Garbage In...

...Garbage Out.

It's not that hard to figure out.  

However, what remains a taboo subject everywhere except out here in disreputable wilds of whatever is left of the Liberal blogosphere is how exactly the Republican base came to be such a aggregation of unsalvageable garbage people that they would nominate this degenerate monster for president three times and elect him twice.  

How is it that no one but us dirty hippies noticed or cared about the monstrous cancer that was growing in plain sight at the heart of the GOP until it was far too late to stop it?

Burn The Lifeboats

Money Well Spent: The Big Blue Breakwater

In the wake of the collapse of the Ride Tide as is came up against the Blue Breakwater, today let's you and I turn our attention to a very specific subset of that species of media pundits who specialize in “Scolding Democrats for Not Being Republican-Lite".   That self-serving ideological template that Beltway pundits and Never Trumpers impose on everything Democrats do.  "You know, if the GOP really is an existential threat, as Dems claim, why aren’t they taking it seriously by doing [whatever their godawful advice du jour happened to be that day.]  

Or, “Sure Democrats claim they don’t want to defund the police, but “people” believe they do!  It’s “out there” and Biden needs to respond.”

Or, “Sure trans athletes in  high schools may seem like a small issue but the Radical Left…[yadda yadda]…alienates 'normal voters'".  

If you 've been paying any attention at all since these deadbeats got run out of their own party crashed ours, you've heard just endless shit like that, from the commanding heights of the op-ed pages of American newspapers, to their sinecures on CNN and MSNBC, to their podcasts and websites which are underwritten by CNN and MSNBC .

Well, as some of you probably remember that about five months ago, many Savvy Pundits got all the way up on their high horses to savage a small number of Democrats for running ads in Republican primaries.

Ads which were perfectly truthful and said, more or less, “So and so believes crazy things.  Forced birth.  Everyone should own a bazooka.  Etc.  And so and so is too conservative for our state.”  

This was strategy  Claire McCaskill successfully used in Missouri to bring the late Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin to the attention of Missouri Republican primary voters, who loved the madness coming out of his mouth and nominated him, after which McCaskill beat him in the general election.

Well this time around, idea that a tiny number of Democrats would deploy exactly strategy for exactly the same reason drove the Savvy Pundits crazy.  Which was objectively hilarious, because literally all these ads did was accurately describe Darren Bailey, for example, as the nut job he is.  

You see, what the Savvy Pundits didn’t want you to think about was that the only way such ads could be effective was if the GOP base really was as batshit as we Liberals have always said they were, and all the Savvy Pundits have always denied.

Anyway, out of all the hundreds and hundreds of federal and state races happening across the country, Democrats ran such ads in only 13 races.  I did the math a few months ago, and it came to something like “0.77%” of all races, so not exactly a trend sweeping the nation, but it was yet another opportunity for the the Savvy Pundits to berate Democrats for the sin of doing politics, and they grabbed it with both hands and ran with it.

Here is what Politico was writing in August about the GOP primary in the race for New Hampshire's 2nd District U.S. House seat:

Dems interfere in GOP primary in New Hampshire

A Democratic group is airing cable TV ads boosting a pro-Trump candidate in one of New Hampshire’s competitive House districts. 

Democrats are once again meddling in a GOP primary — this time in a competitive New Hampshire House district, with the goal of elevating a far-right candidate over a moderate backed by GOP Gov. Chris Sununu.

The intervention in the race to take on Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster comes from an unlikely source: Democrats Serve, a new PAC that backs Democratic candidates with public service backgrounds. The group has booked some $94,000 on cable TV to boost Bob Burns, a pro-Trump Republican who is campaigning as the “only pro-life candidate” in the Sept. 13 primary...

It was on NPR.   It was in the WaPo.  It was in Axios.  

Democrats play with fire in GOP primaries

The Never Trump Bulwark crew were in quite the tizzy.  Here's Mona Charen on her Bulwark podcast asking the Never Trumper's newest favorite political philosopher, Yacha Mounk, a question in the form of a long tirade. 

Mona Charen on her Bulwark podcast: 

Charen:  But then there's this other problem, which is the democrats wanting to flirt with the crazies Republican candidates, because they assume what could possibly go wrong, that they'll be easier to beat. So this Mastriano guy who won the Republican nomination did so with an assist from Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination but, uh, he spent uh, between ... the estimates range from between half a million to three quarters of a million bucks running an ad urging voters to choose Mastriano because he figured he'd be easier to beat. Now Mastriano, he attended the stop...he not only denies the validity of the 2020 election, he attended the "Stop The Steal" rally, he chartered busses to take people he continues to spread conspiracy theories related to voting machines. He wants to end all state contracts with the companies that were in charge in 2020. He spoke at a conference that featured Qanon themes and he would require all Pennsylvanians to re-register to vote. Now, y'know, you might say "Well, yeah, that guy should be easy to beat" but is that a reliable and safe thing for any responsible politician to do in today's America? To just assume that the nut cases can't get elected?

Yacha Mounk: No, this is absolutely irresponsible. And I mean, y'know, I mean, look, let's not have a false equivalency here, but it's the Republicans who are going around saying stop the steal and boasting as Mastriano has, about his ability to appoint a secretary of state who can reverse account and basically undermine the integrity of the 2024 elections. But for Democrats -- who are rightly warning about this danger -- to then go and try to elevate the worst of those candidates is just morally wrong and strategically stupid...I hope that Josh Shapiro will sleep very, very badly at night.  I'm very angry about this!

Here is MSNBC's favorite, gay, man-bunned, Berkley-residing Conservative-on-loan-from-The-Bulwark, Tim Miller, slapping Democrat's wrists for not [checks notes] putting party over country.

But of all the scolding, shrewish pundits raining cavils down on the tiny number of Democratic campaigns who were doing this, the most perfectly distilled example came from the King of Sternly Lecturing Stoopid Democrats On How Politics Should Be Done, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times.  From June 30, 2022 (with emphasis scattered here and there): 

Why on Earth Is Pelosi Supporting the Trumpists?

The moral idiocy of promoting the extremists.

Wow.  Sounds bad.  "Pelosi" and "moral idiocy" in one word-spurt.  Quote:

The Democratic Party is behaving recklessly and unpatriotically. So far, Democrats have spent tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates in Republican primaries.

Wow.  Sounds even worse.  It's not just "Pelosi" but "Democrats" generally who are behaving "recklessly and unpatriotically."  It's "Democrats" who have spent "tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates..."

Golly!  Tell me more David Brooks!

In the next paragraph...

In Illinois alone, the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent at least $30 million to attack a Trumpist’s moderate gubernatorial opponent. 

Oh.  So the lion's share of those "tens of millions" Brooks was shitting himself over "Democrats" spending was actually spent by one guy.  My governor.  Who, as an actual multibillionaire, certainly had the money to spend and then some.  

Thanks, Citizens United! 

So, jumping ahead from the Savvy Pundit's Hot Reproachful Summer to the bracing, Fall post-election weather, how did all of this reckless, unpatriotic Democratic tomfoolery work out?

Well of the 13 primaries in which Dems spent money, the most extreme crackpot lost in seven of them,which leaves only six.  

And of those six…Democrats won ALL of those seats on Tuesday.  

Won all of them by ten points or better.  

In the race for Illinois governor, JB Pritzker (D) beat forced birth crackpot Darren Bailey (R) by 13 points.

In the race for Maryland governor, Wes Moore (D) beat far-right crank Dan Cox by 23 points.

In the race for Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro (D) beat Confederate cos-play elections denier Doug Mastriano (R) by 13 points.

In the Michigan 3rd District, U.S. House race, Hillary Scholten (D) beat far-right John Gibbs (R) by 10 points. 

In the race for Senate in New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan (D) beat crazy Don Bolduc (R) by 10 points. 

And that Kuster (D) vs. Burns (R) race that Politico was all worked up about?  Democrat Annie Kuster kicked Bob Burns' ass by 13 points.

So did this finally knock enough sense into our Savvy Pundits so that they've finally learned to shut their holes about that which they know not?  

Of course not.

Because there is a Club.

And you and I ain't in it.

Burn The Lifeboats

Get Your Election On: Post-Debate Analysis

(Concept lifted from David Rees' brilliant, Bush-era "Get Your War On" series -- a well from which I may continue to draw inspiration from time to time as the crazy continues to grow exponentially.)

No Half Measures

Don't Forget The Most Important Part of Early Voting

The Blessing o' the Ballot.

The best-laid schemes o' cats an' men

Often turn out just fine.

And Then There Were Two

Maybe I'm a freak (OK, definitely) but I am genuinely looking forward to a no-audience debate between Vincent Price and Charlie Weaver this Sunday.  Neither of them was my first choice, but both of them have earned the right to be on that stage, and both of them need to be able to field serious questions about serious issues.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Have Fun Storming The Castle

Based on my keen observation of the obvious, it seems clear that, on a very basic level, many politically moderate Liberal persons fundamentally do not understand how politically radical Leftists persons think and act, and vice versa.  So, as a public service, allow this tiny blog in the middle of Middle America to be your bridge to a greater understanding.

For politically moderate Liberals, the complexities of the world are ... complex and costly.  Providing health care for everyone while not bankrupting the country is a complex problem.  Operating a humane border with Mexico that serves both countries interests is a complex issue.  Making sure college is affordable to anyone who wants to attend is a complex issue.  Amending to constitution, whether to guarantee a woman's reproductive rights or to drastically curtail the power that wealthy donors and dark money have over our politics, is a fraught and hugely complex undertaking.

Each of these are laudable goals, but each come with a very high degree of difficulty given the deliberately hobbling setup of our constitutional democracy, and the inevitable lockstep and well-funded opposition each of these noble projects would face from the Republican party and the mainstream media.

For the radical, the complexities of the world are radically simplified.  Whatever the problem, the revolution will solve it, which is why the revolution is the all-important goal, and why all conditions and circumstances are seen within the revolutionary context.  That which advances the revolution is to be nourished.  That which stands in the way of the revolution must be converted or destroyed.

Moderate Liberal persons see suffering and calamity and work to alleviate it by whatever means are available.  Usually those solutions are frustratingly flawed and imperfect, but they act anyway because doing something is better than doing nothing.

For politically radical Leftists persons the exact opposite is true.  Suffering or calamity are real and tragic, but their importance is inextricably tied to how they serve to bring about revolution. Which means that, for the committed revolutionary, the moderate/good will always be the enemy of the revolutionary/perfect.

You see, for the revolution to work, it must be the answer to all questions, which means that any compromise or half-measure that falls short of revolution is not just a failure, but the rankest betrayal.  Positively counterrevolutionary.  Because any improvement in circumstances or alleviation of suffering short of revolution saps the revolution of its energy by showing the masses that things can get somewhat better without resorting to burning the system completely to the ground.

Therefor those who advocate compromise must be destroyed.

And this is where politically moderate Liberal persons get very confused.  Because they cannot understand why politically radical Leftists are so contemptuous of them when everyone agrees on the goal of the alleviation of human suffering and improving people's circumstances.  Why such loathing when we just disagree on the means to those ends?

And the answer is, that moderates and radicals do not agree on the goals.  The goal of the moderate is to alleviate human suffering and improve people's circumstances, and the moderate's means to those ends are various policy proposals they would like to see debated, enacted and funded though the frustrating, boring, contentious political process.

The radical's goal, on the other hand, is a revolution which would sweep away that frustrating, boring, contentious political process because it is that system which is the root cause of all injustice and suffering which both groups claim to care about.  Moderates wish to patch up the rattletrap American political system so it can enact the policies they believe are critically important to the life of the nation.  Radicals cannot settle for anything less than overthrowing that system in its entirety and replacing it with ... something.

Which is where things get always get hazy.

Because where a moderate will acknowledge the specific structural impediments that they need to overcome (example: the filibuster and/or the lack of a solid supermajority in the Senate) and quantifiable outcomes that are required to overcome them (getting rid of the filibuster and pouring resources into down-ballot races in Democratic-flippable states), radicals speak of The Revolution in quasi-mystical terms.  Somewhat akin to a Catholic trying to explain the Holy Spirit.  The Revolution will manifest itself as ineffable force which shall be loosed upon the land and before its irresistible power, no obstacle can stand.

Or whatever.  As I said, details are hazy.

Finally, like any other form of fundamentalism, the radical worldview is reduced to a simple, all-inclusive Manichean struggle between the Saved and the Damned, which dooms any debate over any issue from the start.  Since the only acceptable solution to all problems -- the only path to salvation -- is revolution, if  you are down with the revolution, you are Saved.  And once in a state of revolutionary grace, it not only doesn't really matter that Trump won in 2016 (or that the Both Parties Are Equally Damned ethos of the revolution may have helped him get elected) but Trump winning re-election might actually be a good thing because it heightens the contradictions!  Because all suffering and catastrophe are grist for the revolutionary mill.

Contrariwise, if you are not down with the revolution -- if you are willing to accept imperfect half-measures rather than accept that a rising tide of misery and Republican fascism provide the necessary rocket fuel that will bring about the revolution -- you are Damned. Worse than Republicans, really, because while they're just racist brutes acting on instinct, you know better.  You pretend to care about human suffering and you have been bathed in the light of glorious revolution but have walked away from it.  And since you refuse to embrace the only true path to salvation, for some dark reason you must secretly really want people to die for lack of health care.

pic.twitter.com/BX7A58RFUn

— Lukas (@efevelon) March 6, 2020

You must really not give a shit about babies in cages.  You must really want to see the planet burn.

OMFG, you're the worst!

And as the worst, you deserve to be slagged and berated on social media.

Because you're not being bullied, you ignorant corporate establishment stooge.

You're being Truth-Bombed, for your own good and as a lesson to others.

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan...

The Shouty Shout Shout "Debate"

Over the Better Universe, last night's debate went something like this:

Moderator:  Do you agree with Donald Trump's face-down-ass-up approach to North Korean 'diplomacy'?

Everyone:  Are you fucking kidding me?

But we don't live in the Better Universe.

We live here.  And if you watched any piece of last night's "debate", congratulations! You were a witness to history, because that was, hands down, the worst presidential debate I have ever seen. In fact I'm banking the time I spent watching it to apply it against any future community service obligations to which I may be sentenced.

The moderators were an embarrassment who seemed to realize early on that the ship was headed for the rocks and just shrugged and leaned into it.  The questions were facile.  The Bloomberg and "Medicare For All Will Kill Us All" commercials they ran during the breaks showed exactly what kind of crassly mercantile freak-show CBS knew it was running here.  And once the candidates figured out they were on their own sans traffic cops or mediators, it turned into a Lord of the Flies scrum over whose got the conch.

Narrator: There was no conch.

I cannot imagine that the opinions of Democratic primary voters were changed very much by this mess, but there were a scattering of memorable moments, and here are a few of them...

Bloomberg really sucks at this.  His awkward scripted ad-libs just lay there like dead trout. He was never more than two minutes away from a "Please clap"moment, but when you rent your own cheering section I guess that doesn't matter much. There was also this --

WOULD YOU EXPUNGE THE RECORDS OF THE BLACK & BROWN PEOPLE YOU HARRASSED INTO JAIL? #StopAndFrisk @MikeBloomberg

— Frangela (@frangeladuo) February 26, 2020

-- which was a big, fat, slow pitch which no one thought to belt out of the park.

Biden did...OK.  Being this guy in answer to every question --

-- gets really old really fast, but his genial mention of his "Catholic school training" was a nice touch.

Mayor Pete name-checking his spouse as a teacher was a nice touch too.  He also knows how to do scripted ad-libs in exactly the same way that Bloomberg does not.  For example, asking Bernie how he expects to pull off a revolution if he can't support a rules change in the Senate.

How is that we got halfway through this thing and Tom Steyer was almost the only one going after Donald Trump with a sword in both hands?

Klobuchar's answer on the Corona virus was good.  She and Mayor Pete fighting over who gets the hog the I-94 center lane didn't move the needle for either of them.

Warren did nothing to make me doubt that she would make a fine president.  She's smart, has a confident command of the policy details, is very good public speaker, I would definitely watch a ten episode Netflix series of her verbally pistol-whipping Mike Bloomberg.  Her pitch is simple: she has the chops to actually get her ideas drafted into legislation and passed into law.

Bernie was Bernie. For me, he is at his most effective when he uses humor or calmly explains why some stupid question that someone tossed his way was stupid and then pivots back to his central message.  And his pitch remains the same: his revolution will sweep aside or overwhelm the creaky, slow and easily obstructed means by which a bill currently becomes a law.

For the record and the umpteenth time, I will be voting blue no matter who.

I Want Just Enough Socialism To Make Charlie Sykes Weep Tears of Blood

Today In Failing To Control Your Environment News

Why does this sound so familiar?

My statement regarding last night:

“I am so incredibly in love with the movement that our campaign of #NotMeUs has created. This makes me protective over it and frustrated by attempts to dismiss the strength and diversity of our movement. (1/4)

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) February 1, 2020

Oh yeah...

Newt Gingrich Says His Patriotism Made Him Cheat: What Are The Worst Excuses For Cheating You've Ever Heard?

Recently, when defending his past adultery in advance of a potential Presidential run in 2012, New Gingrich said this: "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate." Cheating for your country. Amazing.

I plan to gladly and unreservedly support the nominee of the Democratic Party, whoever it turns out to be.  Period.  Full stop.

However it would make life for sellout Obot corporatist drones like me considerably less uneasy if the accretion disc of heartfelt supporters, zealots, trolls and political toddlers which surround the Sanders campaign -- and frequently presume to speak on behalf of the campaign -- were to caucus together and pick one of these two, mutually exclusive positions on the subject of Hillary Clinton.

Position #1: Hillary Clinton -- the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 2016 who won the popular vote by three million and for whom more people voted than any candidate in history other than Barack Obama -- remains so influential and holds so much sway over so many millions of Democratic voters who still stand with her, that she even though she is now a private citizen who is as entitled to her own opinions as anyone else, she should nonetheless keep her opinions to herself and stay out of the 2020 election.

Position #2: Who cares if we bag on Shillery! She's a neocon corporatist DNC monster! And if her dopey supporters don't like it, fuck 'em. After all, who needs 'em when we've got Hugh Hewitt and Kevin McCarthy and Michael Moore and Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan and Jill Stein and Donald John Trump on our side!

"Politics," Hunter Thompson once said, "is the art of controlling your environment."  And if the Sanders campaign cannot control the environment of the Sanders campaign, then they are in very big trouble down the road.

So just pick a position on Hillary and run with it.  Because hopping from one to the other depending on which way the wind is blowing on any given day makes you look ridiculous.

Driftglass Legal Defense Fund

Loyalty to Il Douche is Treason to America

Proceed accordingly.

Driftglass Legal Defense Fund

A War on Four Fronts

Whether it's a fight over policy or a presidential elections, in modern politics Democrats are always forced to fight a war on four fronts.

First, Democrats must always struggle against an opposition party of bigots and imbeciles, led by a gang of vandals and madmen.

Rush Limbaugh today: "I’ve had dinner with John Bolton a couple times. I’ve met him two or three times, and if this passage in the book is true, and this is actually what he’s intending, it’s not the John Bolton I thought I knew, this kind of disloyalty."

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 27, 2020

Second, Democrats must push back against a cynical political press and it's pathological Both Siderism in the face of overwhelming evidence that Both Sides are most emphatically not equally and oppositely to blame of the failure of American political institutions.

just amazing

NYT: “Both [sides] are bending the facts to fit their case.”

NYT then fails to detail a SINGLE instance of Dems “bending” impeachment facts; https://t.co/6Wm5lo86oZ

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 27, 2020

Third, Democrats must continue to slog forward in the face of sustained fire from the Jill Stein/Glenn Greenwald Left for whom any solution to any problem other than "Blow everything up and start over!!!" is counterrevolutionary treason and worse than four more years of Trump.

And fourth, Democrats must contend with the fact that no matter how sonic boom loud or clarion clear their words and ideas may be, they will always fall on the deaf ears of the 50% of the country who are completely checked out and do not know or care about any of this.

And while Republicans need only worry about using their vast media empire focused on keeping their homogeneous, ignorant, racist base whipped up and all goose-stepping pointed in the same direction, to get anything done, Democrats must continuously fight this four front war while trying to hold together an incredibly diverse and volatile coalition.  From Ezra Klein in the NYT:

Put simply, Democrats can’t win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans. They can move to the left — and they are — but they can’t abandon the center or, given the geography of American politics, the center-right, and still hold power. Democrats are modestly, but importantly, restrained by diversity and democracy. Republicans are not...

Appealing to Democrats requires appealing to a lot of different kinds of people with different interests. Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on white voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and mixed-race voters. Republicans are overwhelmingly dependent on Christian voters. Democrats are a coalition of liberal and nonwhite Christians, Jews, Muslims, New Agers, agnostics, Buddhists and so on. Three-quarters of Republicans identify as conservative, while only half of Democrats call themselves liberals — and for Democrats, that’s a historically high level.

As a result, winning the Democratic primary means winning liberal whites in New Hampshire and traditionalist blacks in South Carolina. It means talking to Irish Catholics in Boston and atheists in San Francisco. It means inspiring liberals without arousing the fears of moderates. It’s important preparation for the difficult, pluralistic work of governing, in which the needs and concerns of many different groups must be balanced against one another.

So since we're all going to lob bombs at each other during the primaries, how about sticking to flashbang grenades that temporarily stun, and not bunker-busters designed to so cripple a primary opponent so brutally that, even if your favorite candidate wins the endorsement of the Democratic Party, they will limp into the general election mortally wounded and having left nothing but bitter resentment in their wake?

Yep, Still in Twitter Jail

Local Elected Idiot Has Opinions

(photo via The Edwardsville Intelligencer)

From one of America's many Fox News bullshit outlets:

Rep. Rodney Davis: Pelosi’s partisanship is much bigger threat to America’s elections than Russia

This Trump stooge is my congressman.

In 2017, he was among several House Republicans who whipped votes on behalf of President Stupid to strip tens of millions of Americans -- including my family -- of their health care.  Then Inert Carbon Rodney and his cronies held a beer bust in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate their barbarity.

In 2018, Rodney Davis won re-election from Illinois' 13th congressional district by a little over 2,000 votes.  Because I live in Trump country.

And as of today, every House Republican has been given their one fucking talking point --  this is all partisan nonsense yadda yadda yadda we need to get it out of the way as fast as possible yadda yadda yadda move forward on bipartisan stuff for Murrican people -- which is now their go-to  answer to virtually every question.

My job in 2020 is to do what I can to help his Democratic opponent kick him out of congress. 

Which will be quite an uphill fight.

Because I live in Trump country.

Tip Jar Is Here!

Grandpa Joe Continues To Promise To Do Shots With Reagan Until Bipartisanship

With this bold stance on what the Fictional Republican Party Which Exists Entirely Within The Beltway Media's Imagination might look like after Trump is gone --

Biden: Mitch McConnell Will Become ‘Mildly Cooperative’ With Democrats Post-Trump

The former vice president has also said Republicans will have an “epiphany” once Donald Trump leaves office.

Joe Biden believes that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ― the man who refused to even vote on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court ― will suddenly become “mildly cooperative” with Democrats once Donald Trump is no longer president.

The former vice president and current Democratic presidential candidate made his rosy prediction at a Tuesday fundraiser in New York City at the mega law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He said he believes that “all politics is the logical extension of human nature, personal relationships.”
...

-- Joe Biden continues to run decisively ahead in the Beltway Bubble/David Brooks/Meet the Press/Joe Scarborough primary.

I dunno which is getting to be more tediously soul-crushing: forever shouting unheeded warnings at people who drive right off the same fucking cliff over and over again, or listening to them moan and prattle after each crash about how nobody saw it coming.

Either way, it is troubling to me that Joe Biden remains this intractably clueless this late in the game.  But it is much less troubling than President Stupid with a planet-destroying military at his fingertips and an itch to change the news cycle by blowing shit up.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Conspiracy, Inc.

Now that Republican voters have lowered themselves to the straining-out-gnats-and-swallowing-camels level of self-debasement where they will swallow literally anything they are told on Trump State Teevee (except any hint of the truth, which would obviously kill them), the Republican party no longer has to spend any real time or effort cooking up even vaguely reasonable-sounding conspiracy theories to explain away the behavior of their deranged Dear Leader and the cabal of corrupt, bug-eating Renfields who staff his "government".

Instead they just drop a dime in ol' Rudy's slot, point a camera in his direction, and let him roll.

From Above The Law:

Rudy Giuliani Strains To Explain Soros Conspiracy To Glenn Beck Over Din Of Barking Dogs

This is only going to get worse.

Much worse.

Because there is no bottom to this barrel.

In fact, there is no longer any barrel.

The Tip Jar Is Open.

It's The Bonhomie, Stupid

Twenty-seven years ago, James Carville made "It's the economy, stupid." the most famous phrase of the 1992 presidential election.

It was the mantra of the Clinton campaign -- a mnemonic to remind them that, wherever they were and whatever was blowing up the news cycle that day, they needed to keep their attention sharply focused on the one issue which they believed would win them the White House.

Twenty-seven years later it is my dearest hope that more than one Democratic candidate for president will take the idea of "It's the bonhomie, stupid." to heart.

bon·ho·mie
/ˌbänəˈmē,ˈbänəmē/
noun: cheerful friendliness; geniality.

After decades of offering geniality, civility and compromise to the GOP and pulling back a bloody stump, "I drink your Libtard tears, snowflake!" and, finally, the election of the King of the Birthers, it is fucking well waaaaay past time to stop pretending you can reason with a rabid dog.

There can be no peace between us, which is a good thing because there should be no peace between up.  I mean, since there can no longer be any doubt that Trump is the Party and the Party is Trump, other than trying to win the David Brooks/Michael Gerson primary, why is any sane person still trying to bending themselves sideways pretending otherwise?

Who the hell still thinks compromising with fascists ever works? 

Who but a great fool wants peace with a baby-caging lynch mob?

So if you want my vote, quit insulting my intelligence.

Here is an example of a Democratic candidate insulting my intelligence:

Joe Biden: Republicans ‘Know Better,’ Will Change After Trump

Here is an example of a Democratic candidate respecting my intelligence:

“This business that Democrats play by one set of rules and Republicans play by a different set of rules, those days are over when I’m president,” @ewarren told me.

This is Warren’s most important plan: her plan to pass her plans. https://t.co/hHpjeUqUr7

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) June 12, 2019

Behold, a Tip Jar!