Monday, February 19, 2018

Sunday Morning Comin' Down



I used to devote more time and viscera deconstructing the Weekend Gasbag Cavalcade back when there was a glimmer of hope that if enough of us documented and published the catastrophic failures of our political media over and over and over again, it might change their collective behavior.

I no longer believe that.

Clearly, their contemptable collective behavior is an organizational feature and not a bug, and therefore unfixable until it becomes unbearably more painful for the men and women who control our corporate media to change their ways than to maintain the status quo.  I still take note of the weekly crimes against journalism and the vipers and pettyfoggers who commit them, but now it is more with an eye towards the future.  Just a dime-store Josephus documenting who we are and why this is happening to us as our country is systematically gutted by forces beyond my control.  And I think I write a pretty honest stick, but this Sunday I can't sum things up any better than @51Renee on the Twitter machine:
Trump having a meltdown today.

Jill Stein having a meltdown today.

Bernie snapping at Chuck Todd today.

Hillary Clinton is laughing her ass off.

She tried to tell you.

#StillWithHer
Yeah, that's about where we're at.

Also a few, very special Presidents' Day Fuck Yous going out to a few very special Beltway media collaborators who never, ever want to find themselves across the table from me with a camera rolling.

First, Fuck You, John Kasich  Y'know, the "Good" Republican who is running so fucking scared from the degenerates who own his Party and their enablers who own the media that he cannot form his mouth the say the word "Republicans" when asked a direct question about who exactly is blocking any meaningful progress on gun control legislation of any kind:
BASH: But when it comes to Congress, you were a member of Congress. Do you think that it's just dysfunction and ineptitude, or do you think it's because they're actually scared of the political consequences from important groups like the NRA?
Instead, he gasses on about the goll durn "Congress" up there in goll durn "Washington D.C." and advises people to just give up on the federal government entirely because of the goll durn "politicians" and do what he did: get a lil' group together with a friend of his and his friend's cousin and then there's Floyd and some of the boys down ta' the barber shop who's always up for whatever, and ya get together and maybe propose somethin' to the town council!
KASICH: ... Where we have to effect this, I believe, is at the local level and the statehouse, because you can have greater access to politicians who serve in the state legislature, in -- a county commissioner, in a city council.
Before ending up exactly where every one of these sniveling Republican cowards always ends up.
KASICH: ... And, look, I'm not calling for some outright ban. I'm talking about small steps that can be taken that can be effective. And the Congress ought to do it.
I just don't -- I -- I don't have any confidence in them. I don't think most Americans do. Nobody's supporting them any more on both sides. They're both broken.
Then Fuck You Maureen Dowd, who took the same "Both Sides/All Sides/Everyone is to blame" playbook and ran with it --
Then I gave up. If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?...

But we didn’t care...

In our ongoing angst about our national identity — if we weren’t John Wayne anymore, who were we? — there had been a terrible tacit judgment made: America would accept periodic human sacrifices to the trigger gods in the interest of upholding this bizarre notion that the Second Amendment is inviolate or even really threatened.

We can’t even summon the energy to break the chokehold that the N.R.A. has on Republicans in Congress.

When societies try to protect a malevolent status quo, they become warped.

The most chilling sign of this is when people look the other way as the most vulnerable members of society are preyed on.

America shrugs.
-- pausing only briefly to pat herself on the back for that time she blamed Barack Obama. 
And I wrote in disgust about President Barack Obama failing to marshal the L.B.J. mojo to push through a gun control bill after Sandy Hook even though he had 90 percent of Americans on his side and a Democratic Senate.
Because, see, President Obama didn't use his Magic Green Lantern powers to change the cold, dead hearts of Republican scumbags like Maureen Dowd's brother

Republicans who are are "meh" about all those "slaughtered angels" because Freedumb!  

Republicans who are delighted with the permanent damage President Stupid is doing to this country.  

Republicans who elected the seditious thugs who dynamited everything the Obama Administration tried to do just because they fucking hated the first black president.   From Time Magazine, August of 2012:
TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” 
And finally, a Very Special Presidents' Day Fuck You to Respected NBC Contributor and America's Most Lubricated Conservative Barfly, Peggy Noonan --


-- for very nearly making it to the bathroom before vomiting half-digested wingnut talking points about school shootings all over the sink, the walls, the rug and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal:
The family blew up—divorce, unwed childbearing. Fatherless sons. Fatherless daughters, too. Poor children with no one to love them. The internet flourished. Porn proliferated. Drugs, legal and illegal. Violent videogames, in which nameless people are eliminated and spattered all over the screen. (The Columbine shooters loved and might have been addicted to “Doom.”) The abortion regime settled in, with its fierce, endless yet somehow casual talk about the right to end a life. An increasingly violent entertainment culture—low, hypersexualized, full of anomie and weirdness, allergic to meaning and depth. The old longing for integration gave way to a culture of accusation—you are a supremacist, a misogynist, you are guilty of privilege and defined by your color and class, we don’t let your sort speak here.
Poor Peggers.  Other than the Wall Street Journal...and The New York Times...and MSNBC...and NBC...and ABC...and the lecture circuit...and book deals..and putting words in the mouths of Republican presidents...and myriad radio appearances...and a standing invitation on the now-defunct Charlie Rose Show...

...no one will let her sort speak here!

Have another drink, Peggy.

Hell, have a thousand.


Behold, a Tip Jar!

17 comments:

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

"Because, see, President Obama didn't use his Magic Green Lantern powers to change the cold, dead hearts of Republican scumbags like Maureen Dowd's brother."

FYI: the GREEN Lanterns are all about willpower. The VIOLET Lanterns (aka Star Sapphires) are all about the power of love. I only bring this up because I want to link to a pic of their traditional costumes that might inspire future Photoshops from you...

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/greenlantern/images/6/60/Star_Sapphire_Corps.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090428193538

Be seeing you.

Jonny Scrum-half said...

Wow. That Peggy Noonan excerpt is amazing. She writes so much and conveys no information, but somehow continues to command what I assume is a hefty paycheck and some of the most prime editorial space in America. Inconceivable!

steeve said...

The students - the fucking high school students who aren't majoring in journalism - ran rings around the top of the goddamned profession by zeroing in on the problem and naming the guilty. By name. Using their actual names.

Imagine a random student being better than the best physicist at physics, or the best programmer at programming. But they're better than the "best" political analysts at political analysis.

Andrew Johnston said...

I've read a bit of Kasich's last book, which was both aggressively dull and also a quintessential wannabe-President text. He clearly thinks that Trump is doomed, that 2020 will be an open field one way or another, and that he'll be a strong contender, hence his shift to bothsiderism.

The thing about the book is that he doesn't specifically bothsides all that much (or even talk about politics directly too much), but he employs a lot of other classic elements of High Broderism. There's the wistful nostalgia for some mythical past era where life was perfect and everyone got along, the championing of vaguely Christian morals without any definite stances, the very earnest sermonizing on the limitations of politics and how people should find other, better ways of addressing their concerns...all familiar to you, I'm sure, as David Brooks et al. do all of this shit.

It occurs to me, though, that apart from the specific element of "both sides do it," this is the classic stance of a politician with no positions. This sort of bland optimism used to be very effective, especially in low-stakes elections where it let some politicians occupy seats for decades at a stretch. The problems is that we have problems, actual concerns that are far too big to be solved by anything but that nasty ol' government. We need solutions, not platitudes - who the fuck is going to vote for someone who says that there's nothing he can do?

dinthebeast said...

But John, why won't your Republicans let the goddamn CDC study gun violence? Democrats would be fine with it, John. And a case can be made that not doing it is killing people, John. The CDC is the federal government, John, not state or local, because the federal government has more goddamn RESOURCES to bring to bear on controlling and preventing diseases, you know, the C and the D in "CDC".

-Doug in Oakland

Batman 54 said...

Talking heads de-ciphered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gc4QTqslN4

Dave McCarthy said...

Totally unsurprising that Dowd's brother's writing is absolutely unreadable.

It's genetic.

Tanbark said...

I have no problem with bringing up Sander's being "soft" on gun regulation. It's the truth, he was. It's fair game to point it out...


Just like it's fair to bring up Clinton's support for Operation Enduring Clusterfuck…and her scorn of Obama for his excellent and courageous speech in 2002, opposing it.

Tanbark said...

Those Florida kids (the survivors…) and their parents, are tearing Donald Trump and the republicans a new asshole, as we speak.

And, in this one, for most americans: no rebuttal allowed.

No bullshit about "fake news"…

No whining about being persecuted…

He can't even get any traction trying to use the FBI as whipping boy, and by now, every time he opens his mouth, the FBI and practically our entire intelligence community are getting a hard-on for him that a cat couldn't scratch.

The closer we get to the mid-terms, the more the GOP deckchair rearranging for the TrumpTanic starts to look like a fire-ant mound on which someone has just taken a leisurely piss.

jim said...

SPOILER: The statistics on either cat GIFs, FPS gameware, girl-girl videos or Lady Gaga singles suddenly taking up using children for target practice are not in Dame Peggy Of Nooninghamshire-on-Pud's favour.

Given her documented heritage of helping the Reagan Revolution to cheerily slap cultural smiley-face stickers over the exact same KKK/Nazi scum she's poo-pooing now, with the "we don't let your sort speak here" troll she does in fact score a +500 Hypocrisy along with a +200 Irony, thus leveling up to Human Sick Joke Punchline.

Tanbark said...

Have you guys seen this?

After he was done talking, and got out of his chair with his AR-15, and walked over to the wall, and I saw the tool he was heading for (I have one…) I swear, I was speechless!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIxWPuNFfk

Ten million hits, I think….

Robt said...

"I no longer believe that" DG.
-
damn it #metoo is taken......!


John (bring back 8 track players) KASICH: ... "Where we have to effect this, I believe, is at the local level and the statehouse, because you can have greater access to politicians who serve in the state legislature".

---That is why he left the local level government and went to House of Reps and now Governor right?

Maureen (I'am Not a witch) Dowd, "And I wrote in disgust about President Barack Obama failing to marshal the L.B.J. mojo to push through a gun control bill after Sandy Hook"

---What was important to Maureen was spending a week in Colorado after passed Pot legalization. Where she used her employer to pay for her (story) vacation and write on her explicit pot experience getting high & how she didn't like the high because it was like LSD. That she never took in heer life. Her weeks worth of vital reporting. Pot is LSD and harmful. She will never be normal again because of it..

Peggy (Devin) Noones, " If it wasn't for the liberal violent abortion video games".

---------Life and times of a spoiled plantation owners wife. Wearing something just short enough for the Mandingo slaves to see both thighs.


DG---
I want you to be very careful here. Otherwise you will end up in an episode like me sometimes.

Youtube clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4

You see, if you end up like me in the clip.

Who will be their for me to tell?



Tanbark said...

Sorry, folks. I thought I could just put up the link to the YouTube clip of the guy holding his AR-15 while making a thoughtful and cogent and HUMANE statement about why he was getting rid of it, and NOT selling it so it would stay in circulation. But, for some reason, you can't click on it.

And the capper; the wonderful denouement to his little video novella, came when he got out of his chair in front of the camera and walked back to one of those DeWalt cut-off saws (Good tool! I have one…) and cut that AR-15 into two pieces.

No smile face big enough, for me. :o)

Needless to say, the clip had gotten a metric ton of hits. But this morning, when I tried to access it, the message appeared that the person who put it up, had taken it down. Which is very interesting…

I should have looked at the comments when it was still up, to see what the…tenor…of them might have generally been. I hope he wasn't getting threats, and that made him take it down.

There's a valid and highly relevant news story there. I hope someone picks it up and goes with it.

Tanbark said...

There's a photo up on NPR's site, of a bunch of kids having a lie-in, in front of the White House fence.

Behind them are another group, holding signs protesting gun violence.

One of the signs has that knee-to-the-groin truth that should put it in the Protest-sign-hall-of-fame:

"Fear sells guns. The NRA sells fear!"

Onward.

Robt said...

Tanbark (above).

How dare them liberal far left Democrats use the 1st Amendment to address the 2nd Amendment.

This is where many on the guns every where and Afraid if the make laws stricter they will not pass criminal or sanity qualifications to keep guns.

So fear reaches even the earnest safe responsible owners.
On part why they support NRA lobby allowing law for suspects on the terror watch list that are not allowed to fly. Can go out and buy all the guns and ammo they can afford.

Tanbark said...

"Can go out and buy all the guns and ammo they can afford."

NO shit.

Nicholas Cruz was not old enough to buy a six pack of beer in Florida, but he could buy an AR-15.
No background check; no restrictions on ammo, etc. In fact, as I read it, if Cruz had had the money to buy 10 AR-15's, he could have walked into the gun store, laid the money down, and then walked out with them, clean as a whistle.

How's that for an abdication of common sense that's tailor-made for the gun nuts?

Give CNN some credit: on their website, they posted a list, WITH photos (mug shots? :o) ) of the Florida congers who've taken money from the NRA since 2016. Of course, Rubio led the way, with almost $10,000. The NYT pointed out that since he was first elected, he's taken $3.3 million from them.

He has agreed to attend tomorrow nights TownHall with the survivors and parents, also on CNN. I'm looking forward to hearing what he's got to say about that.

Hey, I'm waiting for some top-end cops to stand up and say:

"Folks, we've got some skin in this game, and I'm telling you that our gun laws are waay too slack.
Until we do something about that, we're just blowing smoke."

I won't hold my breath.

Robt said...

"Hey, I'm waiting for some top-end cops to stand up and say:

--I do not expect that many law enforcement are going to be very helpful in the debate unless someone can put them on display.

For instance, Police chief address at the scene with the mayor and governor. Said, "police need to train more and there response time was very quick.

I read reports the SEAT team got there in 45 to 90 minutes. If true. Ask them how much more money and weaponry does the police need? And, ask them "how fast can an Semi auto weapon like an AR-15 fire bullets in a minute? 30 minutes? 90 minutes?
Before the SWAT team arrives?

Ask Rubio after Las Vegas. Would the school shooter been more able if he had a bump stock?

Most law enforcement are for 2nd amendment rights more so than the average citizen. They are given too much say that squelches the citizens who employ them.

Rubio will not be there to help. He is there for publicity, take the lead for the NRA and present the GOP base talking points . enable his GOP base and enable them.

I hope they are not too nice and considerate to these officials. Officials that send thoughts and prayers as if they are the elected clergy.

Note; For 2 and a half months now I have been chasing my House Republican Rep on something he responded to me on the 2nd Amendment.

He said, "believes in the 2nd Amendment and the right for people to defend themselves from a tyrannical government.

He dodges and runs from my question.

The question is,
If you believe the 2nd Amendment is to defend oneself from a tyrannical government.
To explain something.
Who decides when government is tyrannical and can start shooting it? Is it a group leader decision? Individual decision? Is there a vote of the militia and if so do they have to have a voter ID?

My goodness his office does not like me calling in and repeating the question every 2 days and why I have not gotten an answer?

Did the Las Vegas shooter decide the people at the concert were conspiring with their votes to impose tyranny on him so he shot them all to defend himself?

These silly NRA issued talking points need to be confronted with strong facts.

Ask Rubio, Why did you vote to stop the CDC from collecting data on gunshot deaths and injuries?

Would the School shooter be served better if he could have a silencer? Because gun owners say *the NRA wants to sell) that they need silencers to protect their hearing. Seems that ear protection is really cumbersome for those rugged patriotic individuals.

Last week the House voted to gut the ADA. The House denied citizens in the House Gallery from having their phones with them inside. They did not want activists to video their activist activity over the vote.

They denied their 1st Amendment rights.

You know what else they deny?
The House does not allow open or concealed weapons carry in the citizens gallery of the House of Representatives.

Like at the NRA annual conference that bars weapons from being brought in to hear the speakers.

By the NRA and GOP's ideal of guns.

When Steve Scalese was shot at the ball field by that shooter. Scelsese is in the House leadership. That is Government.

Did the capital police that killed the shooter , actually murder him?

If the Scalese shooter decided government had become tyrannical and decided to defend himself from that tyranny. Scalese is now the tyrannical government.

See the GOP/NRA fail?

They will tell you that during the assault weapons ban there were shootings. They leave out that they became less and that the assault ban allowed impervious owners grandfathers.
After they let the ban expire, shootings increased and got worse. But then, if the CDC had been allowed to data this , they would have it to make intelligent decisions. But they do not want that because, the NRA doesn't want it. And they represent the NRA above citizens.

But I am sure I am telling what you already know.

It goes without saying, Gov. Rick Scot will only do what the NRA wants unless Gov Scot goes the extra mile for the NRA.