Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

This really is a full service blog.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Not all heroes wear capes.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / The Bullshit Never Stops

The Bullshit Never Stops

by | 111 Comments

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I can’t even turn on the news or browse the headlines before instantly being sent into a frothing rage. It’s something every fucking day. Whether it was Elon dancing around the stage being a “dipshit” or Trump pulling his DEI for billionaires stunt at McDonalds or pining for Hitler’s generals.

Just fucking make it stop.

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  5. 5.

    Jackie

    JC, how about posting Steve, Max, and if she’s still fostering with you, Lily photos?

    You know, to distract you and us from politics? Pretty please?

  6. 6.

    TS

    @zhena gogolia:  I am 2!

    I breathed a sigh of boring when Biden won in 2020, then the ahole started running for 2024 a couple of days later & it started all over again. This would have to be the longest election campaign in history & boring competence sounds fantastic.

  10. 10.

    ArchTeryx

    @dr. bloor: The Mediots can go blow goats. (Sorry, goat-lovers). Either the next 4 years will, I hope to doG, see TCFG leave the stage for good so we can get back to ordinary fascists, or be an unending nightmare I likely will not survive. Either way, they are irrelivant.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    John, she’s going to win this thing.  Believe it!

    And after that happens, there will be a whole lot of consequences for a whole lotta bad actors on the right (both here and abroad).

    With apologies to RMN…keep the faith…and GO BLUE!!

  12. 12.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Bort: Most of the news is designed to enrage or frighten people.  It gets the clicks.

    Hey, those clicks sell dick pills and freakish lip implants, link to must find information on the most beautiful twins in America and your favorite celebrity’s latest fall from grace. Never underestimate the true importance of those clicks!

  13. 13.

    HeleninEire

    @Baud: LOL. Also, too, I have a fucking Masters degree in Government and I am TIRED of thinking about this.

    Make it stop.

  15. 15.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Jay:

    I was hoping somebody would post that.

    Hysterical stuff right out of the fake, satire Amazon reviews that were the rage for a good while.

  16. 16.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    If holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else (you are the one who gets burned), then allowing the news media to stoke your fear & anger is the same only with the hot coal moving in the reverse direction – don’t open your hands and accept what they are trying to give you; it isn’t a gift, they don’t mean well, and they don’t care if you get burned.

  17. 17.

    ArchTeryx

    @Baud: Half the voting population of the country seems to be incredibly eager for four more years of the fucker. A lot of folks don’t agree at all. They love them some Trump and fascism, and they can’t wait to start the killing

    The question is – are they enough? It’s gonna be a long, long 2 weeks to find out.

  19. 19.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @OCD:

    I used to think Gilda Radner’s ‘Emily Litella’ bits were comedy.

    I’ve discovered otherwise both audio and visually.

  21. 21.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jeffro: I was angry about the media and conservatives generally this morning and talked the whole thing out with my wife.

    I think Kamala’s got this. If she couldn’t, it’s literally because Republicans want fascism, dictatorship, racism and sexism and the media wouldn’t accurately report on the race. In which case – I don’t think there’s any particular way we could have won.

    Basically, no sense worrying about it and just donate/phone bank/postcard. And vote.

  23. 23.

    Tony Jay

    I’ve felt the same way for a long time. Over here in the UK the News is 100% dominated by pricks and the useless, imperviously stupid opinions of other pricks, which is both depressing and infuriating at the same time. The country is fucked, it’s not going to improve because of all the pricks being prickish, and watching them on TV uselessly masturbating each other while the country rots is not for me.

    That said, you’re going to feel so much better in just under two weeks.

  24. 24.

    TS

    @zhena gogolia:

    I prefer repetitive and stupid – and I don’t think Musk is the genius some seem to claim – they see money as success and I see (too much) money as the root of all evil (obvious I don’t have any)

    But I agree – I just want them to go away. My life was so much better when trump was ranting on his stupid TV program & I sure did not watch it.

  25. 25.

    hueyplong

    Maybe it’s because I’ve now voted, but I have no problem at all stepping away when I get irritated.

    I do still click on here each AM because this is where I want to read the news of Trump’s croaking, if in fact croak he does.

  26. 26.

    Mousebumples

    @Jeffro: I don’t know if Froette has any insider intel that’s Top Seekrit, but I’m going to think yes, and try to boost my confidence.

    We’re in the home stretch. We’ve got this.

  27. 27.

    Gvg

    I got tired of the hysterical news a decade before Trump. I don’t turn it on. I can read it filtered carefully but I can’t listen to it. It’s too loud and shrill, as well as ignorant and obviously wrong from the get go. Too loud for this girl who likes rock and roll played loud…also too whiny. It’s not Trump. It’s the consumers I think. Media wouldn’t be doing it so long if that wasn’t what the viewers mostly wanted I am afraid. I don’t know what to do about that. I always was out of step with most people I knew, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe I am elitist. Anyway, we are a different niche market. Now if we could only convince some small news organization to specialize in giving us quality info and letting us find them. Hopefully a quiet news source. One that mostly turns out to be right so we can remain calm while other people lose their minds because they choose to follow scare you every day news.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    More good news. It’s all about the Benjamins.  We have them on our side all up and down the ballot. And they are lacking in them.

    Republicans are sounding the alarm that they need to close the money gap with Democrats in the battle for state legislatures, calling the “financial disparity this cycle … more significant than ever.”

    The Republican State Leadership Committee announced in a donor memo, first shared with POLITICO, that it increased its investment in state legislative races this year to $44 million. That’s up from its previously announced $38 million, which it said was its largest investment ever in these contests.

    Despite the RSLC’s historic $44 million investment in 2024, we will still be outpaced by the $175 million the [Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee], the States Project, and Forward Majority PAC have pledged to spend alone,” RSLC President Dee Duncan wrote in the memo.

    “Since the three aforementioned national liberal outside groups have already combined to spend at least $69 million of traceable money across the country, that means they are on the road to dump at least another $100 million into key races between now and November,” the memo says.

  31. 31.

    ArchTeryx

    @Maxim: You have a point, the EC is what keeps them relevant. That one-third is distributed just right and makes every election with them a knife edge when Trump is actually on the ballot.

  32. 32.

    KatKapCC

    @Jay:

    “The fries were too salty as if someone who lost a major election had been crying over them for an hour,” another person jested

    Made me giggle.

  33. 33.

    HeleninEire

    I said to Dad last night…this is what I went to Columbia University for. Election Day is my Superbowl. I may not watch until the next day. I may take a gummy and go to sleep.

  34. 34.

    Kelly

    Speaking of bullshit, border Collie pup Daisy now has to see I have treats before she will sit stay or drop her ball. Pets and praise don’t cut it. Inflation is out of control I’m telling you

  36. 36.

    ColoradoGuy

    I suspect the actual fascists are that famous 27% (the percentage who supported Nixon the day he resigned). The rest of the GOP are cynical fellow travelers who hope to profit from a dictatorship while avoiding getting burned themselves.

  40. 40.

    Doc Sardonic

    @ArchTeryx: I really like goats, they are incredibly fun and interesting creatures. However, if a Mediot wishes to blow a goat and the goat is receptive, who am I to kink shame…

  41. 41.

    Baud

    Via reddit, here’s some positive news.

    Star Trek star LeVar Burton just received a pretty big government honor. The beloved Reading Rainbow host was one of the 2023 National Humanities Medalists. For his impact as an actor and literacy advocate, Burton joined an elite group of people who have received the National Humanities Medal. He hosted the PBS Kids educational television series Reading Rainbow for 23 years, receiving 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award for his work on the show. His other work includes Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Kunta Kinte in the critically acclaimed ABC miniseries Roots.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    @Tony Jay

    Got a U.K. question.

    Many barristers are elevated in status by becoming a QC.

    Now that Liz is gone and Chuck is in, do existing QCs automatically become KCs? Or is the designation of those practitioners unchanged (i.e., dependent on who the monarch was when the honorific was bestowed).

  43. 43.

    Frank Wilhoit

    The only way to “make it stop” would be to have prevented it.  The last time when there might have been an opportunity to do that was somewhere between 60 and 70 years ago.

  44. 44.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @atrupar
    6h Chris Sununu on CNN on whether Trump praising Hitler causes him to reconsider his support for him: “No … we’ve heard a lot of extreme things from Donald Trump. With a guy like that, it’s kinda baked into the vote.”

    Nothing ol’ Chris Sununu can do but vote for a guy like that.

  46. 46.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Baud:

    I agree. I’m not sure most people do.

    I am confident that nationally we are in a clear majority. I am hopeful that we are in the majority in enough swing states to put us in the White House.

  48. 48.

    Baud

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    The comment is not about whether we hVe a majority of votes. It’s about whether people find Trump and Musk interesting to talk about. Even a lot of Dems do, even if it’s only to ridicule them.  We love focusing on our enemies.

  49. 49.

    Tony Jay

    @ArchTeryx:

    It will. 2016 memories and the massive effort to horserace the fuck out of this election are bound to keep the fear alive, but come November 6th all the narrative is going to be about how ‘anyone’ could have thought Stench/Snowball ever had a chance against the hugely popular Harris/Walz juggernaut.

    A lot of Americans are fucked up lunatics, but they’re not a majority, and after eight years of Anno Trump the majority want anything but more of it.

    I haz nae doots.

  52. 52.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Baud:

    Sorry, I misunderstood. You are correct. Since 2015 ” the news” has shifted from “What are Republicans angry about today?” to “What did Trump say or do today that shocks the conscience?”

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    I understand the frustration JC, but they’re not going to stop.  You have to find other sources of information.

    Ratings for cable news programs are pathetic.  We don’t have to be part of the weird demographic that still watches them. Similarly with talk radio and all the rest.

    Adweek.com – Cable News Ratings – September 2024 (you can use Reader mode on Firefox to bypass the registration wall):

    While still a late entrant to the presidential election, the dust has now settled surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris’ inclusion as the Democrat’s presidential candidate. In September, viewers saw Harris and former President Donald Trump participate in what seems their only presidential debate, which ABC News hosted and was simulcast across the broadcast and cable news networks.

    Fox News was the most-watched of the three big cable news networks during the Harris/Trump debate. It was also the highest-rated cable news network in total day and primetime in September. This marks its 43rd month on top in cable news as well as in all of cable for total day.

    Additional good news for Fox News vs. its cable news competitors was that it was the only network that did not have month-to-month declines in both measured categories during both dayparts.

    Fox News

    Fox News had 2.505 million total viewers in primetime and 324,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demo. During total day, it had 1.433 million total viewers and 194,000 viewers in the demo.

    Probably 10-100x as many people watch Baby Shark every day. :-/

    PressGazette.co.uk has a table of news site visits for August:

    Top 50 news websites in the world, September 2024
    Global visits, August 2024

    Search in table
    Page 1 of 2
    Table with 4 columns and 50 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 25.
    Sep 2024 Year-on-year change Month-on-month change
    1 bbc.co.uk and bbc.com 986m −5.5% −10.6%
    2 msn.com 601.2m 4.9% −6.1%
    3 cnn.com 571.2m 10.1% −5.9%
    4 nytimes.com 517.3m 13.7% −3.6%
    5 news.google.com 329.2m −0.9% −6.3%
    6 theguardian.com 303.8m −4.2% −11.7%
    7 foxnews.com 288.5m 2.8% −11.1%
    8 dailymail.co.uk 279m −20.2% −11.4%
    9 news18.com 229m −3.7% −9.8%
    10 finance.yahoo.com 213.7m 0.1% −11.1%
    11 news.yahoo.com 190.3m −16.1% −7.6%
    12 people.com 186.4m 37.6% −9.2%
    13 usatoday.com 185.8m 26.0% −10.8%
    14 forbes.com 173.6m 43.9% −3.7%
    15 indiatimes.com 169.3m 32.6% −12.8%
    16 nypost.com 157.6m 8.3% −8.1%
    17 india.com 140.5m 51.7% 42.0%
    18 hindustantimes.com 125.7m −8.4% −12.2%
    19 washingtonpost.com 119.5m 2.3% −8.0%
    20 newsweek.com 109.1m 108.3% −19.1%
    21 cnbc.com 107.5m −6.6% −16.2%
    22 nbcnews.com 106.6m 24.4% −2.4%
    23 independent.co.uk 106.3m 10.0% −10.2%
    24 apnews.com 105.9m 33.5% −11.4%
    25 indianexpress.com 104.9m 5.3% −5.7%

    (Lots of sites had monthly fall-off from the end of the Olympics, etc.)

    It’s as easy to click on any website link as any other. We need to be more careful in our news consumption.

    [/soapbox]

    Hang in there!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    m.j.

    You think you’ve got it tough. I’m still pissed about 2016. There was an entire generation of journalists who had been trained from birth to hate The Clintons.

    Do you remember the lineup for NPR’s Morning Edition Presidential race banter/ newsiness?

    It was Steve Inskeep, Jonah Goldberg, and Ben Domenech.

    I won’t forget.

  58. 58.

    Gretchen

    @TS: That’s why they wanted to get rid of Biden. He’s boringly competent and his White House doesn’t leak, and Harris promises the same. The Trump clown show is much easier to write about.

  59. 59.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Said it many times. The difference between the Democrats and newnewlabourinc is that the Democrats have leaders who know that successful political parties are coalitions where everyone involved needs to know they get a seat at the table and a voice in the argument.

    I may not agree with them about a lot of things, but I wouldn’t feel remotely dirty voting for them. Even if the alternative weren’t Nazi fuckwits.

  61. 61.

    Jackie

    @Scout211:

    More good news. It’s all about the Benjamins.  We have them on our side all up and down the ballot. And they are lacking in them.

    Cancun Cruz is whining that the RNC and McConnell aren’t sending him money. “He’s all by himself” thus far! 🤭

  62. 62.

    frosty

    @HeleninEire: That’s pretty crappy – to have your SuperBowl ruined for you because of the assholes competing in it. If one of the campaigns has an Election Night party I’ll probably go to it after I wrap up flushing voters. Otherwise I’ll be locked on to this website.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Amazon Prime will have live elcetion coverage. For main anchor they will trundle out Brian Williams.

    Will not be watching.

  66. 66.

    Harrison Wesley

    Only way I will view election eve coverage is if LOML invites me over.  The stupid movies I like aren’t going to watch themselves.

  67. 67.

    Raoul Paste

    We voted today.  Now we’re thinking about donating more to Harris /Walz,  anticipating that they will need funds for legal battles after the election

    What is the legitimate website where we can directly donate funds to the Harris campaign?

  68. 68.

    zhena gogolia

    I’ve noticed here in blue CT that there are a lot of homemade Harris-Walz signs. They are very cute, but I wonder why they couldn’t get official ones.

  69. 69.

    Scout211

    We learned today that the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times planned to endorse Kamala Harris. But the paper’s owner blocked it and announced they were not endorsing a candidate.

    Mariel Garza , the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

    “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

    On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s editor.

    The board had intended to endorse Harris, Garza told me, and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial. She had hoped to get feedback on the outline and was taken aback upon being told that the newspaper would not take a position.

    “I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told me. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.

    “But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”

    “It was a logical next step,” Garza told me. “And it’s perplexing to readers, and possibly suspicious, that we didn’t endorse her this time.”

    Indeed, hours after Semafor reported on Tuesday that Soon-Shiong had blocked the endorsement, former president Donald Trump’s rapid-response team sent out an email calling the newspaper’s decision “the latest blow” for Harris.

    And now we know that the LA Times meant to endorse Kamala Harris.

    bold added.

  72. 72.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: It was automatic. All the QCs became KCs of an instant.

    The Wikipedia edits for the succession were nearly as fast. It was impressive, although slightly reminiscent of that scene in 1984 where the Ministry of Truth rewrites every record to show that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

  77. 77.

    jlowe

    Voted last week by mail. I live in a comparatively more civilized state of the US. Old and still feeling fatalistic though. Will still continue to fight the good fight (wanna train for CERT when I fully retire) but frankly resigned to the planet’s revenge. Won’t have to wait so long for it with a Trump re-election.

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    I’m reposting this from downstairs.

    What era do you think Maga idiots want to return to?

    It is the days of kings or queens and I’d bet most want the kings. That would be so that their chosen opposition could be much easier hung for not praising the royalty and could be strung up for actually wanting a rational democracy. Because they also know that their concepts of government and freedom is NOT what we see today. They want freedom for them and screw everyone else. They don’t seem to understand that this isn’t the 18th century – or earlier. They don’t understand a democracy, don’t like a democracy, or modern concepts of living, freedom and responsibility, modern education, etc. They read the bible, if they can read and they seem to think that should be the world of today. The rich would still be rich, they could knock off most anyone they don’t like, and life wouldn’t cost as much, nor would it be worth as much. And look how life would work, they’d be the bosses and likely at least own some land. And that simplicity would make them more towards the top of the food chain.  Of course they would die at younger ages, like life used to be, therefore getting to their promised land sooner.

    I didn’t say there would be any logic, rational thought, or any thing remotely looking like it.

  79. 79.

    2liberal

    @Gvg:   Now if we could only convince some small news organization to specialize in giving us quality info and letting us find them. Hopefully a quiet news source. One that mostly turns out to be right so we can remain calm while other people lose their minds because they choose to follow scare you every day news.

     

    https://www.propublica.org/

  82. 82.

    bbleh

    Lol for me it’s the incessant solicitations for money.  “Trump here, and we need YOUR support to defeat RADICAL Kamala Harris…”  “Hi it’s Kamala and I wouldn’t be bothering you if it weren’t REALLY IMPORTANT…”

    I want them ALL to be consumed in some massive conflagration of hellfire.  ALL of them.  Spare the functional bureaucracies, just vaporize the politicians and their organizations.

    They need some advertising professionals to explain to them what marketing overload is…

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: I saw that the endorsement was blocked yesterday, and I was appalled.

    I feel better knowing that this brave woman stood up.

    And now everyone knows.  I hope she gets a new job tomorrow.

  85. 85.

    Jackie

    @Raoul Paste: Well I did receive this message a few hrs ago…

    Hi, it’s Kamala Harris. It would mean the world to me if you added a donation to our campaign before my town hall on CNN tonight.

    https://secure.actblue.com/donate/p2p-241023-khpthu?refcode=misc_1_fl

    Donald Trump and his allies are currently outspending us across the battleground states.

    Whether you pitch in $47 or another amount, every dollar will help win the support of undecided voters at the doors, over the phone, and with ads over the remaining 13 days of our campaign.

    We are rapidly running out of time.

    A few more gifts from your area are critical to keeping up our momentum.

    So, will you rush a $47 donation to help defeat Donald Trump and elect Democrats before I take the stage?

    https://secure.actblue.com/donate/p2p-241023-khpthu?refcode=misc_1_fl

    I hope to see your name on our next donor list.

    Text STOP to quit

  86. 86.

    Lyrebird

    @zhena gogolia: They are very cute, but I wonder why they couldn’t get official ones.

    Here’s hoping that those who could afford the official ones sent their monies to Allred or Sherrod Brown or something and figured homemade was fine at home.

  88. 88.

    bbleh

    @Raoul Paste: ActBlue is reliable.  Or look up the campaign website — “Harris for President” or some such — and use their links.  DO NOT follow links from random texts or emails, especially not ones promoting a “10-for-1 match!” or some such.

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    I’m in SoCal and this is mostly a democratic area/state.

    Now as to the LA Times not endorsing a candidate I’d make the bet that they (or their owner) think that because there are a hell of a lot of voters in LA County, while this may be a democratic area, there are still republicans that live here. I don’t know the percentage and am not going to bother looking but given the electoral choices maybe the owner of the LA Times did not want to piss off a not insignificant number of possible customers. And/or he may be a supporter or feel that some of shitforbrains “ideas” end up giving him a smaller tax bill. Just contemplating.

  92. 92.

    persistentillusion

    @2liberal: ​

    @2liberal: ​
      In Colorado, we have The Colorado Sun; bunch of reporters from the Rocky Mountain News, et al. Nonprofit which acknowledges its sources and does enormously credible reporting by people knowledgeable in their fields.

  93. 93.

    RevRick

    Speaking from a 2000-year perspective of The Church, it is the fantasy of every pastor/priest/minister that we could snap our fingers and magically make the church act better. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been given our mission statement. The instructions are pretty clear. But, ugh, people, who all seem to think they know better, so we keep screwing things up including, ugh, the clergy. The world and its people are always upon us, and I think all the apocalyptic fantasies are merely the felt wish that God just make everything stop.
    The Gospel text for All Saints Sunday is the story of the resurrection of Lazarus.
    The story begins with sisters Mary and Martha sending word to Jesus that their brother, Lazarus, was gravely ill. But by the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus is very well and truly dead and buried. So Mary kind of scolds Jesus for not hustling to their home to cure Lazarus. Then everybody starts crying: Mary, Jewish friends, and Jesus. Jesus asks where’s the tomb and then tells them to roll away the stone that sealed it. Martha protests that there’s a stench from the body, but Jesus insists, the stone is rolled aside, Jesus prays and then shouts, “Lazarus, come out!” And he lumbers out in his burial shroud, and Jesus tells his followers, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

    The command to unbind has the connotation that the demonic has been at work. Lazarus smelled like decomp, and truth be told, we all do. Our world is bound up by all the things that make us stink and make us weep: hunger, poverty, injustice, bigotry, fear, resentment, war, all the divisions which separate us by race, class and gender. And it is all our handiwork. We cannot escape the world, because we cannot escape ourselves.
    I am as bound up as anyone and spent a lot of my life screwing things up because I failed to address my childhood trauma. I have been in therapy and still have “miles to go before I sleep.”

    I find going to cemeteries helpful, because they are filled with— 1). People who were believed to be indispensable; and 2). Assh0les… and you can’t tell who was who.

    Our world/time is neither indispensable nor overrun by assh0les. All we can do is unbind what we can and help others be freed of the things that bind them.

  95. 95.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Ruckus:

    What era do you think Maga idiots want to return to?

    IMHO, there is not a historically accurate, coherent answer to this question. What they want is a contradictory mishmash of incompatible desires.

    On the one hand they want to return to what they perceive as being a sort of 1950s Father Knows Best hierarchy of status by race, gender, religion, etc., in which straight white Protestant males were at the top of the heap and everybody else was subordinated to them and were either subservient or invisible.

    But on the other hand, they also want to enjoy at a purely personal level the benefits of a very post-modern culture in which all the usual rules of behavior and social convention are for them dissolved. There is no expectation of them being asked for stoicism or self-sacrifice or even anything remotely resembling personal restraint in their self-expression, narcissism runs rampant, etc. They want to get their freak on in a way which would simply not have been tolerated at all (at least not out in public) back in 1950s America, which was a far more rigid and coercively conformist society than they imagine.

    So, The Rules are to be for everybody else, but not for them. This is Wilhoit’s Conservativism (the law protects but does not bind…) but radically democratized and decentralized, with far more license to act out like assholes in public being granted to people of modest levels of income & wealth than was really the case back in our actual past.

    The J6 insurrection is a case in point. If they had tried that shit back in 1960, a fair number of them would have been shot dead on the spot, and as for the rest who lived, the cops would have immediately taken them out back somewhere out of sight to beat the living shit of them.

    So, what they want is a sort of 1950s cosplay post-modern freak show, with a large helping of main character syndrome for everybody on their side.

  96. 96.

    glc

    @Scout211: Very interesting.

    I don’t think anybody would have been surprised by an endorsement, and now they’re really attracting attention.

    They’re not shy about their positions on referenda.

  97. 97.

    Ruckus

    @RevRick:

    I was a city clinic mental health counselor a very long time ago. Growing up, being an adult, actual logical thinking are not things that everyone does, at least not to rational conclusions. Most clients were in person appointments but some were home bound and we took phone calls as well. One phone client, was a 14 yr old girl who could do many voices and made up amazing stories, hopefully she’s a author now. (One had to be 18 or older to be seen in person) For some reason I could tell her voice even if she was doing characters and changing it. So she became my client. We had a notebook of reports on her – it was thick. Her stories could have been made into movies and or books. My point about all this is that most people are/can be very complicated if they feel it helps them in some way. I never did get the entire story about her, that wasn’t how it worked.

    My point of all of the above is that to me, there are guard rails on life, limits to keep us within the realm of reality/normalcy so that we can all get along. Not everyone goes along with this, but it helps with fitting within society and all or at least most everyone else. And to me those guard rails do or can change over time and circumstances.

    As to your last paragraph, one thing I’ve learned is that in a world of billions, no one is indispensable and everyone can be an asshole. Now of course some people are more important in your life than others and every single one of us can be an asshole. My point is that important people are just that and at least make the attempt not to be an asshole are 2 actually useful premises of life. And have been for a lot of centuries.

  98. 98.

    EZSmirkzz

    Well John, if I had thought there was reason to say something over the last four or five months I would have. Consensus seems to be I was wrong about dumping Biden. It really doesn’t matter except to people that weren’t going to vote for Biden or Harris anyway. These  folks have their knickers in  a knot about party politics of the party they don’t participate in anyway. Go figure. Is this a great country or what?

    As a reminder to you youfs of Merica, the press/media is in to their reporting strictly for clicks and eyeballs, not to inform we the wee people of these here hot beds of political inactivity, hereafter referred to these Blue and Red piggy banks of democracy. The presenters are paid to piss off someone. Politcal pundits are paid to fill in gaps of information with fluff, if possible, but inanities if nothing else comes to mind.

    Of course some of it is so we can gawk at the girls without being seen to drool all over our fantasies. I could be wrong since misogyny is no longer tolerated universally in Merica like it was in the good old days of the 1990s and 2Ks.

    At any rate congratulations on getting married, sober and not falling through the floor on the back porch. I think if you would have put the Winnebago in the back yard like I suggested back in the day when you were leveling it  up it would have made hauling the kids, cats and ol’ ladies around a lot easier. Us old hippies know when all else fails get a bus.

    I think it would be helpful if Kamala and the crew would point out to the fair folk of Shire that it would be useful to control the House, Senate and Oval Office, at least for two years so we can get housing and living wages done for the youngsters, and maybe bolster Social Security for use old farts, and you know, stuff like that.

    I don’t think there is anyone in America that isn’t aware of the fascist tendencies in the Replican’t govern party. That has been clear for a couple of years, at least here at Balloon Juice. Calling them out on it is like carrying a picture of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow. Most of the Red Base doesn’t even read books much less Mein Kampf, but they know we lefties are all well steeped in Marx, Engels, Pink baby manifestos, because they saw it on TV/ watched online/ it must be true.

    If you want to talk about cynicism talk about JD Vance, whom appears willing to keep in Trump’s good graces until he croaks in office and then he will be Precious, I mean preznit.

    Personally, after decades of idle speculation on American politic, I think Kamala has it in the bag. YMMV of course.

  100. 100.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl:

    ProPublica!

    What they do is important, but they’re operating in a different lane than I think is what people mean. They’re breaking big stories, and that’s great.  I know what I yearn for is a news source that would cover the daily news, only do it right. No bothsidesing, no sanewashing or crimewashing or going, “that’s just Trump being Trump” when he says he’d wished he had Nazi generals, and shrug it off.​

    We need both.

  103. 103.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Scout211: what was the source for this? If Ms Garza resigned, and this didn’t come out through the LA paper, where did this info get spread from? And is she in any danger for getting it out there?

  104. 104.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @RevRick: brilliant, helpful.

    Childhood trauma, so special.

    A friend asks from time to time, did something help me move on, because I’m still talking about years later. All I can say to her is it’s a different layer, progress has been made, and the only way to understand what I’m on about is if she’d been in my shoes, which, I said, I didn’t wish in her.

    Unbinding, how we’re bound.. thank you for that clarity. I didn’t know that part

  105. 105.

    Scout211

    @Gloria DryGarden: what was the source for this? If Ms Garza resigned, and this didn’t come out through the LA paper, where did this info get spread from? And is she in any danger for getting it out there?

    I linked to the an article in Columbia Journalism Review.

    Garza was interviewed by the author of the article via a phone interview. That was the first one I read but now there are many news stories that have published her story. 

    No, there is no danger to her.  She resigned before she told her story to the media.

  106. 106.

    Tehanu

    We don’t watch TV news at all, haven’t for years. I’m spending a lot less time on the blogs (this one, LGM, Digby, etc.) for the same reason as John: I’m just sick and tired of all this fascist BS, can’t take it any more. I even turned off John Oliver when the show had an election story, and I love John Oliver, but watching that disgusting liar Dump and his sycophants and minions — I just can’t.

  108. 108.

    Pennsylvanian

    Practice mindfulness with Stardew Valley. Then hydrate, eat, sleep, GOTV, take vitamin D (we are woefully deficient above the M-D line), hydrate, shower. Repeat.

    I’m going to bed, so correct me if I’m missing anything.

  109. 109.

    Spc123

    @Ruckus: He is really wealthy of course and probably, I would guess, looking for more tax advantage. He can’t change the overall editorial lean of the paper given the demographics, but he can pull penny ante shit like this.

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