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What's All This Brouhaha? Brouhaha? Ha! Ha! Ha!...* - GNR for Bluesday, March 21st [1]
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Date: 2023-03-21
The word on the street (or at least the part coming out of tfg’s mouth) is that the insurrectionist-in-chief will surrender himself for arrest sometime today. Since the grand jury was still hearing witnesses yesterday, it looks like His Awfulness was probably lying about that too. Anyhow, Orange Judas is calling for another treasonous uprising to protect him from the big bad prosecutor. The likelihood of that happening is quite low, as the most ardent of the J6 crowd is already in jail, he has no control of the police response, and New York City hates him so much he moved out. Whether he gets indicted today or later in the week, the internet will explode, as those who claimed this would never happen move on to “they’ll never convict him,” and those who have been waiting for this event since 2016 will erupt in joyous celebrations. Does this mean the orange asshole will finally shut up and go away? Nope, that won’t happen until he pisses off a judge and gets slapped with a gag order, or he gets convicted and goes to jail. This is just a checkpoint on our nation’s journey back from the brink.
The question I ask myself is: How in the devil did we get here?
I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re stuck in a repetitive cycle:
Republicans (or their political ancestors or descendants) do bad/evil/cruel/thoughtless/stupid things.
We (the forces for progress) call them out on whatever travesty they’ve just perpetrated.
They whine, deflect, and lie.
Our milktoast media pretends bad/evil/cruel/ thoughtless/stupid things are acceptable.
We organize, protest, organize some more, and GOTV in order to successfully derail and defuse most of the damage they have attempted (and make a little progress to boot).
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
We call it history. We’ve been repeating essentially the same cycle for thousands of years. The players change but the contest remains the same. On one side we have the folks who’ve amended the Golden Rule to read:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, unless they have a different skin color, gender, ethnic origin, belief system, sexual preference, political view, or clothing style. In those cases, just treat them like shit and let your inner bully run free.
On the other side we have the rest of us — people who care about one and other. Fortunately for us, the endless rounds of the contest end up with the world consistently inching ever closer to true justice for all. If you are reading this it’s a safe bet that you follow politics fairly closely. Chances are also good that your politics lean slightly to the left [understatement for effect]. You’ve probably taken the time to review various policy statements of interest to you, and formulated well reasoned argument for or against particular aspects of those policies. Generally speaking that is not what conservatives do.
So, why do our opponents insist on standing in the way of progress?
Some of the problems with conservatives are fairly easy to diagnose. They are hopelessly stuck in the past. American humorist, Leo Rosten put it quite well when he said, “A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.” It takes that long for good ideas to sink into the conservative mindset. Doctrinaire, simplistic, overly ideological and usually not supported by any evidence characterize the way many republican think (I use the term loosely) and react to the world.
At its core conservatism is about maintaining stasis. The goal is to preserve a fly-in-amber style of society, where nothing changes and those on top stay on top.
Authoritarianism is all about control. Father Knows Best is hooked on some serious PEDs1 and is free to do whatever strikes his demented fancy.
Mate them and you get Putin and a repressive, backwards, cultural sinkhole of a society unable to provide for its population. He needs to manufacture enemies and play the victim to mask the fact that he’s running a failed state. Gee, that sounds familiar.
In this country, we have a slice of the republican party, including wannabe despots like tfg and deFascist, that see nasty old Vlad the Invader as someone to emulate. That’s a very sad commentary on just how pathetic Lincoln’s party has become. Lincoln wouldn’t recognize it or want his name associated with it. The pretenders to his legacy have implicitly rewritten the intro to his most famous speech:
Sixty years ago, our corporate overlords brought forth on this continent a rebranded party, conceived in deceit, and dedicated to the perverted proposition that self-interest and greed are the only true values to cherish.
It’s hard to describe a republican politician without using one or more of: sleazy, conniving, vain, humorless, dishonest, untrustworthy, dense, irrational, thin-skinned, cruel, lazy, or feckless. On top of that, we’ve seen a near universal display of communal hypocrisy, hopped up on steroids with an amphetamine chaser. There is a convincing prima facie case that many of the leading lights of the republican party are guilty of insurrection against the United States. These are not people I’d trust with children or want to share a beer with.
Their followers, the Magas, aren’t (for the most part) actual Nazis. They are just Nazi adjacent. And, oh boy, do they hate it when they get called on it. They are completely unaware that they’ve been continuously brainwashed over the last thirty or forty years. Their leadership even has a recipe for it:
official RNC Recipe for Creating a Docile and Complicit republican Party Base Quantity/source Ingredient A ubiquitous cable network dedicated to deceit An entire radio dial crammed with incandescent hate Several hundred megachurches brimming with religious zealotry and bigotry All of flyover country filled with rampaging herds of bullshit A violently erupting volcano’s worth of cruelty An ocean awash in medical disinformation An entire universe of denial A federal bench packed with far right ideologues Lots of shady banks knowingly laundering corrupt foreign influence A cabal of despotic oligarchs willing to spend unlimited sums of dark money All of Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Business’s false statistics, fake science and market manipulations All of the NRA and Big Ammo’s distortions of the Constitution for fun and profit The output of a cottage industry created to manufacture stupid conspiracy theories and even stupider culture war idiocy An overstuffed dais full of sociopathic/narcissistic and otherwise unqualified candidates Russia’s loving contribution of troll farms Mountain ranges made completely out of lies
Mix all the ingredients together illiberally and illegally. Then blast out the resulting message of corruption 24/7/365 nonstop for decades. Anyone who succumbs to the messaging ends up with their brains turned to pudding (which is probably why Floriduh’s governor was so impatient to gobble it up, resorting to eating it with his fingers).
The more we call them out as ravenous predators devouring the wealth of our nation, the less impact they have moving forward. Dominion and Smartmatic, the J6 Committee, the DOJ J6 prosecutions, everyone who is indicting/suing tfg, all the state and federal judges stopping republican overreach, and all the rest of our pushback have an impact. Every newly exposed republican scandal has an impact. Republican are reduced to polishing a turd that is disintegrating while they rub away in increasing desperation.
We have the power. We have the ability. We can and we will do this.
Slava Ukraini!
Remember the Children
Screw you, Samuel Alito
* In case you don’t recognize it, today’s title was shamelessly stolen from Firesign Theatre’s “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger,” featuring Nick Danger, Third Eye from their 1969 album, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All. Link to the entire [28:29 minutes] sketch. I also found this truncated live on stage variation of the first third of the sketch [10:51 minutes].
1Performance Enhancing Drugs
Stephen and Seth were off last night. Luckily for us, Al Franken hosted the Daily Show last night.
x YouTube Video
If you are interested, here’s a handy link to the Al Franken/Lindsey Graham interview[20:04].
Oh, goodie! We have something new from the Parody Project.
x YouTube Video
Still with me? Ok, let’s take a look at the parts of the news that aren’t just drowning in speculation about the upcoming INDICTMENT(s).
But First, This Take on the Republican Reaction to What’s Coming Is Intriguing
One party is guilty of politicizing tfg’s crimes and it’s not the Democrats. Mindless lockstep defense of a criminal enterprise and its principal beneficiary is not a way to gain support. While their hardcore base is lapping up all the preening and posturing, most everyone else is repelled. Every time McCarthy, Jordan, Comer, Greene, Boebert, Gosar, Hawley, Cruz, or any of their other lowlights opens their yaps and starts with the ersatz Sieg Heil fawning support for their failure of a leader, they lose another vote or twenty.
Raw Story: David Badash: Republicans are 'obstructing justice' and 'becoming accessories' to Trump’s 'crimes': ex-prosecutor
In the wake of Donald Trump‘s numerous recent social media rants attacking various prosecutors investigating his possibly unlawful acts, and his claim over the weekend that he will be indicted on Tuesday, many House and Senate Republicans have been rushing to his defense, wrongly claiming he is the victim of a political prosecution. “I may end being not fully accurate, but Kevin McCarthy may be implicitly endorsing falsifying business records, tax fraud, campaign finance crime, and more, including obstruction of justice, when undermining the justice system is exactly what his tweet does,” tweeted Yarmouth. “In a very real sense, congressional Republicans who use their power & their office to thwart criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump are becoming accessories after the fact to Trump’s crimes. They are obstructing justice. And we can expect [it] to continue if it goes unaddressed.”
Everyone’s least favorite pederast enabler, Gym Jordan, sent a letter, citing opinions from such questionable luminaries as Big Lie proponent Jonathan Turley to justify their outrageous interference in an ongoing court case. I think Ted Lieu’s response is spot on.
x Dear @Jim_Jordan: Local prosecutors, including DA Bragg, owe you nothing. In fact, it is illegal for you and @JudiciaryGOP to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation, or a criminal trial (if there is one).
https://t.co/1SOSHf4q7E — Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 20, 2023
Ted Lieu had more to say about McCarthy and Gymbo’s overreach.
x Statement on Republican efforts to interfere with the Manhattan District Attorney's investigation into the former President: pic.twitter.com/5FEYSRDFUM — Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) March 20, 2023
On MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell made clear his disdain as well.
Huffington Post: Lee Moran: Lawrence O’Donnell Rips ‘Buffoon' Jim Jordan's 'Joke Of A Letter' To Alvin Bragg
In one swift action, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday showed exactly what he thought of a letter co-authored by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that condemned the expected indictment of former President Donald Trump. O’Donnell ripped it up. “If Nancy Pelosi had gotten this letter … this is what she would do with it,” O’Donnell said, before tearing it live on air. “That would get the Pelosi rip faster than any paper she has handled since the Trump State of the Union address.”
There’s Another Case We’ve Been Following
I’m rooting for the demise of Fox even harder than I’m rooting for the end of tfg. Fox has done a lot more damage across a lot longer time span. They truly are an open pus-filled boil on a seeping hemorrhoid on the prolapsed sphincter that is today’s republican party.
Raw Story: Brad Reed: Fox News producer's 'explosive' new lawsuit upends its Dominion defense
CNN reports that an "explosive" new lawsuit filed by Fox News producer Abby Grossberg has thrown a wrench into its defense against a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. According to CNN, Grossberg alleges that she was coached by Fox News attorneys to give misleading testimony under oath in order to shift blame away from the network for airing multiple false claims about Dominion. "Fox News Attorneys acted as agents and at the behest of Fox News to misleadingly coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News," the lawsuit states. The complaint also documents alleged misogynistic and anti-Semitic behavior by Fox News employees that Grossberg experienced as a producer for both Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and primetime Fox News star Tucker Carlson.
In Still Other Court Related News (Not Everything Is About tfg and Fox)
Remember those treasonous insurrectionist Oath Keeper schmucks? Well some more of them were convicted yesterday, and the jury is still out on the last two of this set.
Reuters: Sarah N. Lynch: Four Oath Keeper associates convicted of felonies for roles in US Capitol attack
WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Four associates of the far-right Oath Keepers group were found guilty on Monday for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but the Washington jury remained deadlocked on some serious charges for two other defendants who did not enter the building during the chaos. Oath Keeper associates Sandra Ruth Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding - a charge that can carry up to 20 years in prison, as well as several other felony and misdemeanor charges. Michael Greene and Bennie Parker, the two who did not enter the Capitol building, were acquitted on the most serious felonies charges, though the jury remained deadlocked on one outstanding felony count for each man.
A Punching Bag Gets Punched
When I hear news about Gym Jordan’s Weaponization Distortion committee, I fluctuate between calling it a fiasco and a travesty. When I hear news about McCarthy, I fluctuate between calling him a fool and an idiot. Whenever the two get mixed it should come with a laugh track.
Huffington Post: Ben Blanchet: Hakeem Jeffries Pummels Kevin McCarthy With New Name For Weaponization Committee
Holy Jumpin’ Jiminy, Batman
What happens when a judge gets tired of endless obfuscation and delay. This is some big time FAFO comeuppance. If Corcoran is the tiniest bit rational, he’s thinking real hard about asking for immunity in exchange for testifying against his client.
Daily Beast: Jose Pagliery: Federal Judge Hands Over Trump’s Lawyer’s Notes to DOJ
On her final day as the top judge in the District of Columbia on Friday afternoon—in her final act—Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell did more than grant the Justice Department permission to question former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. She actually took the rare step of handing over the lawyer’s notes to federal prosecutors, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.✂️ M. Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor, has represented Trump in that classified documents scandal. And while Corcoran already has his hands full as Trump’s lawyer, the probe now appears to have put Corcoran in legal jeopardy himself.✂️ On Friday, as part of a sealed proceeding, Howell ordered Corcoran to provide additional testimony to the DOJ, CNN first reported on Friday. She decided that investigators could pierce the typically ironclad blanket of attorney-client privilege because of something called the “crime-fraud exception.” In essence, the judge found that whatever legal advice Corcoran gave to Trump was used in furtherance of a crime.
Puddin’ Ron Slips Slurps Up on a Plane
This story was referenced in passing in the intro. Here’s the real scoop, er ... cup on how Ron managed to earn his new nickname.
Slate: Shirin Ali: Ron DeSantis Ate Chocolate Pudding … With Three Fingers?
In a Daily Beast story about DeSantis’ supposedly aloof public persona and tenuous social skills—and how that might factor into the 2024 presidential campaign should DeSantis declare he is running—there was a rather striking anecdote. According to two anonymous sources familiar with the incident, the Daily Beast reported that, in March of 2019, as DeSantis was flying from Tallahassee, Florida, to Washington, he ate a chocolate pudding dessert—using three of his fingers. That’s right. He ate a chocolate pudding dessert using his fingers. Three of them. This prompts many questions: Was there not a single available spoon on the airplane? Why use three fingers and not two—or one? Was the urge for chocolate pudding so strong that it couldn’t wait until a spoon could be found? Was it all some kind of practical joke? Slate tried to put itself in DeSantis’ shoes: You’re sitting down to enjoy a creamy cup of pudding , maybe one swiped from your kid’s lunchbox, and you just really, really want to eat it. But when you pull back the plastic seal, you realize—alas!—there is no spoon in sight. You face a world in which you either a) wait to eat the pudding or b) throw manners to the wind. Personally, I think he could have tried to squeeze the plastic packaging and push the whole glop into his mouth at once. But the squishiness of the packaging of this pudding was not part of the Daily Beast story.
Saint Ronnie’s Halo Should be Repossessed
What’s the difference between Reagan’s deceits and those of tfg? Reagan’s co-conspirators were better at hiding the truth than tfg’s toadies.
Rolling Stone: Althea Legaspi: Reagan Allies Schemed to Delay U.S. Hostages’ Freedom to Sabotage Carter, Alleged Witness Says
BEN BARNES, A former Texas politician, is claiming he witnessed a plot to sabotage the reelection of President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by delaying the release of U.S. hostages in Iran. His stunning admission was reported by The New York Times on Saturday. The hostage crisis in Iran blighted Carter’s presidency and his reelection campaign, and, with the hostages still unreleased on Election Day 1980, the incumbent lost badly to Ronald Reagan. In the four-plus decades since, many have argued he’d have fared far better had he secured the release of the 52 Americans held captive. But Barnes told The Times that his mentor, former Texas governor John B. Connally Jr., was determined to not let that happen — and helped prevent the hostages’ release. Barnes says that summer, Connally brought him to several Middle Eastern capitals to convince the respective regional leaders to tell Iran that they would get a better deal from Republican nominee Ronald Reagan if they held the hostages until after the election. That is precisely what happened.✂️ Barnes — who served as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and lieutenant governor, and who also helped George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard — said he wanted to set the record straight, given that Carter is in hospice care. “History needs to know what happened,” he said. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”
The Book They Should Throw at This Guy Is Too Big to Lift
Did you know the despicable Koch Brothers of Heritage Foundation and anti-climate infamy have another nasty brother? William Koch has been defrauding the EPA and us for years. His insatiable greed has recklessly and egregiously endangered the health of the citizens of Port Arthur, Texas. It would be nice is if the punishment for his crimes make his remaining years on Earth just as uncomfortable as the place he’s got reserved for himself in hell.
Grist: Naveena Sadasivam, Clayton Aldern: Any Way the Wind Blows
✂️ The Port Arthur plant was built in the 1930s and has been grandfathered in as an exception to the landmark federal environmental laws of the 1970s. The facility has four cavernous, cylindrical kilns that are constantly rotating, each about half the length of a football field. Raw petcoke, the bottom-of-the-barrel remainder from refining crude oil, is fed into the kilns and heated to temperatures as high as 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit — a fourth of the temperature of the surface of the sun. The intense heat helps burn off heavy metals, sulfur, and other impurities into the air. It emits more than double the amount of sulfur dioxide, which can cause wheezing and asthma attacks, than the average U.S. coal-fired power plant.✂️ Such exceedances are bound to have an effect on human health. Studies have shown that even short-term exposure to sulfur dioxide can increase the risk of strokes, asthma, and hospitalization. Multi-city studies in China have found that a roughly 4 ppb increase in sulfur dioxide levels is correlated with a 1 to 2 percent increase in strokes, pulmonary diseases, and death. The asthma rate in the residential neighborhood surrounding the plant, West Port Arthur, which is more than 90 percent Black, is 70 percent higher than the national average, according to federal data. And Black residents in Jefferson County, where Oxbow is located, are 15 percent more likely to develop cancer and 40 percent more likely to die from it compared to the average Texan. ✂️ However, when the wind was not blowing Oxbow’s pollutants toward the monitor throughout this one-year period, the facility did not alter its operations. By ensuring that the monitor was incapable of recording a comprehensive, untampered view of the facility’s emissions, experts say Oxbow flaunted environmental law — in essence, by guaranteeing any air violations would not be detected — and continued to deteriorate air quality in the area.✂️ Mintz reviewed Grist’s findings and said that Oxbow’s actions are “fairly egregious” violations of the law. He added that the EPA should open “an investigation with the Justice Department pursuing criminal action.” Presented with Grist’s findings, an EPA spokesperson said the agency “will follow up based on the information” provided.
A Double Dose of Andy Is Good for What Ails You
If there’s one white booted card carrying fascist mini-despot in need of ridicule, his name is Ron DeSantis. Andy focused in and pierced that thin, thin skin in a couple of places.
The New Yorker: Satire from the Borowitz Report: DeSantis Installs Higher Heels on White Boots in Preparation for 2024 Race
If elevator shoes are good enough for tfg, Ron DeFascist wants to get in on the act too. FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—Ron DeSantis has completed the installation of higher heels on his signature white boots in preparation for the 2024 Presidential race, sources close to the Florida governor have confirmed. Although aides to the G.O.P. contender have refused to divulge the specific height of the new heels, they are believed to be “somewhere between two and three inches,” one source said. The heels, which were paid for by DeSantis’s political-action committee, were installed by the campaign’s cobbler earlier this week in order to give the Governor ample time walking at the higher elevation, according to reports.
The New Yorker: Satire from the Borowitz Report: DeSantis to Replace Disney World with “Dilbert” Theme Park
ORLANDO (The Borowitz Report)—Ron DeSantis has unveiled an ambitious plan to raze Disney World and replace it with a “Dilbert”-themed attraction. The new theme park, tentatively called Dilbert World, will attract “millions of Americans deprived of their favorite comic strip by the left-wing media Reich,” the Florida governor said. Calling the new tourist destination “a woke-free zone,” DeSantis promised, “Parents who go to Dilbert World can rest assured that their children will not be exposed to the vile multicultural propaganda that it’s a small world, after all.” From Server Rooms to Swimming Pools The circle of life heat can be maintained by some outside the HVAC bubble thinking. GoodNewsNetwork: Andy Corbley: Refrigerator-Sized Data Center Transfers Its Heat to English Swimming Pool, Saving Thousands in Energy Costs A refrigerator-sized data center is being used as an innovative solution to pool heating, saving thousands in fuel costs in England. The “digital boiler” was designed and implemented by Mark Bjornsgaard, founder of the start-up Deep Green, which charges clients to use its computing power for artificial intelligence and machine learning. It also charges a smaller fee to the Exmouth Leisure Center in Devon to transfer the significant amount of heat generated through the data banks into a mineral oil which can be used to keep the swimming pool to 88°F (30°C) for about 60% of the day like regular heating oil. Musical Interlude x YouTube Video Music from Ukraine This song won the annual (since 2004) Austrian Protest Song Contest last month. 18-year-old Ukrainian student Maryna aka KüR’s entry, Ljudi (People), is a song about the time before the war, the beginnings of the war and the Ukrainian diaspora, sung in Ukrainian and German. It won both the the most points from the jury and the public vote. x YouTube Video
On the Lighter Side (with an Edge)
Quote(s) of the Day
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. — John Kenneth Galbraith Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative. — John Stuart Mill Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. — Benjamin Disraeli You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat. — Jackie Kennedy I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them. — Harry S. Truman Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time. — George Carlin Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals. — Mark Twain
The Hunting Pressley Report
Musings from the desk of Pressley T. NotEver
Pressley surrounded by her diverse security detail
Dateline: (The living room at Chez NNNE) In today’s edition, Pressley speaks out on press(ley)ing issues faced by Doggie Nation. Take it away Pressley!
I’m a real bitch. You humans need to get used to it. When we go for a ride in the car, I'm a bitch on wheels.
Give me liberty or give me treats. No… wait, I want both.
The reason we don’t go around biting republicans on the ass is because they are doing a great job of that all by themselves.
I crap out better citizens than republican congressweasels every day.
There are lot’s of advantages to being a dog. For example, I won’t get arrested for pissing on tfg’s grave.
The hell with all this crap about neutering dogs — neuter republicans, they are an actual threat.
Goodnight, Chet.
Closing Notes
I think I was at this show. I’m not sure. My memory for the last week of 1983 is spotty. Anyhow, the Dead started playing The Other One in 1967 and it stayed in the set lists through to Jerry’s death in 1995. It was one of Bobby’s first forays into writing lyrics for the Dead. This is the second verse:
Escaping through the lily fields, I came across an empty space
It trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in its place
The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never ever land
x YouTube Video
[END]
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