Fake News Is Part of the Problem. But REAL News Still Looked The Other Way While the Crime of the Century Took Place

I went to University of Florida for my Journalism degree, and while it's a Top 10 program, it's not as prestigious as Columbia's.

I just note this because the Columbia Journalism Review came out with a devastating report on mainstream media's failures during the 2016 Elections:

We agree that fake news and misinformation are real problems that deserve serious attention. We also agree that social media and other online technologies have contributed to deep-seated problems in democratic discourse such as increasing polarization and erosion of support for traditional sources of authority. Nonetheless, we believe that the volume of reporting around fake news, and the role of tech companies in disseminating those falsehoods, is both disproportionate to its likely influence in the outcome of the election and diverts attention from the culpability of the mainstream media itself...

...A longer and more detailed report by the same researchers shows that by any reasonable metric—including Facebook or Twitter shares, but also referrals from other media sites, number of published stories, etc.—the media ecosystem remains dominated by conventional (and mostly left-of-center) sources such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, HuffPost, CNN, and Politico.

Given the attention these very same news outlets have lavished, post-election, on fake news shared via social media, it may come as a surprise that they themselves dominated social media traffic. While it may have been the case that the 20 most-shared fake news stories narrowly outperformed the 20 most-shared “real news” stories, the overall volume of stories produced by major newsrooms vastly outnumbers fake news.

According to the same report, “The Washington Post produced more than 50,000 stories over the 18-month period, while The New York Times, CNN, and Huffington Post each published more than 30,000 stories...” 

...(The research team) found roughly four times as many Clinton-related sentences that described scandals as opposed to policies, whereas Trump-related sentences were one-and-a-half times as likely to be about policy as scandal. Given the sheer number of scandals in which Trump was implicated—sexual assault; the Trump Foundation; Trump University; redlining in his real-estate developments; insulting a Gold Star family; numerous instances of racist, misogynist, and otherwise offensive speech—it is striking that the media devoted more attention to his policies than to his personal failings. Even more striking, the various Clinton-related email scandals—her use of a private email server while secretary of state, as well as the DNC and John Podesta hacks—accounted for more sentences than all of Trump’s scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000) and more than twice as many as were devoted to all of her policy positions...

In other words, the mainstream media - the Beltway pundits that dominate the political discourse - flipped the real world. They focused more on Hillary's "scandals" - which turned out to be nothingburgers, inflated to inflame the voters against her - than on her policy positions to where I guarantee the average voter didn't even know what her policies were. They focused on trump's "policies" - which was BUILD A WALL, Start a TRADE WAR with China, and Shut Down NATO - while ignoring trump's failures, financial scandals, and sexual assaults.

In short: Hillary got all the bad press, trump got all the good press.

Go fuck yourselves, mainstream media.

What we're seeing in hindsight - looking back at how the traditional press handled themselves between covering Hillary vs. trump - is growing evidence that media bias played a role.

It's also telling, as an aside, that a lot of the male media pundits who displayed that bias - Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, and obviously most of the jerks at Fox Not-News - are turning out to be sexual harassers and misogynists.

They made it easier for trump - one of their own - to campaign against a woman who dared challenged their personal narratives of how women should be treated. Let's be honest: going back to 1992 when her husband Bill ran for President, there was more outrage aimed at HER than at Bill.

It makes me wonder what it will take for a woman candidate to get serious and respectful treatment from the Fourth Estate, ever. This is disgusting. And this is why we've got sexual predators in the highest levels of political office now.

Seriously, mainstream media, go fuck yourselves and die in a collective fire. We've got some wildfires consuming California right now that none of you are reporting on, that ought to do the trick.

The Hypocrisy Has to End. The Sexism Hiding Behind It Has to Die

I've kinda ignored this, spending too much time railing against Roy Moore, but this is a case of Both Sides in terms of political parties. Even Democrats have to answer for this bullshit:

Embattled Sen. Al Franken will make an announcement Thursday, his office told reporters, as calls for the Minnesota Democrat's resignation rapidly gained momentum Wednesday in dramatic fashion.

Sixteen Democratic senators -- ten female and six male including the second ranking Democrat in chamber -- called on Franken to resign as allegations of sexual harassment against him continue to mount. Republican Sen. Susan Collins also called on Franken to quit.

Rumor has it right now that Franken is not going to last the day.

This is on top of long-time incumbent John Conyers resigning after allegations came forward about him paying off sexual harassment victims with a Congressional-backed slush fund set aside for such situations.

This is how bad and for how long this sexual harassment crap has been going on: Congress set aside a fund accessible to BOTH PARTIES to keep the harassment complaints hush-hush.

If there is anything to point out now, it's how either party is handling this outbreak of accountability for their sexist, pussy-grabbing male leadership.

The Democrats are at least coming to terms with the rampant sexual abuse and asking - if not pushing them out - the men in question to step down/resign/burn in hell.

The Republicans are more than willing to VOTE these sexual predators into high office and keep them there (up until it becomes clear they're going to jail).

With all of this coming out now - with the realization that sexism is this powerful negative force within our workplaces, our schools, our halls of power - this is in my honest opinion the perfect time for the Democratic party to push an All-Female candidacy at every level - county, state, Congressional - heading into the 2018 Midterms. Every open seat: Challenge it with a woman candidate. Every competitive seat against a Republican: Challenge it with a woman. Every seat that's been gerrymandered "safe" for Republicans: CHALLENGE THAT SHIT WITH A WOMAN CANDIDATE.

(Okay, if you got a male incumbent in a risky district or state, let him run. But glare at him like this >:-[ the whole time through to let him know NO MONKEY BUSINESS BUSTER)

The Patriarchy thrived, still thrives, on the sexual harassment protected by male leadership that never takes that shit seriously. Time to bring on the Matriarchy, America.

Clean house.

Schadenfreude: Saturnalia 2017 Edition Phase One

Because I get the feeling there's going to be more than one nasty laugh to be had at Republicans' expense before this month is over.

I mentioned earlier in my rage against the Senate Tax Scam bill that the final product was so rushed that opponents could file court orders to dismiss the whole thing just on bad grammar alone. Now it turns out (via Slate.com) that the proposed Senate bill would choke the hell out of some of their deep-pocket corporate overlords:

When Mitch McConnell & co. revived the AMT, they absentmindedly left it at its current rate of 20 percent, the same as the new, lower rate of the corporate income tax that the bill included. As a result, many companies won’t be able to use tax breaks that were supposed to be preserved in the legislation, including the extremely popular credit for research and development costs. Corporate accountants started freaking out about this over the weekend, but the situation reached high farce when a group of lawyers from Davis Polk pointed out that, by leaving the AMT intact, Republicans had essentially undermined their bill’s most important changes to the international tax code...

Keeping the AMT was supposed to raise $40 billion, but that already appears to be a gross underestimate... NYU Law professor and tax expert Lily Batchelder concludes that the AMT will actually cost companies at least $329 billion—good for limiting the blow to the deficit, bad for the corporations who are supposed to be stumping for this legislative Frankenstein—just based on the value of the R&D credits and international exemptions that have been rendered useless...

Ahem. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAHAAHAHAHHHAHAHAAHAHA

When I talked to Batchelder briefly on the phone Tuesday night, she pointed out that while the GOP’s AMT debacle would end up raising more money than expected, there are almost certainly other, undiscovered mistakes in the bill that would lose revenue. “I think this evidences what can go wrong when you try to pass massive tax reform this quickly,” she said.

Reason No.98301940305 why this Republican-led Congress is the WORST EVER. They can't even pass their keystone legislation without shooting themselves in the collective foot.

And Republicans have only themselves to blame. If this HAD BEEN an OPEN and HONEST process, with committee reviews and floor debates, a lot of the loopholes and gaps would have been spotted and filled. If this had been a bipartisan effort with Democrats, at least the Democrats would have spotted errors and corrected them because the Dems are SERIOUS about effective government.

Instead, the Republicans kept it all under wraps because they knew the public would recoil from a lot of the things they wanted to pass. Instead, the Republicans didn't care enough to get the details rights because they have never been about actual effective governance.

This is why the House CANNOT simply pass the Senate bill and ship it to trump for signing, because their financiers running the SuperPACs they need to win elections are going to get hurt by this faux pas. The two houses of Congress are going to have to send the respective tax cut bills to the Conference process to iron out the differences.

This means it's not over. CALL CONGRESS. CALL BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE.

It's likely the Republicans will ignore you and pass a godawful tax cut bill no matter what. But they need to know that what they're passing will piss off MILLIONS of Americans. They need to know 2018 Midterms are going to be brutal for them and they are going to have to answer to US for their folly.

All I Want for Saturnalia Is for Sanity And Goddamn Common Sense to Return

Tis the season to be drinking more hard cider to chase away the blues.

By the by, my twin brother recommends Redds over Angry Orchard.

This has been a year of madness and despair, against which only the slimmest slivers of hope have endured.

But we're getting to the edge of the cliff where everything and everyone goes over.

Congress is dead set on passing a deficit-heavy tax cut for the rich doomed to wipe out the social safety net and cause the same economic mess we had in the mid-2000s.

Republicans are about to elect a publicly confirmed sexual predator for US Senator from Alabama, lying to themselves about Moore's "spiritual pureness" all because they cannot abide a Democrat winning at all.

And trump. Gods help us. trump.

If it's not selling the whole nation out to Russia, it's his open racism and hostility towards diplomacy along with his immeasurable incompetency about to condemn the entire world to war.

His current push to formally recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capitol and moving the US Embassy there would spark hostile reaction across the entire Muslim community of the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. It would seem the ultimate provocation against any peaceful solution to a problem that has vexed humanity for 2000 years.

Street protests by Palestinians would be the LEAST of our worries. Terror groups would use the move to rally more recruits. Allied nations like Turkey and Egypt and Jordan and even Saudi Arabia would cut off diplomatic relations or undermine all other US interests in their regions.

And I wouldn't doubt trump WANTS this. The Shitgibbon WANTS a war to prove his mettle as President Loser of the Popular Vote (and use the war powers of a Presidency to impose some twisted forms of martial law to make him Dictator). And getting the Muslims to react in violence would fit his Narrative.

This is supposed to be a time of Christian peace and goodwill. Instead we are roiling against evangelical hypocrisy, and un-Christian hatred and greed.

If ever we needed to return to the Pagan ways of Saturnalia - where you got drunk and gambled dice - now is the time.

Never Surrender. KEEP CALLING CONGRESS

So the Senate passed their evil Tax Cut For the Rich bill.

After a day of twisting arms and striking side deals, Senate Republicans muscled through an overhaul of the tax code that puts the party on the brink of its first major legislative victory of the Trump administration.

The $1.47 trillion bill cleared the Senate shortly before 2 a.m. Eastern on a 51-49 vote, as Republicans overcame the unified opposition of Democrats who argued it was a budget-busting giveaway to big business and the GOP’s political patrons. Just one Republican, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, voted against the measure on the grounds that it would add too much to the deficit...

...In the end, self-described deficit hawks voted for legislation that, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, would increase the nation’s budget gap by $1 trillion over a decade even after factoring in economic growth. Supply-siders allowed tax cuts for individuals to expire after six years while making them permanent for corporations. And Republicans who blanched at gutting Obamacare earlier this year agreed to eliminate the law’s individual mandate as part of the tax bill...

The Republicans were never about the deficits. The Republicans were always about their goddamn tax cuts.

While this seems bleak, the good news right now is that this is NOT OVER. The Senate bill is so different from the House version that this bill goes back to the House where they can do one of three things: vote on the Senate bill exactly as is (which would make every so-called deficit hawk among House Republicans die of shame), send the bill to reconciliation to forge a compromise bill that both branches have to pass (which could make it unpalatable to enough Senators to reject that version), or reject it outright.

This means one thing for the rest of America: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CALL YOUR CONGRESSCRITTER AND STOP THESE DAMNED TAX CUTS.

Granted, these are Republicans we're talking about here. THEY DO NOT CARE FOR THE MAJORITY OPINION, only their own (and the opinion of their SuperPAC overlords). Unless they get a good idea that the Majority is rightly PISSED and in no mood to vote them back into office during the midterms. And the only way they'll know that is by haunting them every minute of every day with EVERY phone call you can make.

So use this link to Find Your Congresscritter By Zip Code, and then call their LOCAL offices (the DC offices are usually set to voicemail because they know damn well we're calling) often and get your friends and family to do the same.

This tax cut bill IS THAT BAD.

Meanwhile, thanks to the very rushed haphazard methods the Republican Senators used to pass this debacle, it turns out that they missed a major piece of legislation that could make their corporate overlords call up and yell at them as well (thanks to Rude Pundit for finding this tidbit):

Senate Republicans, in their final push last week to pass a sweeping tax bill, undermined a research-and-development tax credit many companies count on to encourage innovation, and business interests are in revolt over the move.

Late Friday, just hours before the Senate voted 51-49 to pass the bill, which included about $1.4 trillion in tax cuts, Republicans decided to preserve the corporate alternative minimum tax instead of repealing it as planned. The change helped them provide money for other priorities lawmakers demanded to include in the legislation, but it could also force many companies to lose tax breaks the bill’s authors intended to protect...

Everything about the modern Republican Party has been this level of incompetence and screw-ups. Even being in full control of all three branches of the Federal Government, they don't take the time to do the job right.

They don't deserve to keep a single job. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE EVERY REPUBLICAN OUT OF OFFICE.

He'll Flip Ya Flynn Will Flip Ya For Real

So this was kinda how I was on Twitter this morning when they announced Mike Flynn had plead out to Mueller's Russian investigation and was cooperating with Mueller's further probing into trump's actions subverting our national elections:

While the early arrests into the trump-Russia scandal were nice, they weren't direct links to trump himself. Mike Flynn is a bigger deal: He has ties to trump going back years, was picked to serve as his National Security Adviser, and had so many illegal acts linked to him - including an insane plan to kidnap a Turkish national off American soil, an act of espionage that defies any legal excuse - that getting him to flip wasn't a question of if but when.

What's interesting to note is that Flynn is pleading out to one charge - lying to federal investigators - while there were so many greater charges facing him. Any amateur who's watched every season of Law & Order can tell you, the ones who get the early plea deals tend to get the better lighter deals because the prosecutors want the higher-ups in any criminal conspiracy. You have to consider that for every major tidbit Flynn turned over to Mueller, that Mueller took a more serious charge off the table in exchange.

Whatever got Flynn off on that kidnapping charge had to be a doozy involving trump. HAS to be.

Thing is, Mueller doesn't have to go straight at trump with the next arrest. He's likely to go after the rest of the outer circle of trump handlers - Chris Christie, Jeff Sessions, and VP Pence (!) are on that list - and then go after members of the inner circle - there's already reports that Flynn can give up Kushner on Russian collusion - to where trump has nowhere to run, noone else to blame when Mueller finally lines up to charge him.

It's all a question of how trump reacts to this. When everyone else tried to warn him about Flynn - like Sally Yates - they got fired. When Comey got canned it was because trump worried Flynn was in danger of the investigation under Comey's direction. Trump knows how Flynn is tied to the people closest to him (Kushner can't take a piss without an okay from his father-in-law) and like all mob boss wannabes trump isn't going to figure a subtler way out of this mess.

This isn't over. But it's getting close. And it's a beautiful thing to know this Shitgibbon is quaking in fear of the oncoming storm.

How A Republic Dies: By A Thousand Tax Cuts

Update: thanks again to Batocchio for linking this on the daily Mike's Blog Round-Up at Crooks and Liars!

So this week we're facing the financial end of the American Republic.

After learning blistering lessons from their health care debacle, the GOP Senate has managed -- so far -- to hold their conference together and keep inching toward legislation that will extensively rewrite the country's tax code for the first time in three decades.

But, behind-the-scenes negotiations continue and there is plenty that could go wrong. The party nearly skidded off schedule Tuesday over concerns from Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Corker wanted to ensure that tax bill would actually lead to economic growth and was able to secure an agreement in principle that would trigger some kind of automatic tax increase if the GOP's anticipated growth didn't materialize. Johnson, meanwhile, went into the GOP tax vote in the Budget Committee still frustrated about the way the tax bill treated tax rates for pass-through business income, but voted anyway to advance the proposal, saying that he wanted to keep the process going.

The Republicans voted for it in spite of the fact there are serious problems with what they are about to pass.

The House passed a tax cut plan earlier, one that promises to gut pretty much everything that's not a defense spending bill on planes that won't work.

And this is all happening despite this tax plan being one of the most unpopular things in the universe. 

All of this will cost the government trillions in lost revenue. Republicans are hoping to partially offset that massive expense by eliminating tax breaks that many people, and companies, currently enjoy, and will be very unhappy to lose. The entire home-building industry has already decided to go to war against the plan because it’s worried the bill will kill off deductions for homeowners. Northeastern and California Republicans are in open revolt over a proposal to curtail the deduction for state and local taxes, which their constituents rely on.

Meanwhile, virtually every credible bit of public polling suggests that, if anything, ordinary American think that taxes on big business should be higher, not lower. In September, the Pew Research Center found that 52 percent of Americans thought that corporate taxes should go up; just 24 thought they should go down. In April, 67 percent of adults told Gallup that corporations paid “too little” in taxes. This week, CBS News found that 56 percent of its survey-takers favored a corporate tax hike, while only 17 percent backed a cut.

Even among the GOP’s base, corporate tax cuts simply aren’t that popular. Pew found that just 48 percent of conservatives who either identify as Republican or lean towards the party think that corporate taxes should come down; 49 percent thought they should go up or stay the same. Among all Republicans and leaners, including moderates, just 41 favored lowering the corporate tax burden.

And yet, this is happening. The Republicans are risking a massive backlash by the public if they pass their efforts to slash taxes for the rich and the corporations...

...and yet NOTHING and NOBODY will hold them accountable if they do.

Welcome to the consequences of where campaign finance laws make it easy for the rich to buy up elected officials like so many toys. Welcome to the consequences of gerrymandered districts that make it easy for incumbents to remain elected regardless of their bad legislation until scandal or retirement drives them out. Welcome to the media bubble of the Far Right where Republicans can shelter themselves among like-minded tax cut dereg acolytes who fervently worship at the teats of Mammon.

It'd be pretty to think that in 2018 a voter revolt will cast out these crooks. But I despair over the fact that our political landscape is so partisan that even common sense no longer has an effect on people. Just look at Alabama: they are poised to vote for a publicly known pedophile who chased after TEEN GIRLS in his Thirties in Roy Moore, all because he's a Republican Bible-thumping conservative on "their" team.

I'm with John Cole, who's come to the same depressing shore as I have:

This tax cut is less popular than past tax INCREASES. A while back I made a joke about what compromise was like with crazy people:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

We’re now to the point where the American people are screaming for Italian, and the Republicans are looking back at us and telling us that spaghetti is out of the god damned question, and not only are we getting tire rims and anthrax but we need to wash it down with liquid Drano.

This is insanity. They literally want to push the country off a cliff to provide aid and comfort to people who don’t need it and have openly stated they aren’t even going to spend the money the way the Republicans say they will.

That's because this is all the modern Republican Party is after. For all the racism and sexism they shill to their voting base to keep them happy, for all the claims of being pro-fetus and pro-God, the one thing THE ONLY THING the Republicans will never bend on is their goddamn tax cuts. I noted this about Romney before, but it applies to the whole party: it is their goddamn Ever-Fixed Mark, around which their entire philosophy - of killing off the New Deal social safety net, of deregulating every business rule that protects people and workers, of splitting this nation into the Rich and the Fucked - revolves. 

The only positive outlook I have about this is that the tax cut is so demonstrably bad a plan that our economy immediately tanks - much like this massive tax cut devastated Kansas - with clear evidence it has everything to do with the tax cuts adversely affecting our industries, our property values, our stock markets to the point it all comes crashing down like the Great Depression.

The only problem with that is, obviously, everybody who's not wealthy with their money all safely tucked away in offshore accounts will get killed in that economic collapse.

But it's the only way to fucking wake the voters up. If only this time THEY STAY AWAKE AND CHASE THESE DAMN CROOKS INTO THE DEEPEST PIT OF HELL THEY DESERVE.

This Is All he Is: An Insult to Everyone (who's NOT Putin)

Yeah, he went there.

Trump can’t perform the simplest, most ceremonial function without being a massive dick. A while ago, he worked his stupid, racist “Pocahontas” shtick about Elizabeth Warren into an event honoring Native American Code Talkers from WWII...

A lot of other observers noted he was honoring these brave American soldiers from World War II by standing in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson, one of the most racist hateful life forms that ever brutalized every tribe of Native Americans he despised.

I should mention my Grandpa Kinzer once told us kids we were descended from Pocahontas, which was fun for awhile until Grandma Kinzer warned us that Grandpa was what the Southern ladies called a "goddamn liar". Still, I *ought* to go onto Ancestry.com and find out how far back the Kinzer bloodline goes.

There's a bunch of conservative-minded folk on Twitter running around arguing that getting called "Pocahontas" isn't an insult, except that trump's demeanor and motive for calling Elizabeth Warren that on multiple occasions has been to insult her. That's all really trump does as his method of leadership: he insults in the most vulgar, derogatory method possible, with no style or subtlety or wit. If trump were to ever come up for an insult for me, it'd probably involve me being a fatass. That's too easy a shot, and degrading, but that's all he's good for.

This is why I have no qualms calling trump a goddamn Shitgibbon. It may sink to his level of immaturity, but that's what he deserves.

As It Falls

So how fares the only hope we have for all humanity?

Right now it's all on what Mueller can get out of Mike "On the Payroll to HOW MANY Foreign Governments?" Flynn. Via the Washington Post:

By taking a large fee from Russia for giving a speech in late 2015, Flynn appears to have violated a law that requires retired generals getting such payments to receive prior approval. (NOTE: that's ONE) He also was hiding the fact that he was paid more than half a million dollars by allies of the Turkish government to promote Turkey’s interests while advising the Trump campaign (he later registered retroactively as an agent of a foreign government; failing to register is a felony). (This may be TWO if the feds think Flynn's retroactive attempt was a fool's effort to avoid accountability) He failed to include payments from Russia on his financial disclosure forms and may have lied about it to investigators. (We're already at the Third Strike) During the transition, he managed to delay a military operation against the Islamic State that Turkey objected to while he was secretly receiving those Turkish payments, a story that has gotten strangely little attention. (This fourth allegation shows that, even though Turkey is an ally to the US via NATO, Flynn was operating on the payroll of Turkey against American interests) He was even reportedly involved in planning for a bizarre plot to kidnap the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in Pennsylvania and return him to Turkey, for which Flynn and his son were allegedly to be paid $15 million. (This one is where they make a movie out of it with Will Ferrell and Keanu Reeves as the wacky kidnappers) 

In short, Flynn appears to have violated multiple laws in multiple ways and could be looking at the possibility of serious time behind bars. He may have information Mueller could use in a case against Kushner, Trump or others, relating to multiple strands of the investigation. He may know things about the campaign’s relationship with the Russian government or about an obstruction of justice case related to Comey’s firing...

So how does Flynn bring the whole circus tent down?

Remember this: Flynn is tied to nearly everybody linked to the Russian-trump conspiracy to hack the 2016 elections, including Pence, who served as the transition leader after November, and had allowed Flynn to get picked for National Security Adviser. People who tried to warn trump and co. about Flynn - Christie, Sally Yates, others - were bumped out of trump's inner circle or fired. Flynn it turns out had been to various meetings with Russian officials and Putin allies alongside Jared Kushner, whose own dealings with Russia are under scrutiny as well.

If Flynn is cooperating now with Mueller, this suggests that Flynn has something worth in trade involving people further up the chain to trump himself. That points foremost at Kushner. Given how trump relies on Kush (his son-in-law) as a right hand man on nearly everything in his West Wing, if Mueller can bring charges on Kushner there's a good chance Mueller can flip him to testify.

Granted, having married into the trump mob, Kushner has little reason to betray his own... unless Mueller can prove to him that he's got enough on trump to charge (and convict) them both, in which case Kushner can roll over to get himself a deal. And there's a good chance Mueller has enough on trump given trump's own blabbermouth bragging how he Obstructed justice when he fired Comey. Anything else Kushner can give up will be adding on the bricks to the prison wall trump himself is building.

We're getting closer to the biggest and scariest step of them all: Mueller bringing direct charges against trump (and maybe some of the other high-ranking Republicans who had a hand in the 2016 elections). There's been reports trump wants to fire Mueller but can't because the bureaucracy is in the way. When push comes to shove, trump isn't going to surrender on this. He's bound to claim himself innocent and try to shut down every investigation into his dealings with Russia.

Then what happens? trump and his cronies will be aligned against nearly every Intelligence agency in the federal government: The CIA and FBI and NSA and so many others are already convinced by what they know that Russia meddled in our elections. The stuff that's been leaked by now is the stuff they can prove without violating national security rules: just think of what they know they can't tell the public. For any bias you may have towards the FBI or CIA or the "Deep State" you have to recognize that these are the men and women hired to defend this nation against the shadow threats. Most of them are genuinely doing their jobs, and most of them - by the look and feel of it - realize there is something nasty involving trump and the Russians.

What happens when our Intelligence agencies are in open revolt against a President they have evidence of dealing with foreign powers against our own nation? Which side will the Republicans in Congress take? Which side will the military, and state/local law enforcement?

How close are we to an actual civil war in our streets?

How To Talk About JUSTICE LEAGUE at Thanksgiving

In the time-honored tradition of Thanksgiving, we are going to be faced with the terrible reality that arguments are unavoidable. That like it or not, somebody at the table is going to get offended about something.

So, in order to assist other families in keeping things calm while people hold carving knives in their hands, I'd like to offer some helpful hints in case anybody tries starting a Marvel VS DC debate as they pass the sweet potatoes.

Given how the Justice League movie just came out and is still in theaters, and in direct conflict with the current Thor Ragnarok for possible entertainment post-dinner, it's very likely that somebody is gonna talk smack about the lesser-received DC movie that is just too... grimdark about its own 'Verse.

So let's get this resolved by pointing out these key things:

1) Justice League (JL) isn't as bad as Batman V Superman.

Let's acknowledge the first film in this shared 'Verse was severely flawed. It focused so hard on setting up the Big Fight between Batman (Affleck) and Superman (Cavill) that it didn't do a good enough job fleshing out both characters to show how wrong Batman was to pick a fight against Clark, and how Superman wasn't more public in his need to atone for the damage caused in Man of Steel.  Also, Eisenberg's version of Luthor - while a nice departure from the hamminess of Hackman/Spacey - was too creepy and too smarmy to be taken seriously as an Evil Genius threat. BVS didn't do as good a job it needed to fleshing out the backstory of their being other Metahumans in the 'Verse, just tossing up hints about Diana and about the others without giving better context. Forcing a lot of that exposition into Bruce's Knightmares was heavy-handed at best.

JL went a long way towards cleaning up a lot of that mess. It gave Bruce motivation towards repairing the mistakes he made fighting Clark, and made it clear he knows he was in the wrong. It only gave us one big sequence of "the team fighting each other" element that's expected in superhero team-ups - when the team tries to contain a resurrected Superman - but from then on it focused on the prime threat of Steppenwolf, a New God vanguard for the Big Bad of the DC Universe (DARKSEID).

What Justice League does best is establish solid foundation of a superhero team involving characters that were earlier hard to take seriously - Aquaman in particular becomes the brawling badass he's supposed to be from the comics - or were hard to establish as characters who can helm their own solo projects - future Aquaman and Flash movies should be easy sells to the public.

2) Gal Gadot continues to hit it out of the park as Wonder Woman.

You can even roll with the argument that she's not in this movie enough to make it more enjoyable. There are moments where the filmmakers could have gone off a side tangent to show how Diana as THE Amazonian Princess was becoming a potent symbolic figure to women and girls. Every minute Wonder Woman is on the screen is a minute you're paying attention, not just to the fight scenes but also to the emotional drama.

3) Affleck isn't perfect as Batman/Wayne, but he does nail one key element for the DCU to continue.

Affleck is a bit stiff as Bruce Wayne, not conveying much emotionally as though he's focusing too hard on how direct/professional he tries to be as both a billionaire and Batman.

Something that crops up in JL is how old his version of Wayne is. Granted, mid-40s in this day and age isn't old old, but in superhero years he's getting close to retirement. His post-fight with a revived Superman examined the bruises and scars his already 20-year fight against crime has left him, and the battle against Steppenwolf likely added more. Affleck does convince as a vigilante growing aware of how he's no longer meant for this, yet remaining aware that the War (with Darkseid on the way) isn't over.

This sets up the sequel hook for Bats own movie in this 'Verse, one that's still reportedly delayed by creative conflicts, but one that sets up the possibility of Batman's Final Battle (most likely against a Darkseid-empowered Joker) and paving the way towards Dick Grayson/Robin stepping into the role of Gotham's savior as Nightwing. It all depends on how they work it out (Psst: Warner Bros, get in touch, team me up with Kevin Smith and we'll nail out a Batman flick on this inside of six months).

4) There are genuinely funny bits.

Thanks to Ezra Miller as this 'Verse version of Flash - a raw rookie to superheroing, literally taking his first steps even though he can go as fast as lightning - there is humor aplenty from his actions and reactions. Speedsters are popular characters in superhero films - just look at the two different Quicksilvers for Marvel and X-men - in that they play with slow-motion effects with charm and child-like wonder. Flash is the same way: Watching him pull off simple things with just a touch of a finger at super-speed gets the audience laughing. And the bit where Flash rushes in to fight a revived and angry Supes - only to see Clark turn his attention on him at the same speed he is, highlighting how Superman is canonically as fast as the Flash - got some of the biggest laughs with the audience I was with.

5) It makes me miss City of Heroes all that much more.

Oh, sorry, this is me. Let's continue.

6) If you can't convince the others around the table about the merits of the Justice League movie, at least point out that The Last Jedi is coming out in three weeks (OMG) and that we all need to settle down and wait to go see that as a family/group. That should resolve all matters until later.

Just don't go talking rubbish about Hawk The Slayer.

Update: I kid you not! I did talk to my sister-in-law about Justice League today! I was right!

Pagan Turkey Sacrifice Day 2017

Before we all get into Black Friday before chasing after our Saturnalia dreams, we need to perform the ritualistic slaughter of turkeys to appease our Gods!

And so, let us look back on the greatest performance of the ritual in modern American history!

WKRP'S "Turkeys Away" An Oral History

Appease the Gods!!!!

Also, a clip:

This Place Has Gotten The Better of Me: November 20, 2017

So I've been dealing with THIS particular bullshit since morning:

Appearing on a CNN panel of Trump voters Monday morning, (pest control company owner) Mark Lee claimed that the president is standing up for the "little guy" and that no amount of negative press will change his mind.

"If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second. I need to check with the president if it's true,'" Lee said as his fellow panelists reacted with shock.

I've been in a goddamn rage since seeing this.

I know how bad it is. How the trump voter sees the world in a Fox-Not-News induced haze of ignorance that flips reality on its head. That the ill-informed GOP base - buying into the lies of the culture war, selling out for tax cuts to the rich that will kill their own jobs just because they've bought into the trickle-down hype - accept every statement from a confirmed liar as Gospel while the fact-checkers and reporters are demeaned as "fake".

But I've never seen it THIS bad before.

We're at the point the Far Right voters are so into the goddamn Kool Aid that they'll accept the word of a con artist over the WORD OF JESUS (straight off the Cross, for God's sake).

It has come to this.

For 47 years of my life. Me: Sober. Never wanting a drop of alcohol. Barely trying stuff like rum to see what it was like and shaking my head at it. Never understanding the urge or need to get a buzz going with booze in my system.

Well, you broke me, trump voters. You've driven me over the edge. You've FINALLY REALLY DID IT. You got me to say this in all seriousness.

OH GOD I NEED A DRINK.

Now I'm not crazy enough (always sober never sane was my motto. WAS) to go jumping straight into the super-heavy stuff. But I think apple cider has an alcoholic content of five percent, right?

I checked the local Publix. There were several brands but one stood out. ANGRY ORCHARD. Perfect. I WAS IN THAT KIND OF MOOD.

So a toast, to you damn muthafuckas who voted a lying bankrupt con artist into the White House.

Bottoms up.

This is all your fault, trump voters. You blew it up. Damn You. Damn you ALL TO HELL.

YOU WERE ON ACID, CHARLES MANSON

Reports this morning that Charles Manson, worst party crasher in California, passed away. While he had been slated for the death penalty for his involvement in the serial killings he had his "Family" cult commit for him, changes in the legal system in the 1970s altered his terms to life in prison. He'd been up for parole, but it's been obvious over the decades that the fucker's mind was just GONE man.

Lemme bring up Sam Kinison's take on Manson:

Of the people who die that make me feel nostalgic, or lost, or despairing, Manson ain't one of them. I despise mass murderers, so let this one pass while waiting on Henry Kissinger to kick the bucket.

Personal Note: Clermont Comic Con 2017

I hope to see you at the Clermont FL Performing Arts Center this Sunday November 19th!

I shall be selling my wares and crying under the table due to emotional stress. Let's have fun!

You Broke My Heart, Frankie, You Broke My Heart...

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you... for the 2020 General Election, because DAMMIT ALL OUR HEROES ARE DEAD TO US NOW.

As John Cole at Balloon-Juice puts it:

WELL THAT'S JUST FUCKING GREAT

As a TV host and sports broadcaster, as well as a model familiar to the audience from the covers of FHM, Maxim and Playboy, I was only expecting to emcee and introduce the acts, but Franken said he had written a part for me that he thought would be funny, and I agreed to play along.

When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd.

On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’

He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.

He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.

I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.

I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth.

I felt disgusted and violated.

Al Franken's response? Uh, it was meant to be a joke. Which is right up there with the "The Dog Ate My Homework."

Christ.

One thing I wanna make clear: my current ranting against Roy Moore is fueled by two thoughts. One, that son of a bitch as a prosecutor and judge should have known better than to chase after HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS; Two, His running on a Holier-Than-Thou platform is a massive act of hypocrisy and fraud.

With regards to ANY political or business or entertainment figure being a goddamn sexual predator, my stance is the same: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS THAT YOU HAVE TO GET OFF ON GROPING AND HURTING WOMEN?

I'm not a huge fan of Bill Clinton because of this (if I ever side with him it's strictly on the issues, and because his attackers are worse SOBs). I still kick myself for ever buying into John Edwards as a viable candidate for the Presidency. And trump, GODDAMN YOU 62 MILLION AMERICANS AND PUTIN THAT SHIT IS UNFORGIVABLE.

Part of me worries, really really worries, that even Obama could behave like this. GOD NO PLEASE NO, NOT HIM...

As of right now, no male authority figure from Hollywood to Washington DC to the Vatican are safe from the worst realizations that the men in power are just a bunch of goddamn scuzbuckets.

The only sane solution to all of this is, obviously, VOTING MORE WOMEN INTO ELECTED OFFICE AND HIRING MORE WOMEN AS CEOs.

'Cause right now, I am absolutely terrified we're going to find out that (Insert incredibly popular and well-liked public male figure here) is into Vorarephilia. And that is not a made-up word, BUT PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT THE DICTIONARY OH GOD YOU LOOKED I AM SO SORRY...

Trespass

So there'd been stories about Roy Moore told around his hometown of how he'd stalk teenage girls at the local shopping mall back in the late 1970s.

When I was branch manager at Centennial Park Library, I had to issue a handful of trespass orders on unruly teens who hung out in the area, hassling library users and stuff.

It's a huge process. You have to call in the cops, file the trespass, file an incident report for the county gov't, and then when the banned person showed up calling the sheriff's office to hurry over and confront the violator about that trespass.

Most of the ones who got trespassed stayed away. There was one who kept violating it but sneaking off - the library was in the middle of a neighborhood, so it was easy - before the cops showed. They finally got him, and enforced the trespass order complete with arresting him and dragging him off in handcuffs.

It turned out they had that teen on more than just trespass. He'd been a suspect in local break-ins and acts of vandalism (there were other things, but I can't verify those charges), bad enough to where they were holding him without bail. The last time I saw the kid, this was 2008 maybe, it was in a courtroom on a preliminary hearing about his charges (I was called in to provide witness. I found out the prosecutor's office had triple-charged the teen on that trespass, so I told them it was just the one charge, but that probably didn't help him considering the more serious stuff he was facing).

I'm rehashing all of this today because of recent news about Senate candidate Roy Moore: how an investigating reporter dug up story after story about how Moore back in 1979 had been banned from a shopping mall because he was there all the time trying to pick up teenage girls (this was when he was in his 30s!). To get banned from any place to where the police were notified and scanning for you is a big fucking deal. That Moore kept doing this - that he kept showing up even after the ban trying to pick up girls - highlights how obsessed he was chasing after them, and how problematic it had to be if a sizable number of witnesses STILL REMEMBER HE DID THIS STUFF 30 YEARS AGO.

Remember, kids: a Sexual Predator does not stop at one victim, or four, or forty. He keeps going until someone actually stops him and he goes to jail. And even then, he'll likely keep trying, because it's all he knows to do.

That he stalked a shopping mall while he was employed as a District Attorney - even after being warned, even after being banned - points to the horrifying truth that Moore could not be trusted to uphold the laws of his state. Moore placed himself above the law.

How easy do you think it is for a bastard like that to place himself above God?

Such trespass should not be accepted by the faithful or skeptic alike. What the hell, Alabama. What the hell, Republicans.

This is insane.

One More Thought About Those Who Are Defending Roy Moore's Unethical Behavior Towards Teenage Girls

Even space cowboys understood that child molesters rank low on societal norms.

Are you beginning to understand just what you are defending, Republicans?

You are defending a man in Roy Moore who took advantage of teenage girls. A man who is clearly going to the Special Hell they reserve for child molesters, and people who talk at movie theaters.

It's a level of Hell so deep even Satan, trapped in that lake of ice, is gonna look at Roy Moore and say "Damn, son, even *I* didn't fall that far into Hell."

And just remember, Republicans, there's room in Hell for those who side with such false prophets and betrayers of God's Grace.

This Is the Republican Talking Point Concerning Roy Moore

As of this afternoon, this has been the most common response I've seen on Social Media defending Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore over accusations he stalked and dated HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS while he was in his early-to-mid 30s:

If you're wondering who Eric Dondero is, and if you can't see his Twitter Bio in the bottom left corner, here's a copy of that Bio:

Liberty-Identitarian. Social Darwinist, Rugged Individualist, #MAGA Republican, US Rep Ron Paul '97-03, Travel 25 nations/5 conts, Spk 5 langs, US Navy Vet, FSU

Dondero is one of those hard-core Far Right "Individualist" #MAGA types. Who probably sent a ton of FEMA funds requests after getting flooded out this hurricane season.

Happily advertising himself as a Social Darwinist is pretty much all you need to know about how racist a son-of-a-bitch we're dealing with right off the bat.

This is Dondero's position: He will happily back child molesters into one of the highest offices of the nation all because Democrats are even worse.

Just to clarify, there are roughly 750,000 registered sex offenders in the United States as of 2012. The number may well be higher but for the most part it's under one million. Given the overall population for the US is 310 million, that's about 0.002 rounded up, in terms of percentages that's 0.2 Percent of the population. Less Than One Percent.

Meanwhile, there's roughly 96 MILLION registered Democrats across the nation. Not every state lists actual numbers, so we have to extrapolate from the number who self-identify in polling, which is around 31 percent of Americans polled.

Alabama does not list voter registration by party, so at best guess based on the 2016 Generals there were 729,000 who voted for Hillary. There are almost as many Democrats in Alabama as there are sex offenders across all 50 states.

This Dondero fellow is saying he and his partisan side of the aisle will happily accuse 96 MILLION AMERICANS of being WORSE than pedophiles/sex offenders. This sentiment is similar to other Tweeters I've seen online.

Because this is how low the Republican Party has sunk into partisan madness.

They've been told for 40-50-80 years (probably all the way back to FDR) that Democrats were the enemy: A bunch of hippie pot-smoking tree huggers who hate our troops and want to steal everyone's candy under the catch-all nightmare of DREADED SOCIALISM.

This hatred of Democrats, of Libruls and Progressives and Feminazis and Soros-backed Black/Latino street gangs has been hammered in through an increasingly fact-less Right Wing Noise Machine, where their side of GOD GUNS AND TAX CUTS can do wrong and THE HILLARY-OBUMMER CONSPIRACY WILL KILL US ALL.

Rather than concede the likelihood that their Senate candidate in Alabama is an Ephebophile (new word for the day, kids! Now you know what to call those creeps who pop up on your Snapchat) who broke Statutory Rape laws by dating/molesting a 14-YEAR-OLD when Moore was 32, rather than consider Moore's own conflicting excuses as the stories pile up, The Republican and Evangelical faithful would rather let a man they shouldn't ever trust their daughters/granddaugthers with in private get elected to the Senate instead of a Democratic candidate in Doug Jones who just 1) happens to be successful prosecuting the KKK, and 2) not a sex offender.

In only one way can I even understand WHY the Republicans are acting like this: It's because they are stuck on their obsessed mission to pass a tax-cuts bill for their super-rich SuperPAC backers, and their hold on the Senate is tenuous at 52 seats out of 100 (with Pence as tie-breaker). They lose this seat to Jones, they will have only enough wiggle room to lose ONE Republican Senator - because the Democrats are lock-step in opposition to any tax-cuts for the rich - to any upcoming tax bill. Given how not every GOP Senator agrees with what should be cut (moderates like Collins are not on board with eliminating the Estate Tax or giving cuts to those over $1 million in income)  the Hard Right that wants those unpopular cuts will never get that agenda passed. So they NEED Moore - who will gladly sign off on those tax cuts to appease his "Fuck All Those To the Left of Barry Goldwater" mindset - to win at all costs, even at the costs of their own reputations as moralists and Godly Christians.

You always wonder where the Moral Event Horizon is for certain people. How far they will go into that black hole of Total Evil just to destroy everyone else in the process.

Well, we are finding that Moral Event Horizon right now for the Republican Party. They are perfectly willing to cross this line and stand before God and America as Pro-Pedophile.

Goddamn them.

And Goddamn the voters of Alabama if they close their eyes to this and vote for a Goddamn Child Molester.

Indefensible

Sickening.

Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore.

It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing...

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.

Just to note, the age of consent in Alabama was and still is sixteen. Leigh Corfman was fourteen when this started. No matter how you excuse this, it was... it IS statutory rape.

And Moore was a district attorney at the time. HE'S SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE LAW. HE'S SUPPOSED TO UPHOLD IT.

Two of Corfman’s childhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older man, and one says Corfman identified the man as Moore. Wells says her daughter told her about the encounter more than a decade later, as Moore was becoming more prominent as a local judge.

Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the three women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

Moore may not have forced them, but he went after them sexually. An older man, chasing after HIGH SCHOOL AGE GIRLS.

Wendy Miller says she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade. Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the first of several dates that did not progress beyond kissing. Gloria Thacker Deason says she was an 18-year-old cheerleader when Moore began taking her on dates that included bottles of Mateus Rosé wine. The legal drinking age in Alabama was 19.

Of the four women, the youngest at the time was Corfman, who is the only one who says she had sexual contact with Moore that went beyond kissing. She says they did not have intercourse...

I actually started writing this blog entry last night, but I've been so enraged by this story and the expanding revelations that it's taking me this long to compose myself to compose this.

And before any of you lot jump on me for being a Bill Clinton fan considering all the sexist shit he's pulled, I have condemned Bill's sexual dalliances as folly and wrongheaded. And for all the accusations aimed at him - especially a possible rape allegation that has some teeth to it - Clinton's never been a teen stalker (His affair with Lewinsky happened when she was 22).

I have no love for sexual predators. I really have no love for holier-than-thou religious hypocrites who eagerly bash everyone else for being sinful while they themselves commit greater sins.

And in the time it's taken for me to write this out, OF COURSE there are many Republican political figures at the Alabama and National levels who are making the immoral decision to BACK Moore even as these stories threaten to expose more sordid tales.

I came across this on Twitter this afternoon:

Carroll Bryant‏ @CarrollBryant

Replying to @tpe3tpj2 @FiveRights

I'd rather have a pedophile in office rather than a democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Pedophiles only screw kids while democrats screw everyone.

7:30 AM - 10 Nov 2017

THIS IS coming from a self-proclaimed arch-conservative (yet proudly) INDEPENDENT VOTER who seems to genuinely think that Democrats are the ultimate scourge of humanity.

THIS is how low the Far Right have sunk. Their hate and disdain for Democrats, progressives, and essentially EVERYBODY NOT IN THEIR CLOSED CIRCLE have gotten them to where they will proudly, eagerly vote in corrupt, contemptible, violent monsters all because they've been taught that Democrats are worse.

This is how trump got into the White House. Enough voters bought the Fox Not-News Narrative of DEMOCRATS BAD that when caught between the choice of A) the corrupt and bankrupted failed businessman with no experience or intellect and who bragged about being a Pussy-Grabber assaulting his own partners' wives or B) the Democratic candidate who just happened to be Hillary Clinton the MOST HATED DEMOCRAT THE REPUBLICANS AND FAR RIGHT EVER HATED SIMPLY BECAUSE SHE EXISTS, they sided with the corrupt and failed bankrupt businessman who SURPRISE SURPRISE is incapable of governance and has been committing impeachable acts in office since Day One (not to mention mismanaging the nation into a chaotic mess that will collapse on itself. It's not a question of IF it's a matter of WHEN).

The Republicans would rather vote in criminals, sexual predators, con artists all because those dark forces offer them the fantasy of power and control, of being lords of the realms rather than the poor unwashed masses they deem parasites.

There may be sexual predators and con artists among the Democratic ranks - Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer - but when exposed for their sins they fall out of favor/power and even wind up in jail (save for Clinton, whose predatory nature balanced out with a persona that presented itself as pro-women even as he skirt-chased them). Republican campaigners and voters excuse their monsters - Bill O'Reilly just got his job back even after public exposure of his harassment of women, David Vitter got re-elected after getting caught hiring call girls, Newt Gingrich never goes away after getting caught committing adultery, Mark Sanford may have lost his governorship but South Carolinians voted him to Congress, and for the love of GOD they voted trump - and eagerly push them higher into elected offices or bigger book deals.

This is insane. The Republican Party keeps claiming they are the "Family Values Party" but the only value they see in families is how much they can shred those families into poverty-stricken, emotionally scarred, and physically abused wrecks. Family Values, my ass.

Their ongoing support of a monster like Roy Moore by using twisted interpretations of Biblical teachings is proof the Republican Far Right - self-proclaimed moralists who praise themselves as God's Chosen thumping those Bibles as though they were weapons - are no true Christians. They're just selling another lie about their faith, because they ONLY THING they believe is winning elections and destroying innocent lives.

When I wrote that the Republican Party was dead, this was what I meant. There is no soul here, no empathy or morality or ethical practice that would make a political party work. Just cons and criminals, issuing lie after lie and committing sin after sin, a shambling zombie infecting the nation and the world with their taint.

What the hell, America.

What the hell, Alabama, that you should side with the child rapist to represent you. What the hell.

One Year Later, A Ray Of Hope

So it's been a year since... well, one of the most horrifying Election nights I'd ever been through.

Last night was an off-year election, when some states hold their own elections for the governorships and legislatures, and also referendums. In particular, Virginia's election is viewed as a bellweather / measuring stick to let the Parties know the mood of the electorate.

If last night's election was any indication, the mood of the electorate is PISSED OFF. At Republicans.

To quote EJ Dionne:

Tuesday’s Democratic sweep obliterated a series of outdated story lines in American politics and opened a new era.

Forget those repetitious tales about some piece of President Trump’s base still sticking with him. It’s now clear, from Virginia and New Jersey to Washington state, Georgia, New York, Connecticut and Maine, that the energy Trump has unleashed among those who loathe him has the potential to realign the country.

In droves, voters rebuked his leadership, his party and the divisive white nationalist politics that was supposed to save Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia Governor’s race, the centerpiece of the GOP catastrophe.

Instead, Ralph Northam, the Democratic lieutenant governor who was much-maligned until election night for being boring, swept to victory on a massive turnout with the largest percentage for a Democrat in Virginia since 1985. On top of this, Democrats picked up at least 15 of the 17 seats they need to win control of the Virginia House of Delegates and were within 200 votes in four other districts. There were comparable Democratic gains in state and local contests elsewhere.

Washington State in particular flipped their Senate chamber to Democratic control, giving Dems both houses and the governorship and clearing the way for a more progressive agenda to pass. Back to Dionne:

Other right-wing narratives died as well. Anti-Obamacare sentiment was once an asset for the Republican Party. Not anymore. On Tuesday in Virginia, the exit poll found that health care was the top issue in the governor’s race, named by close to 40 percent of voters. Health care voters backed Northam by better than 3-to-1. In Maine, voters defied their erratic arch-conservative governor, Paul LePage, and voted for the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

LePage, a jackass to the bitter end, is swearing to deny the Medicaid expansion, but it's becoming clear that the Republican Party no longer represents the interests or needs of the general voting electorate when it comes to health care coverage.

In a tragic twist, the Republicans were blindsided by the sudden shift in public mood towards gun safety because of recent mass shootings in Vegas and Texas that showed the GOP were firmly in the pocket of the bloodthirsty NRA...

The gun issue was supposed to hurt Democrats whenever it was salient. It was the No. 2 issue in Virginia, after health care. But in an historic rebuke to the National Rifle Association, voters who said they cast ballots on gun policy split narrowly. Sane gun policies are no longer a political third rail. It’s time for fearless opposition to the NRA’s extremism.

What stands out is not so much how Democrats won, although it was interesting to see the uptick in challenging GOP-safe districts and running candidates who were clear rebukes to Republican elitism. What stands out is badly Republicans lost, and why.

Gillespie for example tried to campaign in the trumpian mold: attacking immigrants, defending the Confederate Flag, dismissing every concern voters had about making Obamacare work, etc. He got his ass stomped.

For all the "success" trump had in 2016, Republican strategists forget he actually LOST (62 million to Hillary's 65 million). The only reasons he's sitting in the White House are that he had a broken Electoral College in his favor, he had Russian interference up the wazoo, and the mainstream media was too busy attacking Hillary to where that all depressed Democratic turnout.

None of those factors applied here: the state-level candidates had to play by more consistent rules and they couldn't justify attacking Hillary (although they sure as hell tried). As a result, they couldn't stir the anger and ire of their base voters. They had to stand on unpopular talking points of killing an increasingly popular Obamacare, of doing nothing on gun control, on obsessing over tax cuts to the rich that nobody earning under $70000 a year would support.

Other than a win in a special Congressional election in Utah, the Republicans were beaten in every other election night ballot issue, elective office (well, most of them), and referendum. Outside of Presidential election time cycles of massive shifts (2008, 1980, maybe 1994 midterms) this kind of turnaround is unheard of.

Why this is a clear rebuke of trump is because while he wasn't running for anything, these elections were a response to the ongoing corruption and ineptitude of his administration.

For the Democratic Party, last night was epic: after the debacle of losing the White House in 2016, these wins reflect how popular the Dems' political stances are with the electorate. This is vindication for the #Resistance efforts by outraged anti-trumpian forces getting into the local elections and defeating their Republican rivals. That a transgender woman was able to beat a hardcore homophobic Republican candidate is a perfect example of how Democrats are facing Republicans head on... with positive results.

NOW IS THE TIME WHEN WE DANCE

Things are looking up.

KEEP WORKING, DEMOCRATS. The 2018 Midterms are yours to win if you keep hitting the Republicans on issues they can't defend. Go after them on gun control. Stand up for Obamacare. DANCE MUTHAFUCKAS DANCE LIKE YOU'RE NUMBER 5 AT A CHRISTMAS PLAY.

And for the Love of GOD, America, recognize just what the Republicans are right now: Openly cavorting with racists, sexists, and Nazis; Pushing tax cuts for the rich we don't want NOR need; Trying to kill off healthcare coverage that more Americans realize they DO need; Trying to kill off Americans by letting the gun nuts shoot anybody they want...

This is both postscript to a bad 2016 result and prelude to a 2018 Democratic resurgence. This is still work to be done. Get to it.

The First Amendment Is Dead Along With All the Dead in Our Churches and Schools

Here's the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Anybody notice where the National Rifle Body Count Association creates a conflict here?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We can no longer practice our faith in this nation because our churches are getting shot up. Congress - thanks to their gun lobby overlords - refuses to do anything to regulate gun ownership to ensure our churches don't turn into target practice. By inaction, Congress is interfering with our First Amendment rights to go to church.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We can no longer as a People assemble peaceably. We can no longer go to movies, or shopping malls, or church services, or schools, or even more church services, or nightclubs, or Sikh religious services, or workplaces, or country music concerts, or baseball games, or public rallies, or anywhere at all because we live under the threat of an Angry Guy with guns just showing and opening fire with military-grade rifles with high-capacity ammo clips that can wipe out 200 to 500 people in a matter of minutes.

For God's sake. EVEN THE AMISH GET SHOT AT.

All because the National Everybody Else Gets Shot Association has the gun as their Golden Calf, and their profit margins as their Holy Scripture.

We can never be safe in public. We can never go to school or church or work without the nagging dread that we will get killed because an Angry Guy with enough firepower to kill hundreds in a single minute gets to express his rage and his bloodlust.

The First Amendment is dead. Shot to death on the streets of America by a Second Amendment that no longer has any merit or value to us.

You wanna know how to stop the next mass shooting, America? If we can't set up gun laws to perform universal background checks as 80 PERCENT OF US WANT DONE, if we can't set up gun laws to limit the size of ammo clips to reduce the number a single gunman can fire within seconds, if we can't pass legislation to limit ownership of military-level assault rifles that serve no other purpose than to clear out entire buildings within a minute?

Here's how we stop the next mass shooting:

Stay home.

Stop going to school. Stop going to church. Stop going out in public to shop, or attend concerts, or view movies. Close down the stock markets. Stop going to work.

Stay home.

Don't give Angry Guys with Guns any targets to shoot at.

Sure. We're killing off the entire economy if we do this.

But if it means ending the gun manufacturers' profits and bankrupting the NRA, so be it.

There is nothing else we can do. The First Amendment is Dead, why should we try to adhere to its principles of peaceful gatherings in public?

NaNoWriMo 2017: Day One

Start writing a novel, people.

50,000 words.

You know you need to.