Category: news

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I am sure there are more awful human beings than Alex Jones but, as far as I can see, they have the good sense to keep their mouths shut to hide how awful they are. Unfortunately Alex Jones is an asshole who can’t keep his mouth shut . So here is Alex Jones, even after losing law suits where he questions the shootings at the Sandy Hook School, spouting the same unsubstantiated garbage about it being a false flag operation from anti-gun rights organization. He is doing this even after changing his story in court and saying that Sandy Hook shootings did happen as the police claimed. Doesn’t this make him an admitted liar.

Never mind. Now, since he is losing his empire to pay the Sandy Hook parents for his lies, he is going back to spreading his lies about Sandy Hook. Yes, he is accusing 20 sets of parents of willingly sacrificing their first grader in order that their deaths would galvanize sympathy for anti-gun legislation. I don’t know about you but I don’t know of many, if any, parents who make such a bargain — much less 20 sets.

And it gets worse, because Alex Jones so passionately spread these vile lies, his listeners believed him and began to harass the grieving parents of these children in order to get at the truth. Parents who lost their children had to listen to people telling them that they are lying about how their child died. Who would encourage people to behave like that. Oh, that’s right, Alex Jones.

I only wished I believed in Hell because I would surely love to see him rotting there. If anyone deserves an eternity of the flaming fires of Hell, it is surely Alex Jones.

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Every day, every new outrage, and I think is this the one that is going to bring the whole rotting edifice down but, to my surprise, the rickety all structure is still standing.

Yet the rot is so pervasive that almost anything could bring it down. It is both remarkably sturdy and remarkably vulnerable at the same time. How does it survive all this rot? Then I take a deep breath and remember, oh, right, now I remember — I am the problem. The present system, as configured, is all I know. Whatever comes next is unknown. This mystery is more than a little frightening. I want the system, with all its flaws, to survive.

It isn’t encouraging that every idea I have heard regarding change now seems to involve a bit of violence. It is mostly this fear of violence that keeps me firmly on the side of the present system for all its problems. There still is the notion of democratic give and take as the best way to resolve our problems despite the rot. I maybe wrong but the risk of political violence seems, at present, unwarranted.

What I fear though is this reflexive support for democracy is waning. To what I do not know. I do know that blood on the streets is to be avoided mostly because the idea is always that it will be the bad guy’s blood (read here the people who disagree with me) and not the good guy’s (read here the people who agree with me) blood. But we all know that once blood starts flowing, both good guys and bad guys bleed the same color and it is horrible.

I don’t have the answer but I do know this — the present approach seems to be a shouting match where the only way to win is to outshout the other guy. The gerrymander wars shows two sides with little confidence that either can win through the political process so they redraw the lines to keep their power. People appear to be giving up on changing minds through persuasion and creating imperfect but workable institutions through compromise.

And all we have is the rickety and rotting system to defend us in the coming political storm. It is a bit unsettling to think about.

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I have mixed feelings about Trump bombing Iran. I have to give him credit for again choosing his enemies wisely because, whether I like Trump or not, and I don’t, I think the Iranian government’s treatment of women and gays is horrible. They are assholes, and if I have to choose, which I am afraid I must, then the Mullahs are bigger assholes than Trump.

But least we forget, Trump is still an asshole. He should have consulted Congress before taking military action — something he had plenty of time to do as he has been considering bombing Iran for some time. There was no imminent Iranian attack or even an increase in Iran’s nuclear capability which Trump assured us months ago was annihilated. He also needs to explain what exactly our goals are here. Again something he has failed to do.

It undermines our world position. For instance, how can we complain if China were to invade Taiwan? We can’t refer back to International Treaties and diplomacy as the proper avenues of action when the U.S. kidnaps one country’s president and kills another’s supreme leader. Yes these processes make quick action difficult, but, then, that is precisely what they were intended to do. Stopping people from acting rashly. You can’t pick and choose which treaties you will honor and which you will ignore.

And, saying that nobody complained when Obama and Clinton did the same thing is hardly a credible defense. It is just saying I know it is wrong but if your side can do, so can our side. It is a 10 year old’s response for getting her hand caught in the cookie jar. The fact is, this time, your hand is in the cookie jar so explain it.

In the meantime, I am hoping for the best for Iran who now have a chance to get rid the Islamic fundamentalists while also pissed about Trump’s continued bad behavior. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that.

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Quentin Tarantino bad mouthing Paul Dano bothered me for some reason. Tarantino has every right to criticize someone’s work. It is part of the risk artist takes. Critical feedback is a gauge of how effective the artist is so I am not opposed to criticism per se. Tarantino’s criticism, however, was unnecessarily mean spirited. He sounded like he wanted to hurt Dano more than let a colleague know how to improve his work.

More worrisome is this has become the environment we live in. I disagree with you has become more than a difference in opinion or taste. If I didn’t like your performance, you didn’t get it wrong, you are a bad actor. Or a stupid person. Or an evil person. The press eggs this on because it loves a disagreement and have a gleeful willingness to spread the absolute worst thoughts that people have to their readers and viewers. So if a famous person burns another famous person, you can bet your house that there will be a reporter sticking a microphone into the burn victim’s face asking for his response. Retaliation is inevitable.

I wish I was above it all but, I have to confess, I am right in there slinging mud with the best of them. I try to be conscious about it but I fail. Almost all of the time, I fail. A simple a thing as a Trump supporter with a misspelled protest sign is enough for me to forward to Facebook and Instagram so everyone can see how Trump supporter’s are so dumb. I am laughing at one person’s mistake and implying that all Trump supporters are the same which means they all potentially are bad spellers. Uneducated and stupid, right?

The problem is that in a few minutes, I will receive a post from a someone showing a misspelled sign from a left winger. Am I supposed to make the same sweeping assumption about all left wingers based on the one left winger who can’t spell? Of course not. It is just one person’s mistake. The question, for me, then what was I hoping people would think when I sent the post about the bad spelling Trump supporters? It was unfair of me to provide this false depiction of Trump supporters.

Making fun of people is all a lot of fun when you are speaking with people who agree with you but, in the social media world we live in, we no longer have this luxury. Everyone, including the people we are making fun of, can read your thoughts and know what you really think of them. People rarely change their minds if you are calling them stupid. Yet we keep calling each other stupid. Quite loudly at that. How then can we expect people to listen?

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I love Bill Maher’s response to Karoline Leavitt’s defense of Trump calling a reporter piggy. Leavitt thinks it is good that Trump is so honest and frank with reporters. Maher took her up on her defense of being honest and frank and called her a bitch. Good for him.

Trump is nearly 80 year old man. He knows that he crossed a line when he called a woman he has a professional relationship piggy. Anyone, as Trump has been, involved in the business world of the last 50 years knows it. The woman deserves an apology but won’t get one because Trump, in that warped little mind of his, thinks that apologizing is some form of weakness and he is so worried about being perceived as weak that he will never deign to apologize to anyone.

This isn’t really the worst problem this little foot-in-mouth incident exposes. Getting an apology is between Trump and the reporter. What is troubling is that Leavitt and other Trump lackeys aren’t willing to call him out for it. No one is willing to remind him of the hard truths of living in the 21st century and how he should conduct himself in his professional relationships.

Yes, she wants to keep her job but this would seem like a good opportunity to help the boss out. An apology would end this relatively minor dust up. Now he looks like an asshole when he could look like less of asshole, sorry he will always be an asshole in my eyes, with a simple I’m sorry. Since Leavitt isn’t saying that an apology is order, it speaks volumes about Trump’s management style. You can’t speak honestly with him even when the stakes are low.

This is a terrible person to be in charge of a business and potentially disastrous person to be running a country. But hey ho at least those Commie Democrats aren’t in charge.

The good news is I think every reporter in the White House pool should feel free to address him as President Fatso. I mean just to be honest and frank with him. He clearly values that kind of honesty.

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Having been Wily Coyote to Roadrunner Donald Trump numerous times since Trump took office, I am a bit suspicious that the Epstein Files are going to change anything. Truly, if the Democrats had anything significant on him they would have released it before now and Trump has changed his mind about releasing them, I think, then, there can’t be anything more damaging to Trump than what we already know.

Consider:

  1. The Justice Department has had this information for years. If there was something worth pursing, it would have been pursued by now. It just beggars belief that Democrats would sit on something that was damaging to Trump for this long. If they did, then they should be sued for political malpractice.
  2. The new evidence would have to be undeniable and horrible. Barring videos depicting Trump struggling with an underage girl then I think he is going to be fine. Let’s face it, he was convicted of sexual abuse and still won the 2024 election. There would have to be something truly damning for this to matter and if they had this damning evidence why did the Justice department sit on it so Trump could win the 2024 election. It doesn’t make any sense.
  3. If all the new evidence shows is that Trump knew Epstein and Epstein thought Trump was an asshole, then I am afraid that is a lot of nothing. Lots of people knew Epstein and lots of people think Trump is an asshole. Tell me something new.
  4. Trump is willing to release the evidence. I don’t mean to give Trump a compliment here but he isn’t that dim. The thought that he would willingly release evidence that would prove he was involved in child sex trafficking and rape is under estimating the man who has bested his betters quite a lot.

My point here is that I lived through too many Trump is finally cornered situations only to see Trump beep beep right out of the corner. Maybe let’s wait on the celebration and champagne until Trump is really backed into a corner. I just don’t think this is it.