Blood On the Streets Of Squirrel Hill

And today there was another mass shooting this time in a Pittsburgh suburb.

This time a Synagogue. A man with military firepower showed up reportedly shouting "Kill all the Jews" and opened fire. The body count is currently at 8 dead. At least three police officers were shot and wounded, there may well be more wounded (and dying) as well.

For what's been found about the shooter, his social media apparently marked him as a rabid Antisemitic bastard. His recent tweets were about the "Caravan" trump had been ranting against the past few weeks, and how the shooter believed "the Jews" were behind that "invasion" about to doom the entire nation.

In an odd twist, the shooter may have been a Far Right wingnut but he hated trump... because trump had Jews (his son-in-law Jared for example) on his staff. That's right. We're dealing with an asshole who thinks trump isn't enough of an asshole worth his support.

So here's your thread. This entire week (and it's not even over yet) has been one violent attack after another by angry men driven to that edge by Far Right Republican rhetoric.

• Angry White Guy in Kentucky with a history of domestic violence and signs of racism (posting rants against Black Lives Matter) goes off on Wednesday, tried to break into a Black church service, then settled on shooting dead two Blacks at a Kroger store before getting caught. Another White guy in the parking lot heard the shots and pulled his own gun on the murderer, only for the killer to beg mercy because "Whites don't shoot Whites." (THAT is the fucking White Privilege mindset in one goddamn quote)
• Angry White/Filipino Guy with a criminal history who obsesses with being Pro-trump wanted to kill everyone on trump's Enemies List, so he ships off more than a dozen bombs across the nation. Luckily most of the bombs were reportedly intentional duds (a scare tactic), but a handful of them were working when the bomb squads got to defuse them...
• Angry White Guy in Pittsburgh hated Jews, found justification in the Caravan fearmongering, and went on his killing spree.

All three of them with key similarities:

• Anger
• Fear of Diversity, or that the rights of minorities will override the rights ("the superiority of" in their eyes) of White (men)
• History of domestic violence (so far in the first two, the Squirrel Hill shooter's full background hasn't been made public yet. But I'd lay good odds he's got at least one restraining order from an ex-wife/ex-girlfriend)
• Existing within a media bubble of Far Right Narrative (the Kentucky shooter didn't show as much of it, but right now the MAGABomber and the Squirrel Hill shooter are both well-documented in social media thriving in that wingnut bubble)

Like Silverman noted before, which I quoted from yesterday: The rhetoric of the Far Right media - bashing Jews, bashing Blacks, bashing Women, bashing Gays, bashing Liberals, bashing everyone not of the Far Right Tribe - is creating a toxic environment where the most unstable and least-controller fringe members are likely to get "triggered" and turn into killers.

The leaders of the Far Right know what they're doing: they get to fill the airwaves with their Fearmongering - based more on emotional hype than on the facts or reality - to trigger enough idiots listening in, and then get to pose on the mainstream channels to beg off "oh well, it wasn't really what we said" or "free speech, bitches" or "he's just a Lone Wolf, you shouldn't portray an entire mob of Angry White Guys like that."

We have a lot of other things out there that can cause or trigger bad behavior in people: Drugs, violent video games, what have you. We take those things into context when dealing with the monsters who get triggered, and we try to keep those sources out of reach by restricting their sale or access, or at least try to counter with counseling and education.

But how can we counter this unending storm of toxic worldview? The Far Right is riling up their base to commit wholeheartedly to the final stage of a Culture War that means violence upon every minority and "non-person" on their checklist of targets.

This isn't a rehash of 1968. This is a bloody remake of 1860.

God help us.

The Far Right Boiling Of the National Mood

Told you I had an alibi:

Before he was arrested for mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent critics of President Donald Trump — some of which included pictures of the intended targets with a red “X” over their faces — Cesar Sayoc lived a scattered and bizarre life in South Florida.

He was an avid bodybuilder who trained in mixed martial arts and a former exotic dancer and strip club manager who held a string of odd jobs, among them a Papa John’s pizza deliveryman and a DJ. He bought a house in Fort Lauderdale, which was foreclosed on in 2009, lived with his parents in an Aventura condo, and most recently slept in a white van papered with pro-Trump and right-wing stickers.

Along the way, Sayoc racked up a long rap sheet for everything from grand theft and battery to making a bomb threat against Florida Power & Light. He was also accused of domestic violence by a woman who appears to have been his grandmother.

So of course it HAD to be a Florida Man. But it gets funkier:

But of all of his diverse interests, 56-year-old Sayoc’s fervent support for Trump appears to have been his greatest passion in recent years. Sayoc’s social media accounts were filled with photos of him wearing a red Make American Great Again baseball cap, videos of a Trump rally he attended in 2016 and pro-Trump news stories. He also shared racist memes and spouted conspiracy theories.

His Twitter timeline was a greatest-hits collection of right-wing conspiracy theories: that Parkland survivor David Hogg is a government plant, that Oprah Winfrey wants “this whole generation of white people” to die and that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is secretly Adolf Hitler’s daughter...

He lives in a world of Far Right Narrative, a comfort zone for Angry Guys who just happen to angry at minorities, women, libruls, moderates, gays, lesbians, Sportos, Motorheads, Geeks, Sluts, Bloods, Waistoids, and Dweebies (just not the Dickheads, because that's who the Angry Guys are).

It's the same kind of fantasy world that argued WMDs existed in Iraq, that tax cuts can raise wages and create jobs, that Hillary killed a whole list of victims and that Obama was secretly born a Muslim in Kenya. The fantasy world of Fox News and Breitbart and Drudge and Rush and Coulter and D'Souza and Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and O'Reilly and Hannity and Newsmax and more. A veritable industry of conspiracy theory that feeds on itself, with each dollar encouraging a greater lie requiring more members of the Far Right to repeat that lie until it becomes a foundation on which more lies can grow.

It's the same industry that's right now trying desperately to wash their hands of any responsibility for the MAGABomber's reign of error. Either blaming the Libruls for making the Far Right go all bomb-happy, or claiming it's a Lone Wolf who has NOTHING to do with being a red-hat-wearing trumpster (even though the guy is happily posing in pictures at trump rallies and shouting "LOCK HER UP" on videoclips).

But the bomber is NOT a Lone Wolf. There's a string of Far Right actors committing violent act after violent act all tied into that Far Right Narrative of "WE are under Attack From the Dread Other," with the WE being proud Whites of the Sacred Patriarchy (if there are women in this, they support that Patriarchy because it grants only them any power).

That Far Right Narrative is not just sitting there, like a novel on a reading table. It is actively prodding a willing and eager audience to pursue these paths of violence.

If I can link to Adam L Silverman at Balloon Juice:

...We also need to realize that what we’re dealing with is social learning driving terrorism and low intensity political violence. While Tom Nichols, who has been working through his own theory in regard to radicalization where he refers to these types of terrorists as Lost Boys, identified Sayoc’s domestic terrorism campaign without explicitly referring to it, it is actually the social learning and social behavioral drivers of terrorism.  This includes the normal four components of learning: 1) Primary associations, 2) Definitions favorable, unfavorable, and neutralizing to behavior, 3) Imitation, and 4) Reinforcement. It also includes the social learning components of neutralization (of definitions unfavorable to behavior) and drift...

What we have seen this week with Sayoc’s terrorism campaign, as well as with conservative and/or Republican elites and notables (elected officials, appointed officials, pundits, and commenters) and just supporters of the President who continue to toss around the idea that this is all a false flag or a hoax or somehow actually perpetrated by the intended targets to harm the President or the GOP’s electoral chances in two weeks, are perfect examples of social learning in general and neutralization and drift in specific. We can clearly observe:

1. Primary associations in regard to being an objective or subjective supporter of the President.
2. Learning definitions favorable, unfavorable, and neutralizing of behavior. Sayoc clearly learned from the President, as well as other Republican and conservative authority figures, that it is okay to target and vilify former and current Democratic officials or officials appointed by them, center left to left of center funders of liberal and progressive causes, CNN and other news media outlets that the President doesn’t like and often denigrates, and outspoken elite and notable critics of the President. We can also see this at play in the attempts to wave away this terrorist campaign by claiming it is fake news or a hoax perpetrated by the victims.
3. Reinforcement is also clearly present. Specifically, Sayoc received reinforcement from conservative news media and conservative social media as current and former Republican officials, news media figures, commenters, and pundits, as well as just a large number of the President’s supporters talked about and magnified Sayoc’s actions through the attempt to dismiss it with whataboutism and bothsiderism, as well as calling it fake news or a hoax or denying the legitimacy of the victimization of the actual targets.
4. While we haven’t specifically seen imitation yet, it will, unfortunately, likely appear in copycat actions over the next couple of weeks. And potential copycats do not necessarily have to copy the method of trying to make and use pipe bombs sent through the mail.

Both in the run up to today’s arrest and since Sayoc was taken into custody, all five elements of neutralization and drift that I delineated above are clearly explicitly observable. The Republican Party, especially its base membership, realigned to the perspective of the President, as well as conservative news media and conservative social media are all now a tool for radicalization. We can expect to see more Cesar Sayocs until conservative and Republican elites and notables make a stand...

The Republicans never will. They are profiting from this radicalization, and are doubling down with it - alongside voter suppression of minorities and youth voters who lean Democratic - to ensure they retain political power (because with it they can continue to shift wealth from the middle class to the rich (including themselves)).

The Republicans profit from a toxic and boiling stew of hatred, turning up the heat over the last 25 years of post-Cold-War politics to keep themselves at the top of the hill. As Silverman notes:

There are more Cesar Sayocs out there. Just as there were more Dylan Roofs as we saw in Kentucky on Wednesday (a white gunman starting shooting innocent Blacks and even tried to shoot up a Black church during services). And they’re marinating in the President’s and other elite and notable conservatives’ and Republicans’ toxic rhetoric. At some point they’ll reach the point where they have learned both enough of the definitions favorable to neutralize the prohibition against attacking other people, as well as who is an acceptable target from the President, from Republican elected and appointed officials, from Fox News, or from Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt or others on right wing talk radio, or from conservative social media across a variety of platforms, and when that happens they’ll take action. We can’t predict who the next Cesar Sayoc will be, nor can we predict who he or she, though it is most likely to be a he, will target, nor can we predict when it will happen. But unless something changes and soon, it will happen. And it will happen again and again and again...

The wingnut base of the GOP is just waiting for a sign. All trump has to do is send out the one tweet that says exactly what they want to hear - IT'S OKAY TO KILL OUR ENEMIES - and there will be blood in every street.

This is not guesswork. This has been seen in history again and again. It's been happening right now in real time in places like the Philippines. It is happening with every Angry White Guy yelling at Blacks on airplanes and in cars and at public parks and everywhere else. The anger is boiling. The mindset of violence is right there.

It is only a matter of time before the real bombs go off.

Gods help us.

I Have An Alibi

Today has been totally abuzz about the mass-pipe-bombs-in-the-mail story (via Mary Olmstead at Slate):

A string of suspicious packages addressed to prominent Democratic figures and at least one news outlet have been discovered by the Secret Service in recent days. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been among the intended recipients of the devices, some of which have been identified as pipe bombs. Here is what we know so far:

The first suspicious package was discovered Monday in the mailbox of well-known liberal donor and philanthropist George Soros’ home in Bedford, New York, authorities said. After a caretaker found the device, a bomb squad detonated it. Authorities described the device as a six-inch-long pipe filled with explosive powder and rigged with a detonator. Federal authorities said they believed the device was hand-delivered, according to the New York Times.

On Wednesday morning, news broke that the Secret Service had intercepted an explosive device addressed to Hillary and Bill Clinton in Westchester County, New York, where they have a home. Soon after, the Secret Service also revealed it had found a device addressed to Barack Obama in Washington, D.C, where he lives. The packages were discovered as part of a routine mail screening, according to a statement, and no one was harmed...

CNN got a package just as they were reporting the stories on the earlier packages. Say hello to the madness of 24/7 Instant Terror Strikes. The CNN pipe was addressed to ex-CIA chief John Brennan, who happens to be 1) a major anti-Trump critic and 2) working at MSNBC, so we're definitely dealing with moronic bombers here.

Anyway:

A fourth suspicious package was reportedly found at the Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman. NBC News has reported that the suspicious packages sent to Soros, the Clintons, and Obama listed Wasserman Schultz for the return address. CNN reported that the package found at Wasserman Schultz’s office might have actually been intended for former Attorney General Eric Holder: According to CNN, a suspicious package was addressed to Holder, but it was addressed incorrectly and rerouted to the return address. NBC has also reported that Secret Service intercepted a package addressed to Holder, but it is unclear if the two reports are about the same package.

Additional targets seem to be Rep. Maxine Waters, a prominent House Democrat, with the likelihood others may be getting these packages due to delivery methods of the USPS (the Postal Service is currently working to find out if any similar packages are still shipping). The reports note that all of the packages had Wasserman Schultz's address as the return address.

So here's what we know:

1) Bomber(s) specifically wanted Debbie Wasserman Schultz to be the scapegoat.

2) He/She/It can't SPELL worth a damn (spelled Florids...? worst misspell of Florida since 2000) and has no idea where people actually work.

3) Targeted all the major names - not just political figures like Obama and Clintons but also the media critics as well as Soros - routinely mentioned by the Far Right as "enemies" that need eliminating.

4) Bomber(s) had the time and ability - and also the money - to build multiple bombs and then ship them all out at the same time (and at least travel in-person to deliver a select few). With a chance there are MORE of these bombs out there.

5) This is more speculative than fact, but: Bomber(s) may not have sent working bombs: it's a bit surprising none of the pipe bombs have gone off, especially the ones that reportedly were hand-delivered (those are the ones you KNOW you want to go off but are afraid of blowing up in shipment and killing an innocent).

The Far Right are running around claiming this is all a "fake news" attempt by Liberals to label Republicans as mad bomber terrorists just as the midterm elections are reaching Election Day (AKA the "October Surprise" period). Problem is, the simplest explanation is usually the most likely: The simplest explanation is that one of trump's raving supporters in a Red MAGA hat has bought into trump's rhetoric against Democrats and media critics and took the next step towards "action".

Using Wasserman Schultz as the "sender" suggests the bomber(s) has/have a personal grudge against her: the only ones on the Far Left who would do that would be the BernieBro crowd who blamed her for "conspiring" with Hillary to stop Sanders from winning the 2016 primaries. But it would make little or no sense for them to send pipe bombs to still-popular figures like Obama or to prominent trump critics like Brennan. Did any Bernie supporters openly blame Soros for their losses? I don't recall. When it comes to Soros, *his* biggest attackers are ALL on the Far Right.

When you look at the list of targets we know of right now - Hillary (and Bill), Soros, Obama, Brennan, Waters, Holder - they are all the major stars of every Far Right conspiracy theory floating out there. That the bomber(s) come from that world is the solution that makes the most sense.

As for myself, I swear I have nothing to do with any of this. My schemes are more complex, I'd never be so stupid as to use the SAME name on an address, and my real plans involve... uh... wait a second... ooooh, you sly dogs, you almost got me monologing!

I was busy today proctoring an exam for a city hire. That's my excuse and I'M STICKING TO IT.

Update: I TOLD YOU I HAVE AN ALIBI. Dammit, STOP SNIFFING AROUND OPA-LOCKA! I mean, um, ahem, I've never been to Opa-Locka I swear...

A Statement On Core Principles

So, when it comes down to it, what are the issues I care about the most? On what hills will I stand and fight to ensure those beliefs remain core components of the United States I believe in?

My core principles on key political issues:

1. The rich, and large corporate entities, should be taxed at a higher rate than middle-income and low-income Americans to ensure fairness in the tax burden. This includes rigorous enforcement of upper incomes and large corporations to stop tax evasion.
2. Businesses must be regulated to ensure workplace safety, clean environments, fair access to products and services, high pay and benefits equal to the work performed, and consumer / community protection from any form of fraud.
3. All Americans 18 and older have the right to vote and shall not be blocked, suppressed, or denied their right to vote. Registration must be free and universal to all citizens. If imprisoned, Americans shall immediately regain their right to vote once their sentences are served or are on parole.
4. All Americans provided affordable healthcare across the board as a human right.
5. All Americans provided free public education for children, and affordable public education for all those of college age, as a human right
6. All Americans given personal control of their bodies and health with regards to reproductive rights, meaning affordable and unhindered access to birth control, women’s healthcare services, and abortion as a medical right.
7. All Americans have the right to know that the federal, state, and local governments that represent them are not committing crimes and human rights abuses, and that any agent, official or elected representative committing such crimes be punished (meaning no statute of limitations on those persons).
8. Americans have the right to be protected from active, violent, and spiteful racism / sexism, where haters do NOT have the right to attack someone because of their skin color, their ethnic origin, their gender, their gender preference, or their religion. As much as this means everyone SHOULD be protected, in practice this means protecting the rights and safety of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Jews, Hindi, Sikhs, Women, Gays, Trans, and other minorities from the hate groups that are predominately White Protestant (mostly Male) Assholes.
9. No radio personality or disk jockey shall speak over the opening, middle, or ending of a song. The next SOB who talks just as Pat Benatar starts whistling towards the end of “Love Is a Battlefield” will be executed with extreme prejudice. I don’t care if there’s just 30 seconds of the song left, I WANNA HEAR THE SONG NOT YOU.
10. No more lying in politics. All elected officials, candidates for office, and personnel hired to work for them or our government agencies shall be held to an ethical standard that will punish them for false, hypocritical, and misleading public statements. If you can’t speak truthfully and factually on a matter you can always say “No comment.”

This is what I want to see. This is what I hope for.

Does this make me liberal? Perhaps. But I look at Europe where liberalism and conservatism both agree roughly on public welfare matters like healthcare and education, so I don't think that is what's at issue here. I've seen some self-declared conservatives speak in favor of public schools and affordable healthcare, as well as speak for protecting the rights of minorities. It's not the issues themselves requiring extremism to defend or oppose.

What does matter is HOW such plans are enacted. To what degree can we support the public welfare? What's most sensible about regulating businesses for safe practices? THIS is where the ideological fights SHOULD be, where being a Big Letter Liberal and Big Letter Conservative and Big Letter Moderate would matter. This is where being the Liberal would seek massive support and broad freedoms, where the Conservative would be the skeptic honestly concerned about the costs, where the Moderate would find a pragmatic middle ground that would make the thing work as well and as long as possible. This is where I find myself as a Moderate: I want solutions that work and work well for the long term.

But this is where I split hard against Republicans. Where the Democrats - actively engaged among their own ranks between Centrist and Progressive stances - are amenable and solutions-oriented about the issues that matter to me (and hopefully most of you), the Republicans have gone Full Metal Dogmatic. 

The modern GOP -  reflecting not Conservative values but Reactionary values - does not want debate on ANY of those issues. The modern GOP is absolutely opposed to reasonable tax hikes on upper incomes, they want to slash-and-burn. They WANT to cut the social safety net to nothing. In practice at the state level I've seen Republicans gut funding for schools and teachers, and blocked improved funding for healthcare out of sheer spite. The Far Right wants to eliminate abortion (AND women's healthcare) as a safe practice, and oppose sensible affordable access to birth control not because they're pro-Life (they're not even that) but because they're pro-Judgment (they want to demean/control/depower women).

And dear GOD: The way the Republican Party acts towards Blacks and Latinos (and Muslims) should make any honest citizen sick to their stomachs.

The modern Republican Party wants to deny the rights - the right to vote, the right to learn, the right to LIVE - of every person who's NOT White, or Rich, or Male, or over the age of 50. That's all I see of that party anymore.

That's why I keep screaming FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Because I have principles. And the Republican Party does not.

Early Voting Guide to Florida 2018

Okay, just to remind people that some counties already have Early Voting going like Broward, some starting on Wednesday October 24 like Pasco, and some counties won't start until Thursday October 25 like in Polk, SO PLEASE CHECK YOUR COUNTY ELECTIONS WEBSITE TO CONFIRM DATES AND LOCATIONS.

Early Voting helps make sure you don't get stuck in long lines on Election Day itself, because some precincts - in suspiciously enough urban / minority areas - get overwhelmed due to few working ballot machines. >:-(

Just remember these tips:

1) The Republicans are going all-out in their voter suppression efforts, so even if you are told you got knocked off the rolls you still have the right to request a Provisional Ballot and a receipt that you voted.

2) Make sure you show up with the right IDs: A voter registration card and one of several forms of Photo ID to stop the Republicans trying to deny your right to vote.

3) Once you get a ballot and vote, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY REPUBLICAN IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. You may have to do some research on the down-ballot votes for county offices and judgeships, so find the county GOP headquarters and document the names on their street signs and AVOID VOTING FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. If you're stuck without a named alternative, hope for a Write-In line and coordinate with your neighbors and friends on a person you think will do a better job. If you have no alternatives at all, leave that spot blank.

3a) If you need a refresher on the State Amendments to vote For or Against, here's my review. If anything, PLEASE VOTE YES on Amendment Four and PLEASE VOTE NO against Amendments One, Two, Five, Six and Ten I thankye.

4) Be prepared for an insane Election night, as voter suppression could well mock how the polls are tracking results. The one advantage against voter suppression is TURNOUT: The more people who vote, the harder it is to subvert the numbers. They can't afford to make the results look 53 percent GOP - 47 percent Dem if the polling says it should have gone Dem by 55 percent. Too many angry people will be asking too many questions. So they can't suppress too many people all at once, and they can't hack all the machines to flip ballots.

Turnout Beats Suppression. SO PLEASE VOTE.

Tomorrow's a Busy Day For Me (w/ Update)

It's one of the reasons why I haven't been posting so much even as the political craziness has ticked up.

We'll see how the day goes, if I end in glory or third place. :)

UPDATE:

...
...
...
...
...
I didn't even get third place.

I'm currently in a mood. Depressed AND Pissed. I've only been like this once before, and you bastards know when that happened.

Getting Down to the Wire 2018 Midterms

Dear Florida:

Make sure you are registered to vote. Check this link. Make sure you have a valid ID to go with your voter ID.

If you know you are supposed to be registered but have been knocked off the rolls, fight back.

You have the right to request a Provisional Ballot and a receipt for it if you are being challenged from voting.

You have the right to vote early to avoid the long lines that may occur at your precinct. You have the right to stay in line to vote once you get to your precinct before it's supposed to close (this is a major issue in large metros and few working locations).

You need to know when and where Early Voting in your county will take place, for Florida it is October 27 through November 3.

The General Midterms election is Tuesday November 6.

SHOW UP AND VOTE.

Show up and Vote Democratic up and down the entire goddamn ballot. NO REPUBLICANS.

Kick Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott the hell out of here. Keep Bill Nelson in the Senate.

Stop Ron "Slavery Was Great" DeSantis from getting anywhere near the Governor's office. Vote for Andrew Gillum to restore balance and defend the majority's interests for our state.

Vote for every Democrat in the Congressional and State Legislature seats out there. We've had 20 straight years of Republican dominance in this state and all we've got to show for it are broken schools, poisoned waters from our lakes and rivers to the oceans themselves, and a harshly underfunded Family Services program that's harming our children.

Get the damn vote out, Florida.

Don't let this Midterms be another year of no-shows. The interest levels are supposed to be up. Prove those numbers right, do better than what the polls are saying. VOTER TURNOUT BEATS VOTER SUPPRESSION EVERY TIME.

Get the damn vote out, Florida.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Personal Note: Time Flies After High School

I don't wanna date myself, but yeah I probably am when I mention my 30th high school reunion is happening this Saturday.

30 years of having survived.

Looking back through ye olde yearbook, and lordy was the 1980s a high point for mullets and feathered hair.

Enjoy your weekend as much as possible, but don't forget FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

The Damage Done. Only The Rage Remains

Dear America.

Dear Every 65 Million People Who Voted for Hillary.

Dear Every Woman, and Every Man Who Are Not Driven By Misogyny.

FOR
THE
LOVE
OF
GOD
STOP
THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY.

DO NOT VOTE
FOR ANY REPUBLICAN
AT ANY LEVEL
OF GOVERNMENT
EVER AGAIN.

They have betrayed everyone.
They have sold us out to Russia.
They have broken our tax code to enrich the greedy.
They have mocked and shamed every rape victim.
And they are not done. Not at all.

The Republicans are poised to shred:

• Every voting right we have
• Every Black's right to live
• Every Woman's right to be her own person
• Every Latino's right to be citizens
• Every Teen's right to not get shot at school
• Every poor person's chance to get out of poverty
• Every sick person's chance to get healthy
• Every child's need to grow up educated and ready

PLEASE
DO NOT VOTE
FOR ANY REPUBLICAN
AT ANY LEVEL
OF GOVERNMENT
EVER AGAIN.

The midterms election is November 6. That's one month.

Get the vote out FOR every Democrat you can. If there's no Dem on the ticket, vote for the Independent. If there's no Indy candidate, pray to God there's a Write-In ballot and pick someone to fill that spot.

PLEASE
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
DO NOT VOTE
FOR ANY REPUBLICAN
AT ANY LEVEL
OF GOVERNMENT
EVER AGAIN.

Update 10/18/18: I apologize for neglecting my attention to this blog, been busy at work and elsewhere, so I didn't notice Batocchio had linked this to Mike's Blog Round-Up until two days later. My bad. Thanks for visiting, please check out the rest of my blog!

Rage

There is every sign the Senate Republicans are bulldozing ahead to vote FOR Kavanaugh this weekend.

Even in the face of evidence that Kavanaugh lied in public, lied to Congress (which used to be a punishable offense back when these things mattered), lied about being a drunken teenager and lied about being a sexual predator, even with all of that the Republicans are willing - desperate - to vote a scuzbucket into one of the highest offices in the land.

There is every proof that the Republican Party as a whole is now made up of unthinking unfeeling monsters who revel in the misery and suffering of their victims (everyone else, and even sometimes their own).

There is every last bit of evidence you need, America. There is every little fact that myself and thousands of others - John Cole, Stonekettle, Infidel, Carpetariat, Rude Pundit, driftglass, Tengrain, Digby, so many others - have been trying to tell you the last twenty, thirty, FIFTY years:

The Republican Party is evil.

The midterm elections are next month.

FOR
THE
LOVE
OF
GOD
DO NOT
VOTE
REPUBLICAN
AT
ALL.

Of The Facts, Of the Truths

While the FBI spends its week investigating Kavanaugh to appease Jeff Flake. we should consider this tiny little tidbit.

How We Know Kavanaugh is Lying, written by Nathan Robinson over at Current Affairs.

Let’s leave aside the procedural questions about if and how an investigation should proceed. Given what we know now, after the hearings, what can we conclude for certain? Let’s just say we do not know whether to believe Ford or Kavanaugh, that we found both of their testimonies equally likely to be true. In a state of uncertainty, we’d be left with a tricky situation. The truth or falsity of the allegation against Kavanaugh is extremely important; if it’s true, not only did he attack a woman three decades ago, but he lied shamelessly about it under oath, forcing Ford through a humiliating public process that led to her receiving death threats. If what Ford says is true, then not only should Brett Kavanaugh not be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but he should be impeached and removed from the federal judiciary entirely, disbarred, and prosecuted for perjury...

I want to show you, clearly and definitively, how Brett Kavanaugh has lied to you and lied to the Senate. I cannot prove that he committed sexual assault when he was 17, and I hesitate to draw conclusions about what happened for a few minutes in a house in Maryland in the summer of 1982. But I can prove quite easily that Kavanaugh’s teary-eyed “good, innocent man indignant at being wrongfully accused” schtick was a facade. What may have looked like a strong defense was in fact a very, very weak and implausible one...

Let’s begin with Kavanaugh’s denial.

Here is what he says: “I never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation...”

...Kavanaugh says that he never attended any event like this. Like what, though? He never attended a small gathering in Bethesda where people were drinking beer? Kavanaugh submitted his own calendars from the summer of 1982 into evidence for the Senate. As he said himself, “the calendars show a few weekday gatherings at friends’ houses after a workout or just to meet up and have some beers.” He says that he never attended a gathering like this, but that’s obviously false, because the type of gathering he says he did attend is exactly the kind she describes...

The article goes into focused detail into each element of Kavanaugh's story, so you should read it and then move on to the next set of lies by the judge:

Ford alleges that at the time of the assault, Kavanaugh and Judge were “visibly drunk.” The other allegations against Kavanaugh, by Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, suggest that Kavanaugh participated in a rowdy drinking culture as a young man, and that the abuse occurred under the influence of alcohol. Swetnick says she “observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls.” So drinking forms a major part of all the allegations, and facts about Kavanaugh’s history with alcohol bear on the plausibility of all three.

Kavanaugh has not only denied engaging in abuse, but has rejected the entire idea of him as having been an excessive and rowdy drinker. In his testimony and his interview with FOX News, Kavanaugh portrayed himself as having been a shy, studious, churchgoing virgin who worked a summer job and focused on community service and team sports...

His decision to present himself as squeaky clean, rather than wayward but subsequently redeemed, brings us to some of the most absurd untruths of Kavanaugh’s whole testimony. The evidence that he was more than an ordinary social drinker is voluminous. His yearbook lists him as treasurer of the “Keg City Club,” and his entry says “100 Kegs or Bust,” apparently referring to a “campaign by his friends to empty 100 kegs of beer during their senior year.” (Not a single senator asked him why his yearbook said “100 kegs or bust,” and the word “keg” doesn’t even appear in the hearing transcript.) It also says he was the “biggest contributor” to the Beach Week Ralph Club, which he admitted was a reference to vomiting. Here’s Liz Swisher, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who is now chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine:

"Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling… There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess."

Here’s Daniel Livan, who lived in Kavanaugh’s dorm:

“I definitely saw him on multiple occasions stumbling drunk where he could not have rational control over his actions or clear recollection of them… His depiction of himself is inaccurate.”

There's too many witnesses to Kavanaugh's drunken ways.

In total, the New York Times cited “nearly a dozen people” who knew Kavanaugh and confirmed he was a “heavy drinker.” Kavanaugh also hosted weekly tailgates while at Yale. [Update: on Sunday another Yale classmate said Kavanaugh was belligerent when drunk, that he saw Kavanaugh staggering from intoxication, and on one occasion “I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.”] Kavanaugh’s close high school friend Mark Judge even wrote a memoir called Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, which featured a character called “Bart O’Kavanaugh” passing out from partying and puking in a car. Judge even mentioned “Bart” in the yearbook, suggesting this was probably a high school nickname or inside joke...

Why take Kavanaugh's word when so many others have been consistent in describing him and his behaviors not only now but in stories told years before now?

'Cause here's a few more stories about him:

Let us turn to two more lies, which both appear minor but have important implications. First is the case of poor Renate.

Renate Dolphin was a contemporary of Kavanaugh’s when he was at Georgetown Prep and she was at school nearby, and initially signed a letter supporting him. In Kavanaugh’s yearbook, some of the football players, including Kavanaugh, used the cryptic phrase “Renate Alumni.” Two ex-Georgetown Prep classmates told the New York Times that boys were bragging (truthfully or not, probably not) about sex with Renate. Sean Hagan said that Kavanaugh and his teammates “were very disrespectful, at least verbally, with Renate. I can’t express how disgusted I am with them, then and now.” Dolphin herself didn’t know about the yearbook page when she signed the support letter, and when she discovered it was horrified...

But instead of admitting that they had been terrible to Renate, four of the football players said that the references to her in the yearbook “were intended to allude to innocent dates or dance partners.” Kavanaugh himself blamed the dirty-minded circus media for taking a sweet tribute and construing it as something obscene:

“That yearbook reference was clumsily intended to show affection, and that she was one of us. But in this circus, the media’s interpreted the term is related to sex. It was not related to sex.” … “She’s a good person. And to have her named dragged through this hearing is a joke. And, really, an embarrassment.”

Renate herself certainly didn’t interpret it as a display of friendship when she found out about it. But if you’re credulous enough to believe Kavanaugh’s denial, the definitive proof that it’s horseshit is that elsewhere in the yearbook, one of the boys has printed the following charming ditty:

“You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate.”

There can be no doubt that not only were the boys trying to obliquely call Renate a slut (whether or not any sex actually transpired is irrelevant), but Kavanaugh is now rather despicably trying to pose as the defender of a woman he unrepentantly humiliated...

I remember in high school the same kind of story-sharing alluding to certain girls as sluts whether they were or not. When I look at the story about Renate, it reminds me exactly the sick rumors spread about Tarpon High.

Also:

Shall we do one more lie? I know it’s getting late, and there is more that needs to be covered. But let’s talk about the Devil’s Triangle. This is common slang for a threesome between one woman and two men. Kavanaugh’s yearbook page contains the phrase, which presumably seemed amusing to sneak into print. When he was questioned about it, however, Kavanaugh replied:

WHITEHOUSE: Devil’s triangle?
KAVANAUGH: Drinking game.
WHITEHOUSE: How’s it played?
KAVANAUGH: Three glasses in a triangle.
WHITEHOUSE: And?
KAVANAUGH: You ever played quarters?
WHITEHOUSE: No (ph).
KAVANAUGH: OK. It’s a quarters game.

Senator Whitehouse (of course) then moved on. But Kavanaugh’s testimony is more significant than someone who hadn’t heard the phrase before might think. That’s because nobody seems to have heard of such a drinking game. It doesn’t exist. Kavanaugh made up a fictitious game in order to sustain his phony image as a high schooler who knew nothing about sex and therefore could never have attempted to rape a woman (or, as Ford alleges, coerce her into a threesome, sometimes called a “Devil’s triangle.”) Kavanaugh’s falsehood here was blatant, and a supporter rushed to edit the Wikipedia page for the term to fabricate the existence of such a game and pretend it had existed all along.

It's not only that Kavanaugh is lying about a Devil's Triangle - I'm an honest-to-god virgin and even I know it means a threesome - but in order to cover it up he has to admit he's a regular enough drinker when he was 17 years old to partake of drinking games. His lie about Devil's Triangles betrays his lie about never being a drunk in prep school.

Kavanaugh, so desperate to win a Supreme Court seat he has no temperament for, is lying at every conceivable moment to make himself look good against every factual evidence out there, even at odds with his own testimony. A decent county prosecutor could take him apart on the stand within minutes.

It is that simple a truth that Kavanaugh should not be a judge.

Florida Ballot Amendments 2018: These Things Matter, SO VOTE

It's the midterms again, and that means one thing:

Getting the vote out and throwing every Republican out of office!

Well, okay, here in Florida it means TWO things:

That first thing, AND we've got another round of Amendment ballot measures to vote on.

Lemme just link here to Ballotpedia for their easy-to-access listing of items on the upcoming November referendum... If you want a different take on the amendments, here's a link to the Tampa Bay Times' recommendations.

As a reminder, there's normally two ways for an amendment to reach the ballot: Legislative Referred, and Initiated (public) Referred. There's also a third way: a Committee Referred from a Constitution Revision Commission that forms every 20 years. This means there can be a sh-t-ton of ballot measures this cycle. Thank God the courts (try to) weed out the bad amendments before they reach the voters...

Here now for your entertainment are the ballots that may be up for 60 percent approval to pass (some of them are still pending judicial review and may be taken off):

Amendment One: Homestead Exemption Increase

The thing I keep worrying about: cutting back on any kind of property tax that would cut into our cities and counties' ability to raise their own revenue to pay for sh-t.

Whenever there's a tax-related referendum, consider this rule: Who Profits From The Tax Cuts? In this case, the amendment offers to raise the Homestead Exemption for properties valued above $125,000 (that is, for families living in the hint expensive suburbs). This takes a lot of property taxes out of county and city coffers, and shifts the tax burden onto property renters and those properties that DON'T make the value range.

On a personal note, the place I live does not value above $125,000. I will miss qualifying for the exemption. So, yeah, f-ck it I have no reason to vote for this bull. Even the ones who DO qualify, just remember this will f-ck up your county's ability to repair your water and electric utilities and your roads and your parks and libraries and your cultural events and...

For the love of God VOTE NO.

Amendment Two: Permanent Cap on NonHomestead Parcel Assessment

Did I stutter? Back to Rule One of any tax-related referendum: who profits from it?

There had been a ten-year cap on tax assessment to avoid making properties more costly at a time (2008) when property values took a serious hit due to the Housing bubble nightmare (you NEED to see the movie The Big Short, okay?). Now that the recession is over and property values are rising naturally in a growing economy, it would be helpful to city and county governments to regain a solid tax base on the property taxes they raise. Making that cap permanent kills our local governments' revenue-raising abilities.

This is a big NO vote, Florida.

Amendment Three: Casino Gambling

On its face, this amendment is requiring that any further Casino/Gambling legislation in the state of Florida depends on the voters passing amendment referendums like this one to allow it.

Just a reminder, gambling is not a harmless vice. It impoverishes people, puts some into debt. While states could raise revenues from managing it - just look at the Lotto system - it can well be a regressive revenue methid. Making it a requirement for the voters to approve of the matter overall doesn't seem like a bad idea.

It's just - like the Tampa Bay Times editorial notes - this is more a matter of the legislature. Requiring a referendum on gambling all the time means extra footwork and debating at a level that most voters might actually tune out.

Personally, I'm ambivalent about this amendment. I'm not a huge fan of gambling - although I may buy a Powerball ticket if the jackpot is over $150 Million (it is?) - but I don't think making extra roadblocks to the debate is a way to resolve it as a political issue.

Amendment Four: Felon Voter Enfranchisement

This is the big one.

One of the Republicans' biggest tricks holding onto power as a Minority Party has been voter suppression. One of the best weapons they have on that is the current laws that prevent convicted felons from keeping their right to vote even AFTER they've served their time and passed parole. SEE Jeb Bush's voter purge before 2000.

Currently there's a system in place where ex-felons have to petition the Governor's office for reinstatement for voting rights, and that is a system where clear bias will filter out all of one party in favor of the Governor's (which has been Republican since 1998). It's a clearly unfair process.

This amendment makes it automatically restore Right-to-Vote for people with prior convictions, except murder and violent sex crimes (those still have to go through the Governor's office, apparently).

This is, essentially, the key to allowing non-violent offenders - mostly those imprisoned for things like drug possession or burglary - regain their rights as citizens with a voice with their vote.

I will argue this is necessity: Isn't the whole point of parole and reform to allow criminals a chance - their RIGHT - to rejoin society? They served their time: Denying the vote is just further punishment. This would be positive reinforcement to encourage engagement in community. This amendment also weakens the abuse of a legal system that has a troubling habit of imprisoning the poor as a means of silencing their power to speak out.

This amendment needs to pass, Florida. Our legislature and Governor's office will fight it because it improves the rights of the poor and the minorities who suffer a disproportionate amount under the current system. Who profits from this amendment? Every resident will.

Vote YES.

Amendment Five: Two-Thirds Legislative Vote to Raise Taxes or Fees

If this looks familiar, it's tied into the ongoing wingnut obsession to prevent governments from EVER raising taxes to pay for sh-t.

Thing is, we've SEEN what happens when a state government is unable to break past the 2/3rd tax rule. California had a rule like that - Prop 13 - and for decades they faced ongoing budget woes because enough Republicans squashed any attempt to pass that hurdle.

So California voters turned against the Republicans and voted them out of power. That and their anti-immigrant stance pretty much killed the California GOP.

If this amendment passes, regardless of which party is in control of Florida's government, we will not be able to balance our state's budget through sharing the costs via taxes. Our state would have to cut services, cut school funding, cut environmental support, cut transportation/road repairs, cut family services (which is already an underfunded godless nightmare), cut food stamps, cut everything.

You wanna cap on spending for government services? Force your GOP legislator to man up and get his hands dirty instead of rigging the rules to make it harder no matter what.

This should be the easiest f-cking NO vote on your ballot. This is the Far Right's attempt to kill public services in our state.

Amendment Six: Victims Rights, Judicial Retirement Cap, Agency Deferral in Court Cases

This is one of the Commission ballots, and you're gonna start noticing a weird pattern of... well, dumping different ideas into one container and trying to sell it as a box of gold.

This Amendment actually has three parts: There is a Victims Right part known as Marsy's Law that tries to protect crime victims and their families from harassment and intimidation; There is a part that increases the retirement age of state judges to 75 (to match most others' states); And there is a part that blocks the state courts from deferring to a state agency's expertise on interpreting a law. This is the sticking point: Courts like to get input from the agencies implementing certain laws because the legislatures tend to leave the wording of their laws vague to clear interpretation. By blocking that input, this Amendment would force the courts to rely only on the legislature's intent (which is, again, vague because politicians hate getting nailed to anything).

Just on the third part, you shouldn't consider this Amendment. But the annoying thing here: This is bad law. There's three different provisions to this amendment that ought to be voted on separately.

They're trying to get people to vote for the one thing that matters - the victims' rights - to one thing that the legislature ought to do itself - raise retirement age - and then to one thing that would make our legal system worse - denying courts from getting administrative input.

Just vote NO on this. It's a trap, people.

Amendment Seven: First Responders and Military Survivor Benefits, College Fees, and College System

This is the same problem as Amendment Six. WHAT THE F-CK DOES SURVIVOR BENEFITS HAVE TO DO WITH COLLEGE REFORMS?

Okay. Okay, let's look at the provision that makes this a bad amendment: Forcing the state universities to get a supermajority (9 out of 13) vote from their governing board to raise fees. College has been getting costly, yes, but there are reasons for that and like it or not the universities have to raise fees to keep their doors open. Making it harder to do so would force schools to shut down programs or worse close altogether (SEE the near-destruction of LSU a few years back).

Another thing about the Survivor Benefits portion is that it's useless: Military survivors already get benefits from the federal government and what does this amendment even have to do with that?

Just Vote NO. Please. This is a bad idea. Force the legislature to do its damn job.

Amendment Eight: Already blocked.

Ugh. Let's not even look at why...

Amendment Nine: Offshore Oil Drilling, and Office Vaping

This is an amendment making it harder to drill for oil offshore - which can cause environmental catastrophes - and also make it harder to smoke electronically - called vaping - indoors.

...WHAT THE EVERF-CKING HELL IS THIS?

WHAT DOES OFFSHORE DRILLING HAVE TO DO WITH VAPING???

Okay, look, I know this is an environmental concern, and workplace air quality concern, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT SANDWICH THESE TWO THINGS TOGETHER AND CALL IT A MEAL. I mean, Christ, just focus on the offshore drilling, THAT'S a serious concern and should pass. The vaping thing should be done separately in an actual legislative law. WTF. WTF!!!!!

Ahem. I know people wanna block the offshore drilling and I'm tempted to vote YES myself, so most voters will look past the vaping thing. But seriously people, don't encourage this sh-t.

Amendment Ten: County Agencies and Executive Offices Reforms, Change of Legislative Dates

This is another odd one of mashed-up ideas.

• Requires the state to form a Department of Veterans Affairs (?) and a Department of Counter-Terrorism (???),
• Require the State legislature to convene on the Second Tuesday of January every even year (I think the legislature is a part-time job but do they even show up for odd-numbered years???),
• Prevents county governments from removing certain agencies like the Sheriff's Department and require those departments are elective offices.

My mind boggles at the problems that would arise from a Department of Counter-Terror, something that ought to be and IS handled at a FEDERAL Level. It may help for a retirement state like Florida to have a Veterans Affairs office but how much of it would be overlap with the Federal VA? This just seems like bureaucratic overreach... and I am terrified of the implications of what a Republican-led government would think of as a terrorist group (those a-holes still haven't explained why they spy on Quakers all the time!).

The second part about requiring a different starting date to open the State Lege ought to stand on its own.

What I see happening here is the third part of this bad amendment: What this is doing doesn't make the local governments more responsive to voters, this is making those governments more dependent on state intervention. The state will force certain counties to keep open agencies that they may need to close (if even temporarily) should those agencies go bad or corrupt (hello, problematic Sheriff's departments).

The first two parts of this amendment cannot cover up how much the third part looks and smells like a bad deal. Vote NO on this.

Amendment Eleven: A Catch-All Amendment for Repealing a Lot of Junk?

There's three weird things here as well:

• Getting rid of a constitutional prohibition for "foreign-born persons ineligible for citizenship" from owning or inheriting property;
• Clearing out an obsolete provision for high-speed trains in Florida; 
• Ending a confusing provision that "an amendment to a criminal statute does not affect the prosecution of a crime committed before the statute's amendment."

The first part gets rid of aged legal terminology for an Alien Land law that's racist and already proved unconstitutional in other states, so it's something the courts could well take care of on its own. The rest of this looks like it's weeding out bad amendments from earlier eras... but again this is stuff that needs to be done in separate amendments, not one goddamn package of junk.

On this one, I'd vote YES to get rid of the racist stuff in the first part, but I'll be holding my nose when I do so.

Amendment Twelve: Compensation for Public Officials

On the face of it, this amendment "prohibits public officials from lobbying for compensation during the official's term in office and for six years after the official leaves office, and prohibits public officials from using the office to obtain a disproportionate benefit."

It doesn't look wrong, but when you consider it's by the Commission that's offered up a bunch of junk amendments, you need to take a closer look.

This makes it a constitutional limit on lobbying that in most respects should be an Ethics law the legislature should pass and enforce. Putting it into the constitution makes it harder to reform or fix it should unexpected consequences turn up.

I'd hesitate on voting YES on this, if only because - again - this may not need to be so set in stone.

Amendment Thirteen: Dog Races Betting Prohibition

This one again is something that the State legislature could pass as a law, but they're handing it over to the voters because the Lege couldn't be bothered.

The effects of this amendment would likely end dog racing as a sport in Florida, and all things considered I don't think it's an industry that's been doing well lately (the mistreatment of greyhounds is a major problem). On that as a moral issue, I'd vote YES, but again the Lege should be doing this, not the voters.


So that's the amendment ballot for Florida this November.

One troubling thing I'm seeing this year is a mashup of both reform ideas and reactionary sabotage being shoved together in Amendments that would otherwise be treated as separate issues. It's as though the Florida Legislature and the Commission are trying to plug bad laws into the system by using reform ideas that would appeal to an increasingly progressive voter base in Florida (note that a lot of Floridians are pro-marijuana, pro-schools, and pro-environment against the desires of the GOP leadership).

So all in all, PLEASE stay focused on Amendment Four, and probably consider and vote YES on Nine and Thirteen: Make sure those pass. Of the ones to reject, PLEASE reject Amendments One, Two, Five, Six, Seven, and Ten. Seriously, make damn sure One, Two and Five DIE DIE DIE because those will kill our state's ability to raise revenues when we NEED to.

And again a reminder: STOP F-CKING VOTING REPUBLICAN. We've had 25-30 years of their sh-t dominating the Florida State legislature and we've got poisoned waters, collapsing understaffed schools, and an ongoing healthcare crisis that THEY are making worse. It is TIME for different leadership, one that DOES support better education, cleaner environment, and affordable health (hint: DEMOCRATS, YOU PEEPS).

Sigh. Just let me be 100 percent in the right this year, O Lord...

My Two Cents On Kavanaugh's Performance

With regards to Mrs. Ford, I think she did the best she could and will still get pummeled by the Far Right for - seriously, going after her fear of flying as a character flaw??? - what she said today.

What really mattered was Kavanaugh's response, which Vox.com summarizes pretty well here. My two key takeaways from him was:

1) When finally confronted with personal failings, Kavanaugh lashed out with unprofessional rage and poor temperament. Exposing himself as the kind of Angry Guy who WOULD lash out at women and others who would question his behavior or try to hold him to account. I posted a Twitter thread starting here about it.

It is the kind of temperament we dare not risk having on the highest court in the land. On that alone, Kavanaugh has disqualified himself.

2) I have to seriously ask, given how quickly he turned into a yelling and almost incoherent tyro, was Kavanaugh drunk at the beginning of this hearing?

I've seen angry drunks in action. I've had someone close to me get five beers into him and pretty much turn into a rage monster yelling at me about a slight still remembered from years before. He was still high-functioning enough to drive home without me.

This is who the Republicans on the Judiciary Hearing are going to vote for tomorrow.

Gods help us.

There Is No Bottom To How Low Republicans Will Sink

It's now up to three accusers fingering SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh for sexual assault, drunken behavior, and sheer privileged rich white boy evil.

And now the Republicans, instead of cutting their losses and getting a replacement nominee, have doubled down on defending Kavanaugh as a virtuous saint despite all the eyewitness testimony that proves just maybe he was a drunken lout from his teen years until Gods help us NOW.

The Republicans now feel the imperative to force - against a growing majority's wishes - a suspected sexual predator onto the Supreme Court not because of the issues - there's ten other judges who will overturn Roe just as easily as Kavanaugh could - but out of sheer pride. How DARE WOMEN AND LIBRULS TELL US Who Can Be A Justice. How DARE Democrats accuse us of lacking morals or empathy. How DARE the Reality of the World Stand Against US.

They are defending the indefensible now. In order to protect Kavanaugh they have denied, ignored, refused, insulted, defamed, and shamed every woman who has stepped forward to claim what Kavanaugh did to them years ago even matters today.

But what Kavanaugh did to them DOES matter today.

He assaulted young women out of anger and lust and arrogance, driven by a sense of privilege that protected him from ANY accountability. He's lying about all that today, trying to protect himself from ANY accountability.

This is a man who is fighting to gain a seat on a judicial bench that will pass not just legal judgment but also moral and social judgment on others. A man who will do ANYTHING to avoid legal and moral and social judgment on himself.

This is not a man we should trust with that power.

And yet, the Republican Party as a whole is poised to grant him that power and privilege.

Because THEY want that power and privilege for themselves.

The rest of us are fucked.

Just like Kavanaugh's alleged victims.

Personal Notes

It's gotten a bit hectic in the Real World for me. There was a sudden resignation at work last month, and that job's duties ended up getting sorted out to the remaining full-time staffers to handle until a new library director can be hired.

As such, I'm really really distracted and the political ranting is kinda taking a back seat for me. I can barely correct fools on Twitter right now as is.

I am working on a blog entry for the midterm voting for Florida, especially the always-popular Ballot previews, but until further notice I am not going to...

what the hell...?

What's all this about Mario Kart?

(reads up on it)

OH SWEET JESUS CHRIST ON A BIKE WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR WORLD.

It's a good thing I never got into Nintendo games...

The First Rule of trump's Lying

Always consider this rule whenever reading a tweet or statement from donald trump:

trump will change his story at any given moment - even after making a statement he will immediate contradict himself with the next - just so the narrative of what he's talking about makes himself appear smart, informed, rich, powerful, and winning at everything. As an aside: this is why trump's lawyers are terrified of him taking the stand in Mueller's grand jury investigations: even *if* trump is actually innocent (insert author's eyeroll here), trump's inability to stick to a story would make him seem guilty. trying to cover up for something, and/or mentally unfit (in trump's case, it's honestly all three, but I digress).

In short: trump will ALWAYS lie when it makes himself look better than everybody else.

This is an issue now because of his recent lashing out over criticisms about his administration's failures to respond to Puerto Rico's need for disaster relief after Hurricane Maria.

trump had made statements earlier - during the buildup towards evacuating and securing the Carolina coast for incoming Hurricane Florence - where he bragged about getting "an A+ grade" for his handling of previous hurricane relief efforts (this is including Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida, both of which haven't been completely recovered).

Apparently there were followups by the media pointing out that the massive death toll in Puerto Rico - more than 2900 lost - doesn't necessarily equal an A+ grade, so trump got on Twitter to blast a conspiracy-addled excuse (via Steve M. at Crooks and Liars):

3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000...

.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!

No one had even suggested before this that the investigation had been faked or staged. trump's excuse came across as similar to the Sandy Hook narrative of "staged event" and "crisis actors".

And now, rather than argue about the size of the tragedy being overwhelming, rather than admit even in part that "things could have been handled better," trump would argue the whole thing is a partisan lie.

It doesn't help one damn bit that the Republican Congress refuses to open hearings into Puerto Rico's situation and the relief efforts. Back in 2005, when Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the Republican-led Congress did hold investigations into what went wrong (because God help us we don't want those disasters happening again). This year's model? These Republicans know damn well they have to play along to trump's lies, otherwise their whole house of cards collapses on itself.

Because this is the Second Rule of trump's Lying: trump lies to force his underlings to prove their loyalty to him. They have to accept and defend his lies, at which point he owns them as co-conspirators in those lies. (Rule 2B: Once you become trump's bitch, you will ALWAYS be trump's bitch)

The first thing - LITERALLY the first thing - that happened with trump's administration is that he sent Sean Spicer to exaggerate the inauguration turnout as "the biggest ever" when photographic and video evidence proved it was less than half the turnout for Obama's in 2009. This was for two reasons: 1) trump's Id had to be satiated with the belief he is more beloved than his enemies, 2) trump wanted to test Spicer's loyalty. That Spicer didn't do a good job of it was why trump soured on him and forced him out. It didn't matter that reality refused to conform to trump's will because most of the media and the nation either ignored or mocked him on this grandstanding: All that mattered was trump's bubble remained happily closed.

For all the Republican grousing in the shadows - the disdain the long-standing membership has for him has already been well-documented, it's just NONE OF THEM WILL OWN IT PUBLICLY - that "nothing sticks" to trump, the only reason that shit doesn't stick to trump is because NOBODY who can hold him accountable will. Too many of those grousing Republicans profit from trump's misrule and so they won't do anything to disrupt that.

The sad truth about lies, however, is that no matter the lie it will never fit into the reality of the world around us. trump can say 1000 lies a year and none of it will change the fact that thousands died in Puerto Rico. trump can lie about tariffs, and the economic reality of price increases will eventually force businesses to lose profits and close. trump can lie about immigrants, but it doesn't change the fact that many coming to our shores and borders are doing so to find better lives for themselves and are willing to be law-abiding citizens. trump can lie about the dangers of foreign powers, but invading them isn't going to make the United States stronger or safer (we've learned THAT lesson from the lies that led us into Iraq in 2003).

Lies eventually defeat themselves. You can't lie about the waters flooding your home as the hurricane hits. You can't lie about the failures of high tariffs when too many nations oppose them and starve your own businesses out. You can't lie about separating families at the border and shoving 5-year-olds into baby jails and call yourself honorable. You can't lie about war and walk away with clean hands.

The First Rule of Lying: Sooner or later the bill for that lie comes due.

The Storms of September Stay With Us

Right about now, the outer bands of Hurricane Florence are covering the coastline of North Carolina.

If there's any good news at the moment, it's that the storm weakened on approach down from a Category 4 to a Cat 2.

The rest of the situation, of course, is a disaster for the East Coast.

It's not that Florence will be a monster storm with deadly winds, deadly floods, and deadly power outages.

It's that Florence is predicted to overstay its visit. Most times, these storms move past within a day, no more than two days, and pulls itself away from its source of energy - the oceans - to where it disappears over the land.

Florence will be different. The weather models are all predicting the hurricane will get stuck hovering over the middle of North Carolina - right along the South Carolina border, soaking both states - for three straight days. It could still feed off the Atlantic coast to retain its shape and strength as a Tropical Storm, meaning high winds preventing any repair jobs to downed electrical wires... and especially meaning constant rainfall that will get measured in feet not inches.

The context is last year's Harvey: a standard hurricane that slammed into Houston TX but then stayed put for days unleashing so much rain the entire city flooded. What had happened: Both the city and the state failed to observe natural flood zones, overdeveloping neighborhoods into places that would turn into rivers and lakes. A lot of these places built into wetlands or riversides, ignoring the need for water to flow away in case of massive rains. We paved over a lot of places with concrete and asphalt, preventing the ground from absorbing rain and forcing the water to flow in ways we didn't expect.

This is a horrifying reality of the last 30 years or so where the suburban expanse of metro areas did not plan well or outright ignored warnings. Developers are gonna develop, and state legislators across the country are usually more than happy to let rich developers build fancy big neighborhoods in the most scenic of places...

New Orleans was the first big warning. With Katrina in 2005, it wasn't the hurricane itself that was the killer, it was the aftermath of aged out levees breaking and flooding half the city that no longer had wetlands or canals to manage the overflow. They built into areas they shouldn't have built.

Harvey last year was the reminder: The city failed to build highways away from flood zones, allowing roads to turn into rivers trapping residents and delaying recovery efforts.

Florida is a constant threat to collapse. We're dealing with coastal cities facing flooding issues even without hurricanes blowing in. All it will take is one powerful hurricane to wash this all into the sea...

And yet, we're still not learning. We're still at the mercy of developers who want to keep putting up condos along our beaches, shopping malls in our wetlands, and highways connecting everything without care of how roads become rivers in a hurricane.

September is usually the worst month for hurricanes: while June-November is the schedule, September is where all the conditions for Atlantic-based storms are just right to cause these types of nerve-wracking nightmares. This is fast becoming a month of dread for the East Coast anymore.

Well, when the levee breaks...

P.S. and things might be tolerable if we had a government that knew what it was doing when handling these crises. But it's clear from trump's mismanagement of Puerto Rico relief - DEAR GOD what the HELL happened here? - that we're in for Katrina-style disasters for now.

Whither Now the Withered Nation

A personal note: I am running into high school students born after 9/11. An entire generation that has grown up in the shadow of the War on Terror. They're writing term papers on what happened this day 17 years ago. (Poorly researched term papers... /headdesk)

A War on Terror that has devolved into an ongoing and seemingly unending siege in Afghanistan.

A War on Terror that has failed to resolve even half of the conflicts that bedevil the Middle East and does nothing for the painful refugee crisis surrounding Syria, Yemen, North Africa. A crisis now spilling into Europe fueling a harsh rise of Far Right anti-immigrant sentiment that may have been a key factor in Brexit (a separate nightmarish issue of its own right now).

A War on Terror that put the United States on its own path of Far Right paranoia against immigrants - not just illegals but also legal immigrants suddenly getting punished - to the point where the United States is separating kids from families and shoving babies into jails.

An argument can be made that the attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon using passenger aircraft is a direct link between Osama Bin Laden and donald j. trump. That Bin Laden's attacks were so traumatizing that a large portion of the citizenry is willing to lash out in anger at everything they fear, eagerly accepting the leadership of any conman offering salvation through brutal repression of the dread Other.

If only one could hop into a time machine and go back to 1999, to find Bin Laden, and let him know that the results of his planned attacks would lead to a donald trump presidency.

Would Bin Laden recoil at the horror of even THAT level of madness?

...nah, probably not. Bin Laden was a dick just like trump.

We are so royally screwed.

Remember your loved ones, America.

Also, for the peeps I know in the Carolinas and Coastal Virginia. Stay dry and get out of the flood zones, Hurricane Florence is going to be a drencher.

Crooks Or Cowards? In the Age of trump for Republicans It Is Both

There was a bombshell today when the New York Times - still the "official paper" of record despite their many sins against journalism - issued an Op-Ed written by "A Senior Official within trump's White House," arguably someone within the inner circle (or on the Orient Express train during a snowstorm, if you want the list of suspects figured out) venting about the damage control the "sane" Republicans have had to do since Day One of the Shitgibbon Era.

To refer to the sanity patrol like Cheryl Rofer over at Balloon-Juice:

While I take a measure of relief that we now appear to be closer to the beginning of the end than to the end of the beginning, I have some big concerns about that New York Times op-ed by “a senior administration official.”

My concerns are very much like David Frum’s...

But the author is trying to preserve his/her reputation: I am being a good Republican, helping to execute good Republican policies. I am keeping the country safe from a dangerous president.

That’s a lot of responsibility to take on. The president is elected; the author has been appointed by that president and tells us that he is undermining that president. In the telling, the president is further undermined.

What did the author expect to be the next step? Donald Trump is reported to have freaked out over the Woodward revelations and have started searching for the leakers. This will turbocharge that search. James Jesus Angleton became convinced that there was a Russian mole in the CIA and practically destroyed the agency. Can the author of the op-ed protect us from a storm a couple of categories stronger..?

I'm with Cheryl on this regarding the Cover-Your-Ass aspect of this article: The person writing it is not doing so out of concern for the nation's well-being, it's a signal to other Republicans that there are people in trump's White House making sure the madman doesn't go on a Nuke Tirade. This isn't serving the Republic: This is protecting the Republicans.

While the Handlers in the West Wing keep trump under control (barely), the Republicans in Congress can happily continue their own agendas of tax cuts, filling judicial seats with arch-conservatives who can serve for another 30-40 years, and suppressing voters rights to ensure gerrymandered control of the House for another decade. Neither the House nor the Senate ever have to fear facing the political consequences of doing SOMETHING to investigate trump with their oversight powers.

This is where the cowardice of the Republicans hiding in the shadows become criminal. The Republicans indulge as crooks with unearned and unjustified political power they do not deserve to wield. Like all crooks, they're taking for themselves and leaving the suckers (U.S. voters) in the dust.

And in this cowardice they are committing the greatest crime of all: violating their Oaths of Office to serve the public trust and save us from unfit leaders.

Referring to Frum's article in The Atlantic:

If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution—and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath.

But what the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has enflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president’s willfulness.

What happens the next time a staffer seeks to dissuade the president from, say, purging the Justice Department to shut down the Mueller investigation? The author of the Times op-ed has explicitly told the president that those who offer such advice do not have the president’s best interests at heart, and are, in fact, actively subverting his best interests as he understands them on behalf of ideas of their own.

He’ll grow more defiant, more reckless, more anti-constitutional, and more dangerous...

There is an honest debate right now if that was the writer's intent: Force trump into a rash action, create a crisis beyond anyone's control...

What would be better?

Speak in your own name. Resign in a way that will count. Present the evidence that will justify an invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, or an impeachment, or at the very least, the first necessary step toward either outcome, a Democratic Congress after the November elections...

Until a Republican leader - one with genuine gravitas and political power that can withstand the ruthless attacks of the trump voter base that is bound to hit him - steps up like that and FINALLY calls out not just trump but every GODDAMN ENABLER responsible for the disaster we are now in, this is not going to help.

For all the times I dreaded a full meltdown and never really got one, I think this time... this is it.

GODS HELP US.

First Day of September

It's also Labor Day weekend.

I got nothing to write about for the moment, except that trump's administration is still a black hole of awfulness, punishing Latinos for simply existing right now. Who the fuck dreams up banning people with documented proof of citizenship status? Oh, yeah. Assholes.

Punch every single fucking one of them this weekend.

And vote Democrat across the board this November.