That Was Fast

Scaramucci is gone. He's going to have time to take care of that bambino. I meant to write something to the effect that Mooch wouldn't last because the town or whatever wouldn't be big enough for two such unstable, vast and competing egos. I hesitated and look what I get. I could've looked smart and Trump has already fired him. No doubt now we'll get some hideous hack from Fox News in the job and it won't even be interesting.

Second Mortgage: A Short History of the United States

The United States has never existed as a unified country but was only partly cohesive. The Southern States insisted on slavery and then segregation. Religionists in the South mortgaged their souls in support of their racist institutions which were kept up through overt and covert acts of intimidation with religious justification just like the Taliban.

What are thought of as American values existed institutionally only in the North, to say nothing of constitutionally legitimate government. Compelled to desegregate, the forces of racial subjugation regrouped and kept the hope of racist government alive. Republicans then mortgaged their souls en-masse in what is known as the Southern Strategy.

Racist, classist, and property and privilege-based government was reestablished through the Republican Party with the help of the Southern Voting Bloc. Instinctive authoritarians and other sickos with the usual dreams of unlimited power, wealth and world domination were drawn in. The constitutional version of the country ceased to exist.

This is the short history of the United States.

A Consistent Ethic of "Fuck You"

I have uncovered the hidden message and consistent ethic of Republicanism through a simple, binary analysis precluding any other result. The mutually (only one may win) and collectively (someone must win) exclusive, binary possibilities:

1. Republicans win

2. We win 

And now the political and policy results corresponding to those outcomes, on the Republican side, edited for clarity and conciseness but utterly true in spirit:

1. Fuck you

2. Fuck you

Therefore, the only possible outcome is "fuck you" which agrees exactly with what is seen in formal, field studies and reported overwhelmingly by hearsay.

I Think to Myself...

Is it not true that Trump can attack, and potentially nuke, North Korea at will? 

(the soundtrack to this post is What a Wonderful World sung by Louis Armstrong)

The City of Godlessness

Who knew that the long-awaited New Jerusalem would look like Donald Trump. Who knew that the hill-city would be in a literal and figurative swamp populated by invasives from the south and native 'gators--political pythons struggling against other higher-order, carnivorous reptiles. I would tread there with caution.

Trump Must Go

I managed to avoid Trump before his election and never saw his "hit" show and Ted Cruz is my idea of the antichrist, so I was somewhat hopeful that Donald would rise to the occasion and do a decent job as president if only because he didn't want to appear to be an idiot. What is clear now is that, apart from being an idiot, Trump is inconceivably incompetent.

None Dare Call It

It seems trite to me and a little too obvious to call Trump a tyrant but nothing else fits as well. He's a tyrant working within a system that isn't yet a tyranny but it's very alarming how readily Republicans have sold their souls and swallowed their pride and lined up to pay homage to his power--if not intentionally to the man himself, a distinction without a difference. 

For all their wailing about political correctness the right-wing crazies have benefited from it for decades. So, away with that. Let's call them what they are for once: rebels and traitors. They have been playing off the civility and timidity of Democrats and the press. To hell with that. Trump shows them for what they are. Republicans hate America. Republicans hate decency. 

Republicans are traitors.

I Have a Dream

My dream is this: that, someday, someone will take out a full-page ad in the New York Times which is an exact imitation, with as little alteration and adaptation as possible, of the famous handbill put out by Koch-daddy accusing John F. Kennedy of treason but accusing the Koch boys instead. How can they complain? Such behavior is fair-play in Koch-world. Wanted for treason! May it happen!

Here's the latest...

The latest news, folks, is that Donald Trump, President of the United States, is dangerously out-of-control and probably unhinged to judge from his latest tweets threatening retribution based on a perceived personal affront no matter the legality or decency of it.

He threatened to unfund Obamacare and I couldn't quite tell what else but it had to do with punishing certain Senators for their votes. It seemed to me to be incoherent. Anyway, that's the news and thanks for tuning in. Have a nice evening and sleep well.

Headline: Sheep Drive Shepherds Off a Cliff

What do the sheep do now?

Beating a Dead Race Horse

I have no doubt that race is behind every measure by which we are now outliers in the developed world. Just look at the list of slimeballs from the South populating Washington and headlined by Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Tom Cotton and Trey Gowdy, not in any particular order of repulsiveness.

These guys all grew up in a tradition of generations of brutality and power-plays targeted at disenfranchising their fellow citizens and concentrating authority in a white aristocracy. Yes, it is about race but race is now incidental. Think of the poorer, idiot white daughters and sons of Dixie, the new screwees.

Poorer white peoples have voted themselves into oblivion and the outlines of the treasonous and illegal assault on our democracy are apparent. It is an assault on humanity and civilization by an assorted group of thugs with vested interests in consolidating power and intent on a descent into oligarchy. 

 

A humane oligarchy is theoretically possible but the latest round of abhorrent Republican stuff coming out of all three branches of government shows us where we are heading, unwillingly forced off a cliff by sheep and imbeciles comprising a core "conservative" voting bloc. Let's let race lie for a while.

This is an assault on civilization.

Not Ready for Prime Time but Suitable for Work

I was concerned about the strong language I sometimes use in my satirical, incredible backwater of a blog but now I know I'm okay because Anthony Scaramucci has cut loose all over the place in a phone conversation with a journalist and even about Steve Bannon going down on himself. 

I feel relieved and downright unshackled when it comes to calling Trump and his allies dickheads, reptiles, scumsuckers, primates and loathsome, reprehensible, degraded, unprincipled and self-serving slime. Donald seems a bit bogged down in his Augean Stable-phase these days. 

Let's cut him a break and enjoy the show but it's not for children. It is, however, de facto suitable-for-work since all of this output is on-record and unofficially, tacitly and informally U.S. Government-approved and paid for by us. These people are our employees and these are the new standards.

Republicans Fail on Stinky Repeal

The Republican effort to railroad repeal of Obamacare, reeking of hypocrisy and cynicism and promoted entirely by lies, has failed for now. The culture of lies and subversion continues, however, as the Trumpists will return to legislative legerdemain and sabotage to try to screw American citizens out of their hopes for decent, affordable healthcare.

Dickhead: the Donald Trump Story

Donald's is every boy's dream, to be born impossibly, impracticably rich and spend your entire life getting your dick sucked. To someone with a brain it's boring.

This is not a man's dream.

But this is is why our suckling has always married someone of inferior status and power, ideally someone foreign-born, and why he humiliates everyone around him.

He isn't a man he's a boy.

Redefining Subnormal​

Every day a new disgrace. What's a day without one--even I am disappointed. This is life in Trumpworld. Republicans have given us, as president, the biggest shit-pile they could find.

The Free Dick

Only dicks are free. Only a person who can say "fuck you" or "fuck off" is free. Assholes are free. The most free person exists perpetually in "fuck you" and "fuck off" modes and never cooperates or compromises except by whim, an indication of independence and power. 

And if you believe this shit then, well, Donald Trump for President. Oh, we already did that. 

Deep Naught

Nothingness--vacuity, emptiness--is hard to comprehend. Is it only a corollary to something-ness? Similarly what does "meaninglessness" mean, particularly in the case of a thing necessarily defined by what it means, such as Donald Trump or any other person? 

For a person to mean nothing is not to exist which is the challenge of infantile Trump. Trump is so embryonic and arrested he is inhuman. He is protoplasm and slime, not a swamp creature but the swamp itself, entropy incarnated and the realization of naught. 

The Four Freedoms of Republicanism

The Freedom to Want: Republicans understand motivation. Deprivation, hunger and insecurity make people work harder and build character, especially among children.

The Freedom to Fear: Fear is a great motivator as well and an antidote to complacency. Where would we be without the fear of Islamofascism, Sharia Law and Obamacare?

The Feedom to Lie: The freedom to speak is most fully realized in lying, even arbitrarily and purposelessly.  Anyone can tell the truth. It takes courage and creativity to lie.

The Freedom of Righteousness: Anybody can claim religious sanction and divine favor. Real righteousness is shoving your own religious preferences down other people's throats.

This Just Happened

Notorious piece of garbage Mitch McConnell has passed something in the Senate regarding healthcare in order to save face and nobody knows what it is or where it will lead. It was bad enough when Republicans were willing to screw everyone in favor of themselves and their rich ringleaders (McConnell married his money) but now it appears that they simply want to have their way no matter what. Their bankrupt ideology has been upended by Trump and they still don't care. All they want to do is win and at any cost to the country. 

Republican Disgrace: Sucking Up to Trump

Since the dawn of Donald Trump the ranks of Republicans have shown themselves to be partisan to the point of treason. They don't believe Democrats are Americans and they think any behavior against the other side is justified as long as they have their way and enforce their vision for the country.

But they are wrong. Their failure in maintaining constitutional, legislative and judicial standards and traditions in the face of Trump's onslaught against everything America was assumed to represent is indefensible and unprecedented. There are no excuses. There is no justification. They are disgraced.

Enough Already

John McCain has gotten enough mileage out of having been a prisoner-of-war. He was amply rewarded when he married his beer-baron wife, following the usual Republican path of white men getting a leg-up, easy ride and affirmative action-handout as McCain did when he attended Annapolis on our dime as a legacy--admitted not because he was deserving but because of his family. 

McCain, a descendant of slave-holders, later hired the scum who had slandered him (as having a colored love-child) in a South Carolina primary. John had learned his lesson--winning is all that matters. So, he then chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, showing how depraved and cynical he was. Now brave John drags his carcass to Washington to vote against healthcare for his constituents. 

Brave man, John. Please die. You will leave the world a worse place for having been in it. Patheticly John is still trying to be top gun. So what if he flew jets and got shot down. 

Enough already.

Mitch McConnell's Revanchist Kentucky Scumfest

How clear does it have to get? Will Alabama-born Mitch McConnell have to hoist the Confederate battle flag above the U.S. Capitol before the idiot Yankees understand what he represents--revenge?

McConnell and his compatriots are not in Washington to run anything they are there to destroy. They are there to destroy the hated federal government which did away with segregation and slavery. 

It may have been about revenge and driven by instinct and resentment but the sons of Dixie--racist, authoritarian scuzz--have now established a regime based on the old model of property and privilege.

Apply the rule sine qua non and see it. Take away the South and everything wrong with the United States goes away. Rational, constitutional government would be in effect. It would be a fit place to live.

Fame Whore from Hell

Unbelievable. Indescribable. Donald Trump gives a speech to the Boy Scouts of America and simultaneously touts traditional Scout values and flaunts his contempt for them, flouting the usual decency and decorum on such occasions and returning to his typical trope of portraying himself a victim. 

Donald never rises above himself and he is utterly in the gutter, the lowest of common denominators, a pig among pigs and whore among whores, not just for-sale but always selling, incapable of breaking out of the model of dominance-and-submission--of giving or taking it up the ass.

Republican Ramshackle

Republicans aren't a house divided they are a house in disarray. Selfishness and cynicism don't constitute an ideology. An ideology requires thought-formation and they are at a more primitive level than this. Living like pigs and thugs isn't a matter of belief it's a denial of the efficacy of civilization in relation to primal, tribal drives so it's a rejection of individualism, democracy, any normal religious sense and the hope of asserting intelligence over instinct. 

Anyone who thinks this is desirable or fun is out of their mind.

When Assholes Roamed the Earth

Our times should be known as the Age of Assholes in honor of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and their legions of low-life scum and degraded, money-grubbing shills.

They comprise the new ruling class in America. The torch has been wearily tossed to them, a new (de)generation, by a bored electorate and now they are burning the house down.

Never Crazy Enough

Democrats, before you get all happy and celebratory over the Republican healthcare bill implosion remember that for some of the defecting, right-wing legislators the bill wasn't crazy and destructive enough. We are still way deep in shit and this is a token victory forestalling an inevitable doom if the forces of insanity aren't stopped.

Disoriented Donald: Our Self-Referential President

I'll give you another example of what I mean by reductive:

Normal people navigate and stay oriented in both the everyday, physical universe and psychologically by relating to points of reference outside of themselves. Our pathetic president is trying to navigate using only himself as a point of reference. 

He will continue to move blindly, irresolutely and stumblingly around in the impenetrable fog of his own aura and we are supposed to follow along de facto--because he is in a position of power and, for the short term, we have as little choice as he will allow. 

A Capital, Capitol Screwing

Pity poor Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican Senators and legislators. The last thing they want is to inadvertently un-screw average, working Americans. Working people must only be more screwed. It is what Republicans exist for but the screwing must be done delicately. It must be done cleverly and with deniability so they can preserve their hegemony and keep the overall level of screwing heading upwards, for the good of the country and humanity.

I mean, look at what happened with Obama. The idiot Democrat sent their enterprise hurtling backwards and downwards with massively inappropriate healthcare legislation showing how important it is for Republicans to maintain control. That legislation might also cut into corporate profits which will destroy America more quickly than anything and, incidentally but not unrelatedly, put a huge dent in Republican reelection coffers and personal net worth. 

This is why they will use any kind of deceit, blackmail, treachery and--well, we don't actually know how far they will go. After all, we now have Donald Trump as president thanks to them and every kind of hate and and thuggery is on the rise. Republicans have lowered the standards to such an extent it's hard to believe we ever had values and morals and ideals in the first place. But console yourselves by grabbing some pussy but only Republican pussy, mind you. 

Democratic women still entertain the ridiculous notion that they are entitled--entitled, I tell you--to some degree of control of their lives and destinies when we know we're only humoring the bitches. They are only appurtenances and necessary evils if men are to reproduce and get their rocks off as they are entitled--oops!--as they deserve to be able to do by nature and divine mandate. Pshaw! We all know women are weaker creatures and the occasion of sin. 

We, the People...

The United States of America, what it meant and stood for, with all its flaws, no longer exists. This loss, however, is not irreversible. The ideals are still discernible in the smoke and rubble. The Republicans now in charge are anti-Americans--a rogue element and a fifth column.

I am sure there is hope for a restitution, partly because of the amount of money the Republicans have had to spend to subvert democracy and the amazing cascade and torrent of lies. The money and the lies are necessary because, on average, America is still not with them. 

America will never be with them but there's a point at which it won't matter. The lies and confusion will have a life of their own and be independently self-sustaining. America may then be pronounced dead. And it's a game of inches to judge from the elections of 2000 and 2016. 

The Link Between Lying and Anti-Individualism

I will tell you all day long that almost everything coming out of Republican mouths is a lie but I will not, I hope, be caught calling them liars. If so it's a slip and I apologize ahead of time. Honesty is not what they are about. When you are trying to take over the world or part of it the truth is a nuisance.

"Truth" implies standards and accountability so even trivial, seemingly inconsequential lies have a purpose, to undermine intelligibility and accountability in general. This is an assertion of power, the desire not to play the game but to control the board. Think back to the tobacco testimony of 1994.

Seven of the well-paid heads of the major tobacco companies testified under oath, before Congress, that they did not think nicotine was addicting. There were no consequences for them personally as far as I know. I can't look into their hearts, minds or souls. I can't tell you what they knew or didn't.

So I can't call them liars, but I can tell you that nicotine is addicting as hell. I can't tell you that the Republicans lining up like sheep to defend a morally indefensible healthcare bill know what they are doing but it is all lies. The lies are both a price of entry and a privilege of membership in their club.

They have lockers full of lies so you don't have to come up with your own, once you have passed the lie initiation. 

Pangs of conscience and even the awareness of the deceit are suppressed through tribal identification and support. Members are protected by reciprocal reassurance. It's moral death and the destruction of individualism, keys to all of our social and religious bonds, not that they believe is such sentimentality.

The Racist Defense Against Racism

The bloc that tipped the scales for Trump--supposedly economically disaffected, working-class white people--turns out not to have been voting the angst of downwardly mobile wage-earners but to have been voting racial animus, ethnic stereotyping and fear. It's not a surprise, judging from Donald Trump's tirades. Trump turned on the hate. He played groups of people off against one another and encouraged racial resentment.

Now, the racists and their baiters, when challenged, defend themselves existentially instead of defending their actions, claiming rightness as a group attribute and revealing a fundamentally racist mindset. For racists everything is existential and determined by group identification and not by individual behavior. For example, criticism will be understood to be about their value as people and other (to their minds) immutable traits.

It is not assumed that people have innate value and inalienable rights and so on. Barack Obama was an innately "wrong" president, unrelating to behavior. George Bush was existentially "right" even though he destroyed everything he touched. In a racist context behavior doesn't matter, only group identity. Criticism is not about something circumstantial, incidental and correctible but an assault on their being and existence.

And so, racists instinctively react to questions about their misbehavior like cornered animals, going postal at any provocation because, for them, their existence is always the issue. Similarly, they attack their adversaries and detractors not as frail actors of common standing and humanity. The attacks are attempts at annihilation, intended to render their perceived enemies powerless and incapacitated if not actually dead.

All of their thoughts are centered on identity. Loyalty, unwavering adherence to an ideology, and fixed opinions are expected and demanded. These racists are making the case against them by the nature of their defense. They are probably unaware of their own motivations--but, there I go again, making a non-racist argument when they should be judged by their own standards since they have voluntarily abdicated their decency.

They have abdicated their humanity in the attempt to deny ours, by depriving us of the rights guaranteed to us by the laws and traditions of our society, something they are increasingly challenging the existence of at all.

What I Mean by Reductive

I applied the thinking of public choice economics, that we are all selfishly motivated actors in turf wars, to its adherents, concluding that they are all selfish, ass-covering, unprincipled actors in a turf war. 

They assume privilege and exclusion, that they will not be treated the way they want to treat other people--their idea of "liberty," the ability to arbitrarily stipulate different sets of rules for different groups of people.

I call it cynicism.

Trump the Tyrant

By nature Donald is a despot. Everyone around him must dance to his tune and admire him and defer to him. Enforcing this in his limited little goon world was one thing. 

Watch him now in a job in which he will inevitably be judged. All the poor sucker can do is try to forestall the reckoning, to delay his exposure as a charlatan and a fraud.

What is That Feeling?

That feeling--of powerlessness and helplessness--is the feeling of being on the receiving end of tyranny. Our tyranny is of the irrational, persecutory, exploitative kind related to the rule of a selfish, unprincipled minority. It's the tyranny of wealth and corporate hegemony. 

I have never felt that kind of powerlessness, only frustration, in relation to our government as it was intended to function. That government belongs to us (or did) and its imperfections are purposeful and built-in. The inefficiencies are meant to protect us from tyranny.

Past and Future Parasites

The Koch boys regard anyone not fitting their extremely narrow, risk-taking model of productivity, based on themselves, as parasites. But of course they were born rich and there are many different types of risk. Warren Buffet rightly notes how fortunate he was to have been born in circumstances and at a time when he could use his skills. 

Even CEO's and such are despised by the Kochs. Come to think if it, they seem to despise everybody. They must despise even their shills since shills are henchmen and underlings and not entrepreneurs. Their Libertarianism, as the Kochs mistakenly call it, is an invention of their own and is the embodiment of their contempt for humanity.

Black people were originally imported to America against their will. They must not have been parasites then, since they were a commodity and powerless to affect their status and conditions at all. Aha, such powerlessness and an utter lack of self-determination are elements in the Koch plan for social improvement and the way to avoid parasitism.

Why don't they just say so, that people are to be defined, in their brave new world, entirely in relation to their usefulness to the Kochs and their highly limited group of compatriots. People have no intrinsic value at all to them and therefore no rights--not even to life, let alone to liberty and other pursuits. When the Kochs say "liberty" they mean their own. 

Abnormal Happiness

There must be someone out there for whom everything seems just right--not too much craziness due to Trump (me) or too little (insane yokel thinking their man of destiny is being thwarted at every turn by knee-jerk, liberal thumb-suckers).

He, Tarzan

Let's say some boy with a high degree of technical aptitude, maybe Charles Koch, is parachuted into a primitive situation in an uninhabited part of Africa or Amazonian South America. He's all alone. He does better than the average bear because he's smart and industrious and he manages to subsist. The usual if limited array of available natural resources makes this possible. 

Charles will do better over time but, without additional people working in cooperation and additional resources, his life will remain primitive. Wealth is a only partly a function of personal merit and hard work--that is the point. Higher wealth is a social function. But try to convince our lad Charles of this. He thinks wealth is the result of heroism and that everyone should defer to him.

At the very least, now that Charles has acquired his billions, he thinks that lesser beings should get out of his way. Not that he's prejudiced, mind you, or biased or single-minded. He has guys in think-tanks, on his dime, who tell him this is true. 

Our President...

Is a gloating piece of garbage.

Eat Shit and Die

The outline of the Republican Party's real plan for the American people is emerging from the shadows and taking shape in front of our eyes. It's no wonder then that they spend billions on hype and spin and obfuscation because the plan is "Eat Shit and Die" and that's hard to market directly in a democracy. 

More About the Circle Game

Okay, I have an admission.

Lately I've been on a jag accusing the right wing of arguing from conclusions when, in reality, I think that it is inevitable. Everyone has assumptions and argues from prejudices and a point of view.

The point is to own the point of view.

I am accusing the right wing of arguing from false and mean-spirited assumptions while not being able to acknowledge these because they are in fact mean, predatory and morally indefensible viewpoints.

Also, I believe that these pessimistic beliefs result in much more serious instances of circular reasoning and defensiveness because of shame, compartmentalization, repression and moral degradation.

The right wing, by their unowned pessimism, has betrayed our values. They have made the country unrecognizable. George Bush was bad enough. But, Donald Trump? There's no excuse for Donald Trump.