This Is A Fine Mess You’ve Gotten US Into

Duston Stockman, Chris Hayes, Jennifer Lawrence

So there I was the other night sipping my pre-dinner cocktail and multitasking back and forth from my phone to the TV. Chris Hayes of MSNBC was interviewing Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence (no not that one, the other one), aka, the Bonnie and Clyde of the MAGA world, about their involvement in the January 6th attempted overthrow of the United States government. You can watch the entire interview right here:

Before I go any further, what is it with Trumper women and makeup? Is it their belief that if some is good, more is better, and using a spackling trough as an applicator is best?

But I digress.

Stockton and Lawrence were in the news because they had played a large part in organizing the January 6th so-called “Save America” rally that ended up with the attack on the Capital. Unlike so many others in that group, these two had decided to come clean to the congressional committee investigating the attack and have been handing over texts, emails, and all other kinds of juicy tidbits. A lot of people are worried about what they have said. A lot of congress type people.

Of course in typical Trumper fashion their claim is “we did nothing wrong”. They claim to only have been the organizers of the rally outside the White House that day and only found out the mob was going to march down to the Capital when their chief cook and bottle washer Herr Oberfuhrer Drumpf told them to from behind the cloak of White House and Secret Service safety.

So setting the table means you have nothing to do with serving the dinner. OK, gotcha.

They were shocked, shocked I tell you to discover that Donald Trump would throw them under the bus by pardoning everyone else and leaving them hung out to flutter in the winds of justice. This even after Lawrence says she’d known Trump for a decade.

You’ve known him for a decade and hadn’t figured out he does that to EVERYONE?! It’s just occurring to you that Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump?! The rest of the non-Trumper world knew that was the case, but it was only after your failed attempt to keep him in power and his subsequently throwing you under a multi axle vehicle that you realized, “hey maybe he’s not such a nice guy”.

I shouldn’t be surprised. A con man is always gonna be a con man. And the biggest defenders a con man can have are the people he conned. It might be because they are still under the influence of the con or it might be because they are subconsciously attempting to justify to themselves the fact they were conned. Whatever the reason, and whatever the evidence mounted to prove the con, they will only under the most demanding of pressure admit to their folly.

So little Dusty, even while he attempts to throw Trump under that multi axle vehicle, also tries to do the “but what abouts” with Hayes over MSNBC’s coverage of the Trump/Russia investigation. Credit Hayes for not buying into that and keeping the interview on as even a keel as could be hoped for. He did what Chris Wallace at the first 2020 Presidential Debate should have done, but then again Wallace had to deal with a crazy person high on anti-COVID drugs (and whatever else he uses) while Hayes only had to deal with a disgruntled man child who had lost his reason for being.

Come to think of it, maybe they were both dealing with the same thing.

Press this little link to see what else these scamps were into

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Waking Up? Or Soon To Fall Back Asleep?

Media Watchdog Jay Rosen, an NYU professor, has been one of the Eyes on the Fails regarding how our American media is largely, well, failing to properly cover our march into autocracy. His writing is a must-read. Yesterday, he actually saw a glimmer of hope in the form of a CNN appearance by Juicy Trump Book Author Jon Karl, who is also a Well-Respected White House Correspondent with ABC News. You can read it here. Rosen is a realist and not one to get snookered easily into false hope. So if he sees some good news here, that’s pretty huge. … Continue reading Waking Up? Or Soon To Fall Back Asleep?

Take A Breath, It’s Just Thanksgiving

Hey there. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Enjoying your Thanksgiving coffee? Yeah, I know. Soon (if not already), you’re going to have to deal with family. Last year, even if you won’t admit it to anyone, was actually kind of nice. Thanks to COVID, it was just you and the people and pets you live with. No worries about the cringe-worthy political opinions of family members. But this year, it’s once more into the breach, my friend. There’s your one uncle, who two Thanksgivings ago told you that if Trump didn’t win 600 electoral votes, the fix was in. That was … Continue reading Take A Breath, It’s Just Thanksgiving

Giving Them Permission

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is, unfortunately, going exactly as some of us expected. It features a suspiciously sympathetic judge who has the Conservative National Anthem as his ringtone. Yesterday, it also featured the greatest bad crying performance by a right-winger since Beer Guy Brett Kavanaugh demonstrated his fitness for the Supreme Court bench by fake wailing during his confirmation hearing. Based on a few of the images, like the one above, Rittenhouse appears to be less crying and more offering a Gilbert Gottfried impression. The judge has done some eyebrow-raising things that seem suspiciously sympathetic to the defendant. Rittenhouse has … Continue reading Giving Them Permission

We Don’t Need Another Hero

Marvel's Avengers

 

A couple of weeks ago I changed my cell phone plan which these days means I get access to more of the interconnected corporate hegemony being put out into the cultural zeitgeist these days. In this case I now have access to Disney Plus, or Disney + as the branding bros would have it.

I really couldn’t have cared less about getting Disney + as I am beyond the age of having children who would watch cartoons and not yet to the point of having grandkids who would. But since Disney has been buying up intellectual property as if they couldn’t possibly come up with something themselves (and yes that is a dig at how Disney has treated their creative “partners”) having the network has given me a chance to take a gander at the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that I’ve heard so much about.

I have a special fondness for Marvel comic books. Back in the day when a 25 cent weekly allowance was enough for two comics and three pieces of penny candy, I bucked the trends and fanboyed for Marvel over D.C. Comics. Frankly I didn’t understand why my friends didn’t favor The Fantastic Four over Superman or Spiderman over Batman. I mean, we lived in New York, the Marvel characters protected New York, why would you favor some guy from another planet who lived in a made up city called Metropolis over someone protecting YOU in the very real city where you lived? And really, this guy puts on a pair of glasses and nobody recognizes him? At least Iron Man had a metal helmet covering his entire head so of course you couldn’t know it was Tony Stark.

But times passes and my magazine reading advanced from comic books to Mad Magazine to the National Lampoon and then out into adulthood. Yeah, I went to see Christopher Reeve as Superman and Michael Keaton as Batman, but those were one off experiences that were not repeated for the numerous sequels. By the time of the reimagining of Batman by Christopher Nolan, superhero movies were out of my flightpath. In fact I became that guy who went to see Cosmopolis at some Hellplaza 64 screen monstrosity and complained to the management that the walls are so thin I could hear the cheering for The Dark Knight Rises.

Damn kids.

Thus I have not seen in their entirety any of the twenty-five or so movies that have made zillions of dollars and have audiences salivating for more. I don’t know Chris Evans from Chris Pine. I’ve been told they are both captains, but of what I can’t remember. Scrolling through the list of Marvel films available on the network I get lost trying to remember if Loki is a villain, a hero, a god, a spaceman, or just whatever the hell he really is. Apparently there are multiple universes in which there are multiple Spidermen, women, dogs, cats, and taxi cab drivers. And there are guardians of the galaxy and one of them is the shoeshine guy from Parks and Rec?

And to think one of the reasons my childhood friends didn’t like the Marvel comics was that they were too complex.

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He Works Hardly For the Money

NEWS REPORT: Donald Trump has asked to be allowed to live at Mar-A-Lago permanently, claiming he is an employee and therefore eligible for an exemption prohibiting members of the club from living there fulltime.  Lights up on the Human Resources office of the Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach Florida. Seated at her desk is MARLA, the HR Manager. She is reading through a file, then uses the intercom to buzz her secretary. MARLA: June, is the next candidate for the open position still waiting? JUNE: (over the intercom) Yes, he’s still here. I think he’s getting a little jumpy. MARLA: … Continue reading He Works Hardly For the Money