

Twenty Points Down

The popular phrase in preventing the smug assumption that Biden will beat the evil clown in a landslide, even though he clearly should beat that failed attempt at a functioning human being by seventy points and five hundred electoral votes, is to act like you're way behind in the polls. Ignore the polls. Don't get lulled into complacency by months of leading in the polls. And so forth.

This is fine as far as it goes, but it's easy to forget that people have been repeating that mantra for months with regard to a Biden-Trump matchup specifically, and they've been beating themselves with it for several years in general.

And it's a great idea in general. Show up. Make sure you can show up. Don't ever get complacent again, at any level.

With that mantra in mind, combined with current circumstances and rhetoric, it is not unreasonable or unforeseeable that many people are getting concerned about the practicalities of the election itself -- counting the votes properly, abiding by the results, transferring power properly. When you've been dulling your senses for the past four years that at least a third of your fellow citizens are perfectly okay with an open slide into outright fascism, it makes sense that you might start expecting the worst.

So I get where this guy is coming from, as far as the political probabilities go, and I think we can probably be cautiously optimistic about the ultimate outcome here.

But you know, I'd drop the whole quit being so paranoid, you fucking ninnies tone there. This has been a consistent pattern throughout Trump's reign of error -- the insistence that norms and rules and process will ensure correct outcomes. And in each instance, he has proven that none of that shit matters if there's no one to enforce it, if the only side that even respects those things anymore is also the side that refuses to use every tool at their disposal to exert what little power they actually have.

It's not a paranoid pipe dream at all:  Trump has repeatedly said that any election outcome where he doesn't win is by definition illegitimate. He continues to maintain this stance. No one is challenging him on it in any meaningful way -- not his own party, not the corporate media, not the courts, nobody.

It doesn't require any sort of violent overthrow, or even a stubborn "refusal" to vacate the White House. All he has to do is what he's openly threatened to do, and what political observers across the spectrum have speculated -- declare victory early, before mail-in ballots are counted; if Biden is the winner after the mail-in count, declare those votes invalid (as he has been doing for months already); muddy the waters just enough to throw it to the courts and the individual states.

He has all those tools at his disposal. His own party has long given up challenging him on anything; he could nuke Omaha tomorrow and Ben Sasse would say, Thank you sir, may I have another?. The Democrats have made it clear that they are either completely unable or unwilling to undertake any meaningful action. They will wait and dither and agonize until it's too late.

Now, do I think all of these things will happen? Probably not, but there is definitely a non-zero chance of it. It's definitely possible.

And that's the real trick right there, the root explanation for why so many people right now have this desperate, anxious undercurrent. It's not just that Trump is a piece of shit, or that the people who work for him are scumbags, or that the corporate media are cowed by the whole circus and just want clicks. It's the realization that there are more angry idiots and toxic weirdos out there than they thought there were, and that they have real leverage now.

The rise of the QAnon cult -- an utterly ludicrous, incoherent smattering of conspiracy jabber -- is a perfect example. Imagine a group of people that spin these credulous yarns about cannibal pedo cults and sex trafficking, while they emphatically support a party featuring such well known pedophiles and enablers such as Jim Jordan, Dennis Hastert, and Roy Moore.

And Trump himself -- in countless videos hanging out partying with his good buddy (and one-time neighbor) Jeffrey Epstein, on audio and video describing how much fun he had peeping in on teenage pageant contestants getting dressed, on his own daughter being a hot piece of ass, on sexually assaulting women. Right now he's refusing to give DNA that would exonerate him on a rape charge.

And yet you have this seething, teeming, growing movement of cult loons -- maybe thousands, maybe more -- who would rather construct an insane, impossibly baroque conspiracy that has no basis in fact, than confront the very real network of people right in front of them who indulge in sexual perversion.

I know that as good libruls, we're not supposed to judge others on their sex kinks, and 99% of the time, that's a pretty good rule to follow. But in the context of their own words and beliefs, it's helpful to keep in mind:  Roger Stone is an orgiast who gets off on watching his wife get spit-roasted by strangers. Paul Manafort enjoyed setting up gangbangs for his own wife, who has some cognitive disabilities from a horse-riding accident years ago, and may not have been an entirely willing participant.

Again, we're not allowed to judge, but just consider for a moment the sort of sexual pathologies one must have for those activities. This kind of shit makes the Falwells look like rank amateurs. Now keep in mind that Stone and Manafort have been business partners for forty years. One of their earliest clients -- who they still work for to this very day -- was a young swashbuckling real-estate developer named Donald Trump.

Turds of a feather, you know? I wouldn't stay in the same room with people like Stone or Manafort for five minutes, and I led a pretty wild life for a long time. And I sure as fuck wouldn't turn to people like that for guidance or advice on running a country. These are people who have spent their adult lives weaponizing the worms in their brains in the devil's arena of political consultancy, where nothing is true and everything goes.

We have a good chance of muddling through all this ugliness, if enough people are willing to show up and stick with it. But let's not shit on the folks that are getting nervous about their prospects. They have no one they can trust anymore -- their fellow 'murkins have lost their fucking minds, the Democratic party is full of ineffectual blowhards, the Republicon party is full of flat-out traitors, the basic mechanisms of the country no longer function, and the figurehead tyrant has openly promised multiple times to fuck up the electoral process.

You don't have to be paranoid, but you might want to at least wonder what the contingency plan is for when shit starts coming down. Hoping that certain people will "do their job" when that has failed multiple times previously is barely more than nothing.

They All Knew

Of course Trump knew. Did anyone really need Bob Woodward to sit on that amazing revelation for seven months to come to that realization?

(I hope every meal Woodward eats for the rest of his life, food purchased with the royalty checks from these courtier journals, tastes like blood. Because it's fuckin' blood money, pure and simple. Shame on him, and shame on anyone paying a red cent for his goddamned book.)

People are going to focus on the raw moral perversion of Trump knowing back in January that the virus was real, and dangerous, and could kill a lot of people. And that's true, as far as that goes.

But here are some other things he knew, and that everyone close to him knew right from the start:

• There would be multiple opportunities to cash in along the way -- stocks for companies producing various necessities.
• The procurement system could be gamed heavily, not only for profit, but for leverage. So bootlickers like Ron DeSantis got more PPE than he needed in the first place, while Robert Kraft literally had to fly supplies in on his private jet -- in a state with a Republican governor -- so that the feds wouldn't hijack them like the cheap Goodfellas knock-offs they are.
• Every dime of aid that has gone out has been with the condition that employees forced back to illness and death have no recourse against the fiends who sent them in to die. How's that chicken taste now?
• Every key Republicon senator and house member was in on it, right from the start, cashing in every step of the way. Kelly Loeffler, Richard Burr, those are just the ones you may have heard about. Wait till someone audits Matt Gaetz's transactions, or Ted Cruz's. You just watch.
• The billionaires' club has collectively gained nearly a trillion dollars over the summer, while tens of millions of working schlubs are still out of work, facing eviction, watching the world burn around them, watching loved ones die on a remote Zoom feed.
• All of it was preventable, but it just wasn't profitable. So you cash in on the crash, then you cash in again on whatever recovery is to be had (or allowed).

Good thing the mediots are still showing up for Kayleigh's Hour of Lyin' fer Jebus. So helpful. You guys are really preserving democracy there. Try not to pull any muscles patting yourselves on the back. Remember, folks, MagaNinny came directly from CNN. Keep that in mind next time you're watching Tapper or Lemon or whoever. Zucker's shop is Satan's boiler room, period.

Good thing the Democrats are utilizing every single procedural power at their disposal  to respond to all this. Let's see -- Chuck Schumer lamented that Trump lied. Yeah, I think I saw that on the cover of No Shit, Sherlock magazine back in the fuckin' Nineties, bro-ham.

So Chuck, are you calling out your scumbag colleagues for not stopping this fucker before he killed two hundred thousand Americans? Rep. Pelosi, are we drawing up articles of impeachment for, shit, any of probably two dozen various things over the past six months? Are we impeaching Bill Barr for finally dropping any remaining pretense about being Trump's personal lawyer?

No, they're "not worth it," according to Madame Speaker. You got that? We'll be over a quarter-million dead by Thanksgiving, and they got him on tape confessing to knowing, but Trump's not worth it. Oh, and he's a rapist, and the attorney general of the country is openly bending the law to prevent his accountability, but Barr's not worth it either.

I wonder, but am reluctant to ask, just what awful deeds these would have to do in order to be worth upholding the law. I think that the day after this election, regardless of how it turns out, Democratic and liberal voters should start asking that very question of Democratic politicians. Because while they may have plausible deniability of knowing what Trump knew back when he first knew it, they've known it since then. They absolutely know now what the fuck he's capable of, and still they choose to wring their hands and chant about waiting for November.

Whether or not you know someone who's been directly affected by the #TrumpPlague (and by now, odds are that you do, at least secondarily), everyone's been affected by it. An entire year of everyone's life has been essentially wasted on this -- on top of all the needless deaths and waste and economic destruction. Trump's fuckery and incompetence are the wellspring whence all this comes, but he doesn't operate alone.

Primo Levi said that it wasn't the monsters you had to worry about -- they're easy to spot. It's the ordinary minions willing to do the dirty work, or just willing to look the other way. Think about all the individuals who could have done and said something, who still could say and do something, anything. The leading newspapers and politicians who should have been calling for his resignation months ago. The people who work in the White House -- from the custodial staff to the paper-pushers -- who could walk out in protest. The congress-weasels who could call out their faithless colleagues for their support of this vainglorious would-be despot. Hell, John Kelly, who literally let Trump talk shit about Kelly's son's service and sacrifice at Robert Kelly's grave in Arlington. Doesn't get more in-the-tank than that.

At the current rate, another thirty thousand Americans will die unnecessarily, waiting for November. That's on them as much as it's on him now. Too bad it's not "worth it" to do anything about it, or at least try.

Debt and Taxes

Great article and interview from Luke O'Brien here that pretty much encapsulates the student-loan debt crisis. You know, if JoeMala are looking to gin up some enthusiasm amongst the youngs, there are worse ways to go about it.

This crisis is multifaceted:  moral, financial, economic, cultural, generational. It is scummy boomer grifters and shareholders siphoning money out of wage-slaves, while simultaneously berating them for not buying houses and starting families, as if they could afford to, as if they would want to continue overpopulating a sweaty, groaning planet that now just veers between state-size wildfires, giant floods, and an ongoing mass extinction.

Here is the thing about Navient and the rest of the student-loan weasels no one ever tells you:  they don't want you to pay off your loans. Ever. Your debt is their equity. That's not polemic, that's how it really is. That's math.

The fact of the matter is that even a partial debt jubilee would inject trillions of dollars of stimulus into the lower levels of a perilously top-heavy economy, where it's needed the most. Leon Cooperman will survive quite well without another billion to add to his pile.

This is something that the Democrats need to understand if they wish to maintain any real viability going forward, much less do any actual good for the regular public. This hoarding Scrooge McDuck economy cannot keep going. The problem with predatory, oligarchic hyper-capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to steal.

Accelerated Decline

Interesting thread here, food for thought. We're not there yet, but we are clearly on that path. Best case scenario -- Biden wins in a landslide, Dems increase lead in House and retake the Senate 55-45 -- it will take at least a decade to undo the damage wrought by these fuckers, and to get a handle on the redneck gangs and their buddies in uniform.

That's best case scenario, that the work will just be starting, and it will be treacherous and uphill the entire way.

I've talked a lot in the past, in my North Korea posts, of how that nation really needs to be deprogrammed, if it is ever to rejoin the community of nations. The US is not quite there, not yet, but again it should be clear that there is enough of a "cult bloc" that has been thoroughly programmed and conditioned, that some form of deprogramming needs to take place.

Since this is really the latest front in an extended plutocratic insurgency, a war of the billionaires on everyone else, it can only be de-escalated by rounding up "our" billionaires and encouraging them to do some effective counter-programming. Again, where are Bloomberg and Steyer and those types, soi-disant limo libs who routinely make empty claims about loving a "free society," yet are strangely silent right now, when their country could really use their help. They could each dump five or ten million into the Senate races in KY, SC, ME, GA, AZ, NC, and more, and not even miss the couch-cushion change. Bloomberg and Steyer each dumped nine figures into their futile primary runs, the former supposedly spending over half a billion.

Well, you got the candidate you wanted, guys. How about you finish what you started and get him across the line securely, with a tailwind of senators that will actually show up for work? Their islands in the sun will only stay above the rising tide for so long, and when it comes down, it's gonna come down on them and their type as well.

That's probably a pipe dream -- despite its constant bleats about freedom and rugged individuality, Americans are some of the most cowed, compliant people on the face of the earth. And with good reason -- who in their right mind would want to get caught up in its medieval for-profit carceral state, just to make some noise at a meaningless, futile street protest?

But at some point, enough people with nothing left to lose will start acting accordingly, Millions are facing eviction in the coming weeks, just in time for winter and a #TrumpPlague resurgence and the actual flu season and, oh yeah, a likely recession or depression.

We could have avoided all this, and for much less money, if the thieves that are lawn-darting the country had just given every household, rich or poor, a $10k check and said, stay home through March and April. We'll re-open May 1st. Enjoy your staycation. Nope, we had to spend $4 trillion bailing out cruise lines and televangelists and Trump groupies, like the Central Asian despotate we are aspiring to become.

So Bloomie and Tommy and their ilk mght want to take stock of the situation, and consider doing the right thing for once, and at least atone for their unconscionable fuckery in the primary.

Suckers and Losers

Everybody has read the article by now, and absolutely nobody is surprised. Maybe it will move the needle a touch, but probably not, which is the real story.

Maybe he's right -- maybe people who are willing to serve and sacrifice for The State, a faceless leviathan that may or may not be there for them in their time of need, have been bamboozled. Maybe the people who continue to support this fucking monster, whose defining trait is open contempt of the very concepts of charity and grace, are also suckers and losers. Maybe the liberals and Democrats, waiting for their elected leaders to do something even performatively and making excuses for why they refuse to, are also suckers.

[Case in point:  Impeach Bill Barr now. He is openly discussing the ways in which he will sow distrust in the election results, and foment civil unrest. He has already lied to Congress multiple times, including at his job interview. It doesn't matter that the Republicon senators are traitors and will acquit him. The investigative process will generate enough evidence that can be use to prosecute Barr if Biden wins. And if Biden loses -- or "loses"? Hope your passport's in good shape.]

Maybe my dad, who fought the Nazis in the Atlantic and the Imperial Japanese in the Pacific, who was literally en route to Japan on a fucking minesweeper when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was a sucker for believing that his efforts then were necessary to keep the country he loved from turning into a mass of sweaty, ignorant slobs. Maybe my uncle, who served two tours in Vietnam as a Marine platoon leader and got soaked in Agent Orange, and died hard just a few weeks after his fifty-first birthday twenty years ago, was a sucker for jumping into a fight he was told was right and just. He got there and saw the truth and came back changed, and spent the rest of his life trying to get back what he'd lost. I have a younger cousin who joined the Marines earlier this year, for a CINC who's made it clear that he couldn't care less that the Russians are paying Islamic militants bounties on American military corpses. Sucker!

And on and on. It's a giant, all-encompassing scam, and we've all bought into some aspect or other of it. Remember when a couple of feckless billionaires inserted themselves into the Democratic primary, just long enough to knock Elizabeth Warren outta there? Where's OK Bloomer now that we could use his precious money, not just for Biden but for at least six or eight Senate seats? Where's Tom Steyer and all his bro-gressive happy talk? Yeah, they really care about "their country," but it's a different country than the rest of us live in.

Maybe the folks out in the streets protesting, as well-meaning as they are, might be suckers as well. They think something will "change" from their efforts. Well, you've been doing it all summer, and the only thing that's changed is that the police forces of Portland, Minneapolis, Kenosha, and NYC -- all cities run by liberal Democratic mayors in states run by liberal Democratic governors -- are much more comfortable openly displaying their true sympathies.

They stand aside while roving white supremacist gangs barrel through crowds in their $70k trucks and attack unarmed protesters. They let assault-rifle-toting kids who have just murdered people in the street with a weapon they were not legally allowed to possess just walk on by. They have not stopped killing, beating, kidnapping. They have made their position entirely clear, and no one is even pretending to try to stop them.

Black Lives Matter? Are you fucking kidding? Your life doesn't matter, liberal white protester. As far as the redneck death squads and their good buddies on the PD are concerned, you're not white. They probably won't shoot you seven times in the back, but you never know. They sure as hell won't stop the bearded goon with the riot helmet and the Kevlar Pepe the Frog vest from stomping the shit out of you.

Now that we're in the final sixty days of the electoral race, people are starting to look at the clock, because they're exhausted, demoralized, disheartened. They want it to "be over," but it will never be over. This is just beginning, sorry to say, but as we near the homestretch in this here blog, I am convinced that that will be the crushing minor chord I will end with in a few months.

Getting rid of Trump is -- and really, always was -- only the symbolic part of it. It's real, and it's vital to any semblance of continuity in what passes for elected representation in this flawed experiment. The real challenge, as the Atlantic article lays out so clearly, is in figuring out just how to deal with individuals who are fine with all of it. They have constructed an alternate reality for themselves, one that gives them permission -- hell, makes it their patriotic duty -- to support this thug who so openly disparages military service and sacrifice.

And putatively liberal media outlets make painstakingly multiple efforts over and over again to construct their own alternate reality, one where these people are Real 'murkins, who support monsters out of some well-meaning intent and love for their country. Such articles are not only worthy of every bit of scorn and derision we can muster, they also represent a profound dereliction of journalistic duty.

These people should be portrayed as they truly are -- as people who gladly support all of this, every bit of it. They are lying when they mutter something about "wish he would tweet less" or whatever. They love the tweets. After all, he's doing what they wish they had the platform to do -- tell all them fags and libruls and race-traitors to go fuck themselves. They wish he'd tweet more, that he'd crack down more on all the people they've been taught to hate, conditioned like hamsters in Fox News' Skinner box to pat the metal plate for the daily outrage pellet. I don't know if it's possible to deprogram most of them at this point. I do know that there is no point in trying to engage with them anymore.

It's easy for him, because he's never served anyone or sacrificed anything. He's never had to learn or understand or know anything, because he's rented minions to wipe his ass for him his entire miserable life. But the working-class schmuck that still rolls with all this? That's a harder nut to crack, and I don't know if you even want to waste your time on it. Remember that the largest number of voters is non-voters, and ask yourself why, and if there's a way to reach them.

Are they really lazy and stupid, or do they see the lack of leadership and conviction (to varying degrees, of course) on both sides, and simply say no? There's no excuse for doing that this time around, but again, if the opposition party started playing with a real sense of urgency, instead of always just playing not to lose, they might motivate some of those sideline spectators for once. What's the harm in trying?

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

If the Pelosi salon thing lasts longer than twenty-four hours in the endless spin cycle, then this hollowed-out husk of a state deserves to go under, full stop. In the meantime, "I got set up" is maybe not the killer defense Pelosi seems to think it is.

Jesus. [puts palm to forehead, pinches nose, exhales slowly through nose for what seems like an eternity] Jesus H. Christ, people. How the hell, at this point in this infernal game, do the words "perfomative" and "kayfabe" not register with some of these people? There is no need to apologize, or explain, or demur or aver or any of the other cheap lawyer word-games these people play.

Since Trump wasted no time in latching on to this nonsense, all Pelosi needed to do was dump the whole thing in his lap:

Considering just last week Trump had hundreds of people on the White House lawn, clustered and maskless, and spent most of that week racking up dozens of Hatch Act violations, and just yesterday committed a felony and yet another in a long line of impeachable offenses by encouraging voter fraud in North Carolina, maybe he's not the right person to be lecturing anyone else on adhering to regulations. If I committed an infraction or violated an ordinance in getting my hair done, I'll pay the fine and just hire an individual to come to my house next time. In the meantime, you people need to get your fucking priorities straight.

But no, she took this stupid thing both seriously and literally, and so felt compelled to respond in kind. It's difficult to imagine that there are many people left at this point waiting for another reason to vote Democratic, and even fewer whose motivation hinges on the behavior of Nancy Pelosi. But there are a lot of people who would be more motivated to vote Democratic if they just once showed some spine and told their bullies in no uncertain terms to go fuck themselves.

This is not that fucking hard, people. Quit falling for the kayfabe. Stop legitimizing their bullshit as if it's real. Remind them that he won't show his tax returns because he's a fucking criminal. Remind them that they had to drape a fifty-yard tarp over a battleship ramp when he visited yesterday, because he's an infirm codger who can't walk a ramp or hold a glass of water.

I mean, we're not just talking about the Speaker of the House here, we're talking about someone who's held her seat for over thirty years, and usually wins at 3:1 or 4:1 ratios or higher. It's not like she's in a competitive race. And she's eighty years old, so hopefully nearing retirement hint hint.

It's irritating when people -- especially politicians -- who have absolutely nothing to lose play their hand as if there's something to lose. Lady, nobody outside the booger-eating cultists give two shits about your salon visit, so don't even waste the dignity of a fart on it.

At this point, what motivates voters is not "norms" or "decorum" or even ideas and policy positions, it's the understanding that you'll fight, and not put up with ridiculous bullshit. So hey, let's try that.

The Little Engine That Wouldn't

I like Ted Lieu, I really do. (And yes, I am aware that that sounds like a Dr. Seuss couplet.) But he does not seem to take seriously the ramifications of his own words. Trump has made it clear that he will do whatever it takes to cheat and steal -- if not to win outright, then to get it close enough to drag into court, and/or to fuck it all up enough to delegitimize the results. (Unless, of course, he "wins," in which case it was the best election ever, tremendously huge and very, very honest, the most honest election process in the history of the country.)

What if the open burning of the USPS is just the beginning of this delegitimization process? What if he finds a way to allow certain mail-in ballots, but not the "wrong" ones? What if he finds ways to burn walk-in voters as well? There are numerous ways to do that, and you can bet he and his team of scumbags will do all of them.

And they won't even try to hide the effort. Why should they? Rep. Lieu and the "leaders" of his party have made it clear that they don't want to dirty their hands in this fight. They want you and me -- because we have nothing better to do, and it's not like it's our fucking job -- to vote in a corrupt process, and then if that turns out to be a dead parrot, then to get out in the street and protest.

Yeah. People have been protesting shit all across the country, all summer long. Tell me one tangible thing that has resulted from all that, all those moms getting gassed, all those veterans getting truncheoned, all those journalists getting blinded. How's that been working out? A couple cops got arrested, big fucking deal. What changed as a result of all that? Anything? Bueller?

The General Accountability Office has found that Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the "acting" head and deputy respectively of the Department of Homeland Security, are in their positions illegally. That is, it is a violation of the law for them to be in their positions -- and again, these are the individuals calling the literal shots at the protests -- any longer, without being officially vetted and confirmed. Pursuant to that law, Congress can resolve to oust these individuals, to halt payment on their salaries, to call them into chambers and formally question them.

Imagine that -- illegally placed government officials putting unmarked thugs on the streets to beat up nonviolent protesters. It's happening. It's been happening. Ho-hum.

Maybe someone should enforce the law.

The current postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, is a Republicon contributor and lackey who has at least $60 million invested in direct private-entity competitors to the United States Postal Service. His conflicts of interest and operational bad faith are wide out in the open. As a civil officer, he can be impeached. He can be called into House chambers and questioned, under threat of subpoena and arrest if need be.

Maybe someone should use the powers afforded to them. If there is a crisis, if the situation is urgent, then perhaps it is time to act with a sense of urgency. I mean, are you just waiting around to see if Dear Leader decides mid-October that the elections need to be postponed outright? If so, what do you propose to do about that, Congressman, since it would be your own powers being openly usurped?

I am sick and tired of hearing from these people all the things they can't do, when they haven't even gotten around to trying all the things they can do, that they must do. What was the so-called Blue Wave for, if not for this, to stand and fight against open banana-republic activities?

Impeach Trump again and again. Impeach Barr. Impeach DeJoy. Stop giving in before even joining the fight. Stop telling all of the peons that it is they who must be prepared to fight. You can call hearings, you can subpoena testimony, you can file emergency injunctions in district and federal courts. You can impeach. You can arrest people who refuse to cooperate. You still have many tools at your disposal, but prefer to generate excuses as to why those tools are inconvenient or not timely enough. Stop punting on first down. Quit whining for a royal flush, and play the hand you're dealt.

When these sorts of operational issues are raised, many liberals will reflexively give you the evergreen "Democrats in disarray" response, a nod to the corporate media tropes that suffuse our bumbling twilight empire.

Let's be clear about this:  The Democrats are arrayed exactly as they intend to be.

This is a hell of a marketing pitch, you have to admit -- please vote for me, even though I am utterly powerless to do anything beyond my comfort zone. Have you tried every single tool at your disposal, every single shred of power that you do possess? No? Well, come back when you have. Otherwise, seriously, what the hell are you doing that I can't already do on my own?

The Courage of Your Convictions

Christ, he's such a fucking pussy:

“It was a disappointing meeting,” declared top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, saying the White House had rejected an offer by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to curb Democratic demands by about $1 trillion. He urged the White House to “negotiate with Democrats and meet us in the middle. Don’t say it’s your way or no way.”

To be somewhat fair to Schumer, he did at one point in his full press meet assert the fact that the House had passed the HEROES Act back in May. But that should have been all Schumer had to say, other than maybe ending with "....if only Moscow Mitch gave half as much of a fuck about the working people of his state or the country, as he does about shoveling unqualified dipshits into lifetime sinecures in the federal judiciary, and handing pallets of money to fuckers who already have more than they could spend in twenty lifetimes." What the fuck is this "meet us in the middle" shit?

This is yet another of those "what would it take" rhetorical questions that we all ask ourselves now. What would it take for a Trump cultist to change their mind and see the light of basic empirical reality? What would it take for leading Republican politicians to put country before party and stand up to the pig? What would it take for leading Democratic politicians to stop with the stupid pretense that we're all on the same team and want the same things for the country and can work together?

The answer to all of those questions should be clear by now, and of course it is the same answer for all of them:  Nothing. There is no conceivable event or situation that will cause any of these groups of people to find the moral courage to do what they know is right. None of them stand for anything except raw power and/or money.

Schumer and Pelosi should be in front of every camera repeating over and over how these fuckers didn't have any second thoughts about shoveling trillions of dollars to the hotel and cruise line industries -- even though those are dead or crippled for the foreseeable future, so the money just went to the execs anyway, and the cruise lines are American in name only anyway, since they register the ships in Liberia or Panama, and are mostly staffed with non-Americans. They should be telling the truth and shaming the devils, not this mewling, puling gosh, why won't they play nice bullshit.

You know why working-class dumbasses keep voting Republicon, above all else, even though they know they're being ripped off? Because they fight. Even when the fight itself is futile and stupid.

Because when Obama was in charge, and the Democrats ran Congress, and Moscow Mitch didn't get his way on something, he went straight to the cameras and railed about the fuckery, and he disciplined his party minions to go forth and do likewise. They are never not on message, and their message is fuck you.

And while they're in power, the appended message is make me. It's a nihilist death cult from top to bottom, and it's long past time to recognize it as such. Again, Chuckles, us peons on the street can go out and get a big bag of nothing on our own. You should at least be able to convey in a convincing manner that the animals you are up against are not your fucking friends, nor are they the friends of any American who is not in the coveted "net worth" club. For fuck's sake, at this late point, 160k people dead and 40M out of work in about four months, it should not be that difficult to put across that simple, toxic dynamic.

That thumb-shaped dickweed openly killing the Post Office met with Schumer and Pelosi yesterday. Today he scrambled the top execs of the USPS just to fuck it up even more. So that must have been a super-effective meeting yesterday. Can't wait to hear their big plan to preserve electoral integrity, or just to get the exterminator in to fumigate the White House and make the cockroaches leave even if we are allowed to vote and there's a landslide.

We all hear and say a lot about how the Republicon party needs to be ended completely, how they have utterly abdicated their role and face a generational landslide blowout blah-blah-blah. And that is true enough -- IF THE ELECTION ACTUALLY HAPPENS. And day by day, that prospect is being whittled away, right out in the open. And nobody is doing a goddamned thing about it.

So an equally real existential dilemma is staring the Democratic Party square in the eye -- when they're not looking at the ground, slump-shouldered, hat-in-hand, hoping for another crumb from the table. If they don't win this in an indisputable blowout, they're doubly screwed, because their own base will abandon them, since they can't get anything done anyway, and the Republicons will absolutely go medieval on their asses.

Hoping for some Fitzmas, deus ex machina, miracle whatever bullshit ain't gonna cut it. They're gonna close all the physical precincts, and refuse to deliver the mail-in ballots. They are openly stealing the election, point blank.

What are they doing about it? And they want my vote, and my donation? For what? A fucking means-tested 401(k) carve-out or property tax deduction or some dickless bullshit like that? Two-year interest deferment on loans for minority-owned small businesses? [rolls eyes, makes jerkoff motion]

This is not some standard mediot "Dems in disarray" guff. The problem is that the Democrats appear to be arrayed exactly as they intend to be. Fortune favors the bold, and time is short, and their colleagues are actually their mortal enemies, and they really should have noticed that about [checks watch] ten or twelve years ago.

One way or another, the problem will be resolved in less than ninety days.

This Is Us

However this movie ends -- and while my prediction wavers week-to-week, I think Biden squeaks through, though it will definitely get much uglier regardless -- it seems we may owe ol' Fuckface Von Clownstick a verrrry begrudging measure of gratitude. [pauses while readers collect their dropped jaws and exploded heads] Why? Hear me out.

1. The political system. Obviously it's a swamp of corruption and always has been, ever since it was an actual swamp waiting to be architected by some frog. But by simultaneously chanting the mantra "drain the swamp" while merely restocking it with his own gators, Trump forced observers to confront their own cynical assumptions about our political system, which is really just a vehicle for institutionalized graft and rentier capitalists, and to collectively turn away from it all with each of our assumptions, however individually divergent, confirmed. That is to say, whether you think it's more corrupt than ever, or whether you (amazingly) think he's doing everything he can to clean things up, your suspicions have been proven true to you.


2. The media ecosystem. The corporate (aka mainstream, "lamestream," ad nauseam) media are on their collective heels, ravaged by private equity vultures and by years of ad revenues lost to internet competitors. They are mostly just horse-race coverage now, vainly clinging to a transparent veneer of pretenses to some hallowed "fourth estate" principle they have rarely ever tried to live up to. It's just a rotating claque of fifty-percent prognosticators taking their tired opinions and slapdash analyses from panel show to panel show, and a gaggle of impotent losers stenographing lies and talking points (which are also lies).
   
   Nothing new is ever mined from these dismal pockets of (b)ore, just fools' gold. They are consistent only in the sheer paucity of original thought, and in the complete disconnect these bozos have from anyone with a real job -- so much so that they are routinely gulled, in their stupid Cletus safari articles, into collating either the marketing points of the chair of the Bumfuck County Republicon Party, or the foaming rants of some fist-shaking codger at a roadkill eatery.
   
   Mostly, though, the ease with which Trump has been able to render them as collectively supine, obedient, and utterly impotent, should make each and every media consumer out there wonder exactly what they're handing over their money and time for. Turns out they get paid whether or not they actually do their job -- or maybe being useless and compliant is their job after all. There's a Lucy-with-the-football dynamic in a lot of areas, and when it comes to the media and the average 'murkin, take a wild guess who's Charlie Brown.


3. The Republican party. Oh, if he loses they'll insist he was an aberration, an anomaly, a sui generis force they heroically endeavored to contain. The people who will be fooled by that want -- no, need -- to be fooled by it. There is nothing new in pointing out that Trump is simply the boorish but entirely practical culmination of GOP policies and strategy for the last fifty years -- steer racist whites into voting to let billionaires become trillionaires by hoovering ever more money out of the peons' pockets. That's all they've ever stood for in my lifetime, even counting Nixon's few liberal feints toward the EPA and such like. Anyone who continues to deny that at this point is either lying to you or to themselves. (Probably just to you, in order to profit for themselves. Because as we know, the only thing that matters in this world is money.)


4. The Democratic party. There are a few bright lights, but it's mostly a bunch of terrified bureaucrats more worried about losing their Wall Street donors than they are driven to motivate the burgeoning base of frustrated non-voters. I have no empirical data to support this, but I am convinced that for every lazy slob who just can't be bothered to give enough of a shit about anything to cast their lot, there is at least one other non-voter who is waiting for something or someone to vote for, rather than the evil of two lessers. I know because I was one of those people when I was young and foolish.
   
   Now that I am old and foolish, I can say that voting is definitely an exercise in futility, but one that would paradoxically become less futile in proportion with increased participation. In other words, the bastards keep winning because they are successful at discouraging you. Soon as you understand that it's not a one-time event, not the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby, but an endless exercise in process improvement, you focus on the dynamic aspect of improving the process, and the people who participate in it.
   
   For now, that means getting rid of the Republican party in its entirety, and putting the Democrats on notice. The old, entrenched entities of the party need to be made to understand that unless they are willing to fight for every inch of ground, they will be replaced at the earliest opportunity. Regardless, Trump has shown the current lineup for who and what they really are -- completely willing to spend months drafting performative bills to rot on Moscow Mitch's desk, but shrugging that there's simply nothing they can possibly do to counter or impede the open corruption of Trump and his dog Bill Barr. Either you use every power you have at your disposal, or you don't.


5. This is America. The COVID death count is about 160k at this point -- almost the combined total of WW1 and Vietnam. It will probably be over a quarter-million by the end of the year. Trump has found ways to be increasingly feckless and erratic throughout, getting worse and more brazen by the week, and his approval ratings have risen in the past couple weeks. He's made it clear he doesn't give a shit how many people die from this entirely preventable situation, and it's okay.
   
   You can make all the usual excuses about the media being in the tank or whatever, but there's no getting around this fact. Ignorant, nasty, spiteful people are fine with being ignorant, nasty, and spiteful. They've made a choice just like you and I make our choices. This is what they are, this is who they are. And when there's enough of them, to the extent that we humanize a nationalist mythos, imbue it with its own personhood and agency, it becomes a critical mass that determines what the country is, what it intends to be and do, what its role in the world should be and become. They have made themselves clear.
   
   The billionaires who really run this country, who own and operate the political system and all the nodes of information, make no secret that they hate you and me and everyone who isn't in their elite net-worth status. You're nothing but ignorant rabble to them, something to be manipulated and sold and used up as needed. They don't try to hide any of this. They would literally rather spend thirty or fifty percent of their precious profits subsidizing Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or some shithead think tank, than pay even one percent tax. That's just the way it is. You already know this.
   
   And it makes sense that Limbaugh or whoever is willing to take their money -- hell, I'd be happy to to take thirty million a year to do what he does (for a year anyway, before pulling the pin on that grenade and telling the audience to go fuck themselves), because you can bet when he finally kicks off, someone will take that job, and millions of broke peons with nothing to gain and nothing to lose will be happy to listen to whoever is willing to stoke their racial and class fears. It's a drug as potent as whatever strain of opioid is running through their dried-up towns this week, and they don't have anything else. That's the thing -- at least you can say Limbaugh and Hannity are in it for the money; to what extent is up for debate. But their listeners and viewers are cutting their own throats for free. (It's a small consolation to know that the billionaires and the talking heads they rent hate them too.)
   
   We'll see how it goes in ninety days, but unless it really is an unstoppable blue tsunami that completely eliminates these monsters, it might be time to consider that nations, like humans, have a lifespan, they run their course and then they turn to dust, and that maybe our individual lifespans are simply too short to keep at the futility of trying to talk suckers out of their tree. But again, as with the the above groups, Trump has clarified this dynamic for everyone.
   
   Liberals can no longer fool themselves into believing some tired variant of if only they knew. It should be clear by now that they know, and they're good with it, all of it. They want more of it. So maybe it's time to consider real estate prices on the Adriatic coastline or something. If this is how it is, then there's not really much you can do or say to change their minds. You can march in the streets and get your skull cracked and your eye shot out, maybe get whisked away by unmarked men in an unmarked van, maybe pull twenty years in Club Fed for throwing a rock at a Robert E. Lee statue. See what changes as a result of all that. How's it been working out so far?

I wish I had something more positive to say, but it's become impossible to have any faith or trust in any of this country's political leaders, media monkeys, or even average citizens. All the institutional bulwarks have failed, and all it took was someone with the nerve to completely ignore them. Too many people are simply too lazy and cynical to pull it together and change course, and that weighs down whatever idealism there is. I wish I was wrong more often than not. (If that was the case, then I'd probably have a cushy cable-pundit sinecure, or a NY Times column.) But you can feel free to go back through fifteen years' worth of archives, and you tell me what my batting average is.

I do think there is one last chance here to snatch the fat from the fire, but it will take dedication and commitment and consistency, for years after the election. This fight is not going away; they have a lot more money, and they use it weaponize that laziness and cynicism, and pit people with common interests against each other. Again, most people know all this already, but knowing something and acting in accordance with that knowledge are obviously two very different things, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.

It takes more than a willingness to engage in the banal distractions of trying to convince some asshole on your Facebook feed or whatever. It takes voting with wallets, every day, as well as ballots every couple years. It takes sending periodic emails to companies and congress-critters alike, and letting them know where you draw those lines for yourself. If enough people did just those things -- which are free, and so many people have so much time on their hands now -- they would have to listen.

Either it's worth fighting and expending effort for, or it isn't.

So what's it gonna be?

Subverting Norms

Lately I find myself thinking back frequently to a classic Norm Macdonald bit, about a homeless guy who has a dog with him. (Bear in mind that the bit is about thirty years old, and I don't want to hear any politically correct pedantry about othering the houseless or whatever.) The punchline, such as it is, is that Norm figures the dog is probably thinking, You know, I can do this shit on my own, buddy.

That's basically how I feel about the Democratic Party "leadership" much of the time these days. I'll still trudge to the polls and cast my lot with the rest of you schmucks (if we're still allowed, I guess), but I've been building about a hundred feet of fencing and gate around my house, and probably getting another couple guns in the near future to complement my Mossberg and my Sig P226 (maybe a Glock 19 this time). I'm also looking into emigration requirements for places like Scotland and Ireland.

I have no confidence in the Democratic leadership. I see stupid little blurbs like Nancy Pelosi smirking that she refers to Cheetolini as "Mister Make Matters Worse," and am underwhelmed by it. They should be impeaching Bill Barr like six months ago. They should have worked up new articles of impeachment against Trump the day after the last farce was over.

The idea that doing absolutely nothing in the face of open tyranny is somehow better than at least trying and not succeeding in the ultimate outcome, is repulsive for starters.

But doing nothing is also not that difficult. I can do that shit my own, good buddy. What the fuck do I need to pay you for?

Trump has always had a four-step process to everything he does in life, whether it's bankrupting a casino, calling Page Six and bragging about how good he porked that showgirl, or lawn-darting the country and setting its citizens to each others' throats:

1. Lie.
2. Cheat.
3. Steal.
4. Destroy.

That's it. That's the process. It's simple but effective, and why should he change it. It works. It's worked for him for years, because no one ever just lifted their shoe and scraped this fucking dog turd of a human being off the bottom of society's shoe. And now you've got dog shit everywhere, as far as the eye can see.

He could and should have been shut down years ago, but the New York Democrats were happy to hold their noses and cash his checks, and the New York mediots were happy to take his calls and do his PR for free. And so here we are, and nobody who can actually do anything or at least influence anything has the balls to do so.

So in the case of voting by mail, he's been lying about the whole thing for months, right down to how it actually works. Gee, maybe people should step in -- every time -- and correct the lie, and call it for what it is?

Like all marketing, lies work by repetition. That's why he's mostly just doddered around repeating the same bullshit over and over again for years, till the smooth-brained death cult can chant it in their dreamless collective sleep. The usual panel monkeys on the usual shows use the usual colorful phrasing to dance around the word "lie," when all they have to do is say, that's a goddamned lie, he knows it and so do we.

But now he has enough momentum with the lie about mail-in voting, and enough morons believing it, that now he toys with the next part -- muddying the waters just enough to discredit the results, defunding the USPS just enough to cripple their ability to handle the job effectively, and so on.

When that doesn't work, and people (as the current parlance goes) "crawl over broken glass" to do this thing they should have done in 2016 and 2014 and 2010 to prevent all this, he will then simply have his trusty mutt Barr draft up some emergency proclamation postponing or nullifying or whatever his vaunted gut decrees.

And what will anyone do about it? Will Nancy Smash have another smug nickname for His Travesty? Will Barry O have another carefully crafted oratory invoking our better angels?

Better angels? Forty fucking percent of this goddamned country is ecstatic with all of this. Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham could throw white-power hand signals at each other night after night and get two million bastards to tune in consistently. Everyone likes to invoke the old Michael Caine Batman mantra of some people just want to watch the world burn. Yes, they do and they are, and the resolute bulwark against the daily evil is merely to presume that of course we'll be permitted to vote in November.

To which the correct answer is, Yes, probably. But what is your contingency plan if this fucker goes full Mobutu Sese Seko on us? Humor us and just share it with the class, this plan of action in the face of crisis and urgency.

That is where they're failing. There is no backup. They scoff and sneer and harrumph that of course there is no way that this norm could possibly be traduced; why even Lincoln made sure the election was held on time in the middle of the Civil War.

Yeah, but -- and hear me out on this one -- Jesus Fucking Christ, I don't know if you've noticed, but he's not Lincoln. He's a criminal scumbag who's surrounded and insulated himself with like-minded scumbags who will do his bidding, no matter what.

I frequently use the exaggerated epithet "would push their own grandmother into a wood-chipper" to attempt to describe the sort of animal who would do literally anything to achieve their political goal. Well, Stephen Miller's grandmother recently died of the #TrumpPlague. You see him change his fucking rhythm by even a sixteenth of a beat? Me neither.

You think Bill Barr won't sign that fucking emergency memo postponing the election, to keep the "anarchists" from installing Diamond Joe Biden? Fine, then we can agree to disagree.

But just for safety's sake, you should still probably be able to describe what can be done if he does sign that memo, or decide that the election count is unacceptable, or whatever banana-republic bullshit these people have already made clear multiple times that they are completely comfortable with.

So far, I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that any of the people who actually have the power to affect that -- even in futility -- have taken any measures to do so. Impeach Barr now -- the investigative process alone will at least stall ever-so-slightly his continued attempts to turn this popsicle stand into some Opus Dei freak show. Half of something is always better than nothing.

And for the people in power who choose to just complain and bemoan their lot -- well, I can do that shit on my own, asshole. Now tell me why I should bother voting for you after this debacle, win lose or draw.

Job Qualification, Slight Return: Dereliction of Duty

Per the previous post, Adam Davidson has a brief explanatory follow-up as to why and how the money-laundering sausage doesn't get made so much. And while it all makes a certain perverse sense, it's just a lame excuse. "It's confusing"? "It takes too long and doesn't have enough impact"? "Everyone knows Trump is corrupt and has become numb to it"? Really?

If that's their rationale, then my response is, then what the fuck do we need you for? If we already know Trump is a corrupt liar, then what is the point of sending journo minions to sit in carefully spaced folding chairs to transcribe the obvious lies of soulless shills? Is it not the job of good journalists to take stories that are complex and possibly "confusing," and craft a narrative that clarifies and explains, without oversimplifying or omitting salient detail?

Watergate was complex. Iran/Contra was complex. Somehow ways were devised to explain these narratives to the thumb-sucking rube that apparently constitutes the average mainstream media consumer.

I don't blame Adam Davidson for this, mind you; I've read plenty of his pieces and he's one of the good guys. Anyone wanting to be a solid reporter could learn a thing or two from him. But these self-serving excuses from editors, providing cover for their imperialist running-dog corporate publisher overlords, are bullshit, pure and simple.

Take a look around and pick at random from the rancid piles of content garbage Corporate America has made you care about, or at least know about. I've never watched so much as a minute of American Idol or Bachelor or Survivor, but there are names and faces I know and recognize from these products, thanks to constant network cross-promotion and Google News aggregation.

Obviously, that's the first step of effective marketing -- creating awareness through promotion and repetition. You're telling me they can do this with the thirsty wretches of reality teevee purgatory, but not with the fact that the chief executive is a treasonous, money-laundering criminal who literally doesn't care that the Russians are paying Islamic militants for American military corpses? Really?

In the past, when presidents have had especially egregious scandals, journalists felt some editorial responsibility to weigh in, sometimes even suggesting that they resign "for the sake of the country" or whatever. More than one hundred newspapers -- including most of the leading national ones -- called on Bill Clinton to resign before he was even impeached. These days, not so much. They don't want the headache generated by pissing off cultists.

Well, guess what, folks? No matter what you do or what you say, if you're not fully in the tank for Orange Foolius, they will hate you regardless. So you might as well do the right thing. Do your job.

Same goes for Democrats, especially House Democrats. They pre-emptively squash the idea of impeaching again, which gives the angry toddler a pretext to continue his behavior, knowing that it will not be curbed or punished. And why shouldn't he? He has no disincentive not to.

When challenged on this, the reflexive cry is, the Senate will just acquit, so it's pointless, the people just have to show up and vote.

So let's look at those two points separately:

1. House Dems were fond, at least before the #TrumpPlague hit (and hey, there's a missed opportunity for opposition branding, no?) of pointing out how many hundreds of bills they had passed, but that big meanie #MoscowMitch was holding up because he's a dick. Well, by their own logic, this is a stellar example of pointless, symbolic posturing. Why bother going through all the motion it takes to propose, write, troubleshoot, and pass bills when you already know they'll be ignored or rejected? But in fact, it's even more useless than another impeachment would be (or, for that matter, a separate impeachment of Bill Barr). The impeachment process entails extra mechanical process of investigation, which not only adds scrutiny to the proceedings -- assuming a few diligent scriveners can be prised from Kayleigh MagaNinny's asshole, or the East Wing Tiger Beat column Maga Haberman runs for the Times -- but also legally mandates compliance from the targets of the inquiries. In other words, Barr wouldn't be able to just laugh and blow it off, knowing that the Dems don't have the stones to make it sting. He' have to comply, or face criminal charges. This would effectively halt (or at least impede) Barr's ability to continue his behind-the scenes evisceration of the federal prosecutorial system.
2. The people did show up and vote. It was called the midterms. It was in all the papers and everything. It was triumphantly known as the "blue wave." Maybe you heard about that. The idea that the "blue wave" parsed out to, ehhh, just drag your feet into eventually making one half-assed attempt at impeaching this fucking traitor, and when you fail you totally don't have to bother trying anything else until the next election, good job everybody! is a ludicrous lie that only a cosseted, self-serving politidunce could possibly believe. The voters voted. The message was clear. You want me to vote again, I will, but I'm going to make sure to vote for people who take the fight seriously. Gutless dweebs who whine about the battle being lost before it is ever fought need to go back to their fucking car dealerships or whatever. I want people who are going to exploit every media outlet available to them, in order to spread a clear, consistent, unified message, and if that's too much to ask, the unemployment line is over there.

This is the great question we should ask ourselves and each other, about these self-appointed guardians of democracy who always seem to get caught sleeping on the job -- what is the job of journalists, what is the job of opposition-party politicians? I would suggest that maybe the layperson's understanding of those jobs is fundamentally different from the understanding of the people who actually hold those jobs. In that gap lies the real problem at hand.

We can't just keep whining that journos are in the tank for Republicons. If that's the case, then fucking boycott them. If you're still bothering with CNN or the NY Times, you're part of the problem anyway, whether you know it or not. If you're not primarying establishment hacks like Pelosi and Schumer, ditto.

Think back to Obama's terms in office. However corrupt and mendacious and comically awful the opposition party was, they were effective. Their goal was to obstruct and impede, and they largely succeeded. They kept him from doing most of what he wanted to do, and effectively ankle-bit him even when he was successful with something. They don't give a fuck about looking "unpatriotic" or whatever. They go for the throat, lie about whatever needs lying about, and say fuck you to the rest. They don't punt on first down or go into a prevent defense for the fourth quarter. You keep fighting until the whistle blows, period.

Summer is the doldrums, and hopefully the Democrats are using the downtime wisely to run up the score in the homestretch after Labor Day. This is not just about getting rid of Trump and getting Biden in there. This is about retaking the Senate and increasing the House majority. This is about the necessity -- the actual, practical, operational necessity -- of driving a stake through the blackened heart of that party of traitors and criminals, for the sake of whatever's left. This is about putting down a rabid dog.

Whatever the Dems think the score is right now -- 42-17 in the third quarter or what-have-you -- they have to commit to going all out in that fourth quarter and running the score up as much as possible. Make it 84-17 if you can, or 200-0. Changing sports metaphors, go Harlem Globetrotters on them. People like to tell themselves and each other that the best offense is a good defense, but that's not true. The best offense is a good offense. Don't overthink it.

The comfortable fiction -- one that not only Republicons but their feckless Dem enablers need you to believe, for the preservation of the establishment money machine that greases them all -- is that Trump is an anomaly, a political aberration. That is a lie, a goddamned lie. Trump is the culmination of fifty years of tactics and propaganda, come to fruition. If he wasn't such an asshole about it, they wouldn't even be embarrassed to say it.

The Republican party needs to be ended as a viable political entity, full stop. It is a fascist mishmash of grubby plutocrats, sweaty authoritarians, and thieving evangelicals. They hate you and everything you've ever cared about in your life. They are more than willing to completely destroy the country if they can broker the ongoing looting of the country for a handful of billionaires. It is important not only to end all support for them, but for any entity who continues to operate as if they can be "worked with" in good faith.

If corporate media entities can't be bothered with that sort of work, then leave them to their reality-teevee coverage. If politicians can't be brought around to understand who the real enemy is, then it's time for them to go. There is no longer another option.

The Republican Party Hates America

You sell your oldest friends, you sold your countrymen
And yet we know your name....  Motörhead, Traitor

I long ago gave up on the New York Times, and I still think the daily harm they do outweighs the occasional good, but you have to hand it to them on their latest scoop (login required), which of course reveals much more than just the basic premise of the headline.

I don't know that I had "Russia offering bounties to Taliban insurgents for killing American soldiers, and Trump knew about it" on my 2020 bingo card, but I do know that I'm not surprised, not even a little. There are infinite ways for a faithless bucket of shit to prove themselves, and this is just one of the more egregious. It's appalling, but not surprising.

What is at least a little surprising is that none of the people around him who also knew simply stepped forward and took their chances, or at least leaked it to someone in Congress.

But hell, maybe they did try a congressweasel first. It's not like either party is willing to step up and confront this fucking monster.

The title of this post is a bit misleading. The thing about hate is that you actually have to give a shit about the things you take the effort to hate. And the Republicons have made it abundantly clear that they don't care enough even about their own base to expend the energy it would take to hate them.

Contempt is a more accurate word for this. It's the contempt that a successful con artist has for the saps who fall for his sorry act, the loathing a drug dealer has for his best customers, the resentment a pussy-hound has for the women he bangs in quick succession. It's the general sentiment that suckers and dupes deserve their lot, that they'll never earn a fair shake, that if you don't take advantage of their stupidity you're the real idiot in the equation.

Already that MagaNinny broad, that horrid fucking dingbat posing as a press suckaterry, has responded that Trump and Pence "were not briefed" on the bounty issue. Think about that:  the national security apparatus of the USA had identified a situation where a rival power was paying bounties on American troops in a war zone, and they chose for some reason not to brief the chief executive and his trusty li'l sidekick. It's difficult to determine whether it's worse that that's a pathetic lie, or that it might actually be true.

I have a relative who is currently finishing boot camp at Camp Pendleton. He wants to serve his country in the military. The great thing about being young is that you don't know any better yet. All politics aside, it's disturbing to think that he and the other kids he's in camp with, young men and women with their whole lives ahead of them, finding for whatever reason some value and virtue in military service for a dying empire, are being sold out by their commander-in-chief, a gutless, pathetic old man who has never sacrificed anything for anyone, who has always prided himself on getting the upper hand over the contemptible dupes who bought his nonsense.

I don't want to ever again hear about "supporting our troops" from these worthless cocksuckers, these scumbags who sold the troops out long ago, and would in fact push their own grandmothers into a wood chipper if it would get them re-elected to whatever gubmint sinecure they're currently milking.

One rhetorical question that gets asked with some regularity is what will it take for Republicons to stand up to Trump's corruption and malfeasance? What line would he have to cross in order to necessitate action on their part? A perfectly valid question that becomes more imperative with each passing offense.

But you might also ask that question of the supposed opposition party. How bad does it get before they decide that the situation is urgent enough to act with a  genuine sense of urgency? Political prognostications about the "failure" of an impeachment effort ignore the moral and practical necessity of investigating criminal activity, which now literally encompasses what was previously unthinkable -- an American president selling out the lives of American soldiers.

It's not enough to point out the sad, obvious fact that there is no bottom to the degeneracy of this human centipede of an administration. We may not have known the ultimate depth -- and they probably will sink even lower -- but we all understood the principle long ago. This is a situation that draws stark lines, and the political futures of all participating parties should be determined by where they find themselves in relation to those lines.

If the Democrats aren't calling for hearings and flooding the zone within the next couple of days, plague or no plague, we'll know where they stand as well. I have zero interest in perpetuating gutless incrementalism. They can take their "wait for November" bullshit and stick it up their asses. Either you use all the powers you have now, or you don't.

Represent

These days, I can't really muster the energy necessary to get too boiled about this sort of shit, mainly because it is entirely expected. I wish I lived in Pelosi's district, so I could vote for her opponent.

Lady, contrary to popular belief, there was a fucking election. It was in 2018, y'all crowed about it as THE BLUE WAVE, and it seemed at the time that people were pretty clear about their expectations. And here you are, defaulting to the usual "wait 'til next election" guff.

I'll vote blue no matter who this time around, but it might be the last time. Because I have better things to do than waste my time on people who won't fucking fight, even when there are openings and vulnerabilities all over the place.

Whether it's in politics, school, the workplace, your love life, whatever, I hate to think that I might be the first person to share this yuge secret with you, but here ya go:  there is never a perfect or even good time to get into a huge undertaking, or pick a big fight. Bokay? That perfect scenario simply never occurs. That's how life is. You take your opportunities where you find them, and you use every tool at your disposal to make the most of them. You play the hand you're dealt, but you by god fucking well play it.

So in the case of impeaching one William "Dad was a sex predator who gave Uncle Jeff Epstein his first job, working with teenage girls, even though he didn't have the necessary degree for the job" Barr, you have to acknowledge at the outset that it is highly unlikely that the Senate will convict and remove Barr.

That is a given:  the Republicon Party hates this country, and the people who live in it, and will do anything and everything to subvert and undermine our interests. They are traitors, pure and simple. That is the terrain in which you must operate.

Now, when you tell the proles and plebes and doofuses that believe you still give a shit that they must wait until the next election (always the next one, isn't it?), it's important that you elide the fact that you're dealing with people who are currently doing everything they can to suppress the right to vote, especially in key states. Unlike your overpaid cable teevee pigskin prognosticators, I'm not going to call them "swing" states, because the fact of the matter is that even if states like Kentucky and Georgia were D+10 states, every Republicon official in those states would do everything they could to just shut down the process and keep blacks from voting.

It's as simple as that -- they cheat because they know they can't win, and they're brazen enough to make it clear that they're cheating. Because they know no one will do a fucking thing about it.

But the process of impeachment itself, whether it results in the removal of its target or not, entails the implementation of procedures and powers that bring the corruption and malfeasance under a spotlight, and especially this close to the election, could by just enough breathing room to ensure a relatively fair election process. The fact that the election is only four months away now necessitates the initiation of this process now, rather than, as Pelosi would have it, postpones it.

It's been a long, strange trip in this blog over the past fifteen years, and longtime readers have seen some of the personal and professional travails I've shared. Over the past five years or so, though, my resolve has been to insulate my life from the decisions of stupid, cruel people. And it's taken some work, time, patience, commitment, but for the most part, I've attained that goal. I'll have a house and a good job either way. I have very little immediate skin in this game anymore. And so I have no interest or need to bother with voting for people who are just going jerk my fucking chain.

Turns out that I have hands, so I am entirely capable of jerking myself off.

But I still have a sense of justice, and I still give a shit about the direction this country has taken, and where our most vulnerable citizens will be if this thing shakes out wrong. I think the situation is truly urgent, and to me, that means by definition that we -- our elected representatives -- must act with a real sense of urgency.

And this is less in anger than in sheer exasperation, but I simply don't understand why the Speaker of the House, in a position to oppose a dangerous, erratic, corrupt, and incredibly unpopular chief executive and his attack dog, fail to actively, strenuously, urgently oppose them at every possible opportunity. Failure to take advantage and action of every chance is simply a dereliction of duty. Take your excuses and shove them sideways.

Either the law means something, or it doesn't. Either you think there's a problem, or you don't. Either you act upon your concerns at every possible juncture, or you punt with the usual bullshit excuses. All I know is that I am sick and goddamned tired of being lectured to show up and vote, by people who, once voted into office, do the bare fucking minimum and still have the fucking balls to lecture some more about how we need to get the next time. Always the next time.

Until you wake up one day, and find out the hard way that there isn't a next time, that your scam has dried up and blown away, and that people figured that if you're not gonna do anything anyway, what's the point of showing up?

Summer of Stupid

Because the US has a constant surplus of genuinely stupid, credulous dupes who rilly rilly care about shit, but simply cannot be bothered enough to find out whether it's even true or not, there is always a running narrative or several at any given moment that serve only to reinforce that basic concept.

Here are three such current notions, and why they're fucking dumb, as are their adherents:

1. Voting by mail is inherently fraudulent.
   Given that its biggest proponent has been voting by mail long before he threw his head-ferret into the political ring, this one shouldn't even need to be debunked. And yet, because there is a gross ratio of simpletons who perceive a linear correlation between repetition and veracity -- in other words, the more you repeat the lie, the more they buy it -- it needs to be debunked.
   
   So here's the thing:  it's not even worth bothering with trucking out the usual statistical data showing that fraud by mail ballot is almost literally (and is statistically) nonexistent. Instead, let's think for a hot second about the mechanics of the mail-ballot process. Preznit Genius Q. Dealmaker would have his fan-club of shitheads and suckers believe that anyone could simply run down to Kinko's with their absentee ballot, and run off infinity copies, and pass them off as "real" (i.e., fraudulent) votes.
   
   Okay. Go ahead and try it. (Especially you Trumptards out there -- I fucking encourage you to try it, because it'll be a complete waste of your disability check.) Take your mail-in ballot and run off, say, a thousand copies. If you're feeling extra ambitious, make it a million copies. The folks at the copy shop will looove you.
   
   So. You've made your hundreds or thousands of copies of your ballot, right? Now you take them home, and spend x number of hours filling them all out, meticulously, methodically, consistently. You are gonna TURN THIS ELECTION ROUND, Y'ALL. Why doesn't everyone on the mail-in scam do this? you ask yourself. How the fuck did I get to be so much smarter than everyone else?
   
   Then, as you finish filling out ballot #9,999 or the ten thousand you made with your crafty little scheme, you notice a small but important detail -- the ballot registry number. You see, whether you vote in person or by mail, you have to register, and when you do that, the county verifies your residence -- to prevent duplication, you see -- and assigns you a number on the county roster. Since your "ballots" are all copies, it's all the same number, ten thousand times.
   
   Which means that once the county sees your ballot -- any one of the ten thousand or so you paid money to copy, and spent time to fill out, they check you off on the county roster. You voted, it's done. You can send the entire stack in if it floats your boat, but they will throw it all away -- but not before, if they're worth half a shit at their job, coming after you and slapping you with a fat fine for voter fraud.
   
   It's a concentric ring of increasingly stupid and obvious lies -- not only does Dear Leader and his entire claque vote by mail, and not only is fraud statistically nonexistent by mail-in ballots, it is mechanically and procedurally impossible to do so to any meaningful degree. You have to literally have no earthly clue how the process works -- like, at all -- to buy this one.


2. Statues and monuments are intended to be educational tools.
   This one is just too easy. No doubt you have seen by now some tedious version of the usual Facebook uncle YEW CAIN'T TAKE ARRR HISSTRY nonsense, as a response to the wave of statue-toppling going on right now.
   
   So go ahead and think for a second how much you know about American history -- or any history -- and how much of that knowledge was gleaned from looking at statues or monuments.
   
   Those cultural objects, whatever their values, are not intended to educate, but commemorate -- and in the case of the participation trophies cluttering the south, intimidate. That is not a "modern" "liberal" interpretation, four or five generations removed from the installation of such things, it was explicitly stated as such at the time. It was part of the benediction and investiture of those abominations.
   
   Consider:  what other country in the world insists on keeping monuments to people who took up arms against their own country and lost badly, names military bases after traitors and losers? Name one other country that honors enemy combatants. Go ahead, we'll wait.
   
   And yet, I'll wager that the average German knows a hell of a lot more about the Nazi regime than the average southerner knows about the confederate regime. No one "learns" anything of value from a statue or monument, even if it's of Abraham Lincoln or Albert Einstein. At best you get a plaque with fifty or a hundred words containing some decontextualized specifics about the honoree.
   
   But if you wanted to learn something about Einstein or Lincoln, if you wanted to get educated about the "history" of the confederacy and its participants and adherents, you'd read a fucking book. They still have those, you know. The library in your town is still free. I'll bet they have at least one book about Jeff Davis or Bobby Lee or Albert Pike, or whichever scumbag traitor shitbird they tore down today.
   
   The people who claim that participation trophies are the best -- or even a good, or marginally reliable -- source of information or "history" are participating in a mass self-delusion, a sort of line-dancing of evasion. They don't know the history, and don't want to know. They want to pretend that all interpretations are equally valid, even the empirically false ones, even the versions based on pure hatred and blatant racism, and they want you to join them in that pretense.
   
   They don't want to keep slave-owner statues and plantation "tours" because those things present a more complete picture of a complex time. They want to keep those things because they validate a vision and a goal of returning to a time where certain people ruled the roost, and everyone else knew their place.
   
   But let's call the lie for what it really is -- nobody ever came away from a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest or whatever traitor-slaver dirtbag you prefer, knowing more useful information about that person and the context and time they operated in, than they did before they stepped up to the plaque and moved their lips to the inscription.


3. Impeachment is a waste of time if you know you can't win.
   In the interest of fairness, and mostly because these people piss me off as much as confederate apologists piss me off, let's take a look at a rather stout beam of current liberal and Democratic orthodoxy.
   
   Now, if you are not too distracted by the homilies of inept confederate sculpture, you may have seen in the onrushing torrent of political coverage that since his sham impeachment trial a few months ago, the chief executive has continued to act in ways that not only countermand and subvert the national interest, but are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.
   
   It turns out also that the current attorney general, a self-proclaimed culture paladin whose own father was the very same pederast headmaster who hired one Jeffrey Epstein, has openly played an active role in purging the ranks of the "Justice" Department, squashing inconvenient investigations, and generally making no secret of his goal of completing the job of turning this country into a fully fledged banana republic.
   
   The logical and moral thing to do would be for the House of Representatives (pay particular attention to the last word of that name) to use every tool at their disposal to investigate these ongoing misdeeds, with the goal of prosecuting and trying them in public, for the benefit of same. Beyond simply prosecuting and punishing these crimes as such, the ancillary goals would be to make it as inconvenient as possible for the criminals to continue their activities, as well as make it clear to them that their actions will not go without a response.
   
   Since the impeachment farce, which showed beyond all doubt that the Republicon senators have been irretrievably corrupted and must be voted out of office as soon as possible, the Democratic response to further calls for investigation and prosecution have been met with limp responses of "wait till November," as if people will actually get the chance to cast a vote and get it counted without undue interference.
   
   (Turns out there is no need to concoct a baroque scheme to mass-copy mail-in ballots, or bus in illegals from Massachusetts across the New Hampshire border. All you need to do is have vested financial interest with the companies that produce electronic voting machines for contentious states, and then make sure that the secretaries of state in those places can be bought. See the great state of Georgia for the most egregious example, but Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and others are all following suit in various ways.)
   
   Of course a second impeachment of Trump, or a first impeachment of Barr, will end in acquittal by the Senate. So what? Do it anyway. Do it because it's your fucking job. See, there already was an election mandating the investigation of corruption. That was that "blue wave" of 2018, remember? You're representatives, and now it is time to represent. You really may not have another shot at this.
   
   Either the law means something, or it doesn't. Either corruption is something that should be called out and publicly shamed for what it is at every opportunity and every occurrence, or not. There is a disagreement on what "failure" means in this context. It does not mean trying and not succeeding in conviction, it means not trying at all, which is much more empowering and validating to the criminals than putting up a good fight and maybe not getting across the finish line.
   
   Look at how federal prosecutors have used creative tactics to secure convictions against mobsters over the years, from Al Capone to John Gotti. It frequently takes years, and multiple tries, and even questionable methods sometimes. But persistence is key, and while the odds may be slim, they're always better than pre-emptively giving up.
   
   Even the political aspect of trying makes more sense. The Democrats' problem typically is finding ways to inspire passion and action in its ranks. Who the fuck is inspired by yeah, we know they're guilty as hell, but let's wait six months and see if we're still allowed to vote?
   
   We voted, assholes, and it was clear at the time what we were voting for. So do it, not with narrowly-drawn articles that a chimp could scramble out of, but with a barrage of throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks charges. Hammer them for fucking jaywalking. Hammer them for being assholes. Hammer them because you don't like the color of their suits. Whatever.
   
   It's truly sad that a moral abomination of a political party has such a handle on marketing its horrific policies, but a lot of that boils down to passion. They may be nuts, they may be assholes, but they're all-in on those things. They don't second-guess, they don't worry about facts, or what works. They investigated the Benghazi nothingburger nine times, and when they still came up flat, they trotted it out at their convention to whip up the rubes. It was bullshit, but it worked where they needed it to work.
   
   What might it be like if the Democrats understood the gunfight for what it was, and finally dropped their Spork of Decorum™ and picked up a fucking MAC-10 and went to town?