Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

So many bastards, so little time.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

This fight is for everything.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

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Big Goings On at WVU

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So today was a big day today, as something pretty rare occurred. A university wide faculty assembly was held to discuss a vote of no confidence in Gordon Gee, the President, and to call for the immediate cessation of the “Academic Transformation.” President Gee, to the surprise of many, was in attendance and gave a give minute presentation, and the room was silent as all get out. When he ran out of time he muttered something about free speech and then continued on until various faculty shouted “POINT OF ORDER” and he was gaveled down.

Several faculty spoke, some in direct response to things just stated by Gee. A vote was then held, and the faculty voted 797-100 to signal NO CONFIDENCE in Gee.

The assembly then took up the second resolution to vote to stop the transformation. Provost Maryanne Reed, former professor, former Dean of Journalism, and self-described leaser of the academic transformation initiative, requested to speak for five minutes. This was put to a vote.

Faculty then spent a half hour voting, the vote failed 400 hundred something against and several hundred four, and decided not to listen to her for five minutes. Instead, several faculty used the allotted 90 seconds they were given to say why the resolution should be passed.

Faculty then voted, and the resolution passed 747-79.

To fully appreciate and understand how lopsided these margins are, you need to appreciate how argumentative faculty are- you could put twenty of them in a room for hours to pass a resolution for free ice cream and infinite puppy kisses and not only would they not be able to come up with a conclusion, the resolution wouldn’t be written until someone wrote it themselves and at the next meeting said here I wrote the resolution taking into account everyone’s advice, and it would get unanimously approved because there was something new to argue about this meeting.

Not only that, someone would say something that would be the foundation of a decade long grudge that will at some point over the next 20 years impact a doctoral thesis, and the hatchet would not be buried fully until one faculty member had been dead for ten years and the other a professor emeritus in waning health.

At any rate, immediately after the vote, the Board of Governors released a statement that had been written before the vote even happened expressing full support in President Gee and telling the faculty to go fuck themselves.

Not wanting to be left out, Governor Jim Justice, himself an unwitting display of the health of education in West Virginia, also had what we will charitably call thoughts:

Big Goings On at WVU

Bless his heart.

***

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MLK: from Dreaming to Reality

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Among the most painful bits of Dr. King’s legacy is how so much of it’s reduced to “I Have a Dream.” It’s true that it’s a landmark speech, powerful and moving…

…and always heard out of context of the other, more direct speeches that graced the March on Washington (a March organized by an openly Gay Man, no less – go look up the badass Bayard Rustin, please and thank you!). As if  the marchers just wanted to spend all day on their feet, listening to platitudes and winsome ideas!

I’m not going to dive into that context, I assume your Google button ain’t broke. :) What I will do, is talk about a couple of other works by Dr. King, works that ground him in the realities he fought to overcome, and that echo into these times.

The text for the afternoon will be taken from two works from near Dr. King’s passing:

  • “The Drum Major Instinct,” (hereafter DRUM), which you can listen to here, and read here, and
  • “A New Sense of Direction,” (hereafter SENSE), which you can read here.

I post all this to encourage you to read/listen to the above in full. To underline that Dr. King was far richer a thinker and even rabble-rouser than gets noticed — that the Hoover FBI feared him for damned good reasons. If you chose to read the above docs, and skip the rest of this? HELL YA!

But for those who want more? Follow…

See, Dr. King did not buy into a color-blind society. That wasn’t the context he gave his “Dream” speech under. The context, the fuller context of his work and life’s mission, is made plain by this remarkable passage in DRUM:

 

[…]when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You’re just as poor as Negroes.”

And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white.

And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

And there’s so much more.

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Round and Round the Wurlitzer Goes, Where It Stops Nobody Knows

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So I have read the postmortems on yesterday’s election, and reliably and predictably, they are as bad as you would expect. Biden is in trouble, Democrats didn’t listen, Democrats are out of touch. And I have to say, I don’t know what to do about it. It’s the same shit every election and I simply do not know how to counter a media amplified right wing puke funnel. I just don’t.

We like to tell ourselves that arc of history bends towards justice, at my age all I can say I have witnessed is the arc of history bending towards the same old fuckery but with new branding. It feels like the general public is willingly choosing to get dumber, more evil, and more openly racist, and LOVING EVERY FUCKING MINUTE OF IT. And I have no idea what to do about it. At all. This is how this election unfolded:

Scene: An openly hostile and coordinated crowd of agitators confronts school boards, leveling demands.

Mob: We are sick of you saying white people are bad and teaching Crucial Raisin Theory!!!

Board Members and Teachers: What?

Mob: We meant critical race theory!

Teacher: I don’t know what that is.

Mob: YES YOU DO AND STOP TEACHING IT WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

Teacher: I just teach basic history.

Mob: DO YOU TALK ABOUT THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH AND THE CIVIL WAR AND SAY SLAVERY AND THE HOLOCAUST WERE BAD?

Teacher: Well, yes.

Mob: SEE! CRUCIAL RAISIN THEORY.

***

Scene: The Local Nightly News

Bobblehead: In several counties across the state, concerned parents have gathered to peacefully address school boards and to discuss issues with the curriculum. Let’s go to Brandy, who dropped out of engineering, pre-med, english, and all her other classes to pursue a degree in journalism and has no training or specialty in anything, who is on the scene.

Brandy: Yes, thank you Bobblehead, I am here with Jimbob Angersmith, who works down at the Save-Alot and has dabbled in Republican politics via multiple engaged facebook groups, a school board member, and a teacher to share their thoughts:

JimBob: BRANDY WE KNOW WHERE THESE PEOPLE LIVE AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THEY STOP TEACHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND BRAINWASHING OUR KIDS THAT BEING WHITE IS BAD.

Board Member: We don’t teach critical race theory. I had to google it before the meeting.

JimBob: YES YOU DO AND WE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN.

Brandy: JimBob, what exactly is critical race theory?

JimBob: OH YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS AND THEY BETTER STOP TEACHING IT HERE LOOK AT THIS (shows clip of Tucker Carlson on his phone)

Brandy: What do you think Mr. School Board Member

Board Member: We don’t teach critical race theory we don’t even have the money to teach a lot of the stuff we should we’re short staffed and underpaid and our buildings are crumbling.

Brandy: And how about you, Mrs. Teacher:

Teacher: They tried to tear my mask off in the parking lot. Why do they all have guns? I’m afraid to go to the store.

Brandy: That’s the scene down here, Bobblehead, back to you.

Bobblehead: Great report Brandy, keep up the excellent work. Now to our panel of three guests from CPAC to explain why this is bad news for Democrats.

Every. Fucking. Election. The Republican ability to not only whip up some specious bullshit, but to get their entire party lockstep behind it and to then get the media to embrace it is simultaneously astounding and maddening, and again, I don’t know how to deal with it.

And now all the postmortems are as predictable as we all knew they would be:

Depending on what you read, we lost Virginia because Democrats are arrogant and out of touch, Biden is unpopular, this is Bernie and AOC’s fault for wanting too much in BBB, this is Manchinema’s fault for not letting the bills pass, and so on. Take your pick.

Again, I have no solutions or suggestions, because I simply do not know what to do. Just that I am frustrated and really over this happening every fucking election.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Grind

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Rich autocrats bought out the Republican party (years ago) because its utility was obvious to them: For surprising nominal sums, they could increase their own agency and decrease their tax burden. We Democrats don’t have that kind of transparent pay-for-play benefit to offer — and if we somehow found one, we’d probably no longer be Democrats. All we have is hard work, and the knowledge that we’re on the right side of history!

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Glory Days

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Apparently, and regrettably, David Lee Roth has started a residency at Las Vegas, and for some absurd amount of money, you too can witness the spectacle of an elderly man in ill fitting clothes and obvious frontal lobe damage stiffly strutting around stage. I suppose that yes, it is still David Lee Roth, but it’s not the David Lee Roth you remember or want to remember. It’s an obscene caricature of David Lee Roth- long in the tooth, without voice or authority, cheapened by wear and tear and misuse, and ready to collapse at any moment. It’s enough to make you wonder if it was always this bad as you unfortunately glimpse his sagging ass betrayed by skin tight attire that should, at the very least, provide the bare minimum of architectural support.

It does not.

***

That’s basically how I feel about the state of our democracy heading into the impeachment. I spent a little bit of time watching the news shows this weekend- only a little, as I, too, am aging, and life is too short for this shit. I watched people on my tv put on their serious voices as they explain what a big and momentous deal this is- “JUST THE THIRD TIME IN HISTORY,” you know! The gravity of the situation never takes hold, though, because I remember the same serious voices talking about Hillary’s emails, or how Obama really screwed up by saying it was wrong for Henry Louis Gates to get fucked with by cops on his own god damned couch, or how the tea party really cared about the deficit or Iraq really did have WMD. It’s all a fucking show that no one wants to go to, we all know the ending, and we’re not going to get our money’s worth.

Donald Trump has been impeached. He did everything and more for which he was impeached. Everyone knows he is guilty, even his most ardent supporters in the jury pool, there will be a show trial, and he will be acquitted. And then Republicans will get back to the very serious business of rigging elections, pitting Americans against each other, wiping up what remains of our institutions and packing the courts, and the always popular looting of the treasury.

This is not to say Democrats will not try. I am sure they will. They will fight, they will make a clear case, they will plead for sanity from clearly insane and evil people like Susan Collins, and then they will lose. We can applaud them for their attempt to do the right thing, but it is important to remember the one thing that no one seems to care about when shouting “Remember the Alamo!” The good guys lost and all got killed.

***

When it is all over with, the serious voices on your tv will tell you what to think, and we’ll head into another election where we can focus on important issues like “Does Elizabeth Warren have native American blood” and “what they are really saying over corned beef hash in a former Kentucky mining town.” We’ll soon get distracted by something shiny, and meanwhile our hobbled democracy will pick up the microphone and start half singing:

“Oh, baby baby
Won’t-cha turn your head my way?”

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Is There Such A Thing As A ‘BS Storm Emergency Day’?

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Snow Storm Emergency Kit - Stone Soup

(Stone Soup via GoComics.com)

 
We’re only three days into the new year. There’s people still on their year-end break, for Murphy’s sake!

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T-12: The House Impeachment Hearings Begin Tomorrow AM, Here’s What to Expect

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We are just under 24 hours out from the first of the publicly facing House impeachment hearings. The first hearing begins tomorrow at 10:00 AM EST and if we have a functional blog, I’ll have a live feed up for you all.

Tomorrow’s hearings are Ambassador William Taylor, the Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine, at 10:00 AM and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the afternoon. The next day of public hearings will be Friday when Ambassador Yovanavitch, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine will be testifying.

Next week’s schedule was released earlier today.

The procedure for these hearings will be that the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Congressman Schiff, and the ranking member, Congressman Nunes, will each make an opening statement. Each session’s witness will then be given a chance to make an opening statement if they so desire. Questioning will begin with a forty-five minute round of questioning for the committee chair and ranking member, rather than the 5 minute rounds we’ve become accustomed to over the past several years. It has already announced that Congressman Schiff’s time will be taken by the majority (Committee) counsel, Dan Goldman, a former Federal prosecutor and former NBC/MSNBC legal analyst who was specifically hired by Congressman Schiff back in February to oversee this investigation. It is not clear yet whether Congressman Nunes will do the questioning himself, have his counsel conduct the questioning, or some combination thereof. It is important to remember that Congressman Schiff is, himself, a former Federal prosecutor and one of the few who has successfully prosecuted a case involving a US official engaged in spying for a hostile foreign power. Goldman was involved in very high profile prosecutions of Genovese crime organization members. Congressman Nunes has a degree in agriculture, states his occupation as farmer, but his family farm is now in Iowa, not in his congressional district in California. So expect more of the conspiracy theory laundering that Congressman Nunes has been doing throughout the closed door depositions when he could be bothered to actually show up to them.

After that, the questioning will devolve back to the alternating five minute blocks of questioning for each of the remaining Democratic and Republican members of the committee. I fully expect that the Republican members, like they do for every hearing, will have a coordinated a list of questions intended to derail and sidetrack the hearings into conspiracy theory territory so they can launder their misinformation, disinformation, and agitprop through the hearings. And since Congressman Jordan (R-Men’s Showers) has been temporarily placed on the committee so he can do his jacket off, sleeves rolled up, rapid fire, staccato badgering of witnesses, I fully expect a lot of the Republican questioning time will be yielded back to him so he can badger at will as we’ve seen in House Oversight Committee hearings earlier this year. The Democratic members of the committee, unlike their Republican counterparts, are largely former Federal and state prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and staff judge advocates in the US military so their questions will at least be on topic and germane even if they’re not coordinated. And they really should be coordinated, but I’m not counting on that type of message discipline in strategic communication.

Congressman Schiff has established the rules so that all of the various points of order and personal privilege and parliamentary procedure will be dealt with at the end of each hearing day to avoid the Republican members of the committee from grinding the hearing to a halt for up to an hour as soon as it begins as they’ve done with other high profile televised hearings over the past 10 months.

I have no idea what time the ritual bodily ejection of Congressman Gaetz (R-DUI) from the committee chambers is scheduled for. You’ll just have to watch the whole thing. Personally, I’m hoping Congressman Schiff has a Gaetz sized trebuchet installed so they can really go for distance! (that was sarcasm, lest anyone think I’m advocating for violence against Congressman Gaetz).

Expect a lot of what we already know from the now released deposition transcripts to be publicly confirmed. Expect the committee Republicans, their staff, and Congressman Gaetz to be disruptive and try to turn the hearings into a circus. And, provided the blog is actually up, running, and functioning with the change over to the new site, expect that I’ll have a live stream of the proceedings up as soon as I can get access.

Open thread.

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