Category Archives: The Darnold

Oct 26 2020
3 Comments
COVID-19, The Darnold, Tommy T

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – “I FEEL ‘APPY!” edition

[clang]

Bring out your dead!

CUSTOMER: Here’s one.

CART MASTER: Nine pence.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!

CART MASTER: What?

CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here’s your nine pence.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!

CART MASTER: ‘Ere. He says he’s not dead!

CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not!

CART MASTER: He isn’t?

CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon. He’s very ill.

DEAD PERSON: I’m getting better!

CUSTOMER: No, you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment.

DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.

[whop]

*******************

OK – a bit of an explanation. Labour day weekend, I noticed a cut in my upper lip from the electric razor I use to trim my mustache was red and getting redder. Two days later, it was spreading fast enough to scare me, and prompt me to head for the local Doc-In-The-Box on Labour day. They gave me oral antibiotics and told me to come back the next day. It was getting worse rather then better, so I headed for the E.R.

After a six hour wait (the admissions room seemed to be filling up with people who were coughing for some reason), they admitted me, diagnosed cellulitis, and started me on a triple regimen of I/V antibiotics. I was there for a whole week, then discharged and told to go see my PCP. My PCP prescribed two of the heaviest-duty oral antibiotics made, which I stayed on for two weeks. VERY slow recovery. My face no longer looked like something Tom Savini slapped together during his lunch hour, but the brain fog from the antibiotics has made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything. I was trying to figure out how many more days worth of Clindomycin I have left to take, and had to ask Barbara how much 14 plus 56 are. Really.

I told Barbara “Remember when you were a young mom with two little girls in the back seat yelling, fighting, and kicking your seat back while you were trying to navigate a complex intersection you’d never driven through before? It’s like that, only a little worse.”

At the same time, Freeperville was coming apart at the seams like a “Made In GYNA” MAGA hat. I felt like Mike Joy being asked to turn around and sign autographs while a 40-car pileup was occurring on the Talladega speedway.

So – I’m back. I’ll be assembling “Obsession” posts about reactions to events of the last month, in chronological order, and there’s a buttload of them, so bear with me.

It’s not like all that much has happened in the last month anyway, has it?

Has it?

PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS HE IS GOING INTO QUARANTINE WITH FLOTUS MELANIA
breaking 911 ^

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TWITTER FEED: POTUS AND FLOTUS TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

President Trump’s Twitter feed ^ | 10/1/20 | President Trump

Posted on 10/1/2020, 11:59:49 PM by Yossarian

To: Yossarian

Holy crap.

2 posted on 10/2/2020, 12:00:38 AM by deadrock (<img src=”WIDTH420WIDTH420.jpeg” width=”420″>)

To: Yossarian

Holy sh*t

3 posted on 10/2/2020, 12:00:44 AM by Sarah Barracuda
To: Yossarian

SH*T!

11 posted on 10/2/2020, 12:04:02 AM by nutmeg (Mega prayers for Rush Limbaugh)

Don’t worry – it’s just a hoax.
Oh – and Limbaugh’s fucked, too, while we’re at it.
To: Yossarian; All

The President took Hydroxychloroquine as a preventative. I guess so much for the effectiveness of HCQ.

8 posted on 10/2/2020, 12:02:41 AM by Kenny
To: krogers58

He was talking to hannity earlier seemed fine

17 posted on 10/2/2020, 12:04:59 AM by Sarah Barracuda

I’m sure Hannity wasn’t concerned even in the slightest.
Heh.
More goodies after the break…

Continue reading →

Tagged , , ,
Oct 23 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, JOEY B SHARK, Political Crack, The Darnold

Debate Roundup: Come On, Man

I used the North By Northwest image because I wanted to flee the debate. Any time spent listening to Donnie from Queens’ nasal whine take a lot out of me. He is quite simply the most annoying public figure of my lifetime. I’m cautiously optimistic that this will be his last debate as a presidential candidate. Repeat after me: Donald Trump is an asshole, misogynist, racist, and mentally ill criminal.

It’s hard for me to judge these debates because I detest President* Pennywise and his every utterance. He was not as unhinged or feral as in the first debate. I’d give him 7 out of 10 on the Trump awfulness meter whereas he scored a perfect 10 last time.

Trump’s task was to convince alienated Republicans and Republican leaning independents to give him another chance. He failed. The “Biden corruption” segment was only comprehensible to political junkies and those who live in the right-wing media bubble. Most people think that Joey B Shark is an honest man, and that Trump is not. Repeat after me: Nobody cares about Hunter Biden.

Unlike many in the Crack Van, I thought Kristen Welker did a good job. It’s impossible to stop Trump from going on and on but she did a better job of containing his verbiage than Chris Wallace did in the first debate. It’s all you can do with this rude, mouthy motherfucker.

Biden was not quite as good as in the first debate, but he did what he had to do. He scored points, especially in the COVID, race, and “babies in cages” segments. Trump was appalling on all those issues. One thing I know for sure is that the guy who says they’re the “least racist person” in a given room is actually the most racist.

Trump’s most horrifying moment was when he showed no compassion for the migrant children who have been separated from their parents. President* Pennywise kept claiming that they’re well-treated and they were brought to America by “coyotes” not their parents.

Trump unleashed a blizzard of bullshit and an avalanche of lies during the debate. I’m glad I don’t have the fact check the lying bastard. Daniel Dale is a freaking saint.

A reminder that every time the Kaiser of Chaos opens his mouth, he loses votes. Here’s why: he only cares and talks about himself. Period. Case closed.

The stakes were lower for Biden. I thought that he won the debate. He’ll keep his lead and, hopefully, become the 46th president. I look forward to removing the asterisk, which will remain permanently attached to his opponent like Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter.

People are tired of the Impeached Insult Comedian shooting off his big fat bazoo. It’s time for him to go. Make it so, America, make it so.

Oct 22 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Fog Of History, Fog Of Scandal, JOEY B SHARK, Political Crack, The Darnold

October Surprise Overkill

The phrase October Surprise was first coined in 1980 by Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager/CIA Director Bill Casey. How’s that for a Republican combination? So much for not mixing national security and politics.

Casey was referring to the possibility that the Carter administration would free the American hostages in Iran before the election. It did not happen. Many years later, a guy named Gary Sick claimed that Team Reagan had interfered with the negotiating process a la Team Nixon in 1968. The latter meddling has been confirmed, the former has not. So it goes.

Like a group of demented chimpanzees on meth, Team Trump is throwing one October Surprise after another at the wall. It’s like shit, they figure some of it is bound to stick. Thus far it’s only stuck with committed Trump voters; some of whom should be committed to what used to be called the laughing academy. President* Pennywise should be the first in line.

They’ve tried bizarre variations on the Hunter Biden theme. Nobody cares about Hunter Biden. To be effective, an October Surprise must be something the public gives a shit about such as the Vietnam War, the Iran hostage crisis, or Comey-Clinton. Perhaps not the latter but the jolly green former FBI director cared. About his image.

Speaking of images, some wingnut Trumper posted this:

How dare Joey B Shark love his son. Heartless bastard.

I hope I’m the first to call this bozo Cardildo, but I somehow doubt it.

Another October Surprise landed last night. The man who puts the Rat in Ratcliffe held a sinister presser announcing Iranian interference in the election. The Director of National Intelligence/political hack made the announcement at FBI HQ. It looked like a hostage video starring Chris Wray. Hmm, is he related to Link?

Funny thing that it’s the Iranians doing the October Surprise Rumble, not Russians. Let’s party like it’s 1980 and Walter Cronkite is still counting down the number of days Americans have been held hostage.

In other October Surprise news, Trump is thinking of firing Barr and Wray because they didn’t produce one. How dare Bill Barr fail in his mission to frame Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. What’s next? A “lock him up” chant aimed at Barr? Or as President Pennywise recently said at a MAGAPALOOZA: “Lock them all up.” To paraphrase the legendary movie mogul Sam Goldwyn: “Include yourself in.”

Sam Goldwyn didn’t actually say all the Goldwynisms attributed to him. I wish the same could be said for Trumpisms. It’s what happens when you’re an asshole who never shuts the fuck up.

The one October Surprise I was devoutly hoping for isn’t happening as of this writing. The Impeached Insult Comedian isn’t bowing out of a second debate. Now I have to watch and write about it tomorrow. Damn you, Donald.

Repeat after me: Donald Trump is a pussy. He should grab himself.

Since October Surprise Overkill gave me insomnia last night, the last word goes to Colin Hay:

Oct 21 2020
6 Comments
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Donald Trump Is, Fog Of History, Political Crack, The Darnold

Donald Trump Is An Asshole

This post began life with another title, Quote Of The Day: Over Thinking The Election. It was a good title but not catchy enough. The “quote” turned into “quotes” and I realized that the title had to change to something snappier. Besides, I haven’t written a Donald Trump Is post in 2020.

Enough navel gazing. As Bugs and Daffy would have surely said at this point: On with the show, this is it.

I wrote the other day about how the elite inside-the-beltway media has been in the bag for the GOP since the Reagan years. That’s particularly true of Politico. Every time a politically unsophisticated friend shares a Politico piece on social media I cringe. Half the time their articles are poisoned darts aimed at Democrats. Politico specializes in “Democrats in disarray” articles. It’s long been a fanzine for the Republican Party. That’s why Charlie Pierce calls them Tiger Beat On The Potomac.

One of the openly pro-GOP Politico types is Tim Alberta. In 2019, he published what is supposed to be a good book about the Party of Trump. Like many other GOPers and fellow travelers, Alberta does not care for Donald Trump. I’m not sure why Cheney and Rove were okay when they were just as assholish as the Impeached Insult Comedian, but progress is progress.

Alberta is one of those Politico writers who specializes in “who voters would like to have a beer with” style campaign coverage. This is what nailed Al Gore to the wall in 2000. He wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as Poppy Bush’s amiable offspring. That amiable dolt got us into a deeply stupid war. Oy, just oy.

The genre is especially weird in an election featuring two teetotalers. Maybe someday, I’ll write about that phenomenon. It almost makes me nostalgic for the days of “Bourbon and branch water” pols like Harry Truman and Sam Rayburn. The latter often used the euphemism “let’s strike a blow for liberty” when it was time for cocktail hour in his Capitol Hill hideaway office. Bottoms up, Mr. Sam.

Alberta has gone back to the well in 2020 and produced a winner. I never expected to praise and quote a Tim Alberta “who voters would like to have a beer with” piece but 2020 is a weird-n-wacky year.  It’s a longer quote that I typically use but, hey, 2020.

Tim Alberta concludes that we’re over thinking the election:

But if Trump loses, the biggest factor won’t be Covid-19 or the economic meltdown or the social unrest. It will be his unlikability.

As I wrote last week in a dispatch from Arizona, sometimes you hear a voter say something “so basic, so one-dimensional, that you’re inclined to dismiss it until you hear it for the thousandth time.” That’s the story of this election: All across America, in conversations with voters about their choices this November, I’ve been hearing the same thing over and over again: “I don’t like Trump.” (Sometimes there’s a slight variation: “I’m so tired of this guy,” “I can’t handle another four years of this,” etc. The remarkable thing? Many of these conversations never even turn to Biden; in Phoenix, several people who had just voted for the Democratic nominee did not so much as mention his name in explaining their preference for president.

But if Trump loses, the biggest factor won’t be Covid-19 or the economic meltdown or the social unrest. It will be his unlikability.

Generations of pollsters and journalists have fixated on the question of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with—a window into how personality translates into political success. Here’s the thing: Americans have been having a beer with Trump for the past four years—every morning, every afternoon, every evening. He has made himself more accessible than any president in history, using the White House as a performance stage and Twitter as a real-time diary for all to read. Like the drunk at the bar, he won’t shut up.

Whatever appeal his unfiltered thoughts once held has now worn off. Americans are tired of having beers with Trump. His own supporters are tired of having beers with Trump. In hundreds of interviews this year with MAGA loyalists, I have noted only a handful in which the person did not, unsolicited, point to the president’s behavior as exhausting and inappropriate. Strip away all the policy fights, all the administrative action (or inaction), all the culture war politics, and the decision for many people comes down to a basic conclusion: They just do not approve of the president as a human being.

Shorter Tim Alberta: Donald Trump is an asshole who won’t STFU.

President* Pennywise let his asshole flag fly again in Erie, Pennsylvania at his most recent MAGAPALOOZA:

“Four or five months ago when we started this whole thing….before the plague came in, I had it made,” Trump said during a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. “I wasn’t coming to Erie. I mean I have to be honest, there’s no way I was coming. I didn’t have to.”

Unfortunately, the President complained to his supporters, the pesky COVID-19 pandemic that’s caused his approval ratings to plummet forced him to actually reach out to them.

“And then we got hit with the plague, and I had to go back to work,” Trump said. “Hello, Erie. Can I please have your vote?”

That’s why I call him the Impeached Insult Comedian.

Repeat after me: Donald Trump is an asshole.

The last word goes to Leadbelly:

Oct 19 2020
2 Comments
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Congress, COVID-19, JOEY B SHARK, Political Crack, The Darnold

Republicans In Disarray: They Know They’re Losing

It gave me great pleasure to write that post title. I’m still gazing at it with affection after all the ‘Democrats in disarray” headlines in Politico and elsewhere over the years. As Athenae pointed out yesterday, the elite political press has been in the bag for the GOP since the Reagan years. They should get out of the bag and wake up and smell the coffee.

Republicans are not only in disarray, they’re in denial as this WaPo report from the capitol of wishful thinking, the Trump White House, indicates:

Trump’s team spent much of its time in recent days trying to position itself for a 2016 repeat, scouring the electoral college map for what advisers concede is a shrinking set of potential paths to victory and looking for voting populations that could still be swayed by the campaign.

<SNIP>

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans have urged the campaign to focus on messaging that would help senators in difficult states, such as Arizona, Maine and North Carolina. But Trump has argued to McConnell and others that the senators would be doing better if they were more supportive of his agenda.

Multiple people involved in the Trump effort said the Thursday meeting at the RNC led to agreements on the way forward that have ended, for the moment, a mood that has at times grown grim inside the Trump operation, with finger-pointing over who should be responsible for a potential loss — and whether it should be attributed to an undisciplined message, the coronavirus pandemic or campaign spending and choices made by former campaign manager Brad Parscale.

See what I mean about denial? The incumbent president* is still trying to run an insurgent campaign; an effort that’s doomed. He has an indefensible record to defend. His disastrous handling of the pandemic had led to an economic crash much worse than in, say, the European Union. They took COVID seriously and dealt with it early. The pandemic, however, is so bad that countries such as France are *still* having a second wave. Imagine Team Trump trying to cope with a second wave here. I shudder at the thought. Herd mentality. Freedom, man.

The WaPo article also discusses Team Biden warning its supporters to keep their foot on the gas pedal or as an American naval hero once said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” It was fun to quote Admiral Farragut’s disputed quote. It fits the moment.

Team Biden’s warnings are precisely how a winning campaign approaches the home stretch of a campaign. They cautioned against complacency in the face of great polls but remain confident in their approach to the campaign. I wrote about the distinction between confidence and cockiness in June. It applies to complacency as well.

The reason I’m confident in the outcome is that Republicans know they’re going to lose. This quote from the Denver Post illustrates the extent of their disarray:

“There is no reason for either side to put another dime into this state. It’s over,” said David Flaherty, a Republican pollster in Colorado who predicts “historic” losses for his party Nov. 3.

“It is undeniable. The train wreck and implosion of the president will bring a historic number of other Republican candidates down, and if you don’t believe that then you have your head in the sand,” he added.

Senate races in Colorado and Arizona show the importance of recruiting strong candidates: John Hickenlooper and Mark Kelly appear headed to victory. I’m feeling good about Maine and Iowa as well. Many of the other races depend on a strong showing by the top of the ticket as happened for the GOP in 1980 and the Democrats in 2008. A 7 to 10-point win will lift other Senatorial boats; a reminder that Democrats won the 2018 mid-terms 53-45%. That depends on a strong turnout focused on defeating a horrendous president* and horrible senators. The term “throw the bums out” was never as salient as it is in 2020.

The original focus of this post were the Republican rats fleeing the sinking ship by saying publicly that Trump is going to lose and drag his party down to defeat. It’s another reason for my confidence in the outcome. They know they’re losing.

Among the Republican grandees who think the Kaiser of Chaos will lose in a landslide are Rupert Murdoch, Ben Sasse, and Ted Cruz. I have no compassion for any of them. A venerable aphorism comes to mind: “You made your bed, now lie in it.”

Texas Senator John Cornyn has issued a milder rebuke. He compared his relationship with Trump to a bad marriage. I am not making this up.

Sasse and Cruz are among the GOPers who have long understood what a loathsome human being their party’s nominee was and is. Now they’re worried about a “bloodbath.” Poor babies. #sarcasm. In the immortal words of the Rolling Stones:

Senators such as Sasse and Cruz sold their souls to President* Pennywise in exchange for tax cuts and judges. Cruz, who is almost as horrible a person as Trump, should have known better. I don’t know about you, but I’d never forgive the man whose henchmen were behind this:

I love re-posting that image. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Democrats should be relentless in the last two weeks of the campaign. Joe Biden has been an excellent and surprisingly disciplined candidate. He’s focused like a laser beam on the intertwined issues of the pandemic, economy, and health care.  He has refused to rise to the Republicans’ bait on culture war issues. He’s waved them off with a laugh and a grin.

Mockery is always the best medicine against the Impeached Insult Comedian. He’s a bully who can dish it out but can’t take it. Repeat after me: Donald Trump is a pussy. He should grab himself.

As long as Trump insists on focusing on his “miraculous recovery” from COVID, he’s destined to lose. A clear majority of the country think his handling of the pandemic has been a disaster. Hell, even Moscow Mitch believes in masking up and social distancing. It’s a pity he seems on the way to winning his race, but Turtles excel at self-defense unlike cartoon villains.

The last word goes to The Beatles with a song dedicated to Republicans in disarray:

Oct 17 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, COVID-19, Diary, Film, Fog Of Scandal, Law/Justice, Music, New Orleans, Odds & Sods, Political Crack, Television, The Darnold

Saturday Odds & Sods: Wang Dang Doodle

Brownstones by Jacob Lawrence.

We’re not playing hurricane dodgeball this week in New Orleans. It had to happen. In fact, we’re experiencing what some observers insist on calling a “cold front” but I call a cool front. As always, it’s likely to lead to an orgy of overdressing by locals desperate to wear non-summer clothes. My coats will remain in the closet. I might, however, be daring and wear a long-sleeved shirt. That’s as rad as I’m gonna get for now. It will be back in the eighties next week.

Willie Dixon wrote Wang Dang Doodle some time in 1959 or 1960. The chronology is almost as fuzzy as with this week’s Friday Cocktail Hour tune. Here’s how the songwriter described what the title of  this rollicking song means:

 In his autobiography, Dixon explained that the phrase “wang dang doodle” “meant a good time, especially if the guy came in from the South. A wang dang meant having a ball and a lot of dancing, they called it a rocking style so that’s what it meant to wang dang doodle”

We have four versions of Wang Dang Doodle for your listening pleasure: the original recording by Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor’s hit version, the Pointer Sisters, and the good old Grateful Dead who performed the song 96+ times. All night long, all night long.

Now that we’ve pitched a wang dang doodle, let’s jump to the break.

Continue reading →

Oct 14 2020
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, COVID-19, Film, Fog Of Scandal, Political Crack, Television, The Darnold

The Campaign As Science Experiment

We begin with a few words about the featured image. It comes from a season-one episode of MASH: Yankee Doodle Doctor. Hawkeye is channeling Groucho and Trapper John is making like Harpo. Honk, honk. That’s a bit too highbrow for the Trump regime: they’re more like The Three Stooges or The Bowery Boys. For all we know, Donny from Queens could be Huntz Hall’s evil twin…

In the immortal words of REM, “let’s begin again, begin the begin.”

The Trump regime has openly joined the herd immunity stampede. Quack medicine is in the saddle at the White House and on the campaign trail. It’s well and truly Midsommar In America.

Herd immunity has been White House policy since Dr. Scott Atlas Shrugged became the head wrangler of the dormant COVID task force. They’re finally admitting it now that the Impeached Insult Comedian is holding swing state super-spreader events. He’s making bizarre claims of immunity and supernatural health. He’s not immune and he’s certainly not Superman.

We need a double-barreled musical antidote to the mishigas coming from Team Trump:

Long-time readers know my motto: there’s a Kinks song for every occasion. Thanks, Ray.

Mockery remains the best medicine when it comes to Team Trump, but this latest nonsense is deeply disturbing. They’re putting public health and safety at risk with their rallies, which pack unmasked Trumpers in close proximity to one another. Then there are the vague pronouncements on Trump’s health by his lackey, Dr. Sean Conley who should be investigated by whatever licensing agency he answers to.

The herd immunity stampede appalls Dr. A’s homey, NIH director Francis Collins:

“What I worry about with this is it’s being presented as if it’s a major alternative view that’s held by large numbers of experts in the scientific community. That is not true,” Collins, the NIH director, said in an interview.

“This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment,” he said. “I’m sure it will be an idea that someone can wrap themselves in as a justification for skipping wearing masks or social distancing and just doing whatever they damn well please.”

That’s the sound of mild-mannered Dr. Francis Collins boiling with righteous indignation. What does he know? He’s only one of the most eminent scientists in the world. Who needs experts when President* Pennywise’s gut instincts are in charge?

In other campaign news, the Kaiser of Chaos’ support among senior citizens is slipping. That could cost him Florida. He’s been trying to woo them back then he tweeted this out:

The picture is obscured. I don’t want to let them off the hook so here it is:

 

Mocking seniors strikes me as a weird way to win their votes back. But the Kaiser of Chaos is a weirdo.

Joey B. Shark struck back with a blunt attack on his opponent:

“You’re expendable. You’re forgettable. You’re virtually nobody. That’s how he sees seniors,” Biden told a crowd of senior voters on Tuesday. “The only senior that Donald Trump cares about — the only senior — is the senior Donald Trump.”

The 2020 campaign has become an ordeal thanks to the incumbent. They’re conducting a weird science experiment on the body politic. It will be interesting to see if President* Pennywise gets it right this time and calls it herd immunity, not herd mentality. Either way, it’s insanity.

The last word goes to Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and my homey Kris Kristofferson:

 

 

 

 

Oct 12 2020
6 Comments
Adrastos, Film, Fog Of History, Political Crack, Television, The Darnold

In 1492, Columbus Sailed The Ocean Blue

Team Trump was not content with pandering to Italian Americans on Columbus Day. They attacked “political correctness” as well:

Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy.  These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions.  Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister.  They seek to squash any dissent from their orthodoxy.  We must not give in to these tactics or consent to such a bleak view of our history.  We must teach future generations about our storied heritage, starting with the protection of monuments to our intrepid heroes like Columbus.  This June, I signed an Executive Order to ensure that any person or group destroying or vandalizing a Federal monument, memorial, or statue is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This is a White House, not campaign statement. They don’t distinguish between the two. They’re equally incompetent at both so why not?

I’m not a “radical activist” but I agree with the Columbus revisionists. The White House statement left out the bits about corruption and slave trading. Details, details, details.

This statement is a perfect distillation of Trumpist grievance politics. You build a straw man, then burn it down. It’s a pity that they couldn’t work Hillary’s emails into it.

It’s time for my annual viewing of the Sopranos episode, Christopher. Some think it’s the worst episode in the Sopranos canon, but I like it. What can I tell ya? It beats the hell out of the two major movies made about Columbus who was played by two great actors neither of whom were remotely Italianate looking, Fredric March and Gerard Depardieu:

I have no idea why the March image looks like a baseball card. I wonder if there are stats on the back and stale bubblegum that tastes like cardboard in the pack? Questions, questions, questions.

As always, I think the best medicine against Trumpism is mockery and ridicule, especially when they put out such a ridiculous statement. I guess President* Pennywise doesn’t want to piss off his pals in la Cosa Nostra. Wise guys are one of the few groups Trump’s not eager to offend. He identifies with them, after all.

Here’s the Impeached Insult Comedian with his old buddies Big Paul Castellano, Fat Tony Salerno, and Roy Cohn:

Oops, I forgot to call him Don Donaldo Il Comico Insulto.

The last word of this meandering Columbus Day post goes to Burning Spear with a song that includes this refrain: “Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar.”

Oct 08 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Political Crack, The Darnold

Bluster, Bravado & Bullshit Backfire

I decided to revive the North By Nothwest campaign notes meme because Republicans are finally running away from President* Pennywise. The separation has been slow but even such lackeys loyalists such as Texas Senator John Cornyn are putting distance between themselves and Trump. Cornhole’s rebuke was a mild one but he’s never even vaguely criticized Trump before:

“I think he let his guard down, and I think in his desire to try to demonstrate that we are somehow coming out of this and that the danger is not still with us — I think he got out over his skis and frankly, I think it’s a lesson to all of us that we need to exercise self discipline.”

In Arizona, Martha McSally who is on the verge of losing her second Senate race in two years declined to praise Trump in her last debate with Mark Kelly. Kelly is crushing her in recent polls and is helping Biden build a lead in the Grand Canyon state. The last Democrat to carry Arizona was Bill Clinton in 1996. There’s something in the air.

The WaPo’s Robert Costa used to work for the National Review, so he’s hooked into the conservative network like few other reporters. The headline on his news analysis piece yesterday says it all:  ‘A Republican Party unraveling’: GOP plunged into crisis as Trump abruptly ends economic relief talks, dismisses virus.

The GOP is unraveling, and Trump is floundering because he’s running his own campaign. He doesn’t listen to anyone because he’s a self-proclaimed “stable genius” whose gut instincts are brilliant. There is no strategy. There is no plan to reach non-base voters.

Trump’s recent conduct is repelling voters he needs: seniors and suburban women. Fewer and fewer of both groups support him. Why should seniors support a candidate who wants to abolish the Social Security payroll tax? Why should suburban women support Team Misogyny aka the Trump-Pence ticket? There’s something in the air.

Trump’s confrontational take no prisoners style is backfiring with precisely the groups he needs to reach to be competitive in the election. He’s just being himself, y’all. He is who he is.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the most grandiose piece of bluster, bravado, and bullshit offered up by the Impeached Insult Comedian is backfiring. I’m referring to his petulant threats to not accept the election result if he loses. While some have been quaking in terror at the prospect, others are voting early in record numbers. They want a clear outcome on election night to neuter Trump’s fascist fantasy. I think he’s bluffing but the surest antidote to bluster, bravado, and bullshit is a landslide.  Make it so, America, make it so.

The last worst goes to Thunderclap Newman:

Oct 07 2020
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Fog Of History, Political Crack, The Darnold

Madman On The Balcony

American politicians have long avoided posing for pictures on a balcony. It leads to ridicule and comparison to the Three Stooges short, You Nazty Spy.

Donald Trump is made of sterner stupider stuff. He doesn’t mind comparisons to notorious dictators like these creeps:

That’s Benito Mussolini on the left and Juan and Eva Peron on the right. These are the dictators that Trump is most comparable to even if Melania makes an unlikely Eva Peron. Don’t cry for me, Slovenia?

President* Pennywise has been behaving erratically lately even by his low standards. The motorcade to nowhere so alarmed Donny Junior that Gabriel Sherman filed this report on Monday:

Donald Trump’s erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed.

According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. “Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,” a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. “Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’” the source added.

Donny Junior is an asshole, but he has a history of standing up to his deranged daddy. Of course, he’s currently all profile and no courage.

After staging his ludicrous balcony photo-op, President* Pennywise went on a twitter bender. These are the two that doomed his candidacy:

He crawfished on the second one owning the failure of a COVID relief package, but the damage was done. He stands by the first one.

It’s apparent that the Impeached Insult Comedian’s manic behavior is partially caused by the cocktail of drugs dispensed by his docs. Steroids are just as likely to cause a sense of euphoria as roid rage. I’m not sure how disrespecting the memory of the 212,000 and counting Americans who have died during the pandemic helps his cause politically.

In his newsletter, Press Run, Eric Boehlert poses this question:

His erratic actions pose grave concerns for the country. Yet newsrooms today refuse to address the mounting, obvious signs that Trump remains a deeply unstable man.

It all needs to be addressed, unapologetically, in the news coverage and not left for opinion writers and pundits to ponder Trump’s troubled state of mind. It’s a fact and it’s a news story, so why shy away from it? Why don’t we regularly see, “Trump is a Madman” headlines in the news pages?

I agree 100%. The MSM continues to treat this lunatic as if he’s a normal person. Haven’t y’all read Mary Trump’s book?

Repeat after me: Donald Trump Is Mentally Ill.

The last word goes to Elton John and Genesis:

 

 

Oct 07 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Fog Of History, JOEY B SHARK, Political Crack, Race, The Darnold

Joe Biden Has Donald Trump’s Number

“Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice” is a common refrain heard around the virtual water cooler. He wasn’t mine either: Elizabeth Warren was my clear first choice. Biden proved that being people’s second or even third choice in a field of thousands isn’t a bad thing. It’s how he won the nomination.

I have come to believe that Joey B Shark is the perfect candidate to face Donald Trump. A reminder that Trump was impeached because he feared facing Joe Biden in the general election. He dispatched his toothy henchman Rudy Giuliani to dig up dirt on the Bidens. It backfired spectacularly.

The former Veep’s personal qualities are kryptonite to President* Pennywise. Biden’s warmth and empathy are formidable tools during the pandemic since his opponent’s only weapons against it are bluster, bravado, and bullshit. It’s the candidate who “cares about people like me” versus a man who only cares about himself. What better contrast could there be?

In 2016, the Kaiser of Chaos passed himself off as a “man of the people” because he’s a crude lout. It was phonier than his $70,000 hairdo. Joey from Scranton is the real deal. He doesn’t have to pose and posture, he’s Joe Sixpack only without the beer. One of the few things the two candidates have in common is that neither drinks. Trump is punch drunk, not booze drunk.

That vile “debate” last week is clear evidence of how Biden gets under Trump’s skin. Trump arrived angry and proceeded to get stupid angry. Joe’s default response was to laugh at his opponent. Like all humorless people, Trump hates being laughed at and got angrier and angrier as the evening went on. The mask was off. The country saw the real Donald. It was not a pretty sight.

Joe Biden is a party man. That’s why he has moved to the left to reflect the party whose standard bearer he is. His opponent is a party of one. Joe Biden wears his flaws as a badge of honor. His opponent denies having any. He’s “perfect” like the phone call that led to his impeachment.

Yesterday, Joe Biden gave one of the best speeches of his life. The setting was Gettysburg, the site of one of the most important battles in American history. It led to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s re-election, and ultimately victory in the War of the Rebellion.

The speech’s main topic was race: how we got to this moment and where we go from here. He went farther than his former boss ever dared. This was my favorite passage:

There’ve been powerful voices for justice in recent weeks and months, George Floyd’s, six year old daughter, who I met with, who looked at me and said in her small child’s voice, “Daddy changed the world.” Also, Jacob Blake’s mother was another. When she said, “Violence didn’t reflect her son and this nation needed healing.” And Doc Rivers, the basketball coach, choking back tears when he said, “We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot. We’ve been hung. We keep loving this country and this country does not love us back.”

I think about that. I think about what it takes for a black person to love America. That is a deep love for this country. That has for far too long, never been recognized. What we need in America is leadership that seeks to deescalate tensions, to open lines of communications, to bring us together, to heal, to hope. As president, that’s precisely what I will do.

In 2016, Trump was a Teflon candidate, nothing stuck to him. In 2020, he’s a Velcro candidate, everything sticks to him. The cumulative weight of four years of lies, corruption, and outrageous conduct are catching up with him. Drip, drip, drip.

It’s not just one thing that’s bringing the Impeached Insult Comedian down, it’s everything. It’s also the guy he’s running against: the steady, reliable, and eternally underrated man we at First Draft call Joey B Shark.

Joe Biden is the anti-Trump and the antidote to him. He has Trump’s number.

The last word goes to Boz Scaggs:

Oct 05 2020
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, COVID-19, Fog Of Scandal, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold, Twitter

The GOP Dominoes Keep Tumbling

Do you know what you have done?
Do you know what you’ve begun?

Domino by Genesis. Lyrics by Tony Banks.

People have been parsing images from the Amy Coney Barrett Super-Spreader reception as if it were the Zapruder Film. There’s only grass, no grassy knoll.

This captioned photo from Getty Images was tweeted out by the CNN anchor whose name is better than his reporting:

There are more than six GOP dominoes and soon there’ll be more.

Since I’m an evil bastard, I hope Bill Barr will contract COVID from getting up close and personal with Kellyanne Conway. I am, however, sorry that Conway’s daughter caught it from her mother.  Poor kid has been through enough. Imagine being the spawn of the right-wing Bickersons. Get well soon. Claudia.

I’m glad to report that the last week has been an unmitigated disaster for Team Trump. The fundamental dynamic of this campaign is that any time the pandemic is the main topic of conversation, it hurts President* Pennywise. Trump’s vilest outbursts at the “debate” were provoked by any mention of COVID-19.

This weekend’s events are a reminder of Trump’s recklessness and selfishness. That fakakta motorcade to nowhere needlessly endangered the health of the Secret Service agents in the SUV with the Impeached Insult Comedian.

Trump’s Sunday stunt was so horrific that a Walter Reed Doc took to Twitter:

Dr. Phillips is head of disaster medicine at GW as well as a CNN contributor. I may have to watch CNN more after that righteous outburst.

The motorcade to nowhere was all about the show. Message: I’m a tough guy. The real message is that he’s a reckless and selfish prick. I feel a musical interlude coming on:

Trump isn’t the first POTUS* to lie about his health but he’s among the most brazen. Dr. Conley’s briefings have been evasive at best, dishonest at worst. Instead of addressing the nation, Conley had an audience of one: the patient. My favorite part was when Conley said he didn’t want to damage the upbeat mood of the team. Really, Doc? I thought your profession’s motto was, “first, do no harm” not “don’t bum anyone out.”

Another classic moment was when Conley said that he didn’t know what Trump’s temperature was at its peak, he’d have to ask the nurses. Another lie. All he had to do was read the patient’s chart. Leave the nursing staff out of this. It’s on you, Doctor Commander Conley.

Trump’s docs need to be careful to maintain their professional integrity. A reminder that everyone who gets involved with Donald Trump gets slimed.

Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman filed a bone-chilling report at The Hive this morning:

On Saturday, the West Wing plunged into damage-control mode after Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, told reporters that Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday—a day earlier than Trump previously disclosed. The new timeline meant that Trump would have been contagious when he debated Joe Biden on Tuesday and attended a fundraiser on Thursday at his Bedminster golf club.

The White House released follow-up statements saying Conley misspoke, but they did little to quell the chaos. The White House’s shifting chronology and lack of transparency are being driven, in part, by Trump’s desire to conceal the seriousness of his illness from the public. Three sources said Trump argued with his doctors on Friday after they told him he needed to be moved to Walter Reed. “He didn’t want to go to the hospital a month before the election,” a Republican close to Trump told me. Two sources said doctors gave Trump an ultimatum: he could go to the hospital while he could still walk, or doctors would be forced to take him in a wheelchair or on a stretcher at a later point if his health deteriorated. “They told him, ‘You can go now or we’re taking you later and it’s non negotiable,’” a second source close to the White House said. Trump waited to leave for the hospital until the stock market closed on Friday, a source said.

After spending months denying the dangers of COVID-19, Trump is expressing an emotion aides have rarely seen: fear. On Friday, Trump grew visibly anxious as his fever spiked to 103 fahrenheit and he was administered oxygen at the White House, according to three Republicans close to the White House. Two sources told me Trump experienced heart palpitations on Friday night—possible side effects of the experimental antibody treatment he received. Trump has wondered aloud if he could defeat the disease. “Am I going out like Stan Chera?” Trump has asked aides, referring to his friend, New York real-estate developer Stan Chera, who died of COVID in April.

The COVID chickens are coming home to roost. The GOP dominoes keep tumbling. TPM’s Josh Marshall wonders if the Kaiser of Chaos himself is the super-spreader. That means he’s gone from Trumper Superman to Super Chicken to Super-Spreader in the course of one disastrous week.

There’s a marvelous passage in a WaPo story about the arrogance of White House staffers who mistakenly believed that testing was enough to protect them from the virus:

Inside the West Wing’s narrow corridors, where staffers for months have worked in proximity largely without masks, what had long been an atmosphere of invincibility turned into one of apprehension and panic. “People are losing their minds,” said the outside adviser.

First, aides fretted about their own risks of exposure. If the president got infected, so might they.
Then they considered the political implications, coming so close to the Nov. 3 election. “We don’t want to be talking about coronavirus and now we’re talking about coronavirus,” the outside adviser said. “The hit writes itself: He can’t protect the country. He couldn’t even protect himself.”

He also can’t protect his own people; not that this reckless and selfish prick gives a shit about that.

The election cake is baked, especially with the RNC Chair and Trump’s campaign manager sidelined by COVID. Democrats and our allies need to execute, and victory will follow. Here’s hoping that it’s a landslide that will send the Trumper rats running for cover. The GOP dominoes are tumbling.

I’ve never really bought the coup talk. It’s always struck me as a diversionary tactic. Does anyone seriously think that Team Trump can pull off a coup when they can’t even run a competent cover-up?

The Domino Effect is in play. The GOP dominoes keep tumbling.

Repeat after me:

Do you know what you have done?
Do you know what you’ve begun?

The last word goes to Genesis:

Another day, another last word fib. Trumper mendacity is *almost* as contagious as COVID-19. If you have not already read Ryne Hancock’s great guest post, Hard Sympathy, click here.

Oct 05 2020
4 Comments
Adrastos, COVID-19, Diary, Guest Post, New Orleans, The Darnold, Tommy T

Guest Post: Hard Sympathy

Good morning. Tommy T is on the disabled list with a serious health problem. It is not, however, caused by reading the Freepers so we don’t have to. Here’s hoping our beloved friend and colleague gets well soon. That’s as mushy as I get, y’all.

Today’s guest blogger is my young friend Ryne Hancock. He’s the guy who inspired my Bad Karma post last week, which led to his first First Draft shout-out. I also owe him because his bike was stolen in front of my house a few years ago. Sorry about that.

Ryne is a native Memphian who moved to New Orleans right before the 10th Katrinaversary. Don’t worry, he’s not a carpetblogger. He’s done a little bit of everything since he arrived in New Orleans but what he does best is tell stories.

Cheers,

Adrastos

Hard Sympathy by Ryne Hancock

For three years, I had to deal with the ups and downs of having a crackhead for a landlord on Washington Avenue in Central City.

During the first two years I lived on Washington Avenue, things were pretty calm. Mainly because my landlord was in Mississippi for six months and I didn’t have to deal with extras from “Tales From the Crypt” knocking on the door all times of the night looking for him.

However, around the end of Mardi Gras 2019, my landlord told me that he was headed to some rehab in Jefferson Parish. I found the timing odd because it was the first of the month, which was when he got his lump sum (as well as my rent money) from Social Security.

That was when I learned that he owed money to damn near everyone in the neighborhood and was looking for a way to abandon his responsibilities.

The same night the Blues clinched their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 49 years, I received a call from my landlord, who was hiding at someone’s house on Seventh Street near Dryades.

Because of a phone conversation I had with someone, I was being evicted. Not because of late rent or my habits as a tenant, but a phone conversation. To my landlord, rent money was a sign of loyalty and the context of my phone conversation to him was an act of betrayal.

A couple of weeks later, while I was in bed at my friend’s house in the Bywater, my former landlord called me from a South Carolina number.

“Hey man,” he told me, “all my stuff got stolen in Alabama.”

After I hung up with him, I thought to myself, this guy wanted me gone two weeks prior and owed everyone money. Now he wants me to help him.

You hate to see people suffering, but it’s hard to conjure any type of sympathy for a person that did a lot of people wrong.

That same line of thinking applies for Donald Trump.

Despite the fact that Trump will go down as the worst president in American history, which means James Buchanan & Herbert Hoover are off the hook, it’s a shame that he has this deadly disease. Nobody should have to suffer through that.

But when you for starters, downplayed the seriousness of this disease and said that it was just like the flu, you indirectly signed the death certificate of over 200,000 people. 200,000 people that needlessly died. Sure, there was a travel ban, but that was as useless as those thin cable bike locks.

There was no type of pandemic education or anything that could help save lives because you decided to decimate the pandemic response team.

Ya know, the people that you needed in your corner?

Apart from the countless things that you’ve bungled during this pandemic, you had a man die after one of your rallies from the covid. But because he was black you didn’t even attempt to send your condolences or even acknowledge him at the Republican National Convention.

To you, Herman Cain was collateral damage, an ugly sofa that was in your way in the living room. If you had something that is known as compassion, you would have stepped back and stopped doing large scale rallies. You could have held virtual fundraisers, socially distanced outdoor rallies, things that slow the spread of this disease.

In other words, an example for our country like my bartender crush at my office on Magazine Street was an example for customers.

But you didn’t do that.

You took a cavalier approach to this pandemic, which for the most part most of your cult and party went along with.

Instead of turning the corner as you publicly said time and time again, the actions of your cult and yours for that matter has made things worse.

As I write this, the number of people dead is more than the population of Jackson, Mississippi (pop:173,514), Evansville, Indiana (117,429), & Clarksville, Tennessee (132,929).

The amount of dead could fill two Tiger Stadiums, six Wrigley Fields, and about eight or nine Fenway Parks.

It’s a shame that you and your cronies have this disease. I don’t wish ill on you or anyone for that matter.

But feigning sympathy for you?

Nah.

It is what it is.

That’s my attitude towards you because you decided to be a knucklehead. That you decided to not listen to science and people who know a whole lot more than you.

I would hope that this would humble you.

But knowing you, you won’t change. It’s just not in you.

Oct 03 2020
4 Comments
"Q", Adrastos, Diary, Film, Fog Of Scandal, Music, New Orleans, Odds & Sods, Political Crack, R.I.P., Religion, Television, The Darnold

Saturday Odds & Sods: For What It’s Worth

Flying Eyeball by Rick Griffin.

Some call it fake fall, I call it a tease. Whatever you call it, the weather has been mild and temperate all week. I’m not going to say more about it because I don’t want to jinx it.

The city of New Orleans is entering Phase 3.1. They’re loosening more pandemic-related restrictions since we did not have a major post Labor Day spike. I thought we would, but I was wrong. It’s not the first time and won’t be the last. Punditting is risky business. I’m still not going inside bars or restaurants but I’m hoping more of them will be able to survive. Let my people go-cup. You’ll have to read 2020 Fatigue at Bayou Brief to get the reference.

Stephen Stills wrote this week’s theme song in 1966. It’s the protest song’s protest song. It was originally written about clashes between hippies and cops on the Sunset Strip, but it’s become a universal protest song. It’s still relevant in 2020.

We have four versions of For What It’s Worth for your listening pleasure: the Buffalo Springfield original; CSN live with Tom Petty; Keb Mo, and Billy Porter with Stephen Stills from this year’s DNC.

Now that battle lines have been drawn, let’s jump to the break.

Continue reading →

Oct 02 2020
5 Comments
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, COVID-19, Political Crack, The Darnold

Why I Believe That Trump Has Covid-19

There are some instant conspiracy theories about the Trump COVID mishigas. I get it. They lie about purt near everything. This is not one of those times.

Team Trump’s lies typically fall into two categories: self-serving lies and self-aggrandizing lies. This is neither. Plus, once they learned about Hope Hicks, their initial impulse was to cover it up. Once the Hicks cat was out of the bag, they had to try something new: telling the truth.

The revelation that President* Pennywise has COVID makes him look like what he is: a fucking moron. He’s been proven wrong in the most dramatic fashion imaginable.

If he gets sick enough, there’s a decent chance that they will seize on this as a pretext to duck future debates, which would be good for the country. I’ve always thought that when things got too hard, Trump would bail. It’s what he’s done his entire life. Scratch a fake tough guy like Trump and they’ll flee. He’s a coward.

I posited an alternative scenario in mid-August. It could be called the resign and pardon scenario. I thought it would happen post-election, but the ground has shifted since then. As I said on Wednesday, Trump knows he’s losing. Contracting the virus could be his excuse to bail and let Pence lose the election instead of him. A pardon would have to be involved, which would doom Pence as it did the infinitely more popular Jerry Ford in 1976.

The pardon and resign scenario has the added benefit of sparing the country a post-election shit show. No one is going to the barricades for Mike Liar Liar Pence On Fire.

Could I be wrong about the resign and pardon scenario? Yes. I’ve been wrong before and will be again. It’s part of being a pundit.

Repeat after me: Donald Trump is a pussy. He should grab himself.

The last word goes to Eric Clapton DBA Derek & The Dominoes:

UPDATE: Joe and Jill Biden have tested negative. As expected, the White House has resumed lying. So it goes.

Oct 02 2020
3 Comments
Adrastos, COVID-19, Political Crack, The Darnold

Bad Karma

Image by John Valentino.

Irony is not dead. It moved to the White House in 2017. Trump and his horrible third wife have tested positive for COVD-19. It was bound to happen. He never wears a mask, mocks anyone who does, and has claimed that the pandemic will go away like a miracle.

It was only a short leap from Hope Hicks testing positive to this happening. Hey, Donald, I thought younger people didn’t catch the plague? Hope is 31. Guess you were wrong.

President* Pennywise is, of course, wrong about everything. It’s fitting that the virus he has done so much to foment came knocking at his door.

Right now, I’m more concerned that Joey B Shark was infected at that vile “debate.” If not, it will confirm the efficacy of masking. Will any of the Mask Warriors admit to error? Not bloody likely. Like the phone call that led to my adding Impeached to Insult Comedian, Trumpers think their dear leader is perfect. He’s a perfect ass.

Trump is of German origin. A German word comes to mind: SCHADENFREUDE.

I’m also pondering what my literary role model would say today. I think I know:

This should be a warning to all the delusional people out there who think the pandemic is a hoax. It’s not. Mask up to protect yourselves and others.

I originally intended to use this Dwight Yoakam tune as the post title:

The rule being that, unlike Trump, I don’t mock the sick. The Kaiser of Chaos is clearly an exception to the rule.

The final post title was inspired by a text from my young friend Ryne: “Karma is forever undefeated.”

Close your eyes and imagine the $750 Man singing this verse from Warren Zevon’s Bad Karma:

It’s a dog’s life and it’s not my fault.
Ought to hang my picture in the All Time Loser’s Hall of Fame.
Bad Karma. It’s a low down dirty shame.

The last word goes to Warren Zevon:

Sep 30 2020
1 Comment
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, Political Crack, The Darnold

Quote Of The Day: Trump Fatigue Edition

Fatigue and exhaustion are the themes of the day. That fakata debate was an assault on our senses. I feel bruised but unbroken.

Today’s quote once again comes from Josh Marshall:

Beyond all the individual offenses one of the underrated sub-themes of anti-Trumpism is exhaustion. One of the deepest traumas of living in the home of an abuser stems not from the outbursts of physical violence, verbal abuse or manipulation but the accumulated stress of ambient tension, uncertainty, the reflexive, unshakeable hyper-vigilance. It is exhausting in a profound way. Trump is exhausting – I suspect even for some who share his dark values. This was 90 minutes jam-packed with everything that makes Trump exhausting. Living with an abuser means being trapped in close quarters with the abuse, being unable to run. In a month voters get the chance to walk away.

That is in a nutshell why I think the Kaiser of Chaos will lose and lose badly. If it’s by a landslide, his threats of post-election chaos will be revealed as emptier than his mind. People are tired of his act. Everyone would like to have some time without thinking about politics or who is president; even political junkies like me.

Quite understandably, there are calls to cancel the remaining debates. It’s unlikely to happen. If Biden refused to debate again, it would constitute giving into the biggest bully of all. I’m old school on the subject of bullies. They need to be stood up to. If you give them a millimeter, they’ll take a kilometer.

I completely understand if people do not want to sit through another shit show like last night. I’ll watch for you and provide an impressionistic  instant analysis of what happened. The Harris-Pence debate is apt to be less crazy. Pence is a smooth liar, not a histrionic one like his boss.

Last night was a debacle for Trump. Don’t let anyone tell your otherwise.

The last word goes to Steve Winwood:

 

Sep 30 2020
Adrastos, Campaign Notes, JOEY B SHARK, Political Crack, The Darnold

Debate Roundup: Unfit & Unhinged

Donald Trump knows he’s losing. He didn’t even try to appeal to the voters he needs to win. He knows he’s losing.

It was Mr. Normal against Mr. Abnormal. I thought Joey B Shark held his own against the $750 Man. I grew up with a kid who stuttered. He got flustered when everyone started talking at once as little boys are prone to do. All the noise coming from Trump must have bugged the former Veep, but it didn’t show.  Donald Trump knows he’s losing.

As for the Impeached Insult Comedian, he bellowed, blustered, and lied. At times he made no sense. It was all word salad, all the time. In the Crack Van I interjected some of the non sequiturs and nonsense coming out of his big fat stupid bazoo; “RAKE DA FOREST. DON’T LOSE DA COWS. HUNTER BIDEN.” Donald Trump knows he’s losing.

The low point was when President* Pennywise declined to denounce white supremacy. Instead he provided the so-called Proud Boys with a rallying cry:

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.”

I have no idea what they’re proud of. Racism is nothing to be proud of. The Proud Boys can go fuck themselves.

If the $750 Man thought this would move any votes, he was wrong. The needle is stuck. It’s not moving. Donald Trump knows he’s losing.

I was impressed with Biden’s poise and composure. He was justifiably cranky at times but that’s as far as it went. His best line was: “Why don’t you shut up, man?”

In contrast, the sitting president* was unfit and unhinged. He shouldn’t be allowed to take a tour of the White House let alone live there.

Donald Trump is unfit and unhinged. He knows that he’s losing. Make it so, America, make it so.

 

Sep 28 2020
Adrastos, Fog Of Scandal, Law/Justice, Political Crack, The Darnold

The Trump Tax Story: Short Form

It landed like a thermonuclear weapon on Sunday afternoon. You know what I’m talking about. The New York Times got ahold of President* Pennywise’s tax forms.

Trump’s lame response proves that he’s the man without a plan. They should have been expecting this shoe to drop for years but they were still caught with their pants down then proceeded to trip over them. Slapstick ensues when a cartoon villain is elected president*.

The main story is enormous. Mercifully, they’ve provided us with summary of their findings: 18 Revelations From A Trove Of Trump Tax Records.

No one is surprised that Trump paid little or no taxes, alas. They’re spinning that as smart, not unpatriotic. The super rich evade taxes all the time. Last year, Pro Publica ran a piece showing that the place where a taxpayer is most likely to be audited  is:

Humphreys County, Mississippi, seems like an odd place for the IRS to go hunting for tax cheats. It’s a rural county in the Mississippi Delta known for its catfish farms, and more than a third of its mostly African American residents are below the poverty line. But according to a new study, it is the most heavily audited county in America.

They should be knocking on the doors of Trump Tower, Mar a Lago, and the White House instead. Talk about a rigged game.

The most devastating revelation contained in Trump’s taxes is what a shitty businessman he is. It’s confirms what many of us have known or suspected but the NYT has the details. It’s all about the write-offs for the Trump family. I wish I could write-off haircuts on my taxes. Not much savings this year since I haven’t had a haircut since February. Thanks, Donald.

No one story is going to topple the Impeached Insult Comedian. It’s the drip, drip, drip effect hence the Magritte featured image. It’s what did in Tricky Dick during Watergate: drip, drip, drip. One of the most devastating drips was Nixon’s tax fraud. It’s something that people understand. They still do.

It’s obvious why Trump has hidden his tax forms. They paint him as just another grifter intent on chiseling a system in a way that ordinary people can’t. It’s essential to his fragile self-image that he be rich, rich, rich, not drowning in debt. The fact that some of his largest loans come due soon is one reason he’s so desperate to be re-elected. He needs Bill Barr to protect him from prosecution and financial ruin. It’s an excellent reason to vote the crooked motherfucker out of office.

It’s time for them to go. Make it so, America, make it so.

The last word goes to Robert Cray:

I know that Trump doesn’t file 1040s but that’s a helluva song.

Drip, drip, drip.

Sep 26 2020
2 Comments
Adrastos, Diary, Film, Fog Of History, Fog Of Scandal, Law/Justice, Music, New Orleans, Odds & Sods, Political Crack, Television, The Darnold

Saturday Odds & Sods: You Won’t See Me

Masks by James Ensor.

It’s been cool all week in New Orleans. It’s unclear if Fall has fallen or it’s a cruel hoax. My money is on the latter. The heat doesn’t usually break here until sometime in October. The good news is that we’re not under threat of a tropical system. It feels odd not to be checking the spaghetti tracks every few hours but that’s another autumnal augury. End of obligatory weather-related opening passage.

This week’s theme song comes from one of my favorite Beatles albums, Rubber Soul. It was one of the first albums I ever owned. When my father saw the cover he said, “Those are the ugliest women I ever saw.”

To this day I’m uncertain whether or not Lou was joking. The only one who would have made an ugly woman was the drummer. Sorry, Ringo.

You Won’t See Me is a Macca song, but it’s credited to Lennon & McCartney as were all the pair’s songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have three versions of You Won’t See Me for your listening pleasure: The Beatles original, and covers by Bryan Ferry and Canadian songbird, Anne Murray.

I never expected to post an Anne Murray song at First Draft, but I might as well go big and post her monster hit from 1970:

Let’s spread our tiny wings and fly away to the break.

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