Se Llama Fuckface

The Clownstick Medicine Show went international today, heading down to Mexico to meet with that country's equally unpopular leader, to pretend not to discuss the virtual wall which is not going to be built, and for which no one but the US taxpayers will pay.

Really, the only thing noteworthy about this stunt is in the way the scampaign head-faked that it might or might not go, right up until the last minute, then sent the press charter plane to Phoenix for the later speech, while the scampaign plane headed for Mexico City. It was said that members of the press corps were (lulz) "seething," which means what -- that they're not going to sit in his fucking rally pen anymore and let his retard fans fling their monkey poo at them? What, and quit show business?

But then, they are trained and indoctrinated to give the rubes exactly what they want.

Dumbass

Weekend before last we Netflixed the Anthony Weiner documentary, and it was everything you'd expect -- a full portrait of a talented but deeply flawed man, someone who fought diligently for his constituents, even as he pursued a needless and self-destructive private life.

So it makes sense that Weiner's self-implosion continues unabated, in the midst of a hotly contested electoral contest that finds Weiner's spouse as the right-hand woman of the Democratic contestant. I suppose that's part of the psychopathology of it all, whether "they want to get caught" or whatever.

But the doc is a reminder of how passionate an advocate Weiner could be for the things he seemed genuinely to believe in.  Whatever his problem is, like with Eliot Spitzer before him, it has cost untold potential in terms of the good he might have been able to do.

Ordinarily you could make some cheap point about IOKIYAR, how guys like Weiner get their careers derailed even though they never actually have physical contact with anyone, while scumbag pigfuckers like Scott DesJarlais do far worse and keep getting re-elected. But the difference is that most of these Gooper douche-nozzles are transparent in their desire to accrue money and power and notoriety; they make no pretense about "public service" or some such nonsense.

Weiner really did and does come across differently, not just in the documentary but in countless interviews and media appearances over the years, he has unfailingly conveyed a presence of intelligence, confidence, integrity, and a genuine desire to improve the lives of his constituents. It's unfortunate that his demons keep getting the best of him.

Crapfest

There's a reason I rarely bother to venture onto Facebook anymore, and today is a perfect example of why, post after post after fuckheaded rant about how Colin Kaepernick should be "deported" or fired or what-have-you, for the high crime of expressing his opinion.

I think some people need to be reminded of what the great things are about this country. Perhaps the most important feature is that every citizen has the inalienable right to be wrong, and even to be a jerk about it. Without that basic right, nothing else matters, we would all just be slaves to the swirling winds of mob rage.

I'm just cynical enough to believe that Kaepernick, who had been on the verge of being benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert, is trying to get traded to a team that will start him, although there are certainly better ways to go about that. Perhaps Kaepernick is utterly sincere in his sentiments, in which case there might be better ways to communicate that. We don't really know, and it's not really important.

What should be important is that, after a year-plus of listening to Fuckface Von Clownstick paint this country as a festering hellhole for his adoring throngs, it's more than a mild coincidence that the most ardent of the anti-Kaep screamers are also the most devout Clownstick acolytes. This is the conservatard mythos writ small -- the conservative can complain about the gubmint interfering with his ability to make and keep his money, but the second someone complains about how they're treated by agents of that same gubmint, these people come unglued.

They loves them some Drumpf because he's sooo un-PC, but the fact of the matter is, these people are as PC about their own pet causes as the most tiresome SJW tweeting from their safe space. I tend to agree with them that their country is lost, but it's lost because they are moronic, intolerant rageaholics who probably need a diagram on how to wipe their asses properly.

Wrong Question

Here we go again; get ready for yet another meaningless kerfuffle over an athlete expressing their opinion. Humble prediction:  not one (1) media entity will think to ask, Why do we feel the need to perform nationalistic chants at sporting events? What tangible need is served by this? Some people would probably miss it, but so what? Can we just watch a fucking ballgame without being pestered by your jingoistic nonsense?

None of those questions will ever be asked or answered by a corporate media entity. There would be too much incoherent whining and twittering.

Dr. Feelgood

It would be the irony of all ironies if, after several weeks of halfwitted sniping at HFC's supposedly dismal medical condition, Clownstick got hung up a bit on the complete bullshit five-minute letter his gastroenterologist wrote up for him as a favor.

This is by far my favorite part:

Bornstein didn't talk politics in Friday's interview but said he's a fan of his patient.

"I like Donald Trump because I think he likes me," he said.

Oh, that's a great fucking reason. I would be fucking embarrassed, literally ashamed, if someone of Drumpf's low-rent character and tenth-rate intellect had anything at all to say about me, seriously. Not even because he's a bad guy, but because he's an incompetent tool, a complete jerkoff. His praise and affection would mean nothing, like being slobbered on by a Saint Bernard. Drumpf is the Simple Jack of political candidates and Bornstein got the, uh, seal of approval.

By the way, again, if you're going to spend weeks making shit up about your opponent's supposed medical condition, you might want to at least pretend to make sure that your own doctor's reports are at least a little airtight, and not something a seventh-grader wrote to excuse his absence.

What You Wish For

So it turns out that new Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte is every bit the authoritarian scumbag he campaigned as. To which the correct response is, what the fuck did you idiots expect?

In the final days of the campaign, Aquino became more alarmed about Duterte, telling voters that “we should remember how Hitler came to power.’’ But Duterte’s fear tactics worked. He drew thirty-nine per cent of the vote, to Roxas’s twenty-three per cent, and popular support for him remains robust. In a poll released on July 20th by Pulse Asia Research, ninety-one per cent of Filipinos said that they trusted Duterte, while the more authoritative Social Weather Stations found that sixty-three per cent expected him to fulfill his campaign promises. “There seems to be a level of acceptance on how Duterte’s war on drugs is being conducted,’’ Palabay said.

Okely-dokely then. I guess the Philippines can fucking suck on it. Sometimes people get what they deserve. Any questions?

Call His Bluff

So this happened:

"Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago," Trump tweeted Saturday morning, misspelling the basketball player's first name. "Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!"

First things first -- I give less than half of a standard-issue fuck how Dwyane [rolls eyes] spells his first name, except to note for the record that one of the convenient features in learning how letters work in forming words and sentences is that each letter is assigned a specific set of possible sounds and are designed to work in sequential order.

But set that aside, and also set aside Drumpf's craven use of a tragic death to bolster his cheap racial scampaign rhetoric (which, of course, he has only proffered to lily-white audiences). Is there one (1) enterprising journamalist out there with access to Drumpf who has the stones to call his bluff?

I mean, let's hear it, asshole. What specifically would you, Fuckface Von Clownstick, do that would have prevented Nykea Aldridge from getting shot? Huh? Hmmm? What would you change? More cops on the streets? Great, how do you pay for that? Are they going to walk a beat and get to know the community they serve, or are they just going to swarm the 'hood in their patrol cars, bust some bustas, and then go back to their residential enclaves?

This mouthy moron talks a big game about every goddamned issue, but there's never any details. Okay, you Twitter fucktard, let's hear some details for once. Accepting the bullshit argument that the blacks all live in broke-ass urban war zones, what precisely does this asshole plan to do about it?

Suckers

Another one for the Best News of the Week file. I hope every single one of those blue-collar morons at the rallies ponied up for this. I would love to know that they had used the money for the loan payment on their single-wide to donate to Fuckhead's scampaign, which he then in turn used to pay himself the jacked-up rent he charged his own scampaign.

Jesus H. Christ, how fucking dumb do you have to be to go along with something this obvious and transparent? Drumpf is basically a Nigerian prince at this point. Fuck these idiots, they deserve to get fleeced of every rusty nickel they have.

Policy

A motorist who happened to be white and deaf was killed last week in North Carolina, by a cop during what should have been a traffic stop.

Unfortunately, this is what it's going to take to make America look a little more closely at the policies that govern the rules of engagement for law enforcement personnel. Does that sound a bit militaristic? Good, because our local law enforcement departments have become de facto paramilitary organizations, like what you used to read about in banana republics, back when media entities had foreign offices.

Race is more often than not a factor in these incidents, but if we really want to get to the bottom of why harmless, unarmed people are being routinely killed by cops for no good reason, we have to address the training policy of using deadly force as a first resort, when it used to be a last resort.

Pay or Play

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First Amendment Remedies

I'm basically inclined to agree with Strix on the demise of Gawker. Extra humor value comes in the form of them being undone by a couple of toads like Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan. But mostly, yeah, you live by the hoke, you die by it.

Except here's the thing, in the form of we're totally sure he's gonna lose you guys, no problem! would-be god-emperor Fuckface Von Clownstick:  he's made no bones about his utter disdain for the "legitimate" press, and in fact has made an ongoing hate-sport of its members at his rallies. It's not difficult to see that a Preznit Clownstick (shudder) would instantly populate the White House Press Room with only the entities that spoke favorably of him. He might even pursue more (let's say) Putin-style modes of retribution on especially problematic journamalistas.

The real problem here is not that Drumpf might actually win (even though he might, there's a lot of time to go, people are stupid, and HFC seems determined to stick with her prevent defense), it's that most of his supporters share his vitriolic stance on "the media," which of course really means unfavorable press. So as the disinfo market gets niched, mostly through idiotic agitprop sites like Breitbart and worse (and believe me, they get a lot worse, not in the racist sense, but just in the sheer ineptitude of their sites and content), the marching morons get more and more distrustful of the conventional media outlets, and more and more vituperative in their stance against them. They would be A-OK with whatever their favored strongman/daddy figure chose to do with unruly media folks.

Complicity

Look, what Texas and other states are doing -- and have been doing for decades -- to undermine reproductive rights is shameful, despicable, disgusting (to use the Drumpfster's favorite word). There's no two ways about it, especially considering that the abortion rate has been steadily declining in this country for about twenty years now. There's just no reason for this nonsense, except that it inflames the rubes.

But this is an issue that affects poor women the most, by far, and so here is what I would ask those women:  Do you vote? More specifically, do you vote every time you can, even if a pet issue isn't on the ballot? Do you vote in the midterms? Because part of the reason so many of these fuckers are in office right now is because no one could be bothered to show up in 2010, or 2014. That's why you vote every time. That's why you follow the issues and the people, and pay attention.

A Nation of Rackets

Oh look -- in "water is wet" news, costs for simple (yet life-saving) medical devices are usuriously high. SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOMETHING!

EpiPen maker Mylan has become the new boogeyman of the pharmaceutical industry.

Following complaints from consumers that the company had hiked the price of the emergency auto-injector by $100 in recent months for no obvious reason, members of Congress are calling for an investigation. The price has increased 450 percent since 2004, when a dose cost $100 in today's dollars, to its current price of more than $600. Many consumers hadn't noticed the gradual rise in price, however, because the company often only added in 9 to 15 percent each time and insurance companies had made up the difference. But with recent changes in the deductible structure and co-pays for some health plans that have put more of the cost for drugs on consumers, many families have been hit with sticker shock.

So let's see if we have this straight -- a long-standing collusion of profiteering among a triangle of associated industries (pharma, insurance, HMOs) which has any number of congress-critters in their back pockets suddenly has said critters' antennae tingling, even though prices for the Epi-Pen (and any number of devices and medications) have been steadily rising for years.

Re-signed

The Drumpf Scampaign Express seems to have veered off into some seriously weedy territory now. The current "campaign" "manager," one Paul Manafort, has been replaced by none other than the high-larry-us team of Stephen Bannon (maker of the ricockulous Sarah Palin mockumentary Triumph of the ShrillThe Undefeated) and sheltered suburban mom (NSFW) Kellyanne Conway, mostly known as an empty talking head.

Bannon is an arrogant slob who should have choked on his ill-gotten pelf a long time ago, and Conway's defining characteristic is that she sticks to the script, even when it's an incredibly shitty script. In other words, they're perfect to pose as the takeover artists of this foundering Potemkin shop.

Not that they're not really on the scampaign team now -- of course they are. Bannon runs the deep-in-the-tank Breitbart site, whose collective nose is so far up Drumpf's wrinkled orange butthole, they have a secondary tan. Years ago I was on a booty call, and it turned out that she only had a bottle of self-tanning lotion available for lube. So my dick looked like a carrot for the next two weeks, which I still think is fucking funny twenty-five years later. That's Breitbart, whenever they extricate from Drumpf's puckered anus. They're an even more ideal propaganda arm than Fixed Noise.

Orange Like Me

"At the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over 95 percent of the African American vote." -- God-Emperor For Life Fuckface Von Clownstick

Shorter FVC:  Don't you people know what's good for you?

Indeed, what would black Americans "have to lose" by voting for a thin-skinned con-man:

• whose first major foray into the housing industry resulted in a federal lawsuit for redlining blacks and Hispanics from his buildings, for which Drumpf and Dad hired close friend (and vile scumbag) Roy Fucking Cohn to defend them;
• who took out a full-page ad in the New York Daily News calling for the death penalty for the so-called Central Park Five, implicitly called for the suspension of civil liberties for "criminals," and when the CP5 were exonerated, trotted out the usual "a detective friend of mind told me" lies that guilty men were being set free;
• whose most public encounters with black people appears to be schmoozing athletes and rappers, and feting scumbags like Don King?

Hell, I dunno, why don't we ask Cheryl Lankford?

Ugly Americans

Soon as the story first broke that Ryan Lochte and his swim teammates had been robbed at gunpoint in Rio, you knew something had to be up. After all, Lochte was able to cultivate a career as an affable doofus because he really is, by all objective accounts, an affable doofus. So it makes sense that he would almost cause an international incident by lying about a little post-party vandalism.

None of this obviates the fact that Rio is, again by all objective accounts, an overpopulated, crime-ridden dump where the wealthy live behind security systems and high gates, and the poor live clustered on hillsides in corrugated tin sheds. Lochte's story was believed precisely because it was so believable.

Between the 2014 World Cup and now the 2016 Summer Olympics, Brazil has made an attempt to draw "prestige" events that show it as a player on the world stage, rather than a over-large banana republic. Problem is, in dealing with FIFA and the (notorious) IOC, two of the most corrupt and useless "world" organizations outside of the UN, Brazil has merely managed to cement that reputation of those organizations and or itself as a country.

Lochte's indignation at being shaken down in the street for a fine by Brazilian street cops just shows what a dope he is. If he had pulled this shit in, say, New York City, and the cops didn't recognize him, he'd have spent at least a few hours in a holding cell in Rikers, one of the more terrifying places in this country. Lochte (and his presumably virgin asshole) should be thanking those cops for sparing him from a Rio holding cell.

Not that any of it matters; while the gossip rags and moral wags are scolding him for his bad behavior and poor international diplomacy, Lochte has gone back to his regular life -- swimming for a living, cashing fat checks, and banging hot chicks. What a country! We should all be so lucky.

Soulless

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In Other News

It seems that everyone had the same bright idea after seeing the Bidens' summer playlist, to create a proper Onion Diamond Joe Biden playlist. Fuckin' A.

Here's what I like about the real Joe Biden:  I feel like he is probably aware of his Diamond Joe doppelgänger, and he thinks it's funny.

Crybaby

Yes, how dare the media report exactly what I said verbatim -- it's not fair! Waaahhhhh!

Fuck this incompetent motherfucker, and his moron cult followers. It would be poetic justice if the media simply took him at his word, and just stopped covering him altogether, but obviously that's too much to ask. They need him for clickbait as badly as he needs them for a punching bag at his rallies.

You'd think at the very least the reporters would get tired of being penned at the rallies like animals, to endure Drumpf's Two Minutes of Hate and the inevitable spectacle afterward of halfwits waddling by to scream "traitor!" at them and flip them off.

There's still time for these fools to rediscover their personal dignity, and just say fuck it and not go anymore. What might that be like, if the media pen was completely empty? He's going to make shit up and say what he wants to say anyway, but Il Douche is a parasite at heart, with unearned attention and adulation the lifeblood.

Citizens Untied, Part 2: The New Model

So the rolling Drumpfster Fire has begun pulling in respectable dollars since its hokey start in May. And yet no ad time has been bought or reserved so far, and most of the billing seems to have been funneled back into Drumpf's pockets, simply by holding "events" at his own hotels and supplying his own branded water, wine, steaks, etc. And Drumpf's business history of fucking over contractors and/or waiting them out in court with specious lawsuits indicates that whatever campaign funds do not get spent probably will not be recouped without a fight.

This a much more scaled-up, but only slightly more sophisticated, version of the late great Fred (I say) Fred Thompson's primary run in 2008. Thompson lulled a lot of fokes with his Alabama drawl, but he was both an actor and a lawyer, had actually done and known a few things worth doing and knowing in his day, and was adept at using his physical size and speaking cadence to convince and motivate listeners. But he was also smart enough to know that he had no chance of becoming president, and seemed to run his campaign accordingly, a cynical cash-grab on the way out the door to retirement.