Carnival 2019 is as long as Anthony Davis’ arms. Unlike AD it doesn’t want to be traded to the Lakers. I’m not sure what LeBron would make of this on his home court:
I picked the title because it’s catchy not because I confess to all that much. I must confess that it’s a relief not to write about a certain asshole president* who lied his way through the SOTU. I didn’t watch. Dr. A and I were babysitting our de facto nieces and nephew aka the Child Army. There was, however, snark and shade involved:
Read the Child Army a book inspired by @katyreckdahl’s reporting. I said “She’s a friend of mine.” Olivia said: “You have friends?”
That’s why her nickname is the Benevolent Dictator. In the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield, I don’t get no respect. It’s an open question as to whether I deserve any.
The last word goes to Jay McShann and the Rolling Stones with this confessional classic:
Not the late, great Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, I’m referring to the stuffed shirt on the right in the picture below:
The billionaire bozo’s bad roll-out bumbles on. He feels that a self-made man like him will restore dignity to the White House. Unfortunately, Howard seems to be as ignorant of history as the Current Occupant:
Howard Schultz says Ronald Reagan is the best Republican prez of the past 50 years, in part because “he never took his jacket off in the Oval Office” due to his respect for the office. pic.twitter.com/UFZtqwYfdt
This polar vortex is a mean motherfucker. It has led the Insult Comedian to make a stale joke about global warming and vast swaths of the country to freeze their asses off. It’s been in the forties in New Orleans but I’m not complaining after learning that the bars in Wisconsin are closed because of the weather. Now that’s some serious shit.
The news grinds on as Cheeseheads hunker down and Athenae’s cats get more lap time with their people because of the weather. Holy Aaron Brrr, Batman.
Stone Cold Liar: Roger Stone is the first person I’ve ever seen who seems to enjoy being perp-walked and arraigned. Ratfucker Roger loves him some publicity even when it involves a full-tilt raid by federal law enforcement on all his properties. The feds were afraid that he might destroy evidence pertinent to Kremlingate. For all we know, Stone took some selfies of himself and Assange and/or Guccifer 2.0. Hopefully, there aren’t any sex tapes. #shudder
The tough talking Stone claims that he’ll never roll on his pal Trumpberius. It looks like lobbying for a pardon to me. Roger is a stone cold liar. If he’s facing enough jail time, he’ll sing a different tune:
But the speculation that Stone could turn on his longtime client is supported by several factors. For one, Stone has a complicated relationship with Trump. The two met in 1979 when Stone was living at Roy Cohn’s Manhattan town house while working as a young staffer on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, and it has rankled Trump that Stone is regarded as his political brain (Stone has claimed he created the “build the wall” slogan). “Stone and Trump are like an old married couple,” the Republican close to Trump explained. “Stone knows Donald isn’t loyal. He calls him ‘Mr. Ingratitude.’”
That’s a better nickname than any coined by the Insult Comedian. Stay tuned.
Howard The Starbucks Fuck: It’s been a long time since there was such a rotten campaign launch. Howard Schultz does not seem to have thought his campaign through very well. It’s unclear why he’s running: the last thing the country needs is another inexperienced rich egomaniac in the White House. If Trump doesn’t cure us of the “we need a CEO to run guvmint like a bidness” delusion, nothing will.
Speaking of delusions, Schultz is guilty of a venerable one that’s part of the country’s creation myth. He believes that political parties are the problem. He’s half-right in that instance: the GOP has been going crazy for the last half-century and their lunacy was perfected with the election* of the Current Occupant.
If Schultz were a lifelong conservative Republican who would take votes from Trump, I’d be down with his independent candidacy BUT he’s not, so he should follow that heckler’s advice:
“Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire asshole. Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter. Go back to Davos with the other billionaire élites who think they know how to run the world.”
Word.
The Case of the Sweaty Shyster: The president* may have appointed Matt Whitaker acting AG to throw monkey wrenches at the Mueller probe but it hasn’t gone to plan. Rod Rosenstein has continued to supervise the investigation and the indictments and guilty pleas keep coming. So much for Trump’s attempt to rig the “rigged witch hunt.”
There was a flurry of MSM gullibility when Whitaker claimed that the investigation was nearly over. It was a vague, unsubstantiated claim but the MSM fell for it even though there are obviously more shoes to drop, especially if Stone turns on Mr. Ingratitude. Additionally, congressional Democrats seem to think that a bunch of Trumpers lied under oath, which is what Rog is charged with.
I don’t believe Whitaker, in part, because he sweated at that presser like Bogie in the greenhouse scene in The Big Sleep. A friend of mine captured the moment on twitter:
Donald Trump isn’t used to anyone saying no to him. He doesn’t handle it well. That’s what happened yesterday when he tried to force his way into the House chamber for the SOTU, which should be rechristened SOTC. C is for chaos or clusterfuck.
Nancy Smash has no problem with saying no to a petulant president* even after a day in which the high priests of the cult of savvy decided he might have a plan. As usual, they were wrong: the Insult Comedian folded after the Speaker called his bluff. No surprise. Trump always folds but it usually doesn’t take this long.
“We just found out that she’s cancelled it. I think that’s a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love. It’s a great, great horrible mark. I don’t believe it’s ever happened before and it’s always good to be part of history but this is a very negative part of history.”
Blotch? Really, Donald? Is that the best you can do? I thought you had “all the best words” stored in your “very good brain.”
Trumpberius looked deflated as he made those incoherent comments. Once again, he’s been outmaneuvered by the wily speaker. His fragile ego has a hard time dealing with so much losing, especially at the hands of a skirt. The *real* author of The Art of the Deal nailed it on the tweeter tube:
I have never seen Trump so utterly flummoxed and outgunned as he is by Nancy Pelosi. He seems both awed and cowed by her and it is turning her into a bigger powerhouse than she already was. Fun to watch.
Remember when people on the hard left and squishy right of the Democratic party wanted Nancy Smash to step aside? We’re not hearing much from them right now.
A day after his SOTU cave, the Insult Comedian floated a new slogan:
Without a Wall there cannot be safety and security at the Border or for the U.S.A. BUILD THE WALL AND CRIME WILL FALL!
This is so stupid and simplistic that I’ll let his co-author dispatch him again:
One key to Trump is that he has no core beliefs or deeply held values. His wall was just a way to get elected. He holds on tenaciously to avoid feeling humiliated by Dems & criticized by his base. He is a prisoner to his neediness, with no true north to guide him.
One of the worst things about the current hostage crisis is that stories of human suffering do not move Trump. He long ago wrote off federal employees as Democrats. He cannot even muster a scintilla of fake empathy for the havoc his wall fetish has wrought. Disorder and disruption are his specialities. That’s why I call him the Kaiser of Chaos.
There are finally signs that the Trump shutdown may be winding down. While Trump pretends not to believe the “fake polls,” they’re dire for him. It’s past time for him to fold and declare victory. There is no plan, there is no end game. It’s time for the Insult Comedian to lie his way out of this mess. It’s what he does best.
Finally, I’m fascinated by Trump’s inability to coin a nickname for Speaker Pelosi when there’s an obvious one out there. It’s inspired by the venerable hit musical No No Nanette. He could call her No No Nancy. It’s alliterative as all get-out. Of course, the president* hates being told no, so it’s a non-starter for him but I may add it to my nickname arsenal. It’s not as smashing as Nancy Smash but it fits the times we live in, no?
I’ve saved the best for last: a Krewe du Vieux worthy mini-float that the unknown (to me) artist calls Fat Man and Little Boy after the first two nukes, They’re definitely da bomb.
Statue of Trump dressed as Napoleon riding a nuclear bomb at the New Orleans protest ahead of his speech to the Farm Bureau pic.twitter.com/AMLNtMEESc
Finally, after a shaky start the Saints beat the Eagles 20-14. Next up are the Rams in the NFC Championship Game. We’ll see if Jared Goff handles the crowd noise better than Nick Foles. We witnessed a Foles fail yesterday and it wasn’t even the fall.
I still refuse to say Who Dat but I will say GEAUX SAINTS.
The Insult Comedian is coming to the Gret Stet of Louisiana next week. He’ll be speaking at the Farm Bureau convention at the Morial Convention Center. Since New Orleans is one of the bluest cities in the country, there will be protesters. I may be among them.
That brings me to the tweet of the day. Thanks to my blogger buddy and Spank krewe mate, Noladishu, for sending this my way:
Since President Trump will be in Louisiana Monday, we dug into the archive and found this picture of a 1993 press conference he had with then-Gov. Edwin Edwards. The two had just concluded a meeting about Trump’s attempt to build a casino in the Bayou State. #LaLege#LaGovpic.twitter.com/JpFSoP6DBc
The title is a teaser without the firecat. I’m less interested in the 2020 presidential election than in the return of Speaker Pelosi, the Mueller investigation, and the slow, steady erosion of the Insult Comedian’s popularity and sanity. Change is already in the air.
At this point, 2020 talk is speculative gasbaggery. Until more candidates declare, extensive commentary is the equivalent of the blind leading the blind or is that the bland leading the bland? In either event, strike up the band.
End of epic and overly punny disclaimer. I have some pithy observations to make about 2020 talk before I return to more important subjects like congressional oversight of the Trump regime.
I hate the whole “how dare so and so run” thing that’s commonplace on the dimmer corners of the internet such as the tweeter tube. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned. If Michael Bloomberg wants to throw away $100 million of his own money, that’s fine with me. He can afford it.
Let nice Uncle Joe and cranky Uncle Bernie run as well. The voters will decide. I prefer not to have a nominee who would the oldest president ever elected but anyone is better than the Current Occupant. I like the idea of a Warren-Booker ticket but wish she were a decade younger. On the subject of Senator Professor Warren: Adrastos to Politico, drop dead.
We’ve all spent a lot time discussing Watergate. The 2020 Democratic field may end up resembling that of the post Watergate election of 1976. The prize was won that time by the ultimate “why not me?” candidate, Jimmy Carter. Be on the lookout for dark horses, it could be their year. Amy Klobuchar is my favorite among the sleepers. Minnesota nice could be the best antidote to Manhattan mean.
Another thing that drives me nuts is the endless re-litigating of the 2016 Democratic primaries on social media. Twitter isn’t the real world but the stakes are too high in 2020 to have to listen to the endless whining about the last presidential election. It may be hypocritical for me to quote a tweet from the sage of East Jesus Tennessee but I’m gonna do it anyway:
It is either far too late, or far too soon to be re-litigating the 2016 election. Support your fav in the 2020 Primary, and then put your butthurt feefees aside, and vote for the final Nomination. SIMPLE.
The man is a Deadhead, so he knows his shit, y’all. I hope that tweet has a ripple effect.
One more thought about 2020 talk. I have a hunch that Trump will not be on the ballot. I’m not sure of the how or when but Democrats need to prepare to run against another Republican be it Pence or their own dark horse. Trump’s refusal to attempt to expand his base in the wake of the GOP’s midterm loss makes him look like a loser. Eventually, the Republicans will get tired of so much losing. Believe me.
No politics from me today. No insights about Christmas Eve either. I like the title since it evokes All About Eve, which was more about Margot Channing now that I think about it. It’s not about the 2012 teevee movie All About Christmas Eve either. That’s a good thing since I just heard of it. I’m not big on Lifetime or Hallmark holiday movies. They’re fruitcake for the eyes.
You’re probably wondering what this post is about. Me too. Oh yeah, I wanted to quote the boss lady telling the Insult Comedian to STFU on the tweeter tube yesterday.
Shut up. Just shut up. Christmas is in 2 days. Shut the hell up about yourself for 2 damn days and let us take a breath. I'm not even asking you to be a PRESIDENT. Just to stop being whatever this is. 2 goddamn days of quiet. Leave us alone. https://t.co/fIba4hhdOI
The great American playwright George S. Kaufman once said, “satire is what closes on Saturday night.” If the Insult Comedian had even a lick of sense, he would have just ignored the It’s A Wonderful Trump SNL cold open instead of extending its life span by doing this:
A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?
There’s a picky thing called the First Amendment, Donald. It has always protected political speech even when it was more narrowly construed by the Supremes. It protects your endless lies and mindless tweets as well. As a conservative former co-worker of mine frequently said, “GREAT COUNTRY.” He used the phrase constantly even when it made no sense. Much like Donald’s NO COLLUSION mantra, which he uses on everything the way some people use ketchup. GREAT COUNTRY, NO COLLUSION.
The First Amendment protects both good satire and bad. That’s how I feel about this skit. It feels cliched, underwritten, and, I daresay, low energy. It’s A Wonderful Life has been parodied almost as much as A Christmas Carol and it’s getting long in the tooth.
It’s also time for Alec Baldwin’s Trump impression to be interred in an unmarked grave in Pottersville. It’s all shout and pout. It’s a pale shadow of Dana Carvey’s Poppy Bush or Will Farrell’s Dubya. They kept their material fresh and sharp. Baldwin’s Trump sounds like he spends too much time on Twitter. That may be realistic but it’s not the home of finely honed humor. GREAT COUNTRY, NO COLLUSION.
As you can see, the president* isn’t the only malcontent when it comes to the current state of SNL’s satire. They often come up with decent, albeit obvious, ideas, then execute them poorly. The best part of the sketch was Matt Damon as Justice Bro. As for the rest, ZZZ…
It’s ironic that a man I call the Insult Comedian has no sense of humor whatsoever. He practices the lowest form of “satire” with his incessant kicking down. The SNL sketch wasn’t funny but at least it kicks up at a target who richly deserves it. GREAT COUNTRY, NO COLLUSION.
I look forward to the day when we won’t talk about Trump and satirizing him will indeed “close on Saturday night.”
I swore off doing these posts because the Insult Comedian says and tweets stupid shit pretty much every day. In the wake of his own personal Black Friday, he’s been tweeting up a flop sweat storm. There have been several instant classics, so I decided to bite the bullet much like Neil Young in this song:
We’ll proceed in reverse chronological order. The first panic tweet is a two-parter.
“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun…No Collusion.” @FoxNews That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,…
….which it was not (but even if it was, it is only a CIVIL CASE, like Obama’s – but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine. Lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me). Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!
A smocking gun? Is that a cross between smoke and smock or mock and smoke? In either case, it’s eminently mockable. Try singing this song as Smocking Gun:
Our second entry is the Insult Comedian’s dickish assault on the Senior Senator from the nutmeg state:
….left and right, he then woke up from his dream screaming that HE LIED. Next time I go to Vietnam I will ask “the Dick” to travel with me!
You’re planning to travel with the Dick? Will you have spotted dick for dessert?
Now that the Trump-Macron bromance is over, the president* has turned on the younger handsomer man:
The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting “We Want Trump!” Love France.
The riots aren’t about the Paris climate change agreement. And the rioters are certainly not shouting “we want Trump.” If they were, I’d be more than glad to send him to Paris. It’s time for another marginally relevant musical interlude:
It’s rich for Mister Bone Saw’s best buddy to talk about “questionably run” countries. I bet some of those dictators know how to get away with paying off their side-chicks without getting caught. MBS would just have them killed and dismembered. Perhaps they’d use one of these:
I need the musical interludes to retain what little sanity I still have left. Besides, One Night In Paris is about an American procuring Parisian prostitutes.
Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!
This is, of course, classic Trump projection. He’s the one who’s “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.” I guess that makes Mike Pompeo “very legal and very cool.” Sycophants always are. I just realized that made no sense: Trump disease is very very contagious.
Tillerson may not be my cup of tea but he’s an engineer who rose to the top of a massive oil company. He’s an arrogant asshole but not as dumb as a rock. Trump wins that particular trifecta.
I’ve been following the horrific events at the US-Mexico border. After a few weeks of relative quiet on the caravan front, the Insult Comedian has ramped up the war of words in this fake crisis. He added a new weapon to his usual arsenal of hot air and bullshit: tear gas. Trump claimed that it was “very safe tear gas” but there’s no such thing, especially since they tear gassed babies. Exposure to tear gas has detrimental effects on childhood development. It’s some nasty shit. I was exposed to tear gas in the Paris Metro many years ago. I don’t recall what the protest was about, but I recall feeling woozy, raspy, and weepy for hours after being tear gassed. I guess it wasn’t the “very safe” kind that Trump is so proud of. #sarcasm
Trump’s ridiculous claim that tear gas is “very safe” reminds me of an encounter with one of my Greek Greek relatives. I called him Theo (Uncle) Panos but he was married to my father’s cousin. He was a proud and boisterous man who had a small business making and selling taverna-type chairs in the Monastiriki district in old Athens. He believed that everything Greek was the best. It was one reason he and Lou got on so well. I’ll never forget dining al fresco one evening with Panos and his family. There were flies swarming and I kept shooing them away. Panos laughed and said, “Don’t worry. In Greece, the flies are clean and very safe.”
This week’s theme song was written in 1948 by Woody Guthrie and Martin Hoffman in protest of the racist treatment of Mexican nationals who perished in a plane crash in Los Gatos, California. 32 people died: 4 Americans and 28 Mexican migrant workers who were being deported to Mexico. The media of the day listed the names of the dead Yanquis but referred to the Mexicans solely as deportees.
Sometimes the “crash” in the title is replaced with “wreck” but the song remains the same. Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos) is one of the great protest songs and has been recorded many times over the last 70 years.
We have three versions for your listening pleasure: Woody Guthrie, Dave Alvin & Jimmie Gilmore, and Nancy Griffith.
Now that we’ve been deported, it’s time to jump to the break. We’ll try not to crash-land but I make no guarantees. Now where the hell did I put my parachute?
I just saw the Liar-in-Chief on cable teevee. In addition to incorrectly claiming that Michael Cohen had already been sentenced to a long prison term, he used his favorite word:
If I had $100 for every time Trump says very, I'd be richer than him.
Trump’s mangled and gnarly syntax has actually impacted my writing style. When I finish a draft of anything but a shopping list, I scrub out the verys. Occasionally they survive but that’s a very rare occurrence. Oops, I did it again.
While I’m giving credit where it’s due, there’s a remarkable piece in the Jackson Free Press by Ashton Pittman (names don’t get more Southern than that) that fills in many of the blanks about Cindy Hyde-Smith aka the Racist Lady. Nobody should be shocked that, not only did the appointed senator attend a “segregation academy,” she sent her daughter there. And yes, she was an elected official when her daughter matriculated. It doesn’t matter to prosperous white Mississippians. It’s what they do, y’all. Cannot mix with “those people.”
In the early 2000s, Stewart was specifically identified as a leader of a recognized hate group- Free Mississippi- by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group went defunct, and as a result, it was de-listed by the SPLC. But you can still find his name on their database. He served as the group’s “parliamentarian.”
You can also still easily find him on Facebook, where he makes it abundantly clear that he is very much still involved in the business of the Lost Cause. (Stewart enthusiastically supported Chris McDaniel in the general election and is now cheering on Hyde-Smith).
McDaniel is the arch teabagger and Lost Causer who opposed Thad Cochran in 2014. He’s also the creep whose supporter harassed the Senator’s elderly wife in her nursing home. I am not making this up.
Back to Cindy Hyde-Smith. I wish I could say that her racist remarks and inept campaign will defeat her but I don’t think they will. Her Democratic opponent, Mike Espy, is infinitely more intelligent and qualified to serve in the Senate. He’s also black and the vast majority of white Mississippians will never vote for a Democrat let alone a black Democrat. It’s the party of “those people.”
I’ve watched with amusement people who know nothing about the South opine on cable news about the Mississippi runoff. I saw one otherwise intelligent person say on AM JOY that Espy will win because there was not supposed to be a runoff in this race. Wrong. Chris McDaniel nearly unseated an incumbent Senator in the 2014 GOP primary. He only got 17% of the vote this time, in part, because Trump supported the Racist Lady in the first round. He’s still popular with white voters in the Magnolia state, alas.
What Cindy Hyde-Smith’s bigoted bumbling has done is to make the runoff closer than it should be. Republican political pros are nervous about the race but think she’ll pull it out after Trump rallies the peckerwoods later today. Their mantra is: “We don’t want an Alabama.”
They’re referring to Senator Doug Jones’ thrilling win last year in his race against Judge Pervert. I think that’s unlikely for reasons stated on the tweeter tube:
The Doug Jones comparisons are off. Alabama has more educated voters. Plus Roy Moore was worse than the racist white lady. Finally most white people in MS cannot speak to a black person as an equal let alone vote for one.
Alabama is NOT a progressive paradise but it has some big cities, a major medical research hub in Birmingham, and the rocket eggheads in Huntsville to partially offset the rural peckerwoods and rednecks. Also, Doug Jones is white. An African American candidate would not have beaten Judge Pervert, alas. The Bradley effect remains in effect in the South, as we saw in Florida where many white voters could not bring themselves to vote for Andrew Gillum.
I think Mike Espy has a good chance to get 45% of the vote if his GOTV effort is strong, otherwise he’ll hover at around 40%. If it’s the former, it’s a Beto-style moral victory. I hope I’m wrong and we wake up to an upset victory on Wednesday morning.
One thing that national Democrats seem to have learned this year is to CONTEST every race even those that look difficult. You never know when an inept candidate will talk about hanging or disenfranchising their opponents. In another state, those comments would have destroyed the appointed senator’s campaign. It’s a sign of progress that they damaged it severely. And in Mississippi of all places. Goddam.
It’s no secret that we’re Nancy Pelosi fans here at First Draft. The first female speaker was also one of the most effective. It’s why she was targeted by Republicans in the 2010 teabagger wave election and in every subsequent campaign. It’s best when your boogieman (boogiewoman in this instance) can really boogie.
Pelosi just led Democrats to their biggest gains in the House since the post-Watergate wave election way back in 1974. Instead of meeting with acclaim, she’s facing a challenge led by the #FiveWhiteGuys with support from the cats and kittens at Politico.
Since none of them has the balls to stand for leader, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, and the other #FiveWhiteGuys thought they’d found the perfect stalking horse in African American Congressperson Marcia Fudge. They were outmaneuvered by the wily Pelosi who cut a deal with Fudge yesterday. It’s why she’s been House Democratic leader longer than anyone since Sam Rayburn.
That brings us to the tweet of the day. It’s a joke I considered stealing outright but decided not to. Without further adieu, here it is:
Pelosi: Do you like apples? Moulton: Yeah. Pelosi: I got Fudge. How you like dem apples? pic.twitter.com/ttvamz2wgd
There have been so many pinch me moments since Donald Trump became president*. The latest came with his bizarre response to the California wildfires. As always, this fucking moron thinks he knows everything when, in fact, he knows absolutely nothing. It’s always made worse by the refusal of anyone around him to tell him when he’s wrong, which is more often than not. The only Yes-men I’ve ever cared for were Anderson and Squire.
About the featured image. I felt it was important to translate it to the original Astoria-Queens dialect. If I could line up Joe Pesci for a reading, I would. My cousin Vinny knew a thing or two about da utes.
Back to Donald’s Excellent California Misadventure. Make sure you click on the embedded video in the tweet:
Trump: "You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important… I was with the President of Finland… he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem." pic.twitter.com/cC8syQobdC
There’s just so much to unpack from Trump’s latest big bag of stupid. First, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said he NEVER said anything about raking to Trump. Second, Finland is a small-ish, cold, and wet country. California is vast and dry from an epic drought. My home state is inherently prone to wildfires and all the raking in the world will not end that. Additionally, most of the forests there are managed by the Federal, not state government. But when did the Insult Comedian ever let the facts get in the way of making him look stupid?
When did da president* from Noo Yawk become an expert in forestry? Has he ever even wielded a rake? Perhaps he’s thinking of the kind of rake described in this tweet:
RAKE noun: rake; plural noun: rakes a fashionable or wealthy man of dissolute or promiscuous habits. "a merry Restoration rake" -libertine, profligate; degenerate,debauchee; lecher, seducer, womanizer, philanderer, adulterer, Don Juan, Lothario, Casanova; ladies' man, lech pic.twitter.com/KGxfLIFK41
I attempted to post that tweet at a rakish angle but it proved impossible. Unlike the Current Occupant, I know when I don’t know something, you know.
One of Trump’s few talents is his eerie ability to make everything about himself. In this instance, it’s a horrific talent: 76 people have died and over 1000 are missing as of this writing. The Camp fire is a bona fide tragedy that all the raking or Smokey Bear bashing in the world will not solve. Yes, I said Smokey Bear bashing:
Who is paying for that tedious Smokey Bear commercial that is on all the time – enough already!
I would loved to have been a fly on the wall when Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsome discussed the presidential visit. I thought I saw Jerry grit his teeth when Trumpberius went on about raking. The temptation to put the business end of a rake where the moon don’t shine must have been overwhelming. I applaud the outgoing Governor for his restraint. It must have been hard for Jerry: he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Nero had his fiddle, Trump has his rake. Dave Alvin has the last word:
The weird weather continues in New Orleans. We seem to have skipped fall and gone straight to winter. One day we ran the AC, the next the heater. As you saw yesterday, the cats are happy. They love blankets and space heaters. I could do without either. I hate the cold; a stance befitting someone who has lived most of their life in California and Louisiana.
The other down side of cold weather NOLA-style is that public places crank up the heat. I strolled to the grocery store the other day dressed for the great outdoors, I returned a sweaty mess since I had to walk fast to avoid the Valence Street rooster. I’m not a fan of chickens and this one is on the aggressive side. I’d rather eat them than dodge them.
This week’s theme song was written by Tony Banks in 1976 for Genesis’ last pure prog album, Wind & Wuthering. Afterglow is a drop dead gorgeous song that closes the album as well as an era. It’s the last Genesis album featuring lead guitar player Steve Hackett who was missed almost as much by the band’s fans as Peter Gabriel.
We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the Genesis original followed by the Classic Rock String Quartet.
Now that we’re afterglowing, let’s jump to the break. I promise a soft landing.
It’s not over until it’s over in a Florida election. Election weirdness has been discovered in heavily Democratic Broward County where there were some 24K fewer ballots cast for the Senatorial candidates than Goober guys, Gillum and DeSantis. Oops.
This could be incompetence instead of Brian Kemp-style fuckery but that remains unclear. What is clear that we’re in for a good old fashioned political brawl ala the 2000 Gore-Bush recount battle. Will there be a second Brooks Brothers riot without Roger Stone to stage it?
Things are getting ugly fast in Florida. Rick Scott, clearly thinking he’s going to fall behind in the vote count and lose his campaign for Senate, is both filing lawsuits to stop the vote counting in South Florida and using his police powers as governor to do so. As in Georgia, having the candidate oversee the election has real shortcomings.
“Late Tuesday night our win was projected about 57,000 votes. By Wednesday morning that lead dropped to 38,000 votes. By Wednesday evening, it was around 30,000 votes. This morning, it was around 21,000. Now, it is 15,000,.”
And then this.
“Every Floridan should be concerned that their could be rampant fraud happening in Broward and Palm Beach Counties.”
It looks like I’m going to lose … ergo there must be ‘rampant fraud’ … ergo I’m ordering the state police to investigate the election administrators.
I should apologize for the long quote but the man nailed it. It’s too early for me to use a hammer even if I had a Hankering Aaron to do so.
Josh’s post is titled Getting Ugly Fast. Anything involving Rick Scott is de facto ugly:
Ain’t nothing like a Michael F image in the morning. It’s almost as good as a cuppa Tom Petty style Joe. Why TP? Gainesville, y’all, Gainesville. Dig the Florida Gator guitar wielded by Heartbreaker Mike Campbell in this clip from their 40th anniversary show in Gainesville:
Back to Florida election weirdness. I’m feeling as low energy as former Governor Jeb Bush, so I’ll post two tweets I fired off last night:
Bill Nelson took a lot of abuse for being a boring old white guy during this cycle. There’s some truth to that BUT he had the sense not to concede on election night. It’s Florida, y’all. Weird shit happens there.
@AndrewGillum ran a good race but he made a mistake by conceding. Time to retract it and get in there and fight like Bill Nelson, Stacey Abrams and Kristen Sinema. Time to count all the ballots.
I can’t let go of my beloved tick tock image of Harold Lloyd in Safety Last. I decided to give it an encore after a long night of watching/following the election returns. It still aptly describe the state of a nation with a Republican senate and lunatic president*.
Overall, it was a good night for Democrats: the House was the Big Kahuna. But it has so many moving parts that it’s harder for the average person to follow. Still, Democrats won the majority and there were upsets galore in Virginia, New York, Iowa, California, Texas and a real shocker with Kendra Horn’s win in Oklahoma. There will be more than 100 women in the next Congress. That’s genuine progress.
Like Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, and Ella Fitzgerald, I prefer to accentuate the positive:
Anyone with a lick of sense knew how difficult the Senate would be since 2/3 of the seats up were held by Democrats. It was worse than expected since three of the No on Kavanaugh red state senators Donnelly, Heitkamp, and McCaskill were defeated. Montana Senator John Tester’s race was just called in his favor, which means that Washington will be spared another real estate developer in office.
I think Democratic expectations were too high last night. It’s going to take more than one election to turn things around. The GOP’s post-2006 comeback took five election cycles. The House fell first for the GOP in 2010 because it’s more democratic. The Senate was never intended to be a democratic institution. Its members were elected by state leges until 100 years ago, after all.
I’m going to use the ultra-punditty “takeaway” format for the rest of the post. It’s otherwise known in these parts as Odds & Sods or First Draft Potpourri. I’ve been stirring the potpourri here for nine years, so why stop now?
Shooting Stars: The three most exciting candidates of the cycle were Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Stacey Abrams. They all got the fuzzy end of the electoral lollipop. Ms. Abrams, quite rightly, has refused to concede.
Since I was skeptical of Betomania, I’m more impressed by the results than the idolators. It has been 28 years since a Democratic candidate received 48% of the vote in a statewide race in ruby red Texas. That candidate was, of course, Ann Richards and if there’s an afterlife I know she’s “so fucking proud” of Beto. Democrats made advances in the state lege, knocked off two House GOP committee chairman, and now believe they can win statewide. I think every race should be run the way Beto ran his: with courage, inspiration, and passion.
We re-learned two important lessons last night with Andrew Gillum’s narrow defeat:
Florida is still where political hearts go to be broken.
The Bradley effect is still in effect.
The Bradley in question is former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. He appeared to have a substantial lead over of GOPer George Deukmejian in the 1982 race to succeed Jerry Brown as California Governor. Bradley lost. The Bradley effect was born. To be fair, Bradley was more of a black Bill Nelson but, as Bob Marley would surely say at this point, who the cap fit, let them wear it.
I don’t think we’ve heard the last of Beto O’Rourke or Andrew Gillum. As to the other shooting star, Stacey Abrams has, quite rightly, refused to concede to Thievin’ Brian Kemp for reasons we’ll go into in our next segment.
The Power Of Red State Election Fuckery: Brian Kemp was up to his old vote suppression tricks on election day in Georgia. There were missing power cords, power outages, and other mishaps yesterday. They all seemed to occur in heavily Democratic areas. Incompetence or election fuckery? I think it was both.
Stacey Abrams refuses to concede until all the votes are counted in the hopes of winning enough to force a run-off. She has good reason to keep at it: there are 400K disputed votes.
We all seem to have underestimated the staying power of voter fuckery. Barack Obama and Eric Holder are right on this issue. Their effort to dial back voter suppression is not mere wonkery but crucial to the future of our democracy. The good news is that Dems flipped some state leges and won a raft of Governorships. That will help kickstart the repair work. It’s time to unfuck the electoral system.
Good News: Some really odious people were defeated yesterday. This calls for bullet points, not bullets, since we’re non-violent gun grabber types around here:
Dana Rohrabacher got a Harley Rouda awakening.
Dave Brat is still the worst.
Kris Kobach
Dean Heller
Corey Stewart
Bruce Rauner
Claudia Tenney
Scott Walker
I saved the best for last. My friend and colleague Scout Prime posted a tweet thread about the defeat of the man Doc calls Governor Deadeyes:
THREAD
What's happened to Scott Walker is an epic example of Poetic Justice…delayed but now served.
Upon taking office, Walker quickly moved against collective bargaining rights of public sector unions, specifically to take down the political power of the teacher's union…
Click on the date at the bottom of the tweet image to read the whole thread. Well done, amiga.
While we’re posting tweets, here are the publisher lady’s thoughts on the killjoys who want to spoil our festive mood:
I'm already seeing "don't celebrate, things still suck" takes and no. Everybody who fought for today gets today. Of course things still suck. Twas ever thus. But we get today.
People seem to underestimate the magnitude of flipping the House. There are some aggressive incoming chairs with itchy subpoena fingers: Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, and Elijah Cummings to name a few. In between bragging about his “victory,” the Insult Comedian understands the threat, which led him to issue one of his own:
If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!
A split decision is much better than losing everything. Two years are an eternity in politics. Team Mueller has been in time-out for the last month. I expect them to make some noise in the near future that will harsh the Insult Comedian’s buzz.
One more thing. The funniest result yesterday was out of Nevada: Dennis Hof won a state assembly seat. It’s noteworthy because of his occupation and another salient fact. Here’s my headline:
DEAD PIMP WINS
How can I possibly top that?
The last word goes to Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton:
As of this writing, here’s who the MAGA Bomber is telling to pipe down by mailing them a pipe bomb:
George Soros
The Clintons
The Obamas
Eric Holder
John Brennan
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Maxine Waters
Joe Biden
Robert DeNiro
Robert Fucking DeNiro? It’s a good thing that he’s not in his prime or he just might go Raging Bull or even Taxi Driver on someone’s ass. I guess that makes him the Paul Newman of this dangerously crazy incident: the salad dressing mogul was on Nixon’s enemies list. Bobby D is in good company.
Trump made a statement yesterday at the White House. Here’s how some wise ass described it on the tweeter tube:
Trump’s speech about the bombs looked like a hostage video only without the beheading finale.
He was back in full tilt Insult Comedian mode at a rally in Wisconsin last night and tweeted this out this morning:
A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!
He seems to think his tiny hands are clean. They are not. I know incitement speech when I hear it. The MAGA Bomber has been paying attention to Trump’s stump rantings: the members of the enemies list have all been attacked by the president*. In a word, disgusting.
The pipe bomb discovered Wednesday and addressed to former CIA director John Brennan via CNN features a parody of the ISIS flag with the words “get ‘er done,” a common right-wing meme, according to a Wednesday NBC report.
On the fake flag, the Arabic words are replaced by suggestive female silhouettes. The meme reportedly originated on a far-right parody site called World News Bureau.
So much for false flaggery. Pipe bomb trutherism is a pipe dream but Rush Limbaugh is still pushing it as were these MAGA Maggots yesterday in Florida:
We’ve had periods of political violence before in our history but the incitement never came from the White House. That’s what makes this moment in time so fraught with peril. Here’s how Charlie Pierce put it yesterday:
In the 1970s, there were no national politicians encouraging the Weathermen to involve themselves in the political process. Bernadine Dohrn didn’t get to visit the White House. Of course, in the 1950s and the 1960s, there were southern state politicians a’plenty who knew the people who were setting off the bombs, but the national government was pretty much on the other side; even though it was often dilatory in that regard, it got there eventually. (In 2002 and 2003, the last two culprits in the Birmingham church bombing were finally convicted by Doug Jones, now a senator from Alabama.)
The current president* of the United States trafficks in imaginary threats and encourages, by word and deed, feelings of dread and isolation and deep, familiar paranoia, the entire Hofstadter buffet. And there is an entire media infrastructure dedicated to reinforcing those feelings, 24-7, on all platforms of the modern communications industry. The Weathermen didn’t have their own TV network.
There’s only one palliative for the pernicious and mendacious fearmongering by the Party of Trump; VOTE on November 6th, and in every election thereafter. Democratic control of at least one House of Congress means oversight and investigations. A Republican victory means an emboldened president*, a cowed Congress, an expanded enemies list, and more right-wing domestic terrorism.
The cries of “false flag” are already flying on the right after this bombtastic morning. Mercifully, no one has been hurt, but we know who has been inciting violence. It’s the creep I call the Kaiser of Chaos. He has called Democrats members of the “party of crime.” One of his idiot supporters has decided that it’s okay to bomb our past nominees and the “fake news enemies of the people” at CNN. Words have consequences.
My friend the Scrabble Shark tweeted this right after the CNN story broke:
That’s right, I just posted something with three exclamation points BUT in a good cause. Maga Bomber has a nice ring to it, like the Unabomber. Of course, Ted K was a genius and the average Maga Maggot is a “very low IQ individual” as their “very stable genius” hero is wont to say.
The post title refers to a song written for 10cc’s Sheet Music album by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. The narrator is a bomb planted in the belly of an airliner. He’s the Clockwork Creep in question: “tick a tick a time bomb.”
It’s a good thing the Clockwork Creeps are just as incompetent as their dear leader thus far. Here’s hoping there are no explosions today.
