The brilliant season three finale of Succesion led me to revisit the first two seasons. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s the Murdoch family fictionalized and tabloidized.
Succession is either a comedy with tragic overtones or a tragedy with comedic touches. That seems to be in the eye of the beholder/viewer. I think it’s funnier than a ferret down the trousers.
As you can see from the featured image, I have a nickname/alternate title for the show: The Big Cringe. I should probably stop using slashes lest you think me a slasher or the guy from Guns N’ Roses. I do, however, dig his top hat.
Most of the cringeworthy elements involve the Roy children, especially Kendall, trying to please their tyrannical and manipulative father Logan whose catch phrase is FUCK OFF.
Be prepared to cringe as Kendall pays tribute to his evil father with some rich white boy hip hop:
As I cringed my way through two seasons of The Big Cringe, I pondered things that make me cringe. The news is full of cringeworthy things today, let’s look at a few.
Owning the libs reached a new high/low this week with teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse getting a hero’s welcome at some Wingnut-palooza.
At the same event, Fox News host Jesse Waters advocated vigilante violence against Dr. Fauci. That made me flinch as well as cringe.
Joe Manchin hating on his own constituents with his belief that child tax credit money is spent on drugs and junk food. He forgot to call them hillbillies.
Dipshit Insurrection hero/victim Michael Fanone quit the DC Metro Police Force because he was harassed by pro-Trump cops.
The parade of frivolous lawsuits: the Impeached Insult Comedian is suing New York Attorney General Tish James claiming that her investigation is mean. Alex Jones and PowerPoint Meadows are suing the Dipshit Insurrection Committee for the same reasons. The meanness to nice Trumpers must stop. #sarcasm
News organizations who were shocked that former President* Pennywise made anti-Semitic comments.
Today I asked @LSU about their $95,000,000 contract to football coach Brian Kelly in light of their tax exempt status. If you’re curious here’s the details of coach’s gigantic deal. pic.twitter.com/Ie19wbylCK
Wealthy boosters running my alma mater also makes me cringe.
One story made me laugh, not cringe. The Kaiser of Chaos was booed at his event with Bill-O, the ghost of wingnuts past Why? He admitted that he’d been booooooosted:
I’m worn out from all the cringing. It beats the hell out of being so gloomy that I quoted a conservative poet in support of my liberal viewpoint. That was so yesterday.
It’s time for me to fuck off.
The last word goes to the opening credits and theme song of The Big Cringe:
I spend a lot of time thinking about what is and is not funny. Kicking up is funny, kicking down is not. I don’t think lethal as opposed to slapstick violence is funny. That’s why I was unmoved by House GOPers’ specious arguments on behalf of the Grotesque Dr. Gosar.
Speaking of grotesque, a collection of crazies spoke up for their fellow nutjob: Chip Roy, Louis Gohmert Piles. Gym Jordan, Clay Higgins, and Lauren Boebert to name a few. I only watched the second part of the debate so I’m not sure if Matt Gaetz took a break from lusting after jailbait or musing about hiring Kyle Rittenhouse as a clerk to speak. I am not making this up. Owning the libs is all that matters to them.
Nary a single House GOPer defended the Grotesque Dr. Gosar on the merits of the case. House Dems were essentially told to “lighten up, it’s a joke.” If so, it’s one in exceedingly poor taste.
Many House GOPers described the atrocious anime video as a stupid cartoon and something they would not have posted themselves. Republicans ran out of members willing to defend the Grotesque Dr. Gosar before the time allotted for debate expired. That’s what “reserving time” means. They were, however, willing to vote against censure. Schmucks.
The defenses offered reminded me of Republican senators like Lamar Alexander during the first Trump impeachment trial. It’s bad, but the penalty is too severe yadda, yadda, yadda. They’ve gone from defending a cartoon villain to minimizing the dangerous message sent by a cartoon.
KMac proved again that his leadership post is not based on his oratorical prowess. He gave a rambling speech that was pure whataboutism. His focus was on procedure, which is what you argue when the facts are against you. He made the Grotesque Dr. Gosar look like an innocent bystander to Democratic abuses of power: ““The Speaker is burning down the House on her way out the door,”
Are David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz, and Jerry Harrison aware of this?
The worst Republican speech was given by Colorado gun nut, Lauren Boebert, who spoke darkly of conspiracies. Of course, she did. She went after Ilhan Omar. Of course, she did. Here’s their point-counterpoint:
Luckily my dad raised me right, otherwise I might have gone to the floor to talk about this insurrectionist who sleeps with a pervert. I am grateful I was raised to be a decent human and not a deprived person who shamefully defecates & defiles the House of Representatives. 🙏🏽 God https://t.co/F5W9LBzjCZ
The best Democratic speeches were given by AOC, Steny Hoyer, and Jackie Speier who was a victim of political violence herself. Speier was wounded in the fatal attack on her mentor, Congressman Leo Ryan after leaving Jonestown. I knew Jackie long ago and have followed her career with great interest. She was the sponsor of the censure resolution. Well done, Jackie. Leo would be proud of you. FYI, Leo Ryan and my father were friends despite their political differences. It’s how America is supposed to work.
Majority Leader Hoyer tried to shame Republicans by invoking the name of former House GOP leader Robert Michel. I met him when I was a congressional aide. He was a warm and friendly man from Peoria Illinois. He retired from politics when Newt Gingrich began to set the tone for their caucus. It’s Newt’s and Donald’s party now. There’s no room for decent conservatives like Bob Michel anymore.
The only thing Republicans seem to believe in is owning the libs. How pathetic is that? They mouth platitudes about freedom, man but all they care about is owning the libs. It’s why they’ve fetishized AOC and the Squad. It makes one wonder if they believe they should literally own AOC and her cohort. Remember: they think the War of the Rebellion was about states rights, not slavery. Freedom, man.
The Grotesque Dr. Gosar’s speech was as awful as it was specious. He threw his staff under the proverbial bus and refused to accept any responsibility. If he had ever once apologized, he would not have been censured and stripped. He could not because it’s all about owning the libs.
We all know that the Grotesque Dr. Gosar cannot be shamed even after what should have been a public humiliation. Censure is rare: Gosar is only the 24th member to be censured. Republicans repeatedly claimed that a Democrat would not be censured by Speaker Pelosi. Another lie: the last member to be censured was Charlie Rangel in 2010 during Pelosi’s first stint as Speaker. I remember it well because it was so painful: Rangel was a well-liked and respected member before his downfall. The Grotesque Dr. Gosar is neither.
Let’s circle back to our dental theme. Sitting through speeches by Republican extremists is akin to root canal surgery, especially when Jacketless Jim Jordan is shouting into the microphone. Putz.
A final note on movie dentists and the featured image. I had forgotten that there was an “is it safe” Marathon Man poster. I remembered that Steve Matin as Dr. Frank Sangster knew how to wear his mask unlike the Grotesque Dr. Gosar. If you haven’t seen it, Novocaine is a swell 3 1/2 star black comedy. Shorter Adrastos: It doesn’t bite the big one.
Speaking of Novocaine, the last word goes to the Eels:
Dentists have gotten a bad rap in the movies. WC Fields was a randy buffoon in The Dentist and Steve Martin played creepy dentists in Little Shop Of Horrors and Novocaine. The most sinister movie dentist of all was Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man seen above.
Olivier’s character, Szell, was based on the Nazi war criminal Dr. Mengele. I’m not saying that Dr. Paul Gosar, DDS is as bad as Szell but he’s almost as scary and nearly as right-wing. Of course, Szell was fictional and Gosar is real. The truth remains stranger than fiction.
The Grotesque Dr. Gosar upped the ante recently with a tweet that was subsequently deleted. I’m late to this mishigas, so I’ll let TPM’s Summer Concepcion describe it:
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has ties to the far-right, on Sunday tweeted an anime-themed video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and attacking President Biden with swords — which drew backlash and demands for Twitter to suspend the GOP congressman’s account.
In his tweet, Gosar writes “Any anime fans out there?” and includes a video that opens with his name underneath Japanese text. The start of the clip appears to be a nod to the opening credits of the Japanese animated series “Attack on Titan,” which centers around a hero who goes on a crusade to take down giant man-eating creatures known as “Titans.”
After showing footage of immigrants at the southern border, a character with Gosar’s face photoshopped onto it scales buildings alongside other cartoon characters with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) faces. Gosar’s character then slashes a “Titan” with Ocasio-Cortez’s face photoshopped onto it.
Gosar’s character goes onto slinging two swords towards an enemy that has Biden’s face on it.
House Democrats are rightly outraged about this death threat. I almost called it an implicit death threat, but the Grotesque Dr. Gosar is about as subtle as Szell in this legendary scene from Marathon Man:
Ouch.
Is it safe? Not for House Democrats as long as the likes of the Grotesque Dr. Gosar and his ilk are allowed to roam the corridors of power.
Is it safe? Gosar is one of the Congresscritters suspected to have aided and abetted the Dipshit Insurrectionists.
Is it safe? In the Republican caucus it is. KMac hasn’t so much as admonished the Grotesque Dr. Gosar for having bad taste, let alone for threatening another member.
60 House Democrats have signed a petition urging that Gosar be censured. Expulsion is out of the realm of possibility because it takes a 2/3 vote of the full House.
Ocasio-Cortez — who has complained publicly that there’s been no action against Gosar — believes he and other Republicans “are essentially using a national platform to legitimize threats of violence on lower levels, and on the local levels, to intimidate people from participating in our democracy. I believe this is part of a concerted strategy… What we do here, our response, helps inform as a precedent for actions on the local levels.”
Is it safe? Republicans have turned the House into a chamber of horrors straight out of a late era Vincent Price movie. There should be no place for violence in the people’s House. The historical parallels are bone-chilling: most of the violent incidents occurred in the lead up to the Civil War. It increasingly looks that my colleague Cassandra was right to call this a Cold Civil War.
The GOP caucus is meeting today and is expected to take no action against the Grotesque Dr. Gosar. Instead, they may go after the 13 GOPers who voted for the BIF. What have they got against fixing roads and bridges? Biden is for it. That’s what.
The Grotesque Dr. Gosar’s siblings believe that he’s mentally ill. His entire political career has been a cry for help, but Arizona voters don’t see it that way: he’s in his sixth term. He belongs, not in the House, but in a snake pit like the ones in old movies with doctors and nurses who make movie dentists look benign.
Is it safe? Not as long as Paul Gosar is in Congress.
Let’s lighten things up and give Steve Martin the last word.
UPDATE: The House plans to vote to censure The Grotesque Dr. Gosar tomorrow. A committee strip is involved as well.
There’s nothing like a bit of intra-wingnut brawling to revive one’s spirits. It involves two of the nuttier members of the party of stupidity and sedition, Lin Wood and Marjorie Taylor Greene:
Wood, the Georgia defamation lawyer who has floated some of the fringiest of fringe theories about ex-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, posted a note on the Telegram messaging app over the weekend blasting Greene and claiming she still owed him for previous legal work.
But it turns out that Wood was not representing his former ally in her personal capacity. Instead, his services went to Greene’s campaign committee as it fought two defamation disputes. Worse still for Greene is Wood’s claim that the Greene campaign has never paid him, raising a number of questions about the legality of their arrangement.
That’s very Trumpy of MTG. To turn one of my favorite phrases on its head, she only steals from the worst.
He [Wood] accused Greene of selling out, claimed she was in league with “communists” and implied not so subtly that she no longer held his faith or trust.
“It was all in response to me telling her to keep challenging the election, which she was not doing. She resorted to personal attacks and that disappointed me and that’s how it goes. When people can’t attack the message they attack the messenger, because the message is true,” Wood told The Daily Beast. “And I know that if I’m doing god’s work, the devil is gonna attack me.”
Wood added that he didn’t think Greene and he were “ideologically on the same page anymore,” once again lumping the far-right Trump loyalist in with “communists.”
“There was a communist effort to steal our presidency, and if someone isn’t fighting to investigate it—not that you have to believe it but just to investigate it—then that tells me that you’re a communist sympathizer,” he said.
MTG is a fellow traveler? She’s in league with the Democrat devils? Who knew?
This revival of Cold War rhetoric is bizarre enough to those of us who lived through it, but it’s bound to baffle the folks who weren’t around when reds could allegedly be found under every bed.
Cue another McCarthy era movie poster:
That movie was originally titled The Woman On Pier 13. It was retitled I Married A Communist to capitalize on the second Red Scare. Oddly, it has some respected players: Laraine (Mrs. Leo Durocher) Day and leading Hollywood liberal Robert Ryan. I bet Bob plotzed when he heard about the title change. John (TheMole People) Agar also attended.
Marjorie Taylor Green is no Laraine Day. And Lin Wood is clearly no Robert Ryan.
You gotta hand it to Lin Wood: being crazier than MTG isn’t easy. It’s what happens when a shyster is separated from his money. He needs it: he’s been referred for disbarment by a Federal Judge. Stay tuned.
I first learned about this wingnut blood feud from TPM’s Morning Memo yesterday. The headline describes the dispute as “hilariously cheese-brained.”
Brother Of Young Boy: “Yeah, well, you’re just a lard butt!”
What kind of cheese? Probably a stinky one like gorgonzola or limburger. Cue Monty Python clip:
Why are there Greek dudes dancing to Bouzouki music in the cheese shop? If I were an over-sensitive Trumper like Wood or Greene, I’d proclaim my grievances but I’m not, so I won’t. Besides, the cheese shop is the:
I hope the Wood-MTG slagging match continues; it’s fun to hear a wingnut call another wingnut a commie. Life is hard right now and we have to take our entertainment where we can find it. Please pass the cheese but don’t cut it…
I wish Steve Bannon were feeling pursued like the guy in the alley in Samuel Fuller’s Underworld USA. Instead, he’s emoting for the Impeached Insult Comedian hoping to be forgiven for being so chatty with Michael Wolff for his first Trump regime book. Like his lord and master, Steve Bannon is a windbag as well as a hungry wolf, not Wolff.
I feel a premature musical interlude coming on:
One thing about Bannon that’s always amused me is his tendency to wear multiple layers of clothing even in warm weather. Hence the post title; a variation on one of my favorite bits of 1930’s slang. Jimmy Cagney was wont to say “keep your shirt on” to nervous guys staring at the barrel of his gun.
Does Bannon think he’s a Romanov smuggling the family jewels out of Russia? He always looks like an unmade bed, and I say that as someone who is not exactly a fashionista. All I know about fashion, I learned from Project Runway and this song:
I know, I’ve posted that before. What can I tell ya? It’s fab-fab-fabulous.
Back to the news of the weak week. The full House of Representative found the contemptible criminal Steve Bannon in criminal contempt. Only nine Republicans did the right thing and treated Bannon with the contempt he deserves. Human butt-plug Steve Scalise invoked the party whip in support of Mr. Unmade Bed. Ugh, just ugh.
Speaking of loathsome cretins and dipshits, the Texas twit, Louis Gohmert Piles is back in the news. He made a disgusting and bizarre comparison of a sit-in led by the late great John Lewis to the Dipshit Insurrection. I am not making this up:
“On June 22 of 2016, judge, most of the Democrat members of Congress took over the House floor, and, for the first time in American history, members of Congress obstructed official proceedings,” Gohmert said.
“Not for 4 to 6 hours, but for virtually 26 hours,” he continued. “Not just violating over a dozen House rules, but actually committing the felony that some of the Jan. 6 people are charged with.”
Gohmert noted that “nobody has been charged” for the sit-in, despite Jan. 6 defendants being “viciously” prosecuted for the same thing.
“Those kinds of things — where you let Democrat members of Congress off for the very thing that you’re viciously going after people that were protesting on Jan. 6 — gives people the indication that there is a two-tiered justice system here in America,” the congressman said.
I don’t recall anyone carrying a Confederate flag or taking a dump on the rug. That’s Trumpism in a wingnut shell: all grievance and no substance.
I wish Louis Gohmert Piles would waltz across Texas and into obscurity:
Sen. Frank Nicely (R-Strawberry Plains) rose to say once his grandson asked him if the South really lost what Nicely called the “the war between the states.” Nicely told his grandson, “it’s too early to tell,” he said.
“When I compare their Northern cities with our Southern cities, and their debt loads to our debt -free states and all these great companies like Ford and Smith & Wesson coming down South, I think I can tell my grandson the war between the states is going on and we’re winning.”
It’s a pity that Frank hasn’t taught his grandson to play Nicely. What can you expect from an unrepentant birther?
Strawberry Plains sounds nice. I wonder if it’s anything like this:
You say war between the states, I say war of the rebellion. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Now that I have Tennessee on my mind, John Hiatt & The Goners get the last word:
I haven’t written about the zany antics of the Cyber Ninjas for quite some time. According to preliminary reports, they have labored mightily and produced bupkis. Anyone surprised? I thought not.
After months of delays and blistering criticism, a review of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county, ordered up and financed by Republicans, has failed to show that former President Donald J. Trump was cheated of victory, according to draft versions of the report.
In fact, the draft report from the company Cyber Ninjas found just the opposite: It tallied 99 additional votes for President Biden and 261 fewer votes for Mr. Trump in Maricopa County, the fast-growing region that includes Phoenix.
Steve Kornacki must be wetting himself.
Maricopa County declared victory by Tweet-leaking the story:
BREAKING: The #azaudit draft report from Cyber Ninjas confirms the county’s canvass of the 2020 General Election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did, in fact, win.
I wonder how the Cyber Ninjas are Maricoping with this…
If I were an Arizona taxpayer, I wouldn’t find this so funny. The Fraudit has cost them millions of dollars and months of ridicule. It’s even driven me to post the most obvious musical interlude imaginable:
The endless attempts of the MAGA maggots to prove fraud are as costly as they are futile. They’re still at it in places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Say what? Texas? It wasn’t even close, but Lone Star State Trumpers want to grow the Impeached Insult Comedian’s margin or some such shit.
Hasn’t Arizona suffered enough because of the Sinematic Senator? Josh Marshall has been on her case all week culminating with a post entitled A Democrat Only Republicans Can Love. Ouch.
The last word goes to Mark Lindsay with a song politically incorrect enough to satisfy the MAGA crowd:
I realize that Maine Senator Susan Collins is overqualified for the weekly honor. She belongs in the malakatude hall of fame. But she just did something so horrible and so contrary to her media brand that I had to write about it today. And that is why Susan Collins is malaka of the week.
The MSM insists on calling Susan Collins a moderate when she’s a bog standard GOPer who almost always votes the party line. She did, however, vote to convict in the second Trump impeachment trial. Other than that, she votes like a conservative and talks like a moderate. I believe in judging a senator by how they vote, not the shit they say. Malaka Sue talks a lot of shit, y’all.
Senator Collins just announced that she’s endorsing former Maine governor Paul LePage in his bid regain his old job. LePage has been living off-and-on in Florida since leaving office in disgrace in 2018. LePage is best described as a proto-Trump. He was malaka of the week in August of 2016. You know what they say, malakas of a feather flock together. Actually, only I say that.
LePage was such an asshole as governor that Charlie Pierce gave him this nickname:
Paul LePage is like Archie Bunker without the underlying humanity that Carroll O’Connor brought to the role. He’s a dick, prick, asshole, and malaka.
In 2010, LePage was the teabagger’s teabagger. And Susan Collins wants him as her governor again. Really, Sue?
Charges of hypocrisy don’t bother Malaka Sue. She’s forever teasing moderation while voting like a wingnut. Remember the Kavanaugh mess? She mouthed pious platitudes then voted for an accused rapist and verifiable shitbag. It’s what she does. Schmuck or is that schmuckette?
Speaking of hypocrisy, Collins’ 2020 campaign against Sarah Gideon focused on the fact that the latter is a transplant, not a native Mainer. Now Malaka Sue is supporting Florida Man LePage. Oy, just oy.
The MSM will continue to lazily label Susan Collins a moderate. They’re confusing her with former Maine Republican senators Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe. They were genuine moderates; Susan Collins is one of the hackiest hacks whoever hacked me off. And that is why Susan Collins is malaka of the week.
The last word goes to Dion with a song that should be Malaka Sue’s theme song:
I’m paraphrasing, not misquoting Shakespeare’s Richard III. The Stratford Man never lived through a New Orleans summer, so what did he know from seasonality? The TFC, of course, stands for This Fucking City my acerbic nickname for my city at its worst.
After Katrina and the Federal Flood, I called New Orleans Debrisville. Perhaps I should call it Diseaseville as the Delta variant has struck hard. This time, cases among children are on the rise.
I went to bed cranky last night and awakened even crankier. Yesterday was not a good day for residents of New Orleans or for me personally.
On the personal front, Dr. A and I dined out with a friend whose birthday is near mine. We went to a highly regarded and nationally known local eatery, Toups’ Meatery. I’d even rooted for Chef-Owner Isaac Toups when he competed on Top Chef.
The food was good, the service was slow and haphazard, but we were patient and polite. We’d ordered a three-course meal and at the 2 hour mark had not received dessert. Our first complaint was met with a sneer by our server who proceeded to ignore us. Our second complaint to the manager produced results but by then we’d been seated for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I’m a patient person but not that patient, especially since other diners received prompt service. I was angry, so I did not enjoy my dessert.
It was my second time at Toups’ Meatery: the first went well, the second was hell. The third time will not be the charm because it won’t happen. As the restauranteur Danny Meyer has said, “The first time you go for the food. The second time for the hospitality.” BTW, Meyer is requiring staff and indoor diners at his restaurants to provide proof of vaccination. Smart man.
It felt good to vent. Thanks for listening. On to more significant matters.
The big New Orleans news yesterday was the second cancellation of Jazz Fest 2021. I’d regarded the fall rescheduling as an act of hubris. Even then the Delta variant was at work in the UK, India, and elsewhere. The re-cancellation seemed inevitable, but I won’t say “I told you so” because I have friends among the players, vendors, and others who work Jazz Fest. They’re taking another hit after TFC and Jazz Fest bigwigs gave them false hope by moving the event to the fall. Wishing and hoping ain’t getting as the old saying goes.
Jazz Fest honcho Quint Davis tried to make it “too big to fail” by scheduling a Rolling Stones day. Again. The first was supposed to be in 2019, but it was cancelled due to Mick Jagger’s health problems. It would be funny if it didn’t affect the livelihoods of people I care about, but it does so it’s not funny.
This latest blow to the local culture and economy was greeted with anger and dismay by New Orleanians on social media. I share their anger at the selfishness and stupidity of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. They’re why we can’t have nice things as the saying goes. Life in TFC has always been tough, tough, tough, but this is ridiculous.
A case study in Gret Stet COVID era malakatude occurred across Lake Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish. It’s the richest and most Republican parish in Louisiana. One would expect prosperous people to be well-educated and receptive to science and medicine. For years, Gret Stet GOPers told us that all the good people of Louisiana are Republicans. The Trump regime blew that notion to smithereens.
Last week’s school board meeting was a clusterfuck. The Mask Warriors insisted that mandatory masking was a communistic infringement on their freedom, man. Trust me, if this were a communist country, they would have disappeared after their fatuous protests. Freedom, man.
This sort of idiotic protest is happening across the South and in Red States generally. They seem to believe the COVID BIG LIE that it’s no big whoop, just a worse form of the flu. If that’s the case, why are there 617K+ COVID related deaths?
I’ll call it what it is: the freedom to die and infect others. Freedom, man isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So much for being pro-life.
A reminder to all the stubborn and stupid people out there:
FYI, I dislike wearing a mask, but I do it to protect myself and others from the virus. It’s a simple act that saves lives, so the discomfort is worth it.
These are tough times, they do not need to be made tougher by rampant stupidity and selfishness. The Delta wave was going to happen, but it didn’t need to be this bad. That’s why I used the image from Samuel Fuller’s Underworld USA. We’re being mugged by a reality that other choose to ignore. Shame on them.
That concludes this rant about the Summer of our Discontent In TFC. The last word goes to the Rolling Stones with a song I quoted earlier. She-doo-be.
A retired California police chief-turned-yoga instructor and five others in his crew are the latest defendants charged with conspiring to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.
The conspiracy charges in the indictment against the Alan Hostetter and five others, which was filed online Wednesday and unsealed Thursday, are more serious than the typical trespassing or disorderly conduct charges faced by most defendants in the Jan. 6 attack.
Conspiracy allegations are reserved for those who prosecutors believe planned their actions ahead of time and worked together. They’ve also been lodged by feds against members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. In this case, the indictment against the crew noted several indications of ties to the Three Percenter militia movement, which so far has been largely absent from Jan. 6 case dockets.
The indicted men allegedly participated in the riot at the Capitol with the intent of preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win.
Hostetter founded the group American Phoenix Project last year to protest COVID-19 public health orders, and his presence in D.C. on Jan. 6 was the subject of a late January Washington Post column on support for Trump among the “wellness community.” TPM has covered Hostetter and the American Phoenix Project’s intimidation tactics aimed at local officials.
Wellness is definitely NOT the Impeached Insult Comedian’s bag. These creeps should rebrand themselves as Fit Folks For The Fat Fuck.
Incitement is Pennywise’s art form. It’s depressing how many people have fallen for the BIG LIE and Trump’s entire shtick. To paraphrase a better Republican president from New York, the Kaiser of Chaos talks loudly and carries a small stick. He leaves that to others.
What is it with Trumpers and Teutonic symbolism? That eagle logo resembles avian imagery used by Prussian militarists and their Nazi successors. It’s ironic given that America helped defeat the Two Hs: the Hohenzollerns and Hitler. In fact, imagery is one of the few things the Nazis were good at: genocide and propaganda being the others.
Speaking of Teutonic symbolism, when I dubbed Trump the Kaiser of Chaos, I had no idea how perfect the nickname would be, especially in exile. I wish I could claim premonitive powers, but I cannot. I’m no Kreskin, I’m not even a Carnac:
It’s depressing but unsurprising how many members of law enforcement participated in the Dipshit Insurrection. The same goes for people from Orange County in Southern California. The yogi terrorist, Alan Hostetter is the former chief of the La Habra police department in the OC.
Orange County may be better known for reality teevee showsin 2021, but it has long been a hotbed of right-wing political activism. Orange County *has* changed and become a more diverse place but it remains hospitable to teabaggery and Trumpism. The OC’s airport is named for bigoted chicken hawk movie star, John Wayne, after all. FYI, one of my favorite social media moments in recent years was when the kids “discovered” the Duke’s racist Playboy interview. They cried, I laughed,
I should thank these guys for inspiring such a punny title:
One could even say that Alan Hostetter is dumber than the average bear.
Finally, now that the head Yogi terrorist is in the pokey, the American Phoenix Project should change the slogan on its logo from the melodramatic, “Let hope rise like the Phoenix from the ashes of a suffering nation” to “Fit Folks For The Fat Fuck.”
The last word goes to the Beatles with John Lennon’s scathing song about an earlier false prophet, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It applies equally to Alan Hostetter and his hero, Donald Trump:
This post has nothing to do with the great Samuel Fuller flick, House Of Bamboo, but I couldn’t resist posting that image. It has everything to do with the Big Election Lie.
The recount of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2.1 million ballots includes an analysis of whether the ballots have any bamboo fibers, an audit leader said Wednesday. The official said that the auditors were seeking to vet a wild claim that 40,000 counterfeit ballots were shipped in from Asia.
The explanation for the review by John Brakey — who is serving as an assistant liaison for the Arizona Senate Republican-ordered “audit” — confirms suspicions by outside election experts that the rules for the audit had been shaped with crazy conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in mind.
Brakey had been asked by a reporter for the local CBS affiliate to elaborate on a reference to bamboo fibers he had made at a press conference last week.
“There’s accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown into Arizona and stuffed into the box. And it came from the Southeast part of the world — Asia — and what they’re doing is to find out if there is bamboo in the paper,” Brakey said Wednesday.
Say what? Bamboo? WTF?
Trumpers have no idea how crazy this shit sounds to non-cult members. The Kaiser of Chaos acts as if these audits or whatever the hell you want to call them is his ticket out of Mar-a-Doorn and back to the White House. That’s right, they somehow think a restoration is possible. So did Kaiser Bill who spent most of his exile preparing for a return to Germany. It never happened.
The Trumpists seem determined to make the Yellow Peril a thing again. Hence the comments about the Chinese or Kung Flu. The latter is what passes for humor in Trumper circles. That’s why the Senate passed an Asian Hate Crimes Bill with only one no vote: Josh Hawley, of course. Hell, even Tailgunner Ted tucked his tail between his legs and voted aye.
In other voter suppression news, the Trump mini-me who runs Florida signed a restrictive bill into law. They’re so eager to pander to the Impeached Insult Comedian that they shot themselves in the foot. The Florida GOP spent years urging their supporters to vote by mail. Their lege just made it harder. That’s some real Florida Man shit, y’all.
The good news is that the Arizona Bamboo Bamboozle is doomed to fail. The bad news is that bamboo is hard to cut back, it keeps growing and growing. Hopefully, that won’t be the case with political bamboo. Stay tuned.
The last word goes to a genuine odd couple, Dean Martin and Frank Zappa:
1. NORTH AMERICAN•AUSTRALIAN a stupid or eccentric person.
2. a typographical device other than a letter or numeral (such as an asterisk), used to signal divisions in text or to replace letters in a euphemistically presented vulgar word.
The Dingbat Right have always been with us but the sane among us rarely dealt with them. The internet gave them a platform and social media gave them a megaphone. It’s done the same for me but on my good days I’m relatively sane. Hopefully, this is one of those days.
In my youth, the John Birch Society personified the Dingbat Right. They were against water fluoridation believing it to be an attempt by the Commies at mind control or some such shit. I’ve never been clear about that: coherence was not the Birchers strong suit. They were also convinced that General President Eisenhower was a dupe of the Communist conspiracy and that Chief Justice Warren was a card-carrying member of CPUSA instead of that currently extinct species: a liberal Republican.
The Birchers are still around but they don’t attract much notice: it’s crowded on the Dingbat Right. They had something of a renaissance during the Trump regime. Anyone surprised to hear that? I thought not.
There’s even a direct link between the John Birch Society and the proto-Trumper Tea Party movement. One of the JBS’s founding members was Fred Koch. You’ve probably heard of his sons, David and Charles. The Kochsuckers are everywhere.
In primetime on Monday night the Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed requiring children to wear masks outdoors was “child abuse”.
Carlson also said “the only people who wear masks outside are zealots and neurotics” and said seeing a vaccinated person wear a mask outdoors was like “watching a grown man expose himself in public”.
“Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart,” he said.
“Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.”
Tucker Carlson is the worst kind of Dingbat, a phony who whips the genuine Dingbats into a frenzy. It’s in his job description: Fox News is the media HQ of Dingbat Right Nation.
Former Senator and current CNN talking head Rick Santorum is a lifelong member of the Dingbat Right:
CNN's Rick Santorum: "We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture" pic.twitter.com/EMxOEYDbg7
And this guy won eleven primaries and caucuses in the 2012 GOP presidential race including, of all places, Oklahoma. Oy just oy.
The most sinister bits of dingbattery involve attempts to keep the election Big Lie alive. In Arizona, the lege authorized what amounts to a third or fourth audit of the 2020 presidential election. The company in charge has one of dingbattiest names I’ve ever heard: Cyber Ninjas. I am not making this up.
The Dingbat Right isn’t big on policy. They’re culture warriors at heart. They’ve somehow managed to top themselves with the Joe Biden Wants To Ban Beef mishigas. Regular Guy Joe is a burger grabber? Please. He’s warming up the grill for Independence Day as I write this.
TPM’s Kate Riga has a great piece about the origins of this nonsense. It all started in the British tabloid, The Daily Mail. The Dingbat Right is ascendant in the United Kingdom as well. They were behind Brexit and the big-haired buffoon who pushed it and later became Prime Minister. Come on down, Boris Johnson. Hmm, I wonder if Bozza has Mad Cow disease…
The only thing I like about the beef beef is that it makes me think of the moment in the 1984 Democratic campaign when Fritz Mondale asked Gary Hart, “Where’s the beef?”
That dig at Hart’s lack of policy specifics was based on a Wendy’s ad campaign that turned into a board game that nobody played:
I prefer this Simpsonian take on that fleeting campaign kerfuffle:
By 1987, that quip took on a whole new meaning but since this post is about the Dingbat Right, I’m not going there. Neither Mondale nor Hart were dingbats, after all.
That concludes this brief tour of Dingbat Right Nation. It made me think of All In The Family and Archie Bunker. Archie called his sweet but ditzy wife Edith a dingbat and his pompous pinko son-in-law Mike, a meathead. Archie defined meathead as “dead from the neck up.” That certainly describes the Dingbat Right. If only they’d stifle.
The woman in the red and white elephant skirt with an assault weapon draped around her neck is Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase. She’s running for the Republican nomination for Governor. I don’t think the Commonwealth is ready for a Governor who describes herself as “Trump in heels.” She looks more like Trump in sandals to me. And that is why Amanda Chase is malaka of the week.
Chase is from the Richmond suburbs, Midlothian in Chesterfield County to be precise. It’s a town name I used to like but now regard with considerable fear and Midloathing. It does, however, make for a memorable nickname: the Midlothian Malaka.
Chase gets around. She spoke at the “Stop The Steal” rally that preceded the 1/6 Dipshit Insurrection. She denies storming the Capitol but has vehemently defended the insurrectionists, “These were not rioters and looters. These were patriots who love their country and do not want to see our great republic turn into a socialist country.”
She was censured by her colleagues for that bit of brazen dipshittery and is fighting it in court. You would have thought that she’d wear it as a badge of pride.
Her latest cause is defending this guy:
After the verdict in a state whose capitol is 1.200 miles away from home, the Midlothian Malaka attacked the jury and praised convicted murderer Derek Chauvin:
Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase (R), a prominent Republican candidate in her state’s gubernatorial race, copied Greene’s fear-mongering tactic in response to Chauvin’s verdict by saying that it made her “sick.”
During a campaign stop on Tuesday shortly after the announcement of Chauvin’s verdict, Chase griped that she is “so concerned about our law enforcement right now quitting. And you should be, too.”
Chase, who describes herself as “Trump in heels” and was censured by the Virginia state Senate after praising the mob behind the Capitol attack as “patriots,” doubled down on her stance in a written statement.
“I’m concerned that the decision was politically motivated more to prevent civil unrest than to serve justice,” Chase said in a written statement, according to the Washington Post. “The decision made today sends a clear message to law enforcement; the justice system doesn’t have your back.”
I wonder if she’s going to start a Chauvin fan club and invite rotten defense lawyer Eric Nelson to speak. They both make me sick.
Is it just me or does Eric Nelson look like Garth Algar?
Nelson can still suck it.
Back to the Midlothian Malaka. She has been on my radar for quite some time. If there’s a retrograde position, she’s taken it. Her comments about rape are reprehensible even by her own low standards: “It’s those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped. Sorry. But I’m not going to be a statistic.”
She’s also a hardcore Lost Causer. She adores the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, which state and local officials want lost like the cause it represents. She described the removal attempt as: “a cowardly capitulation to the looters and domestic terrorists” and an “overt effort to erase all white history.”
Does Malaka Mandy kiss her children with that mouth?
The good news is that the Midlothian Malaka’s chances of being elected Governor are slim and none and slim was just consigned to the dust heap of history. The bad news is that she has any support at all. She’s Virginia’s answer to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. And that is why Amanda Chase is malaka of the week.
I’ve used Sweet Virginia many times over the years, but it has never been more appropriate: the Midlothian Malaka is the shit that needs to be scraped off the Commonwealth’s shoes. That’s why the last word goes to the Rolling Stones:
I’ve decided to take pity on a doomed pol and spell it his way instead of in all-caps. Who knew that the Panhandle Pinhead’s fellow whiny man baby had the wit to make such a good pun?
Since Gaetz allegedly sough a blanket pardon, the phrase blankety blank immediately came to mind. I didn’t realize that it was the name of the UK equivalent of The Match Game. Where have you gone Gene Rayburn, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Brett Somers? They’re all long dead, alas.
Dead is also the word that best describes Matt Gaetz’s political career. It’s so dead that not even the Impeached Insult Comedian could revive it. He’s yet to defend his little friend, Matt; only Gym Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene have done so. How’s that for:
I know I’ve made that joke before but I can’t get enough of it. That concludes the classic rock jokes section of the post.
How was that for an epic opening tangent? It’s windy even by my standards.
Let’s move on to the opening lines I wrote immediately upon hearing about the latest Gaetzgate twist:
Blankets have been in the news recently. First Andrew Cuomo, now Matt Gaetz.
in the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Gaetz sought something in return. He privately asked the White House for blanket pre-emptive pardons for himself and unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed, according to two people told of the discussions.
Around that time, Mr. Gaetz was also publicly calling for broad pardons from Mr. Trump to thwart what he termed the “bloodlust” of their political opponents. But Justice Department investigators had begun questioning Mr. Gaetz’s associates about his conduct, including whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old that violated sex trafficking laws, in an inquiry that grew out of the case of an indicted associate in Florida.
It was unclear whether Mr. Gaetz or the White House knew at the time about the inquiry, or who else he sought pardons for. Mr. Gaetz did not tell White House aides that he was under investigation for potential sex trafficking violations when he made the request. But top White House lawyers and officials viewed the request for a pre-emptive pardon as a nonstarter that would set a bad precedent, the people said.
An idea so bad that even Team Trump flinched at the notion? That makes it a *really* bad even rotten idea. The whole Trump era could be summed up by the title of this failed Mel Brooks sitcom:
While Gaetz may not have known that a gate was to be affixed to his name when he begged for a pardon, he knew that his little friend Josh Greenberg was in deep shit and sinking fast. My hunch is that Greenberg was to be covered in the blankety blank blanket pardon. But was the My Pillow Guy involved? What’s a blanket without a pillow? I deserve to be given sheet for that joke…
I eagerly await the Panhandle Pinhead’s next PR gaffe. Who will he drag into his mess next: Hannity? KMac? BillO? Donnie Junior?
Barack Obama and John Boehner on St. Patrick’s Day, 2014.
The man I used to call Speaker Boner has published a memoir of his days in elected office. The Politico Magazine excerpt has a cool title: Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates, and the Birth of GOP Paranoia.
We can argue about the timing of the paranoia but not about its existence. It’s the sort of arguments we *used* to have with conservatives when we agreed on facts but not on policy.
Anyhoo, Heeeeeeere’s Johnny on what became the foundational big lie of Trumpism:
“In January 2011, as the new Republican House majority was settling in and I was getting adjusted to the Speakership, I was asked about the birth certificate business by Brian Williams of NBC News. My answer was simple: ‘The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.’ It was a simple statement of fact. But you would have thought I’d called Ronald Reagan a communist. I got all kinds of shit for it—emails, letters, phone calls. It went on for a couple weeks. I knew we would hear from some of the crazies, but I was surprised at just how many there really were.
It’s quite a contrast with current House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy who is, to be blunt, a ninny and silly-billy. Who among us has forgotten the post I wrote about him in 2015 called Untrustable In Hungria. Most of you, I know, but it’s one of my all-time favorites so I trot it out whenever possible.
Even though I gave him an anatomical nickname, I was always fond of John Boehner. He’s a human being as opposed to the sock puppet McCarthy or the butt-plug Scalise.
Another image I keep trotting out. I got a million of them…
Another Boehner quote about the 2010 Tea Party wave election is quite revealing:
“You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.”
Boehner’s Speakership coincided with the GOP’s headlong rush into full-tilt insanity. It turned his dream job into a nightmare. The same thing happened to our political system. We’re still trying to recover.
I get a kick out of the fact that Boehner is now a weed lobbyist. Party on, John.
The last word goes to the Chairman of the Board with a double dose of Cole Porter:
I’ve only seen bits and pieces of THE INTERVIEW because I cannot abide Oprah. I am, however, a notorious Anglophile with mixed feelings about the Battenberg/Windsor clan. They make for good costume movie and teevee dramas as well as fodder for the British tabloids. I’m even enough of a Peter Morgan fan to wonder if The Crown will cover the same territory as his earlier drama The Queen. Otherwise, I have no stake in the British monarchy.
The presentism of much of the MSM coverage of the face-off between Meghan-n-Harry and “the Firm” cracks me up. The British royals are like inbred cockroaches or Keith Richards, they’ve weathered many past storms and they’re still standing. If they could survive being a family with a German name at the outset of the Great War they can survive a rerun of the Diana drama.
It’s not a carbon copy of the Diana mishigas since Meghan-n-Harry have run away to Beverly Hills together. Hopefully, nobody will die as a result of this but the threat to the monarchy is the same. They’re still standing.
It’s obvious that Meghan is either naive and didn’t do her homework about her Prince or that she fibbed to Oprah when she said she never googled Harry. That’s how she missed this:
Yes, he was young and stupid but racism in his family shouldn’t shock anyone let alone its newest member. It’s like marrying into the Trump family and being shocked to learn that Donald is an Impeached Insult Comedian with a dead nutria pelt atop his head.
She told Oprah that she had never even Googled her future husband’s name—a remark that united the viewing world in hilarity, time zone by time zone. It was an assertion that strained credulity, but it was necessary to her contention that she’d had no idea that the Windsors had not, as we now say, “done the work” when it came to exploring their own racial biases. Had she herself done some work by punching her beloved’s name into a search engine, she would have understood that she was not marrying the most racially conscious person on the planet. She would have seen pictures of him dressed as a Nazi at a costume party (his great-granduncle—briefly Edward VIII—had palled around with Adolf Hitler) and a videotape of him introducing a fellow cadet as “our little Paki friend.” The Palace said that “Prince Harry used the term without any malice and as a nickname about a highly popular member of his platoon.” But the palace had no good explanation for why Harry introduced another cadet in the video by saying, “It’s Dan the Man. Fuck me, you look like a raghead.”
I believe that people can change and now that Harry has a multi-racial kid, I’m sure he’s left his wicked, racist ways behind. But once again, Meghan shouldn’t be shocked by any of this. It’s like joining my family and being surprised that you don’t say the word malaka in the company of the older generation. They’re all gone now but my Aunt Mary would have boxed my ears if I said the M word in her presence.
You’re probably wondering when I’m getting to The Curious Case Of The Tea Party Royalists. The time is now.
American right-wingers never get the American Revolution right. They bang on about the Boston Tea Party and even wear silly tri-corner hats in public, but they never get the “taxation without representation” thing right. They always overlook the “without representation” bit.
In the early days of the American Revolution, many patriots would have found having American MPs at Whitehall acceptable. If mad King George had given in and listened to the likes of Edmund Burke, we might be a warmer version of Canada right now.
But I’ve been struck by the recent efflorescence of pro-monarchism on the American right, something that seems to flow in this particular case downstream from hostility to Meghan Markle, but is yet part of something larger. In the midst of the Markle drama, Trump immigration czar Stephen Miller hopped on to Twitter to defend the monarchy as a symbol of national service and praise the royals he met during President Trump’s state visit as “unfailingly gracious and deeply committed to preserving the traditions and heritage of the UK.” (emphasis added). A week later The National Review published An American Defense of Britain’s Constitutional Monarchy.
Some of this defense is merely situational. Markle, who is young and black, has been cast into the morality tale of ‘cancel culture’, with the royals allegedly on the receiving end of being canceled. So Republicans, as enemies of all this cancel culture, have rushed to the Royals’ defense. But again, it’s bit more than that. Miller name checks the telling catch phrases of white nationalism with references to ‘tradition and heritage’. National Review similarly explains that “modern liberalism” wants to “tear down everything the monarchy represents: tradition, authority, virtue, duty, love of country, and biblical religion.”
There was a similar outbreak of weird pro-royalism in the early years of the Regan administration. Reagan took office in the same year the Charles and Diana drama began with a smashing royal wedding. It was one of the first major events that CNN covered wall-to-wall and in those days they were the only cable news game in town.
I recall many conservatives saying that Reagan would have made a great constitutional monarch. That’s a point I never argued because he was a master of the ceremonial aspects of the presidency. You know, the stuff that the Kaiser of Chaos disdained. I recall saying that I might have voted for Ronnie for head of state but never for head of government. Our presidency encompasses both roles, which always seems to baffle the genuine conservatives of 1981 and the fake conservatives 40 years later. So it goes.
Don’t worry I haven’t changed sides, the words “cancel culture” rarely pass my lips and never in the sense that, say, Donnie Junior uses them. I’m exercising my right to be a contrarian who finds both Meghan-n-Harry and the Tea Party Royalists to be equally silly. Perhaps it’s the Monty Python fan in me. Oh well, what the hell.
The last word goes to Oscar Peterson and Nelson Riddle:
One more from my favorite Canadian:
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Oscar Peterson?
This is nothing new. The American far right has long been fascinated with Nazi symbols. Along with genocide, oppression, warmongering, and lying the Nazis were good at iconography. They tended to steal from past cultures: the Odal Rune is rooted in Nordic-Aryan mythology and was stolen and modified by the SS in 1934. The root of the word Odal is Odin the head Norse God known to Wagner fans as Wotan. We all know who one of Wagner’s biggest fans was.
Let that sink in: The SS used the modified Odal Rune on their uniforms. The SS was declared a criminal organization by the first Nuremberg Tribunal. Now an organ of the “conservative movement” is using one of its symbols.
Another overview of the CPAC stage confirms this notion:
Photo via Guardians of Democracy.
As our longtime readers know, I am leery of seeing Nazis, neo and otherwise, everywhere but this is no coincidence.
CPAC has gone from Reagan worship to Trump idolatry. Their use of Nazi symbolism proves that CPAC and its ilk are radicals, not conservatives. There’s nothing conservative about the SS’s Odal Rune variation.
I’ve seen some people on the Twitter left say that Trump is just like Ronald Reagan. It’s a canard and I say that as someone who disagreed with Reagan and voted against him twice.
Reagan may have fought World War II in Hollywood, but he was a member of Brokaw’s greatest generation. You know, the ones who actually fought and defeated the Nazis. It’s safe to say that he would not approve of the use of Nazi iconography by a group purporting to support him.
Back to the golden statue. It reflects what Ben Sasse, who voted to convict in the late impeachment trial, decried as “the weird worship of one dude.” There’s a difference between idolatry and support. A golden statue of the Kaiser of Chaos is idolatry pure and simple.
I rarely post anything other than Odds & Sods on Saturdays. I put a lot of work into those posts and this week’s entry is a particular favorite of mine. I decided that CPAC’s Nazi stage couldn’t wait until Monday. It’s that disturbing.
I wish I could say that the Odal Rune will be CPAC’s ruination but that’s unlikely. Neo-Nazism has infiltrated mainstream politics. Gret Stet Fuhrer wannabe David Dukkke is celebrating this turn of events. Stay tuned.
House Republicans are dumbasses. Mitch McConnell was setting up Marjorie Taylor Greene as the patsy for the Dipshit Insurrection and Trumper extremism. Instead, Kevin McCarthy proved himself a weak and downright stupid leader who allowed the members of his caucus to go on record as supporting the QAnon Lady. She would have been the scapegoat or fall guy if the GOP caucus had sanctioned her instead of the whole House. As Adam Schiff put it yesterday:
“Kevin McCarthy stands for nothing except the perpetuation of his own position. He has no values, and in my view cares about little except for hoping to be speaker one day, God forbid.”
House GOPers are on the record in support of someone who believes that two of the worst school shootings, Parkland and Sandy Hook, were false flag operations. Her position is so extreme that three reps from South Florida were among the eleven Republicans who voted to strip her of committee assignments. There’s some debate as to whether ethnicity was the reason for Florida trio’s vote, they’re all Latin. I think it was location, location, location: all of their districts are within shouting distance of Parkland school. Whatever the case, I salute them for standing for something other than craven cowardice.
The removal of the QAnon Lady from her committees is a symbolic victory. It’s as substantively empty as K-Mac’s head. She’s there to agitate, not legislate. She wanted to be famous and be noticed by the Kaiser of Chaos. Her wish came true. Her “great” phone call with Trump is one reason House GOPers flinched at ousting her themselves. She doesn’t, however, have the lingo down pat: all Pennywise phone calls are “perfect.”
Republican radicals and teabaggers are fond of displaying the “Don’t Tread On Me” snake flag. The current GOP is a three-headed hydra. One head is the Impeached Insult Comedian with a dead nutria pelt atop his head. The second head is the man many call Moscow Mitch, but I prefer the old standbys: the Turtle and Chinless Mitch. The third head is Marjorie Taylor Greene who represents the extremists who have infiltrated the Republican party since 2010. If they’re not careful, they’ll soon be the Greene Party.
Fox Business and Fox News covering the President’s leaving the White House and he will remarks to the nation as he leaves and at Joint Base Andrews. Place comments and links here.
3 posted on 1/20/2021, 7:14:05 AM by DAVEY CROCKETT (Ec 1:2 The rest is, Vanity of vanities..vanity of vanities!All is vanity.)
Oh – and courtesy of Borowitz :
Trump Issues Alternate Inaugural Poem
Roses are red Violets are blue I won the election by a landslide And everybody knows it There were a lot of horrible things going on That should never be allowed to happen In our country I’ve been treated Very unfairly.
To: CedarDave
Had to cut away from Newsmax. They have some guy named Mustafa on trashing Trump.
No it’s just some kind of weird, random sobbing gasp frequently.
Some things hurt TOO bad to merely cry.
109 posted on 1/20/2021, 7:47:14 AM by Salamander (We’re All Hamlet, Now….)
Good.
To: pnz1
I am crying.
123 posted on 1/20/2021, 7:50:03 AM by HypatiaTaught (president PingPong of the divided states of america)
Go for it.
To: mulligan
From Chief to thiefthief to Chief.
128 posted on 1/20/2021, 7:50:48 AM by Leep (Save America. Lock down Joe Biden!)
FIFY.
To: Peter W. Kessler
“We enter the dark days today.”
Yes we do. Our Republic – gone – our GREAT President – gone from office and I hope not gone to prison….that is what they want. Dark indeed. Mourning our once great nation!
I didn’t fly my American Flag the entire 8 years of Obamao.
208 posted on 1/20/2021, 9:01:59 AM by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
To: CedarDave
I am so mad and sad at the same time. This should not be happening. Furthermore they are counting votes STILL in Arizona for one. This is just sickening.
And I’m tired of hearing about Jan 6th as if there was something more there than what was. The hyperbole is despicable. And the turncoats in Congress. I hope we do have a patriot party that I think we should call the Constitution party.
My late father was a conservative Republican. He was neither a crazy conservative nor “severely conservative” in Willard Mittbot Romney’s memorable formulation. He was a classic business conservative who hated red tape, supported a strong defense, disliked Communism, but also favored Social Security and Medicare. His father came to America alone at the age of 13. My namesake wanted to pull himself up by his bootstraps, so he joined what he thought of as the businessman’s party, the GOP.
Lou and I had many political arguments, but they were usually conducted with genuine civility (I’ll talk about phony civility later) and humor. In short, my father taught me how to argue. I remain grateful that he taught me how to disagree without being disagreeable.
I still lived at home for part of the Carter administration and his opening gambit for many political arguments was, “Your boy Carter did” XY or Z. After reminding him that Vice President Mondale was my boy, not his boss, we were off. In 1980, he supported Poppy Bush in the primaries, but wound up voting for Reagan twice saying that he’d “filed down the sharp edges” as president. I politely but firmly disagreed.
I put my father’s lessons to work many times over the years. I had a string of conservative friends with whom I loved to argue. As far as I was concerned, I usually won the arguments and I suspect they felt likewise. I learned a lot from the smarter ones. That’s right, there used to be many intelligent conservatives, which, even for me, is hard to believe after witnessing yesterday’s impeachment debate.
American politics has gotten ruder and cruder in the last 40 years but it’s not a new phenomenon. Regardless of Kevin McCarthy’s bizarre interpretation of the “civil” 1800 election, Adams skipped the inauguration and he and Jefferson hated one another for the next 20 years. We lived through the War of the Rebellion, McCarthyism, and the excesses of the war on terror. Critics called FDR a “traitor to his class” and implied that he was a Jewish communist. Of course, he was neither. He thought the whole Franklin D. Rosenfeld thing was hilarious.
The turning point in the modern civility wars was the election of Newt Gingrich to Congress. He was a bomb thrower who brought New Left tactics to the New Right. He was out of office by 2010 but the Tea Party wave election perfected the rise of the rude. Overt racism slowly but surely replaced the dog whistle culminating in the whole birther mishigas. Yesterday, Gym Jordan and his ilk accused Democrats of “hating President* Trump” but the cycle of hatred intensified with their racist attacks on President Obama.
I miss genuine civility but phony or forced civility is for the birds. 21st Century phony civility typically involves Republican demands that “the left” bow down and be nice to them. It’s never reciprocal. Genuine civility involves reciprocity: the relationships between John McCain and Joe Biden and John Kerry involved genuine civility, not the ersatz kind. Genuine political civility seems to have been interred with Senator McCain.
It’s time at long last to get to the post title. When I was growing up, we heard a lot about the Loyal Opposition. It was premised on the notion that the things Americans have in common are more important than our differences. It was a concept often honored in the breach, but it was important. It was like the way I discussed politics with my father, respectful disagreement without questioning the other side’s patriotism.
Respectful disagreement is out of fashion. It’s made impossible by the lunacy of the current Republican party and their dear leader, President* Pennywise. Yesterday, House Republicans gave lip service to the idea of unity without practicing it. Unity like genuine civility requires reciprocity. The extremism of Congressional Republicans makes that impossible.
As the Biden administration comes to power it’s clear that, to begin with, Republicans will be the Disloyal Opposition. It took a riot for many of them to admit that the Kaiser of Chaos lost the election.
The GOP not only nominated and elected a malignant narcissist, they’ve allowed right-wing extremists to infiltrate their party. The GOP is no longer a conservative party, it’s a far-right radical party. Genuine conservatives seem to be outnumbered by the wingnuts or they’re too afraid to stand up for their beliefs. That means their beliefs are meaningless. Genuine conservatives would have voted to impeach.
The Disloyal Opposition has been active since the election. There are now QAnon types in the House. They call themselves libertarians but they’re really anarchists. That’s why they refuse to go through metal detectors and insist on arming themselves. This sort of thinking led to the Dipshit Insurrection. Freedom, man.
There are credible charges from New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill that some of her more extreme colleagues allowed insurrectionists to conduct what amounts to reconnaissance of the Capitol on January, 5. Group tours were once common, but they’ve been tightly restricted during the pandemic. The only way groups can tour the Capitol now is with the permission of a member and must be accompanied by a member or staffer.
I should have called her Lt. Commander/Representative Sherrill. She served in the Navy as a helicopter pilot. She’s a serious person who observed some serious shit. To prove her seriousness, she isn’t naming names publicly until she’s certain which members are complicit in the rioter’s reconnaissance of a building that’s a labyrinth. Even members sometimes get lost. The insurrectionists knew where they were going. That’s why I call House Republicans the Disloyal Opposition.
Several names have been floated but I’ll only mention one, Rep Paul Gosar of Arizona. That’s because his estranged siblings believe that he was involved in the planning of the Dipshit Insurrection.
The brother of Arizona Representative Paul Gosar (R) said he believes the congressman committed treason for his role in last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol. Five people were killed, including a U.S. Capitol police officer.
“What he’s done personally is commit treason I think,” David Gosar told ABC15. “He has blood on his hands for those people dying in there.”
David Gosar and other members of the Gosar family are lobbying members of Congress for an investigation. They’re demanding an investigation to find out what role Representative Gosar played in organizing and promoting the mob scene at the Capitol.
Ali “Alexander” Akbar, the man who says he is responsible for organizing the Stop the Steal Rally, claims Gosar and Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs (R) were among those who helped with the planning. Biggs denies involvement.
“With his participation in the rally ahead of time, the lies he spread down there about the election, his meeting with Trump, he’s as instrumental as a member of Congress with what happened at that capitol,” David Gosar said from Wyoming where he is a practicing attorney.
If that’s not disloyal, I don’t know what is.
I’m not talking about loyalty to party or president. I’m talking about loyalty to the constitution and to our democracy. The peaceful transfer of power has been pushed to the limit in the past, but it’s always happened. Thanks to the Impeached Insult Comedian and his followers that’s no longer true.
The transfer of power will happen but there remains a chance of violence. The good news is that the federal government is prepared to meet the challenge with overwhelming force. The bad news is that it’s necessary because of the Disloyal Opposition.
The last word goes to Kiwi rock music demigod Dave Dobbyn:
For good or ill, the crazy has always been a part of American politics. From the Whiskey Rebellion to John Brown to the War of the Rebellion to the Mountain Meadows Massacre to the John Birch Society to the Nineties militia movement, it’s always been there. But the crazy has rarely had official sanction from a sitting president*. Of course, we never had an Oval One like President* Pennywise before.
The Kaiser of Chaos lives in a self-constructed fantasy world that makes past presidential bubbles look realistic in comparison:
In Trump’s case, it’s more like a cocoon. Insects in cocoons can and do change but Trump cannot. In his case, to borrow a phrase from Genesis, the band not the opening salvo of The Bible, it’s a cuckoo cocoon. The crazy is vacuum sealed in the Impeached Insult Comedian’s lizard brain.
Can you imagine any other Oval One demanding that a duly elected Governor give in to the demands of armed cretins?
The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.
Fuck you, Donald. There’s no reason for anyone to carry a weapon into any state capitol. It’s only okay in the cuckoo cocoon that you and your followers are trapped in. They’ll always be caterpillars, never butterflies
The crazy okayed by the Kaiser of Chaos is the logical culmination of decades of conservative ideology. In 1981, Ronald Reagan stated that “government is not the solution, it’s the problem.” In 1995, Bill Clinton caved to the 1994 mid-term results and declared “the era of big government is over.” Bill, of course, had his fingers crossed but it’s been all downhill from there.
The hatred of big guvmint has led to the crazy quilt approach the country is taking to the pandemic. Everyone is on their own. Chaos not only reigns, it rules. That’s why I call him the Kaiser of Chaos. And there are mini-Kaisers causing chaos across the land.
We shouldn’t let the libertarian right off the hook either. The Governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, thinks it’s a grand idea for meat packing plants to remain open free of government interference. That sort of thinking is common among Kochified libertarians who cloak avarice and selfishness with highfalutin rhetoric about freedom. The libertarians are trapped in the cuckoo cocoon with the rest of the right.
The libertarian delusion is as old as the Republic itself. There’s a raging dispute over who first said, “the best government is that which governs least.” It doesn’t matter who coined the phrase, it’s bullshit. Small government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem. Only a New Deal-style approach can bring us back from the Second Great Depression. It’s time to escape the cage of the cuckoo cocoon.
I added the word cage so I could give Peter Gabriel era Genesis the last word with a live medley of Cuckoo Cocoon and In The Cage. The songs are back-to-back on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, after all.
