Yeah, yeah, I know… but the only way to properly express the mood of this piece was to set it in a dark, grim mid-20th dive, with a permanently-circulating ceiling haze and ashtrays you could cave someone’s head in with.
Dude should know by now that that old wives’ cure never works. He’s heading for a king-size Trumpover.
It’s a quarter to three.
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So, that was the “October Surprise” this time around, huh? That was really it? Old Uncle Joe, movin’ kinda’ slow, suddenly decides to pipe up about some of Trump’s throwaway trash talk and immediately shits out a Basket Of Deplorables moment, right out on live TV in front of god and his cat and everybody, less than a week before the “election”? Well done. Even if MSNBC immediately changed its format to All Abortion Rights Horror Stories All The Time, it probably still wouldn’t be enough to save the DNC’s asses.
Just trying to imagine the scene around the DNC campaign offices right now… imagining Uncle Joe, still and quiet for all these weeks — they really thought they had him buried this time — suddenly clambering clumsily out of the grave like Tor Johnson in Plan 9 From Outer Space to drop a big, hot steaming Gaffe From The Beyond.
Mind you, I’m not arguing with the truth of El Presidente’s blabbage about Trump supporters being garbage, here; that’s as maybe — but, still, when you’re a sitting President of the United Snakes Of Amerika who’s had to drop out of a re-election campaign after your brain fried out on live national TV, and who’s proudly facilitating and defending the brutal, venal crimes of two of the most garbage human beings walking the Earth at the moment, and whose actions in the past year have at last fully revealed American/Western traditions and institutions to be complete garbage… you might want keep a lid on that name-calling shit.
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On top of this CNN Town Hall shartage, my regular “Random 15″ from MSNBC included Kay-Kay speaking at a rally where she makes the big buildup to the working class, only to cap it with a declaration that she will ban price gouging on groceries…
all in that classic delivery of hers, that sounds as if she studied public speaking under Hillary Clinton, like a foreign actress who had to learn her lines phonetically. Dear GOD, just listen to that scolding junior-high principal voice, so full of passion and conviction when she talks about goddamn CHEAP GROCERIES. …and the crowd’s going wild for that shit; just listen to ‘em, as if cued by an electric sign, like a game-show audience.
This, apparently, is going to be her signature achievement if she wins the “election”, if her hands aren’t too full with the goddamn GENOCIDE. Yeah… not a Great Society, or voting rights, or going to the Moon… nahh, just cheap groceries.
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So, I’m out doing my laps earlier this week, and I spot this lawn sign in front of a house about 2 blocks around the corner from us — and all I can think is that somebody in the DNC’s ad agencies isn’t quite clear on the concept of “joy”. Not just as an intelligent human, but as a designer and art director with 30+ in the biz, I gotta say that this choice of color and typography does NOT bespeak “joy”.
The sign glowers at me, dark and mean, telling me to “choose joy” as if issuing an order, as if implying “…or ELSE” — coming off like the latest in a long line of fascistic, authoritarian slogans: War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength; Arbeit Macht Frei; Country Over Party. Choose Joy, or else.
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I wish I’d screenshot or bookmarked the tweet I spotted on Facebook featuring a grinning Kay-Kay and Netanyahu shaking hands, with a headline announcing the latest amount of my tax money being shipped off to fund a genocide in Palestine. Not that it matters that much these days, as it’s always such an insanely stonking amount of cash that remembering the actual goddamn number doesn’t seem that important anymore.
Luckily, though, I did save this headline from the Washington Post a couple of days ago, about how the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief fund is already tapped out. Tough luck, MAGA Boy, the money to rebuild your surf shop just went to bomb a bunch of people living in tents.
What goes around, America…
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For the past month or so, MSNBC has been clutching every available pearl over how Donald Trump and his deformed minions will handle the possibility of losing the “election”. Will they pitch a fit, scream “fraud” and try to lay siege to Capitol Hill to disrupt the electoral vote count and stage a putsch as they did in ‘21?
Personally, I can’t help asking the same question about the Donkeycrats — how will they handle losing to a dude who resembles a villain from an old Columbo episode and whose followers are some of the most intensely stupid beings walking upright on Earth; how will they roll with a well-deserved ass-paddling at the polls after spitting in the faces of every Muslim-American and every American who actually cares about piddling shit like genocide?
Will the Democrats, on facing defeat, do some institutional soul-searching, self-examination and self-evaluation, accept responsibility and get to work on solutions or — as they’ve always done — pitch a fit, scream “fraud”, blame the Left, blame Russia, create a climate of good old-fashioned McCarthyist bullying, fear, suspicion and suppression and try to litigate and investigate their way into power, as they did in ‘17?
Bwah ha ha ha ha ha hah, d’ahh, fuck it, man; who are we kidding?
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My customary Random 15 Seconds Of MSNBC the other morning featured some nasal-vocal-frying “guest analyst” from some dime-a-dozen downtown think tank babbling to the effect of “…Dick Cheney is changing hearts and minds — great!” while discussing ex-VP Dick Cheney’s announcement that he’s voting for Kamala Harris. Hot damn diggety, talk about a positively ringing endorsement.
Looks like the DNC is totally hitting the goddamn trifecta this time around, too — they’ve got Liz Cheney denouncing Trump, her old man — a known worldwide war criminal — announcing he’s voting for Kay Kay, and they’ve already had GEORGE W. BUSH SPEAKING AT THEIR GODDAMN CONVENTION, F’CRISSAKE.
So, am I the only one here who remembers when the DNC thought that Cheney was the walking, talking, living, breathing earthly embodiment of pure evil and that George W. Bush was THE WORST PRESIDENT EVAH? No, really, I mean it, ‘cos I need to make absolutely 110% sure that I didn’t totally fucking hallucinate the past quarter century.
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That kind of lean-in feminist schtick might go over well on a clod like Mike Pence, but when you pull it on a bunch of citizens who your party has gone out of its way to try to silence and who are calling you out on your involvement in an ongoing genocide in Palestine, it just shows the whole goddamn country who you really are.
You came right out of the gate spitting in the faces of moral people who are speaking up about US/Israeli crimes in Palestine, telling us to shut up and sit down until it’s time to turn out at the polls to vote for rich American women’s abortion rights or some shit, and now you drop your sweetie-pie girl boss bullshit on us.
Not only will we not be voting for genocide, but many of us will not be voting at all, as the events of the past year have shown us what American “democracy” really is.
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Don’t you just love it when these bastards’n'bitches just come right out and show you who they really are — and gleefully, proudly, no matter how vile it actually is? Sure, it’s infuriating, horrifying and digusting, but at least you know the score right up front with these scum. You can’t say you didn’t know.
So, she’s speaking now, huh? Oh, f’crissake, man. I’d honestly rather have 4 more years of Trump than this goddamn insufferable-ass “girl boss” schtick. Granted, this wouldn’t go down well with most of your Liberals, who prefer their fascist rule to be not too outwardly fascist-y.
…and now, working on this piece has given me some ferocious munchies…
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It's a Sunday morning as I write this, and I can't stop imagining Liberals all over Amerika seeing Genocide Joe's grinning mug on slices of burnt toast and considering it a clear sign that he should stay in the race — when what it actually means, of course...
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MSNBC has gone into full-on Panic Mode, peak Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain Mode, completely off-scale He’s Not Dead, He’s Just Resting Mode — and I’m love, love, loving it.
I loved watching the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus blustering that Biden Is The Nominee, Dammit, He’s Playing 10-Dimensional Chess, Has X-Ray Vision And Is Just Pining For The Fjords in a desperate attempt to convince us — or mostly himself — that Genocide Joe really can see around corners, and I loved a recently-rehabbed post-MeToo Chris Matthews in fine voice, literally shouting at the viewers that Uncle Joe can slice’n'dice Trump with one hand tied behind his back and is just stunned right now, and he doesn’t want any shit about it.
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Ever since the last “debate”, I and millions like me are walkin’ on sunshine because finally, at long last, the mask is finally off. After that classic episode of Must-Not-Unsee TV, there’s no getting around the fact that our ruling class is entirely incompetent, that democracy and the “rules-based order” are s sham, and that Amerika and the West have fallen and can’t get up.
MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times are boiling with Liberal panic and denial right now — panic and denial so thick you can smell it through the TV set — and I can’t pretend I’m not enjoying it. Joe Scarborough was priceless; dude was shouting — like, really yelling — about how insanely awesome Joe Biden is, how he could leap tall buildings and has x-ray vision and rescued the economy and is the only thing standing between us and fascism, yelling so loudly that you could hear the echo in the studio; absolutely hilarious. You could almost see the little wisps of cartoon steam coming out of his ears.
In the “weighing how to respond” department, I hear that most rich-ass DNC donors have been upping their day-drinking game when lacking the cajones for suicide.
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“The invitation of Netanyahu, signed by the ‘bipartisan leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate,’ is a political provocation against mass opposition to the genocide in Gaza, in the US and throughout the world. It is a declaration of political and moral solidarity with a murderer who has been accused by the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of war crimes.”
—from the Statement of the World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board, 06.10.2024
“All over, people changin’ their votes along with their overcoats;
If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway!”
—The Clash, 1977
The Editors of the World Socialist Web Site blog are calling for a mass mobilization to greet Israeli Führer Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to slime Washington, DC on July 24 and I, for one, am absolutely down for giving this sonofabitch the welcome he deserves when he comes barging into my city.
So, here’s my contribution to the propaganda effort, complete with “your message here” space, suitable for printing — and wheatpasting — at 11×17 on any walk-up digital color copier.
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Compared to the raving, drooling, mean-girl frenzy that was MSNBC’s “reporting” on the Days Of Our Trump Trial, their “coverage” of the guilty verdict brought down on iconic Presidential failson Hunter Biden on Federal gun charges was… well, let’s say it was reserved… reserved, taciturn, crestfallen — somber, even. Seriously, to watch MSNBC’s morning blatherers the day after the verdict, you’d think the sonofabitch had just died — and, with it, Democracy™ itself.
Makes sense, really; he gets it from his old man, who’s also a stupid-ass gun freak.
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Except for the occasional break to smear and low-key threaten the anti-genocide movements, MSNBC has been almost wall-to-wall with coverage of the trial of former El Presidente Donald Trump for paying off a porn actress to keep quiet about an affair.
Yep, that’s it — not anything he was responsible for in Bolivia, or Syria, or Yemen, or Venezuela, or for militarizing the southern border, or for the piss-poor Covid response, or the instigation of fascist violence, or basically for any actual serious crimes that the Democrats happily funded, helped him out with and cheered him on as he did it — just the hush money for the porn actress.
And, as one could predict by now, MSNBC’s punditocracy — and the US media at large — has been creaming its panties in front of god and everybody nearly non-stop since last night.
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Glimpsed a headline on the front page of USA Hooray earlier this week yelling about how one of the groups organizing the campus occupations in the US was apparently under Federal investigation some time ago for (quelle horreur) connections to Hamas — like, anyone who really knows from shit is going to oppose legitimate resistance or even care if activists they know are connected to them — every doctor, reporter, student, laborer, office worker, artist, musician, football player who ever spoke up against Israeli horror is now “connected to Hamas”, apparently including my own self.
Despite the disgusting nature of the headline, I couldn’t help snickering to myself as I knew this was a prime indication that they’re losing hugely, almost none of the People believe them anymore, nothing they’ve tried to silence us has worked very well and that they’ve totally lost control — and, backed into that corner, have resorted to the old standby If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Smear ‘Em.
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A friend and I were discussing the events of 1989 and ‘90 recently, and we agreed that even at the time, we knew it was only the first shoe dropping.
So, don’t get too cocky, there, Amerika.
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Dear US Left:
With all due respect — I really do love ya, we’ve worked together and hit the barricades
and been ride-or-die n’all that, but — you’ve just gotta stop this shit
right now, y’all, ‘cos it’s the biggest waste of time ever at this
point. Seriously, for myself and all of our comrades, I’m here to tell
you, you just gotta STOP IT, brah.
Stop asking us to VOTE.
Stop asking us to play in a crooked rigged casino, to participate in a phony “democracy” and vote in a useless “election” in which the candidates and platforms are already decided by the Party and the permissible issues and voices already decided by the media. Stop asking us to drag ourselves off to participate in an empty ritual in an empty institution which has achieved absolute zero.
Stop insulting our intelligence by asking us to participate in the “democracy” of a nation in which the State, the Party and Establishment institutions have at long last finally, thoroughly, utterly and completely alienated us and then relentlessly implores us to participate in their useless, capitalist media-controlled “democratic” institutions. After doing their level best to beat down and silence the dissent and outrage of billions across the nation and the Earth, they’ve got the spectacular gall to try to shame, frighten, and browbeat us into slinking back to their polls for “abortion rights” — for affluent, professional-class American women, of course; not the reproductive rights of working-class and poor women, nor immigrant women, nor Afghan or Iraqi women, and for goddamn sure not the reproductive rights of PALESTINIAN women…
Been out of town for a while, been sick for a while, finally getting my tired old ass to the drawing table again.
So, I’d been noticing this #DemocratsDeliver hashtag crawling like a rash all over Facebook as the “election” freak circus cranks up, and thought I’d have some fun with it — like, yeah; I know what the Democrats “deliver”, alright.
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Da, komrade, and then ve are takink kare of Moose and Sqvirrel!
Oh, f’crissake, are they shittin’ us with this mess? Are they really that desperate to take our minds off THE GODDAMN GENOCIDE? “Unspecified dire risk”? Really? Unspecified? BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAHHHH. Yeah, Russian Space Threat Emerges — straight outta the asses of “U.S. Officials”. D’AAHH HA HA HA HA HA… So, what’s next, guys — the “Missile Gap”?
Dear GOD, they really are reaching now; they couldn’t look any more desperate than they do at this point, serving up this exhumed, warmed-over, hoary-ass old McCarthy Era droolage. Why don’t they just give it the hell up?
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I hate to break it to the kiddies at the Dyin' In Darkness Daily, but misidentifying the President of Egypt as the President of Mexico is NOT a "false caricature that could jell" — and neither is being nicknamed "Genocide Joe" and helping to instigate racist violence in his own country, for that matter.
All together, boys'n'girls... 🎵Nearer my God to thee... 🎵
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Normally, my Daily Random 15 Seconds Of MSNBC is your standard-issue eyeroll-inducing partisan babbling, but Steve Kornacki's election report last week totally warmed my heart. Best goddamn news I'd heard in months. F'crissake, Genocide Joe is FIFTY POINTS UNDERWATER with voters 18-34, reportedly the group he needs the most to get his filthy ass re-elected. FIFTY POINTS.
If there were a sure sign that the Donkeycrats are pants-shitting panicked at the prospect of traditionally-Leftish/progressivish voters abandoning their worthless asses en masse at the polls over the genocide in Palestine, it’s the fact that the likes of MSNBC and the Washington Post just can’t stop the tubthumping over the economy and the “consumer confidence” polls just out this week.
Never mind the piss-poor public health response to COVID19, or the historic re-enactment of the fall of Saigon in 2021, or the piss-poor disaster response in Maui last year, or the metric fuckton of cash flushed down the shitter for a bunch of Ukrainian Nazi hillbillies, the wide-open support of fascistic ethnic cleansing in Palestine, the continued attempted instigation of world war — nahh, screw that shit; the consumer confidence numbers are in and the economy is rockin’, so let’s turn that frown upside down, ya’ fusty proles.
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“Haven’t you heard? It’s a battle of words!” the poster bearer cried;
“Listen, son,” said the man with the gun, “There’s room for you inside!”
— Pink Floyd, “Us And Them” (1973)
Throughout MSNBC’s nonstop, never-ending, ceaseless, mind-numbing, soul-crushing, forever-grinding-on coverage of Trump’s little bullshit real-estate fraud trial, they pretty much paused only to scream and yell and bitch in befuddlement about how the Donmonster could possibly still be the goddamn GOP front-runner and bitch bitch bitch above the law and whine whine whine rule of law and snarl growl yell democracy is at stake, followed by a pivot to their illustrious GOP primary coverage in which their chirping mutant anchortarts just couldn’t shut the hell up about how Trump and the GOP’s rhetoric is about “us vs. them” and the Democrats are all about “us”.
…and all I could think of in that moment was how thoroughly the Democratic Party groundlessly scapegoated and demonized Russia for their own ineptitude and general suckage in the Easiest Slam-Dunk Election Ever In All Of Recorded Human History Including The Lascaux Cave Paintings, and how just how much of the Democratic Party’s attitude and general M.O. involves demonizing, scapegoating and otherizing — whether it’s people calling out their Russiagate sham, their idiotic policy decisions or their collaboration with fascists, or pretty much anyone on the left calling out their poor record with ethnic minorities, students, the working class, the poor, or pointing out their long-established reputation for warmongering, you can pretty much count on the Democrats to stand on their record, no matter what.
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“REGRET From Military”, it says here.
That’s right — REGRET for “unintended harm”.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, why do these goddamn thugs even bother? Who do they think they’re kidding? Do they think that after nearly 3 months of genocidal brutality, fascistic bullying, threats and media lies, Genocide Joe’s little buddy actually expects us to believe that they REGRET this goddamn horror show?
The threat of the Bad Old Rethuglicans taking over stopped scaring me nearly 30 years ago, and right now it scares me even less, if such a thing is possible. Four more years of Trump? Big goddamn deal; we’ve ALREADY been through 4 more years of Trump, so I could give the slightest molecule of a rat’s ass who “wins” your goddamn “election” next year. For all I care, the Democrats can get their asses shredded so goddamn bad that they have to be identified via dental records. At this point, I don't care so much about defeating Trump as I do about defeating America.
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