Post-Election Hangover

Everybody in the club getting tipsy

I’ll admit I reeked of booze on election night. To be fair, it was because my girlfriend placed a poorly sealed glass of scotch in a really precarious place and it spilled all over me, but fuck it, I’m counting it.

Ugh… I had a sinking suspicion this would be the result and by sinking suspicion, I mean Nate Silver foretold it in the exacting way he has done every other election, and so knew this was a given and so began drinking early just to be ready.

And it makes sense for it to go this way this time. Yes, Republicans are still more crazed than a wolverine on meth and are still dedicated to getting petty revenge on the filthy “others” who dare pretend they are people by burning everything to the ground. But they also managed something this election cycle they haven’t in previous years. Which is not letting their reptilian masks slip too much before they were put in seats of real damage. There was not an exorbitant amount of candidates ranting about witches or the Trilateral Commission. Heck, they’ve even managed to keep their talking points relatively bland and most importantly of all, seem to have mostly cut out the right-wing noise machine entirely, letting them focus almost exclusively on demonizing individual Democrats than doing much defending of their worst offenders.

Mix that in with a bunch of battleground states that were mostly carried through on Obama’s tidal wave back in 2008 and the fact that most of the supposed liberal candidates were too afraid of being called commies or “liberals” to actually defend super popular ideas like the increase in minimum wage and our slightly expanded health care and of course the wonderful help provided by our Supreme Court in rubber-stamping the modern “literacy tests” and well, it’d make sense that the Reptilians would be able to claw and scrape themselves into a position where they can at least more effectively derail not only legislation, but even congressional debate that isn’t about one of their endless hobby horses.

It’s understandable, but still shitty, seeing as how nothing has really changed and conservative ideas have only become more insane, disconnected from reality, and pettily abusive to see the usual groups of morons forget that the election cycle it isn’t shoved in their face repeatedly. And I can draw comfort in the continued social victories, that minimum wage increases are succeeding even in glibertarian hellholes and that there is continued peel-back at least in my state of the entrenched and vile prison-industrial complex and drug war. Not to mention the utter failure of the professional homophobes to even really get much in the way of anti-gay legislation to the ballot, much less win.


But the more cynical part of me, well honed by life’s myriad of fun welcoming gifts, thinks darkly of Gamergate*, which is still going on, and all the other hate movements and how they nurture the dark seed of resentment over lost privilege or half-imagined slights into membership in a number of conspiracy theories and justifications for shitty behavior.

I mean, it’s been awesome to see things like consent being actually treated with some seriousness by the media and by the government and to see greater awareness of rape culture and how our advice to young sexual people is pretty messed up. Similarly it’s been awesome to see some improvement in trans* rights and to see gay marriage, a struggle I fought for for years, starting to become the “duh” issue it always was.

But I also think about the 70s and the 90s and other times when belated gains for minority groups gave excuse for vile douchebags to freak out over the diminished separation their privilege bought them and the way they exploded over the “indignity” of now being aware of the existence of others. I think about the anti-SJW backlash and the people trying to pretend that the existence of dumbass teenagers on tumblr are a greater threat or annoyance than people casually dismissing the humanity of others and I worry as I know the separation between occasional happy ally and bitter hate-filled bigot can be mighty thin if the former is ever forced to really come to terms with their identity in an unfamiliar way.

And that breeds, most of all, spite. And that is sort of the only banner remaining for the Grandads Only Party. Vote for us and we’ll get revenge for you on all those niggers that dare think they can be president or walk the streets unmurdered, on all those cunts who think what they want matters more than the chance to get your dick wet, on those faggots who are ruining the specialness of marriage by wanting a piece and being on the television sometimes. We’ll make the poor suffer for getting those free things you are sure they are stealing from you. We’ll hurt them all and keep the gate locked tight so you can drift off in your suburban coma and never have to grow up and accept that diversity is here, will always be here and isn’t going away.

Which, the raw romanticism that drives me then counters, no, it’s not going away. Just like with Gamergate, yes, the filth is getting dirtier, but everyone else is starting to notice. Women, blacks, latin@s continue voting for the party that despises them less and less and remember who it was that cackled with glee when they died. And while state senator elections may still be dominated by the South and Midwest and House Districts may be impressively gerrymandered, the raw reality is that Republicans have no way to turn around and present themselves as sane, only as absent, because the only people still following are the ones in it for the revenge against those others, the bitter gasps at privileges not easily abandoned.

And the reality still remains that the Republicans cannot connive and lie and omit their way through every election forever. They are eventually going to have to evolve or die, and every delay, every desperate fight for what people begin to assume is a no duh is only going to let more star systems slip through their grasps.

Especially as they continue to learn the wrong damn lessons from their victories.

Speaking of which, hasn’t it been awhile since we peeked in on the nattering nonsense that is the National Review?

Michael Barone, National Doubleplusgood:
The Shrinkage of the Obama Majority

Basically there are two tracks that the right-wing fail train has decided to derail off of in the wake of the victory. Both naturally are full of the “woo, we won the sports competition of sports that is politics” posturing, because of course it is and both are full of the “we are the only true owners of this country forever” fantasizing because well, look who we are talking about.

But where they diverge like a snake’s tongue is in the style of end-zone celebration that characterizes their not-at-all tribal treatment of politics. On one side is the revisionist history that proves that conservative ideas are great and never need to change and on the other is the revisionist history where conservative ideas are great because liberals are secretly the bad actors who did all the stuff that conservatives seemed to do. Which are paths that greatly mirror the diversity of the Republican Party itself.

Let us look at the latter first.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • Man, what are those stupid liberals even thinking shrinking their voting base to a narrow sliver of old white men and shutting down our government over cynical political exploitation of the voting populace’s woeful long-term memory? That’s just sloppy, losers.

Oh, did you worry that “nuh uh, you” wasn’t going to be the conservatives one and only response to literally everything now that it has earned them a chance to go absolutely apeshit in Congress?

Heh.

At this point, I figure it’s only a matter of time before a right-wing spree killer starts shouting to their unarmed victims that they really should stop shooting him.

Some observations on the election:

1) This was a wave, folks. It will be a benchmark for judging waves, for either party, for years.

I must admit some admiration at how blatantly they pull this linguistic con over and over again. Oh, semi-impressive midterm victory mostly profiting on massive Citizen’s United money and voter indifference equals “WE IS THE TRUE GODS WHO YOU MUST WORSHIP FOREVER” whereas genuine historic shifts are just trifling things that don’t count because black people and women voted.

Especially as they keep doing it election after election. I wonder if they go through life this way…

“Oh, what a triumph, our household has marked a true victory to end all victories over the arachnid menace by killing that one Daddy Long-Legs. The burning down of our house in the great arachnid victory is only a minor setback that reveals the woeful spider-loving bias in the mainstream media!”

2) In seriously contested races, Republican candidates were generally younger, more vigorous, more sunny and optimistic than Democrats.

Heh, it’s kinda cute seeing this Ronald Reagan Cargo Cult bullshit creep into every pleading right-wing futurist piece.

No, no, we can make 1980s and its landmark moment of white poor evangelicals giving us a temporary boost out of their fear of young people and sex by just crafting a young cheery robot to cuddle us and tell us it will be all okay. WAAAAHHHH! Reagan, why did you abandon your chosen flock!

The contrast was sharpest in Colorado and Iowa, which voted twice for President Obama. Cory Gardner and Joni Ernst seemed to be looking forward to the future. Their opponents grimly championed the stale causes of feminists and trial lawyers of the past.

You know, with the massive uptick in not just casual misogyny, but pointed direct violent intentional misogyny among the right in the name of defeating “feminists” and “SJWs” I wonder if the MRA fedorakin ever beam at pride with having officially made it into the web of hate.

How does it go? You start by ranting like a crazed hobo, then you build a laughable subculture, then you suck up to the other haters with all the strength in your throat, then you join the wonderful fail parade and national pundits are babbling on about things like “white knighting” or the “Trilateral Commission” as if they were the most normal things in the world, then you lose?

Democrats see themselves as the party of the future. But their policies are antique. The federal minimum wage dates to 1938, equal pay for women to 1963, access to contraceptives to 1965. Raising these issues now is campaign gimmickry, not serious policymaking.

{Slow clap}

Oh that is bullshit artistry at its finest ladies, gentlemen, non-binary individuals, and fluberts. That is impeccable masterful IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION to make a movie theatre owner squeal in joy.

What? We’re old school and are still fighting no duh issues supposedly settled years ago because we still can’t handle what it meant in terms of the right for poor people and women? Well, uh, we got you to talk about it too, so you’re the real backwards ones, nyah!

I’m serious people, if whiny kindergarten debate tactics were paintings, this would be a goddamn Monet.

Democratic leading lights have been around a long time. The party’s two congressional leaders are in their 70s. The governors of the two largest Democratic states are sons of former governors who won their first statewide elections in 1950 and 1978.

Do you really want to get into the insular, nepotistic, and increasingly elderly state of our useless Legislature? Because I’m not entirely sure that is a discussion that will go well for the state of impotent political stasis you so desperately rely on for these brief flashes of relevance.

This has implications for 2016. Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, worked in her first campaign in 1970. She has been a national figure since 1991. The Clintons’ theme song, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” was released in 1977. That will be 39 years ago in 2016.

Two responses.

1) Pfft, yes, way to show how totally not in the past your little cadre of forward-thinking super young 1800s re-enactors are by still obsessing over Reagan and Clinton like that shit didn’t go down before a number of people of voting age were even born. Keep being relevant shit-for-brains.

2) Oh hell no. I am proudly a second-generation Fleetwood Mac obsessed fangirl and the name of the fucking song is “Don’t Stop” you goddamn sad pathetic locked in a hermetic bubble for the last 40 years hack! Shit, I know a woman fronted it, so you stayed away for fear of cooties, but come the fuck on, you can try and at least try and pretend you aren’t so ignorant about actual culture, you may actually qualify as a control group in some sociological experiments.

3) The combination of Obama’s low job approval and Harry Reid’s virtual shutdown of the Senate

Welcome to the Republican strategy for the next 50 years, everybody! Because apparently in the post-Liberal-Fascism era, all your crimes can be pinned on your victim by just saying they were.

I’m actually kind of waiting for this to go all the way. I mean, we’ve already got conservatives signing up for a whole alternate reality and everything, so it’ll be interesting to see this strategy start branching out and taking over literally everything. I mean, why bother even dog-whistling that Michael Brown was black, I mean black, I mean oh shoot what’s one of our code phrases, black, that’s it, when you can claim that he was the one who was lynching suspects as a police officer. Well… now that I think about it, that was pretty much literally the tactic for Trayvon Martin so…

Huh… well fuckballs.

ensured a Republican Senate majority. Reid prevented amendments — Mark Begich of Alaska never got to introduce one — that could have helped them in campaigns.

Votes were blocked on issues with clear Senate majorities — such as the Keystone XL pipeline, medical-device tax repeal, and the bipartisan patent-reform bill backed by Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.0.

That left Democrats running for reelection stuck with 95-plus percent Obama voting records. It left them with no independent votes or initiatives to point to. Reid kept Democratic candidates well stocked with money. But not with winning issues.

Ignore the Koch Brothers and the bought and sold Supreme Court behind the curtain.

4) Democratic territory has been reduced to the bastions of two core groups — black voters

I’m sorry, that dog whistle was far too faint for me to hear. To be fair, that might be because we’ve been hammered with so many instances of whining angry foot-stomping about how black votes shouldn’t cooooouuuuuunt, mommy, that I think I may have actually gone deaf to that pitch.

Fuck, I mean, you shitweasels could at least hide it, but I guess the humiliation and dehumanization is the fucking point.

and gentry liberals.

Surrrrre Mikey, liberals are the real rich bastards robbing the country. Yep. Fuck, this piece is so IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION, I can use it to steer satellites… around Pluto.

Democrats win New York City and the San Francisco Bay area by overwhelming margins

FAGS!

but are outvoted in almost all the territory in between — including, this year, Obama’s Illinois. Governor Jerry Brown ran well behind in California’s Central Valley, and Governor Andrew Cuomo lost most of upstate New York.

Yeah, Dems always lose the Central Valley and Upstate New York. That’s not really novel or noteworthy in any way unles… oh right, that whole people you don’t like don’t count and therefore their votes are meaningless.

Democratic margins have shrunk among Hispanics and, almost to the vanishing point, among young voters. Liberal Democrats raised money to “turn Texas blue.” But it voted Republican by wider-than-usual margins this year.

Well, I mean, there was even more mobilizing than normal among the shitkickers to keep their little fiefdom, so I’m not really sure that’s much to say. I mean, no matter the wealth of dirty tricks that have always gone down in Texas, demographic inevitability will eventually hold sway, especially if Republicans continue devoting themselves to a strategy about three seconds away from the villain of a Machete movie.

Under Obama, the Democratic base has shrunk numerically and demographically.

Mmhmm, keep telling yourself that.

With superior organization, he was able to stitch together a 51 percent majority in 2012.

But me thought Obama too dumb and incompetent to do that. Me confused.

But like other Democratic majority coalitions — Woodrow Wilson’s, Lyndon Johnson’s, even Franklin Roosevelt’s — it has proved to be fragile and subject to fragmentation.

Two things:

A) Well yeah. Liberal and Progressive movements will always be prone to fractionalization and various arguments about priorities or issues. It comes with the turf. The left is about crafting something, either social change, or an important civil right, or just the recognition of a marginalized people. And the people who want that are deeply diverse, coming from a variety of backgrounds and priorities. So yeah, there’s always going to be in-fighting and arguments and attempts at careful tact, as anyone who has ever hung out with a politically-minded group of friends can attest to. And yeah, there’s going to be a number of people who only really want one set of rights enshrined and then they’ll happily sell everyone else out, because the other privileges and shit benefit them. It’s one of the central curses of progressive victory, every win brings a loss of some who benefitted who now exploit their raised station to shit on those below. It’s what happens when you aren’t a bunch of fuckwads only bound together by your penchant for standing athwart history yelling “Stop!”

B) Yes, Mikey, you don’t need to do anything, just sit back and wait for the big bad change to go away. Everyone will totally be on board for the complete erosion of rights they have taken for granted and peacefully let those be rolled back so you can keep pretending that the Plantations were the bee’s knees.

5) In many states — including many carried twice by Obama — Republicans have been governing successfully, at least in the estimation of their voters. Governor Scott Walker has won his third victory in four years in Wisconsin against the frantic efforts of public-employee unions.

Governor John Kasich won a landslide victory against a flawed opponent in Ohio, and Governor Rick Snyder won solidly in Michigan after signing a right-to-work law hated by private-sector unions. In Florida, Governor Rick Scott’s second consecutive one-point victory means that Republicans will be in control for 20 years in what is now the nation’s third-largest state.

Democratic governance, in contrast, was rebuked by the voters in Massachusetts, in Maryland (with the nation’s fourth-highest black population in percentage terms), and in Obama’s home state of Illinois.

And? As we’ve seen with Rick Scott’s and Scott Walker’s elections, it’s mostly been due to some epic level money pits and some underhanded election shenanigans and seeing as how minority voting has been further handicapped and every advantage that could possibly be given to the corrupt wingnut welfare darlings has gone to them, so yeah, I’m not sure what sort of point this is other than it being the equivalent of the Yankees going “We bought ourselves all the Championship winning players again.”

(6) The Obama Democrats labor under the illusion that a beleaguered people hunger for an ever-bigger government.

Who needs governmental aid with a broken safety net and a lingering Second Great Depression that no one in Congress has done a fuck thing about?

I mean, honestly.

The polls and the election results suggest, not so gently, otherwise.

Which is why even Libertarian whitetopias like Alaska went overwhelmingly for increases to the minimum wage.

Which I guess betrays the sad reality of it all. When genuinely pushed, people prefer liberal policies and dislike the actual things Republicans do with power, but on the other hand, resentment of the young, brown, queer, and sexually-active women holds a powerful sway among the bitter retirees who are about the only people who reliably get to the polls in an off-year. Yeah, why isn’t election day a national shut-down everything that isn’t a hospital holiday yet?

The fiasco of HealthCare.gov, the misdeeds of the IRS, the improvisatory warnings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — all undermine confidence in the capacity of big government.

Yes, I’m absolutely certain that people were completely distraught over a large web product having a buggy first release, rational responses to a health event that wasn’t nearly as frightening as most people made it, and a bunch of tax dodgers whining about how the IRS was mean to them.

They were definitely thinking more about that than how they are going to manage to scrounge up enough food for their daughter at least to eat… if you are the type of sad empty overprivileged fuck whose life is so empty that the manufactured crises on the news are more important than the genuine suffering of your fellow man.

Looking back over the last half-century, we can see that the highest levels of trust in government came, interestingly, during the administration of Ronald Reagan.

And look what he did with that!

Also, fuck, just buy a Ronald Reagan blow-up-doll already and stop stroking your wood in public. For fuck’s sake, I wouldn’t tolerate that shit in the Dungeon, I sure as shit ain’t going to tolerate it here.

7) This election was a repudiation of the big-government policies of the Obama Democrats. It was not so much an endorsement of Republicans as it was an invitation to them to come up with better alternative policies.

So… what you are saying is you are completely and utterly fucked then?

Cause I don’t think there’s been a new idea out of the conservatives since at least Star Wars.

In the states, some Republicans have. At the national level, they are just getting started. We’ll see how they do.

Awww, even the paid hacks realize this is a train-wreck in waiting to provide a flash of false hope before demographic inevitability takes its awful hold.

Hey, didn’t I say there were two (nearly identical) paths we were going to cover.

Mona Charen, National Suck It!:
A Triumph of De-Demonization

Oh man, Mona, Mona, Mona. It has been ages since I’ve last sliced into the intellect of a woman who managed to lose a fight against her own spell-check software.

What fresh idiocy does she bring to the gloating?

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • Our handful of token candidates and our rephrasing of out and out bigotry proves that minorities are totally never going to notice we hate them ever and ever again. I mean, after all, white men really really love us so that’s all we’ll ever need… right?

Ah, our village idiot certainly doesn’t disappoint. Come spin like a top.

And on that note, has anyone noticed that most of these smug gloating pieces are still filled with IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION, gaslighting, and spin? It’s like even they know that this victory is a temporary fluke and they hope that if they get in the bullshit early, then maybe the scam can be prolonged another election cycle or two before collapse.

A prayer has been answered — not for a massive Republican victory at the polls, though that, too. No, I’m thinking of the perennial prayer of losers: “Oh Lord, let my enemies go too far.”

Wait. Are you saying you’re losers?

Well, isn’t this an auspicious beginning?

The results of the 2014 midterms will be chewed over for weeks and months.

Like cud and other things that rapidly become shit.

One bit of data that hasn’t received much attention so far is the exit-poll result showing that 71 percent of voters are somewhat or very worried about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Such is the Republican reputation for hard-headedness on national security that the party benefits from this concern without breaking a sweat.

… I imagine myself being a survivor of the attacks on the Towers, having gone through hell and fear and suffering the long-term effect of the toxic dust all throughout the air looking at this shit 13 years later as all the faux-patriotic calls about how much they supposedly care about terrorism fall fully into this frank honesty of the consistent exploitation of tragedy and fear for political advantage.

But I mean, it makes sense. All they have is getting people afraid of the nearly non-existent threats of foreign-based terrorism or pandemic zombie viruses, exploiting things like ISIL or Ebola or the Boston Marathon Bombing in endless 24 hour news show cycles and ignoring the far more real and present threats like consistent mass shootings based in right-wing ideology or shit like the police response in Ferguson. So that people go running to the “tough” posturers who will never ever lift a finger to actually genuinely do something to prevent or discourage violent attacks out of sheer panicked stupidity.

It’s just interesting to see at long last, all pretense being abandoned and it being subject to the same cold political calculus that ever other right-wing exploitation undergoes. Ugh… I’ve mentioned how much these people are fucking ghouls, right?

Another takeaway: The Democrats’ tactic of demonizing Republicans has not just run its course, but it’s also beginning to boomerang.

Oops, perhaps these two tactics aren’t so different after all, seeing as how both are fully enmeshed in the whole “nuh uh, we weren’t awful. You calling us awful was the real doing awful things” thing.

Three groups have been particularly invited to believe that Republicans are a menace to them – women, Hispanics, and blacks.

Well, clearly that is but poppycock and ro-

Oh, right… reality… hmmm… er… does it still count as something to be upset about if we just don’t think they’re people in the first place?

The war-on-women theme

One thing that always strikes me like a brick to the temple when reading these pieces is just how much conservative thought is dominated by advertising. It’s all about selling the product, rebranding the marketing, rolling out themes and tactics to cheat and rob and steal a few more years of political paralysis.

Which I suppose makes sense. If one is rich, white, and protected, perhaps it is easy to imagine politics as the equivalent of two ad agencies selling brands of diet soda, equally meaningless to one’s daily life, so long as your favorite brand wins the day.

Combine that with the lack of imagination and empathy that leads conservatives to assume everyone is as ruthless and unprincipled as them and we get this kind of blather where minority groups coughing politely and saying “please stop killing us” is just some sort of thematic element or tactic instead of an unfortunate commentary on the current state of affairs for those groups.

worked as recently as the Virginia governor’s race in 2013. Terry McAuliffe won single women voters by 42 points.

Funny how threatening to rape a bunch of women to teach them a lesson about babbies rubs women the wrong way.

Bitches be crazy, amirite?

Democrats hoped to reprise the theme this year. Here’s what went wrong: 1) Republicans got savvy about choosing candidates; 2) they refused to be lured onto the Democrats’ playing field, where the insulting assumption is that women voters are motivated solely by gynecological concerns; and 3) Democrats overplayed their hand.

Every Republican who opposed abortion was depicted as attempting to outlaw birth control. Republicans turned this aside by touting over-the-counter sale of contraceptive pills.

So… your response to people pointing out that you are trying to limit contraceptive options is to… tout how you are trying to limit contraceptive options?

That’s a… novel… defense to be sure.

Also, I love the whole “over-the-counter” scary euphemism as if this was some grave menace of sluts daring to have an easy method of preventing getting knocked up. It’s like, oh, are we banning condoms from being sold in every drug store and giving out for free at pretty much every women’s center and queer center on the planet? No, then maybe who the fuck gives a shit if women…

Ohhhh, no wait, I think I figured it out.

Women gotta be punished for being sexually active. Always. Because otherwise they may start thinking they are people, worthy of the same freedoms and rights as anyone else.

Republicans were accused of opposing equal pay.

That is often the natural result of opposing equal pay, yes.

They responded, archly, by noting that women were frequently paid less than men on their opponents’ staffs.

So… wait, your response to “they say we oppose equal pay” isn’t to immediately go “no, of course we support that shit, look to our stellar voting record”, but to instead point to the literal problem and say, see it exists, therefore no need to fix it?

That’s… yeah, I suppose when you got nothing, a distraction’s as good as a pie in the face as it were.

DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Shultz said Wisconsin GOP governor Scott Walker and other Republicans like him were “attempting to pull us back by our hair.”

When the votes were counted, women preferred Democrats, but only by four points, whereas men chose Republicans by 16 points.

So what you are saying is that there are a fuckton of sexist ass men out there who are super fucking anxious that their property is starting to escape their chains and think for themselves and are hoping to cut short that process by angrily voting to put those damn sluts and bitches in their place?

And this is supposed to make you look like you aren’t misogynists?

Shultz will be rubbing elbows on Capitol Hill with Barbara Comstock, Mia Love, Shelley Moore Capito, and Elise Stefanik, among other newly elected Republican women.

We have tokens! Would bigots hide behind tokens? Don’t answer that!

If she bumps into Iraq War veteran Joni Ernst, the latter can explain what real war is like. Sandra Fluke, “war on women” pin-up, was defeated, along with abortion warriors Wendy Davis and Mark Udall.

Yeah, I don’t think bringing up Sandra Fluke, the person who was subjected to nigh-constant rape and death threats for daring to note the sort of facts about contraceptive pills one can find with a two second google search really does your whole “what war on women” pose any favors, just saying.

Also, Mona. This will not save you. Showing your “good girl” qualities of happily shitting on those of your gender will not spare you the wrath of those who despise women, as so many women supporters of misogynist movements have painfully found out the moment they questioned a single thing. In fact, they are often at more risk, because they end up being surrounded more fully by the type of bitter hateful assholes who think a woman’s mere presence is an affront to them.

You should remember this as we fight for your right to not have to live under that fear.

Just as Democrats assume that women voters care principally about below-the-waist issues,

Lol, genitals! It’s funny because our country’s paralyzation around the topic of sex means millions continue to die of sexually transmitted diseases and end up with unwanted pregnancies due to ignorance about basic biology.

On that note, isn’t Mona the Noble Prize winner whose understanding of sexual biology was so low she fell for not only the manly sperm begets manly kids nonsense, but also the women’s bodies can push out unwanted sperm like a duck nonsense? Yeah, maybe not the best spokesperson on why being intentionally ignorant of all things having to do with the naughty bits is the most awesomest thing ever.

they believe that Hispanic voters can be corralled by immigration reform.

… Um… given that there are still untold numbers of literal concentration camps where suspected undocumented immigrants are kept and tortured by psychotic sheriffs like Joe Arpaio and that this nightmare has been constantly cheerlead by you and your mates… well, let’s just say there’s off-color and then there’s I’m afraid that ankles gone gangrenous and we’re going to have to amputate.

The 2014 results suggest that they may have taken this too far as well.

Yeah, stupid liberals, caring about latin@s and not seeing them as an inhumane menace who can be exploited as modern slave labor.

In state after state, including Texas, Georgia, Kansas, and Colorado, Republicans gained ground with Hispanic voters. According to Mark Hugo Lopez of Pew, “Latinos identified less with the Democratic party and a growing share identified with Republicans.” Greg Abbott spent money and time campaigning in heavily Hispanic districts and was rewarded with 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Kansas governor Sam Brownback pocketed 47 percent, as against 46 percent for his Democratic opponent. In Colorado, Gardner soft-pedaled immigration in favor of jobs and smaller government, while Senator Mark Udall was preoccupied with abortion. Showing up on Spanish radio and TV has helped Republicans to convince a growing number of Hispanics that they’re not the deporting ogres Democrats have conjured. It didn’t hurt that Abbott’s Hispanic mother-in-law cut ads for him. The party’s image is also burnished by the reelection of governors Susana Martinez and Brian Sandoval.

DID I MENTION WE HAVE TOKENS YET!!! Cause we have tokens.

Fuck, I know, I know about the Gamergate references, but this reminds me so much of a thing that Gamergate creeps do that is just absolutely infuriating, which is this co-campaign of notyourshield, which is where all the racist sexist homophobic shitbirds make a bunch of fake minority sockpuppets to say support them, which totally proves that they could never be bigoted ever never, because there’s some self-hating minority members out there willing to work against their best interests and in aid of their oppressors in exchange for false promises of protection and notions of importance despite any talent or ability.

And it’s just so mind-numbingly idiotic because it clearly comes from a complete ignorance of the purpose of representation and it’s a pathetic attempt to throw some paid chaff as shields against accurate assessments of bigotry as if every hate group didn’t have some small group of self-hating kapos willing to sell out their kin to the people abusing them. Fuck, Strom Thurmond hired black aids and railed his black mistress, but it didn’t make him any less of a KKK-supporting, segregationist fuckbucket.

But yeah, I’m reminded of that because of the hilariously incompetent Republican ad made about their supposed diversity which was made entirely of stock pictures and many other campaigns trying to brownwash the decidedly bleached movement that is American conservatism and the way they also seem to think that diversity is some sort of merit badge one can throw down and if you can find one or two members to stand-in… or steal them from a stock image site, that somehow erases all of the actions one does to harm and constrain the lives of others.

It’s basically “but I have black friends” as a political campaign. And therefore an equally hollow protestation.

Finally, even the great, pernicious constant in American political life — the race card — seemed a little worn around the edges this year.

Well, yes, that’s what happens when it’s been shot fourteen times and rolled around in the blood of unarmed teenagers.

The Democrats trotted out their election-year one-trick pony: In Arkansas, leaflets distributed in black neighborhoods referenced Ferguson and said “Republicans are targeting our kids, silencing our voices, and even trying to impeach our president.” In North Carolina, a radio ad attempted to link Thom Tillis to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The ads had no effect.

Yes, how dare people who actually want to address the lynching of young black men by cops on a legislative level participate in politics and try and elect those who share their values and promise to do something as if they were real people who were allowed to vote. I mean, for heaven’s sake, with all the weeping and the anger, it’s almost like they’re taking this shit seriously. Chillax, mans, it’s only a fucking game.

Ick… but seriously, fuck this bullshit. Kids are being murdered and the police fascists brought in tanks and gassed journalists and pretty much did every standard nightmare fascist comic book villain shtick they could think of because for the first time in a long time, people got understandably angry about that instead of remaining beat down from burying too many unarmed dead and fuckers like Mona are like, lol, you niggers and nigger lovers weren’t enough to win you an election as if it doesn’t even matter, because of course to her and far too many it doesn’t.

The deaths of children do not matter to these disconnected sociopaths.

Not unless it can be exploited to demonize a group they hate, otherwise it is dismissed, attacked, and the murdered are spun as villains and the villains as heroes or “lone wolves” and the status quo prevails.

And the saddest thing about it is that she’s probably right on the level that enough people were motivated by a desire to stick it to those uppity niggers daring to complain about their children being murdered on the street by those sworn to protect them to make an electoral difference. Tribalism runs deep and the racists have been looking for some symbolic way to stick it to the black community and “remind them of their place” ever since Obama was elected.

But every such action only dooms this campaign of hate completely, brings it more to the forefront and increases the activist push to see this grievous murderous wrong put right. Cause, here in the 21st century, even the white-bread that grew up in the Suburbs have black friends, have black heroes, have working empathy systems and weren’t raised in a system of neo-slavery where dehumanization was the name of the game and so don’t understand why they should wish for the death of others because of their melanin levels.

Point being, this will change and it will probably change way more socially because of the bullshit that has gone down at such a watershed moment.

While the people may have a mind like a sieve, individual people can remember for a very long time rampant cruelty and who stood proudly for it.

It would be ludicrously optimistic to predict the imminent demise of solid Democratic voting by African Americans.

Yeahhhhhhh, that door is well and truly welded shut and given the bullshit that is likely to continue raining down on women and latin@s now that Republicans have a number of governerships and all of Congress to exploit, we will probably be able to expect those rates to go cratering back down in similar directions over the next while.

But note these straws in the wind: Liberal black commentators such as Tavis Smiley, Juan Williams, and Charles Ellison have questioned both the Democrats’ race-baiting and the Obama administration’s record on jobs, incomes, and other measures of well-being for blacks and all Americans. Videos like “Rebel Pundit” denouncing Democrats for the state of cities like Detroit are making the rounds.

Well, if even-the-liberal Juan Williams is on your side, then it must mean… it’s Thursday.

This is . . . new.

Not really, Juan Williams has been a piece of shit for a good number of years now.

Democrats went too far.

Yeah! Almost sorta kinda getting really close to maybe thinking about perhaps in the future doing something to begin pre-discussing long overdue social issues that have become universally popular no-duhs IS THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK!!!!

That’ll teach you to almost do something!

The sex, race, and ethnicity gambit is sounding forced, stale, and desperate.

Conservatism: When you believe this, but also believe that the Southern Strategy based on a pool of racist sexist old white men can sustain a political party into perpetuity.

Republicans should make efforts to win every constituency: women, men, Hispanics, blacks, Asians — everybody.

Real talk.

They should. They really should be making genuine effort to win every constituency. Because that’s how our government should work. I mean, as noted with the whole progressive thing and internal arguments, it’s possible to have rich debates and genuine consideration of options without inviting a bunch of mental asylum escapees who want to see everything burn if it’ll prevent a dark-skinned man from even mildly succeeding.

We shouldn’t have every consideration of how to solve the real issues that plague so many communities and people in our country constantly derailed by people who are eager to see those people die and suffer for their amusement. It really shouldn’t be binary choices between a party that wants so many people in our country die and a party that can barely pretend to care at all. It should be a meeting together of people who all agree on the basic tenet that every citizen deserves a government that cares whether they live or die and which wants them to succeed, no matter their skin color, gender identity, sexuality, or record collection.

So yeah, the two parties in ideal magical fairy land really ought to be a liberal and conservative party genuinely trying to win over every constituency rather than exploiting privilege and learned hate for temporary political gain, training us as citizens to be at our worst instead of striving to live up to our best.

It shouldn’t be a constant struggle, war drums constant and bloody battles fought for simple recognition of humanity or the simplest rights that our descendents will look on in horror to even think there was a public debate.

We have far too many real problems to have the spread we really have, where Republicans are what they actually are instead of people who genuinely want to help people who live in this country.

And that’s the sad refrain that I’m left with after elections like these and I think why these “celebrations” among the Right seem more hollow than usual. They bought an extra cycle by appealing to mankind’s worst, exploiting fear and hate and petty revenge against those with so little power they cannot even get people to listen when their children are murdered.

And if it seems like it’s turning into ash in their mouths, I hope that that’s true.

Because we should all be better than this shit, rather than stuck in this bullshit struggle until we finally break this planet for good.

Let the Democrats be content with their base: NARAL, ACORN, and the press.

{Drop mic, walk away}


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Ain’t no party like an optimism party! We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


*Oh hey, are you tired of me obliquely mentioning this catastrophe? Yeah, I’m tired it keeps happening and keeps hurting friends of mine.

 

Comments: 63

 
 
 

Better buckle up folks. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

 
 

Cerb I think you have a missing end tag somewhere in your post.

 
 

I figure it’s only a matter of time before a right-wing spree killer starts shouting to their unarmed victims that they really should stop shooting him.

Apologies for the inevitable triggering, but Andrew Blartblart went to Occupy camps where Occupiers had been raped and shouted at the Occupiers to stop raping people. Does that count?

Well… now that I think about it, that was pretty much literally the tactic for Trayvon Martin so…

So yeah.

given that there are still untold numbers

I don’t know where you meant to close this italics; I only know that they stayed open for the rest of the post.

And FYWP, the only way in which I could be said to be “posting comments too quickly” is in the sense that I didn’t finish reading the original post before making this comment.

 
 

As you can see, it even reached down into the comments, where it interacted with my use of italics as a substitute for blockquoting.

 
 

Someone has evidently turned on Ubiquitous Italics. Which is also a possible name for a B-O-t-B group.

 
 

“Someone has evidently turned on Ubiquitous Italics”

I think that was a Blue Oyster Cult album in the 1980s.

 
 

Fixt.

I’ll try and talk to someone about the wordpress issues.

 
 

Michael Barone: YOU’VE GOT SPOOR!

***** – a few seconds ago *****

I find these observations both entertaining & creative .

1) No wave, no benchmark. The electoral cycle is just as broken now as voter franchise or voter participation are. The countdown to the hackneyed ritual of “HOW COULD “xxxxx” BE JUST ANOTHER RINO SELLOUT ON REPEALING OBAMACARE OR SECURING OUR BORDERS THE EXACT SAME WAY BUSH BURNED US OVER ROE V. WADE WTF” starts anew.

2)Yeah, were those some sunny optimistic campaign ads or what? Even more antique than the hoary Democratic Party planks (which they sell out precisely as eagerly as do the GOP) are Reaganomics/Trickle-Down – a reboot of the defunct “Horse & Sparrow” model that’s older than America. Deregulation is circa old as dirt. How the deficit failed to swallow the US whole as foretold remains an unspoken eldritch riddle. That the Bush Doctrine is now bipartisan passes without so much as one solitary whimper or cheer.

3)It’s doubtful Obama weeps bitterly over losing popularity while in his last term, nor if any other POTUS has in living memory. He can pivot on Keyline XL without mussing an eyelash, exactly like he did on offshore drilling. Reid is a cipher, & some similarly compliant cipher will do just as well as a generic all-purpose Power Elite lickspittle if he quits or gets canned.

4)LimoLibs & Blacks Only? Republicans’ lady-vote deficit went down the Memory Hole? If you try the condition of diminishing turnout as a winning gambit, I suspect it will fail. The midterm seats were mostly the GOP’s to gain before one vote was cast & it feels just plain Yankee Doodle Dandy to get to spank a sitting POTUS in their second term which is why Nate Silver could have called 2014 blackout-drunk & blindfolded.

5)Walker turned Wisconsin’s growth DOA while Brownback’s “grand experiment” has made Kansas into an ongoing disaster. Is GOP power in state governance the result of its shrewdness or of Democrats’ neglect? Victory lacks a certain Realpolitik heft when the victorious candidate ran unopposed.

6)As a political signal, spiking voter apathy repudiates everyone running for office & is also arguably far more damning of the electorate than of the Administration or the candidates as a whole.

Though he certainly isn’t about to emulate his epic tax hike nor his amnesty for illegal immigrants, Obama has repeatedly proven he wasn’t being the least bit ironic when he said Ronald Reagan was his political mentor. From not-so-covert lethal aggression by fiat to laissez-faire Wall Street mollycoddling to shadowy (& arguably shady) trade pacts to beaming on TV with warm charismatic vacuous bromides, he fundamentally betrayed every progressive vote that got him his job. The ugly irony is that just by fumbling along with the sudden mysterious pandemic of social sanity as to ecology, Teh War On Cannibis & marriage equality, he’ll still likely wind up being a liberal hero.

 
 

FIRST!

Or it would’ve been if not for FYWP. So far my saturday night has been vinyl-tastic:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TfY_NTqW_Ic&sns=fb

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Governor Andrew Cuomo lost most of upstate New York.

This is only true in terms of actual square milage.

 
 

Near as I can tell, 65+ made up 13% more of the electorate than 55+ did in 2006. (25% of the total vs 22%) Which of course is almost twice what it was in 2008, 2012.

That pretty much gives them their victory. No amount of ‘strategy’ will change those numbers without a billion dollar campaign.

 
 

The fact is, here in the Heart Of It All, we love Kasich and we hate Demoncraps. We look forward to more growth, tax cuts and freedom. if only the medias was not so biased. All Demoncraps should be margarinalised to the sidelines forever now that The People have spokeb in favor of freedom and no more specail rights for blacks and queers.

 
 

But I also think about the 70s and the 90s and other times when belated gains for minority groups gave excuse for vile douchebags to freak out over the diminished separation their privilege bought them and the way they exploded over the “indignity” of now being aware of the existence of others.

Speaking as a white Catholic (well, sort of on that last part), one of the many things that drives me crazy is looking at what happened to my predecessors in America and keep wondering why the fuck it’s so hard to treat OTHER people in the same way. Don’t get me wrong – the treatment of Catholics was pretty freaking bad for quite a long time (they were the Muslims of yesteryear), but once they finally integrated, that was it. There was no “Protestant backlash” to Kennedy’s election or the general enfranchisement of these previously hated white Catholics that joined mainstream society in the fifties and sixties. Some blueblood WASP nincompoops somewhere were grumbling, I suppose. But there weren’t massively disproportionate crackdown on Catholic neighborhoods the way the war on drugs was directed at blacks, no major politicians running national campaigns that endured fifty years on the one note message of “scary thugs and lazy moochers” in Catholic neighborhoods. No equivalent to the wars on black people and women that have happened since the sixties, based on the notion that if These People have to have de jure rights, they’re damn sure not going to have them de facto.

Hence the “drives me crazy” part: I know it doesn’t have to be this way. We HAVE, in the past, integrated groups into full enfranchisement that it would once have been unthinkable to see in the ranks of Polite Society, and it was REAL integration, not the ten minutes of glory followed by decades of backsliding that we’ve seen on the civil rights of nonwhites and women. (And the fucking world didn’t collapse, either). It’s happened before. It COULD happen again. Who the hell do today’s minorities have to fuck to see that it does?

 
 

Mix that in with a bunch of battleground states that were mostly carried through on Obama’s tidal wave back in 2008 and the fact that most of the supposed liberal candidates were too afraid of being called commies or “liberals” to actually defend super popular ideas like the increase in minimum wage and our slightly expanded health care and of course the wonderful help provided by our Supreme Court in rubber-stamping the modern “literacy tests” and well, it’d make sense that the Reptilians would be able to claw and scrape themselves into a position where they can at least more effectively derail not only legislation, but even congressional debate that isn’t about one of their endless hobby horses. […] And I can draw comfort in the continued social victories, that minimum wage increases are succeeding even in glibertarian hellholes and that there is continued peel-back at least in my state of the entrenched and vile prison-industrial complex and drug war.

Yeah, the moral of this election as far as I’m concerned? Whoever these people were who passed minimum wage and anti-drug-war measures (and whatever other liberal measures passed this week), Democrats who actually give a shit about being Democrat need to reach out to them, work with them, march with them and be seen marching with them. It’s not rocket science – figure out what’s working and go with it (along those lines, more Elizabeth Warren, please; I believe the candidates she backed did rather well?) In any case, successful political coalitions always need relationships with institutions outside of “politics” proper (Reagan coalition, evangelical churches; New Deal coalition, labor unions: etc).

 
 

Oh, for the love of Anubis. I can haz double post deletion plz?

 
 

Double comments? Nothing to see here, move along…

 
 

Those aren’t the droids we’re looking for.

 
 

For what it’s worth, I voted.

On social justice warriors: sure, in the giant scheme of society, a bunch of asshole teenagers on the internet doesn’t mean much, but it is disappointing to see people misuse the banner of social justice. Today I saw receipts from a user who was harassed for being asexual and still Liking dick pics. The harasser told her she deserved to be raped. The sarcastic term “social justice warrior” applies in this case.

OT: what do people think of the Lena Dunham abuse scandal? It hits close to home for me.

 
 

I probably should have put warnings on my post.

 
 

The harasser told her she deserved to be raped.

Sigh. I’ve come to have a rather low opinion of people in general.

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

Breitbart attacks wrong Loretta Lynch

I was once married to a real-life Coal Miner’s Daughter, and have a resultant reflexive aversion to such.

 
 

margarinalized
Oh, Gary. Brilliant!

I’ve come to have a rather low opinion of people in general.
Agrees, although I didn’t have a long way to go. Came of age during St. Ronnie and the Knights of the Cordovan Slipper, who successfully beat off the Swedish Decapitation Metal band ‘The Beach Boys’; when Jeanne Dixon’s assurances that trading missiles for hostages to fund the Sandinistan murder-gnomes would ensure flawless victory and keep Frank Sinatra out of his wife’s pantaloons; when Treat Williams could find work as a professional Oliver North doppelganger and a juniper-sweating Peggy Noonan could find work as a professional hagiographer and fluffer; when James Watt created, out of thin air and through only the power of his mind, the Republican mantra of FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT, JESUS WILL COME BACK TUESDAY, NO PEGGY, I DON”T THINK HE DRINKS GIN AND JUICE.

Burning hatred, baby.

(The tests came back negative for herpes, hatred is next in the dictionary.)

 
 

christ what a crappy blog lol

 
 

I’m not going to even pretend to be upset in the slightest by the 2014 Massacree O the Democrats. Long-time Sadlies my recall that Old Fenwick is no fan of the Two-Party system, and believes the country deserves better than a ‘choice’ between Invertebrates and Sociopaths. As a Guerrilla Voter, I’m pleased whenever the Democratic wing of the corporate uni-party takes damage, and all the moreso because I’m a progressive – populist – socialist.

Gotta tell ya that a party with a Big Tent that so ginormous that it embraces complete corporate tools like Max Baucus, Bernie Tauzin, Tom Daschle, Chuck Schumer, Joe Manchin, Mary Landrieu, …., ahhh screw it! Once the list of Blue Dog Conservadems gets started, its going to reach widely and deeply into the past of the Democratic Party during my lifetime.

I will admit that I was a registered Democrat from 1968–when I cast my first vote–until 1992 when I saw through Bill Clinton and the Democractic ‘Leadership’ Council, who decided the party should be more—uhhh, what’s a polite way of phrasing it? Let’s say that Bill and Rahm and the rest of the DLC Clintonistas decided to become more, uh, ‘business friendly’ and get on the Corporate Merry-Go-Round so that they, too, could sop up some of that good, good Korporate Kampaign Kash for themselves, buckeroos.

Also the Clintonistas brought with them the double-plus-good tactics of Triangulation, baby! They imagined they were coopting the Republicans and all they achieved was coopting and ruining of the Democrats. Clinton fooled me, like he fooled a lot of people, but at least I saw through him and the DLC two years into his first term. I re-registered as Independent in 1994, and I’ve been a enemy of the Democrats ever since as they traveled ever farther toward the right.

Seriously, were any of you surprised that Glass-Steagall was wiped off the books in the Clinton years? Hey, hey, hey, remember Bill’s hard-chargin’ Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin spear-heading that push to de-regulate Wall Street entirely (while taking his goverment sabbatical from Goldman-Sachs)? Fun times!

And years later, after Obama appointed Rubin’s right-hand tool Larry Summers to head the 2008 transition team’s econ advisors–and then installed him down corridor in the West Wing–how could you possibly have any doubt about the follow-through of Obama’s pledges to reinstate meaningful controls and regulations on Wall Street? Heady times, back then in the first flush of Hope and Change, wasn’t it?

The Democrats accomplished SO MUCH after the near-landslide Presidential election in 2008 and–for two fucking years–controlled both houses of Congress including the the super-magical Supermajority in ther Senate! With ALL the levers of the government in their power, boy-o-boy, the Democrats sure accomplished lots and lots and lots of stuff, like, well, uh, hmmmm…. Well I forget the details. Cap and trade? Uhhh, no that wan’t part of the mix. Was it card check? Perhaps closing down Gitmo? Or was it ‘accountability’ for torturers and war criminals? Gee, Preznit Obama (and the Democrats) promised a whole slew of stuff in the 2008 campaign as I remember.

Also, is anyone surprised that Obama has spent six years cementing the Bush-Cheney security-and-surveillance state into a permanent feature of the American landscape? Were you paying any attention at all to Nominee Obama’s amazing about-face kabuki performance during the 2008 Senate debate of the (so-called) FISA reforms? It’s okay if you don’t remember. Those were heady days of Hope and Change, and the details tend to get lost, don’t they?

Of course in the pretzel logic of the Two-Party system, I’m Totally Responsible for the electing Republicans. That’s right, sportsfans! Old Fenwick is personally and entirely responsible for electing George Bush because I did not cast my 2000 ballot for Al Gore. Which would have made all the difference in the world in swinging Maryland into Al’s column. (Oh wait. I guess Maryland landed in Al’s column without any help from me. First-past-the-post winner takes all, doncha know? Rube Goldberg Rules roolz!) If only I had lived in Florida, perhaps then I would bear personal responsibility for 8 years of George Bush. (Speaking of which, how did the Democratic Party do as an opposition to eight years of Bush-Cheney? They really fought the good fight against the Patriot Act and Iraq War, huh?)

The Democratic Party stands for NOTHING. It is an empty vessel filled with cliches and platitutudes.

The Democratic Party takes the DFHs for granted. It pisses all over the liberal-progressive-populists–the very people who were once its base–and rides the Korporate Kampaign Kash merryground with a gusto that rivals the Republicans. And yet, an astonishing number of DFHs still give these weasels their cash and their votes. Because Lesser of Two Evils, doncha know. Boy howdy, there’s some powerful political argument. We’re not Sociopaths! Vote for Us!

Gettin’ fired up for Shillery yet? I’m sure the Democratic Party in 2016 is going to be sooooo much different than 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 and the Massacree O 2014. (Old Fenwick, however, will write-in Bernie Sanders for a third time. I’m SURE this will be responsible for electing the Sociopath candidate….)

In the meantime, relax a spell and watch what bits of America Preznit Obama gives away during the Big Legacy Hunt of his last two years.

 
 

Uh-oh. Maybe I better slip back into the Shadows again. I know there are any number of Good Democrats in Sadlyville. And I’ll bet the Good Democrats are in bad temper right now. Or would that be ‘distemper’? Or is that something only canines get?

Anyway, I think I’ll fade back into the hills again. That’s what insurgents and guerrillas tend to do, after all….

 
 

Good to see you fenny. Hope the sweetness continues to take the edge off.

 
 

Also shouldn’t have listed Schumer with the Blue Dogs. I was just thinking of a list of Democratic Tools, and his name naturally popped up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Chuck is right on most of the social issues. But he is a BFF of Wall Street. And BFF of Cast Lead and other war crimes. So, not my favorite Democrat. But a Blue Dog Conservadem? Not at all.

 
 

Howdy, pard. I enjoy the Southwest’s flora! I currently have three versions. What I call ‘The Lafitte-Rothschild’ is nearly down to its final grains. I would so enjoy loading the pipe and passing it to you. I hope that all continues to go well in your world and endeavors.

The Lafitte-Rothschild seems to accentuate the vibrancy of colors: The sky, sunset, sunrise, stormclouds are spectacular. I’m so glad I made the move, Provider.

 
 

Howasbout that DOD name for the Iraq War 3.0? “Operation Inherent Resolve.” Man whatever happened to REAL military operation codewords? Ever since war propagandists climbed into the saddle, it’s been nothing but one fingernails-across-the-blackboard name after another.

Let’s just call it Operation Ubiquitous Bombast and be done with it….

 
 

Sorry Fenwick but I’d rather elect a Hillary than sit around and wait for that perfect progressive candidate while we let the sociopaths grab the levers of power unchecked.

OK, sure, lesser of two evils and all that but never let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.

 
 

Well I’m a big fan of never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I just hope (now that I’m sort of forcibly retired, because nobody wants to hire a 62 year old woman with obsolete computer skillz), and dependent a lot on my Social Security and Veteran’s healthcare benefits, that whatever Democrats are left won’t Grand Bargain them away. Because I really would be destitute if they did that.

I too would rather elect a Hillary than wait for the perfect progressive, but oh just once would I love for some Democrat to stand up and show some spine and kick ass for progressive principles.

Nahhh ga happen. I know. Sigh.

It’s Veteran’s Day and I need some love. I served my country back in the day and these bastards don’t give a damn. They just like to use us for props. BTW, Major Kong, I’m a big fan of yours. You have made me laugh and think hard many a time on the internets.

 
 

Sorry Fenwick but I’d rather elect a Hillary than sit around and wait for that perfect progressive candidate while we let the sociopaths grab the levers of power unchecked.

OK, sure, lesser of two evils and all that but never let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.

i’m with ya on that one…i’m just pretty sick of politics and people in general…

 
 

Operation codewords first became a Big Deal in WWII. Roosevelt and Churchill absolutely loved ’em. Pretty simple and straightforward: One word, almost always a noun. (There were exceptions such as “Totalize”.) And what a nifty set of names came out: Cobra, Dragoon, Overlord, Anvil, Torch, Husky, Market – Garden (ground ops – airdrops) … and those are just the better known ones.

By the time I was in the military in the 1970’s, the operational codeword rules had changed. (Yes, there are DOD rules governing codewords and codenames.) Two words. You gotcher noun and you gotcher modifier. (Examples: two well-known zoomie operations in Vietnam, “Arc Light” and “Rolling Thunder”.)

In the hands of Bush-II propagandists and Obama progagandists, this results in Operations…
Infinite Justice
Iraqi Freedom
Inherent Resolve
Ubiquitious Bombast.

Back in the Olden Times, codewords and codenames were never supposed to have any discernable connection to the operations they labelled. You could see this prohibition beginning to break down in “Desert Shield / Desert Storm” (the last really nifty-sounding major-operation codewords DOD came up with).

I had the opportunity to create two operations codewords, both for military training exercises I wrote. While in the Army I created Operation Deep Freeze. As a civilian consultant I wrote Operation Clean Slate for JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command).

The Major would have gotten a kick out of the air operations portions of Clean Slate. No B-52s but the air ops plan included some nifty air-to-air refueling of four AC-130 Spectre gunships and a Wild Weasel ECM platform from tankers based in Diego Garcia. (I used carrier-based fighter cover, launching and recovering from the the Arabian Sea: The flattop moved in fast to the coast, launched and recovered, then pulled back out to a standard blue-water station.

(All of the air operations were essentially backstory to the CPX. The meat-and-potatoes were the SEALs and Rangers conducting a raid to sabotage the Iranian oil-handling facilities on Kharg Island (in the Persian Gulf). The only air elements which players controlled were the gunships and the insertion / extraction helo flights.)

((( CPX = Command Post Exercise. The units were abstracted. The goal was to train and test mission commanders, planners, and staff. )))

(Btw, Major, I also enjoyed your most recent blog entry on key role of tankers in air operations. Without the tankers, there would have been no Spectre gunships and no ECM available….)

 
 

Yep, the ol’ perfect-as-enemy-of-the-good chestnut. Also there’s a companion chestnut about perfect-as-enemy-of-the-possible. My Good-Democrat stepbrother, the perfesser at U. Oregon (whom I love dearly) trots ’em out ALL the time.

The critique is based on a false assumption: My refusal to vote for either Invertabrates or Sociopaths is NOT an insistence of ‘perfect’ candidates. Rather, It’s that I’ve seen through the phony ‘choice’ between the corporate Invertebrates and the corporate Sociopaths, thankyewverymuch.

Please note that I do NOT say the Two Parties are Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-Dee. They are very UN-like, much in the way that Leprosy and Plague are two very different diseases. I’m not happy when Plague ends up holding power, of course. But I strongly disagree that voting for Leprosy is the cure (as it were).

Why don’t I just throw up my hands in disgust and stop voting altogether? Because the vote is ONLY weapon I have, the ONLY way to express my political will. I don’t intend to waste my vote on Invertebrates or Sociopaths. I won’t vote for Leprosy or Plague anymore. But there is no other way I can express my complete and utter disgust at the United States’ Rube Goldberg system of government … and the Two Parties stranglehold on political discourse.

I must admit, I secretly hope that the Sociopaths end up nominating Jeb Bush. The prospect of yet another Bush-Clinton election in my lifetime is pure comedy gold. (Btw, when will Chelsea be eligible to run…?) Gonna get some popcorn ready for 2016!

 
 

Because the vote is ONLY weapon I have, the ONLY way to express my political will.

BRAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP Wrong. And it is precisely because the troglodytes know you think that is the case is what perpetuates our two party system. If you’re so pissed you should put out more effort than casting a vote every couple years. Quit bitching on the intarnetz and go DO something.

 
 

Remember “Gush and Bore” from 2000? How’d that work out? Do you honestly think things would have been the same if Gore had won in 2000?

Yep, all those Nader voters sure showed us.

 
 

The reason I think it’s so important to keep Republicans out of office, is that once they’re in there’s almost no getting rid of them.

As soon as they get their hands on a little power they immediately start trying to leverage it into more power. They have become masters of the institutional lock-in. They’ll immediately start redrawing districts, messing with the voting laws and appointing judges with the main goal of keeping themselves in power.

Make no mistake. They don’t want to govern, they want to rule.

For me that’s reason enough to elect even shitty corporatist Democrats because I can’t really think of any other way to keep Republicans out of office.

 
 

PROTIP: If you abort a suicide attempt, do it on a Sunday night/Monday morning. There’s a better chance of getting out by the weekend if you do.
.

 
 

They didn’t make you stay in the psych ward for a spell, JP?

 
 

They didn’t make you stay in the psych ward for a spell, JP?

Oh, sure they did! In Tennessee, they can keep you five business days before you get a hearing before a judge, too. Hence my previous comment, since Saturday & Sunday, although you get to experience those 48 hours with violent-scary-for-no-reason people, those days DON’T COUNT towards freedom!

But I’m not bitter. 🙂
.

 
 

Ah, gotcha.
So, was it the pills or the cutting? Gawd, those stomach pumps are brutal.

 
 

Holy shit. Guys, I’d really like it if you bunch of wackos tried to stay alive and stuff. Even Fenwick. Get help, ok JP? Pretty please?

 
 

Here, this might cheer everybody up. XKCD’s take on the comet landing.. (Hint — jump back to the beginning using the << link then use the right arrow key to move through the timeline.)

 
 

2nd try?

So, was it the pills or the cutting?

Aborted attempt at CO poisoning. Scooters are relatively easy to bring inside, it turns out.

If not for the fact that I chose Mission: Impossible (from the 1960s) to watch on Netflix instead of a series I’d seen many times over, I wouldn’t be typing this. I literally shut the scooter’s engine off ’cause I wanted to see what happened next on the show!

OBS — Got help, getting help. Right medication for the right diagnosis helps tremendously!
.

 
 

OBS — Got help, getting help. Right medication for the right diagnosis helps tremendously!

Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.

 
 

Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.

Thanks for the good wishes. Moving to stay with my brother for the winter at least, scooter will be garaged in Nashville for now, and I have a job awaiting me in my brother’s area, also, so busy!

Will connect with social services people, be monitored medically/psychologically.

Will share more as time allows.
.

 
 

Cool , JP.
Glad you are handling the whole situation rationally. Thank FSM for Obamacare, right ?
I am actually typing this over a cat, another situation we have in common.
Best.

 
 

Rosebuddear
November 11th, 2014 at 9:13 pm

hey you! belated veteran’s day felicitations to you, the major, tsam and all the others here who served…

 
 

I am actually typing this over a cat, another situation we have in common.

No longer. They took Kevin when I was hospitalized, and he was euthanized 24 hours later. 🙁
.

 
 

Holy crap! Take care of yourself JP.

 
 

Take care of yourself JP.

I shall do my best.

I’ll swallow a live frog each morning, on the theory that the day can only get better from that point… assuming no one gets me put in a state-run mental hospital, that is.
.

 
 

WordPress, quit fucking with me.

You have all my well-wishes, Jeffraham, and condolences for Kevin.

Why the fuck would they DO that?

 
 

One more time, maybe?

Why the fuck would they DO that?

Well, the morning I was whisked away by the EMTs (the cops woke me, would not let me go back in the house for wallet, keys, PHONE NUMBERS!), the cops asked who to call about Kevin. In my not-quite-awake state, all I could think was to give them K.’s name. She’s an employee for the city where I was working, and Kevin belonged to her daughter.

Her daughter picked Kevin up, and having nowhere to place him, turned him into the county animal shelter. Adult cats don’t last long, there.
.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I literally shut the scooter’s engine off ’cause I wanted to see what happened next on the show!

Saved by a thriller! Get better, old chum, and live to be old, chum. You have friends.

 
 

You have friends.

Do I ever.

The doc wasn’t sure what to make of me telling him I had a small army of people, most of whom I’d never met, working for an after-plan for me. Sounds crazy to me, too.

The toughest parts were, 1.) not knowing if anyone outside that laughing academy even KNEW where I was, and; 2.) trying to survive four nights without my CPAP.
.

 
 

The shelter issue is a more understandable tragedy– I live maybe a couple miles from a county shelter and it’s woefully overcrowded to the point that I’m ambivalent about sending a rather annoying stray cat there because I KNOW she’ll be dead within days (adult black cat, semi-feral, very scarred).

As long as she doesn’t antagonize or physically attack our cat I’m content to let her be.

Still– I’m very sorry this all happened, and I wish I knew what to say beyond the usual words.

 
 

Why the fuck would they DO that?

even though i’m not a cat person (although the son has adopted a lovely shelter cat who is 12, and since she’s the only grandchild i’m likely to get, i’ve even let her sleep by me) i still was appalled, shocked and saddened when i read what they did to kevin…poor curly, poor kevin, poor you…sounds like you are getting back on your feet…and i’m glad to hear it…take care, bud…

 
 

Not voting votes for the other party. Period. End of story. It doesn’t change the world, it actively makes it worse.

So don’t sell that crap, it’s a scam, and it just put Inhofe in control of the US Science and Technology (whatever it’s called) committee

 
 

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