From the EU Observer, September 4, 2015: "The new prosecution chiefs - first Oleh Mahnitskyi, then Vitaly Yarema, now Viktor Shokin - have presided over a system which still looks more like a crime syndicate than a law enforcement agency...Shokin also caused scandals by trying to quash anti-corruption probes into his clan."
From the Kyiv Post, February 15, 2016: "Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, who was given the job of cleaning up a corrupt, politically subservient and ineffective institution employing 15,000 prosecutors, quit on Feb. 15. In this farewell press conference, Kasko cited corruption and sabotage by General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin in combatting corruption and instituting the rule of law. 'The same political interference, direct and total pressure on investigators and prosecutors, intentional professional degradation, inaction and impunity hide behind the screen of an allegedly reformed body,' Kasko said. 'The Prosecutor General’s Office is currently a dead body, and no one believes in its independence and efficiency anymore'...The developments come as Shokin, despite working for a year in one of the most corrupt and lawbreaking nations in Europe, has failed to submit a single high-profile criminal case to court."
From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 28, 2016: "Scores of protesters have rallied in the Ukrainian capital, demanding the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor, who has been repeatedly criticized as an impediment to badly needed anticorruption reforms."
From the Irish Times, March 29, 2016: "The European Union has welcomed the dismissal of Ukraine’s scandal-ridden prosecutor general and called for a crackdown on corruption...Ukraine’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to fire Viktor Shokin, ridding the beleaguered prosecutor’s office of a figure who is accused of blocking major cases against allies and influential figures and stymying moves to root out graft."
Yeah, a lot of people thought Viktor Shokin had to go. And not a goddamn one of them gave a happy monkey fuck about Hunter fuckin' Biden.
You know who else didn't give damn about Hunter Biden or Burisma? The fuckin' Congress. Yeah, in the Congressional Record for the 114th and 115th Congress (which covers 2015-2018), neither "Burisma" nor "Hunter Biden" are brought up. Not once. And Republicans were running the joint the entire time. Both houses. Why the fuck didn't they care? Why the fuck didn't Trump's Justice Department care starting in 2017?
You know what Republicans talked about in 2018? How fuckin' much they wanted the United States to continue to help Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Here's what Iliena Ros-Lentinin of Florida said on December 18: "We must demonstrate by our words and actions that we remain fully
committed to assisting the people of Ukraine to defend their country." Indeed, before any of this shit, support for Ukraine was bipartisan and no one fucking talked about holding up money because of corruption once Shokin, the guy who didn't fight corruption, was gone.
The defense of Donald Trump in his impeachment trial has been a lesson in how emphatically you can lie and not pay any goddamn price. Every time one of the lawyers on Trump's team opens their filthy whore mouths, they lie. Every time they try to justify Trump's actions. they lie. And every time they mention Joe and Hunter Biden, they lie so extravagantly and so excessively that a righteous God would pop their heads like bloody zits. That'd be some motherfuckin' fact-checking.
You can say that it's shitty that the children of political leaders are given sweet jobs. But you sure as hell better say that about every child of every politician who gets that deal. Or about the children of a certain president who get trademarks and access to people that they never would have been able to get without Dad in the White House.
It's fucking amazing how degraded and devolved Republicans continue to be. They have decided to shitcan any law, all ethics, and any fact that threatens the power of their idiot king. They've decided that democracy is for pussies. And rules are for suckers. And go fuck yourself if you dare call them on it. Now, let's get this dictatorship in gear before 2020 fucks it up.
(By the way, you know that George W. Bush appointed Hunter Biden to the board of Amtrak? He wasn't a fucking locomotive engineer either. That's how this shit goes. Oh, and he was approved unanimously by a Republican Senate in 2006. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and the rest of the current cocks who were there in '06 didn't fucking care that Biden didn't know how a train works.)
1/30/2020
1/28/2020
Advice to Elizabeth Warren: Campaign on Burning the Republicans Down
So we're now facing the prospect of the Democratic nominee for president being an old white guy despite the fact that the last white guy to win for the Democrats was back in 1996. And, yes, your preferred old white guy is just fine. I'm not really talking about them here. I'm talking about Elizabeth Warren.
Once close to eclipsing Joe Biden in the polls, Warren has now fallen to at least third and sometimes fourth behind other white guy Pete Buttigieg. Part of that has to do with a fear of "Who can stand up to Trump?" (look, every candidate would destroy Trump on facts at a debate, but the only one who could have taken his bluster and made him look like the fucking tool he is was Kamala Harris, but, well, we fucked that up), part is the sexist comfort with the old white guys (shit, Bloomberg has finally spent enough money to make it into double digits), part is that she's so earnest that people mistrust it (see Cory Booker), and tons of other factors.
I support Warren (Bernie is my second choice and I'll support any Democrat who's nominated, so no fucking whining), but I think she needs to go big. Not with her plans and ideas, which are already big and numerous and mostly great. No, big with a full-frontal attack on Republicans. See, while Joe Biden talks about his magical ability to cooperate with the same senators and House members who shit all over him and President Obama and while Bernie Sanders plans to use some kind of mesmerism to get the GOP to go along with what the majority of the country wants when they have never given a shit about that, Warren should go full-throated with "Fuck the GOP. They need to be torn putrid limb from putrid limb." (She might want to leave out the "Fuck" part.)
Lest you think I'm mansplaining to a strong speaker and almost scarily intelligent thinker like Warren, all I'm really doing is saying that she should synthesize some things she's already brought up into a focused message.
This month, Warren announced a plan called, unsubtly, "Restoring Integrity and Competence to Government After Trump," and it contains the foundation for burning the GOP to the motherfucking ground. A few highlights include firing all political appointees put in by Trump; creating a Justice Department Task Force to look into Trump-era lawbreaking, including bribery and immigration law violations; and changing the process for contractor selection (or, more precisely, going back to what it was before Trump). Think for a moment about how many current Republican elected officials will be caught up if such a task force goes whole hog after corruption. Just that last one, on contractors, will ruin Mitch McConnell and so many others.
As if that wasn't enough, Warren has also pledged to release "every document related to this impeachment inquiry that the administration has been hiding." Again, think about who that would implicate. Start with Devin "Fucked by a Cow" Nunes and a barrel of House Republicans. If done right, people will be forced to resign from office, if not get thrown in jail.
I'm not saying other candidates don't have ideas about how to handle Republican malfeasance. But Warren has moved to make it more central to her campaign. And I think it's time for her to amp it up before she fades even further as a candidate.
Look, I (and many others) have repeatedly said that one of the mistakes of the Obama administration was, to put it simply, letting the Bush administration and its enablers get away with it. The fact that no one was prosecuted for the war in Iraq, for the torture policy, for the near-collapse of the world economy essentially wiped the slate clean for others to eventually do worse. And, as I (and many others) have repeatedly said, the 2006 and 2008 elections had punishing Republicans implicit in their heavily Democratic outcomes. Not doing so has led to the GOP breaking every norm, violating every tradition, and wrecking the joint with Trump.
So Warren could make a speech where she says, in so many words, "These motherfuckers have ruined it. They've been ruining it. And I'm not gonna let them get away with it. If you broke the law, bitch, you're going to prison. If you helped the orange dick in the White House cover shit up, we're running you out of town." Hell, she should show them the fuckin' red, white, and blue fist-shaped Strap-On of Justice she'll use to ream out their asses.
There is a significant contingent of Democrats who are dying from being thirsty for some kind of vengeance against the party that has taken Hope and Change and buried it alive. Warren could tap into that thirst and use the rage to boost her votes so she can get around to all the things she's got a plan for.
1/23/2020
Republicans Believe the United States Is So Weak That It Couldn't Handle Removing Trump from Office
There are so many arguments that Republicans make regarding the impeachment of Donald Trump that range from blatant bullshit to explosive diarrhea. The laughably hypocritical cries of "Democrats hate this president" are lost every time Trump himself calls Democrats "traitors" who "hate the United States" and are "radical left" "socialists." And, yes, we all remember how Republicans acted like a lynch mob when it came to Barack Obama. So, you know, go fuck each other with your "hate" accusation.
The one that pisses me off more than any other is that "Democrats want to overturn the 2016 election." On the most basic level, this is utterly and completely false. We don't rewind to November 2016 and declare Hillary Clinton the winner. Goddamn Mike Pence becomes president. Every judge fisted through Mitch McConnell's Senate sphincter still has their job, including odious cuntfleas Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Shit, everyone Trump appointed would probably be safer in their jobs than if Trump remains president. And, frankly, Republicans are more obsessed with 2016 now than Democrats are because they know, they fucking know, that Trump's victory is illegitimate and they have to do everything in their power to not let that fact become viral.
But even beyond, you know, facts, there is an insult to the American people in the assertion that somehow Trump's impeachment and removal from office would so upset Americans that they couldn't take it. It's like they want us to think that, for some reason, Donald fuckin' Trump, who is an overloaded garbage barge in an ill-fitting suit, is so intrinsic to the existence of the United States that the republic would crumble without him. And, surely, some of his most loyal chuds would have to learn to live without the center of their universe, but they can hock all that MAGA gear for cash for more oxy to ease the pain.
You know what would happen if Trump were removed? We'd all fucking breathe a sigh of relief, even a whole lot of Republicans. It'd be like the guards at the end of the film The Wizard of Oz after the Wicked Witch is melted, when the previously cruel men bow down and thank Dorothy for ridding them of her. Jesus, we'd all treat Adam Schiff like a god for freeing us.
"You want to overturn the 2016 election"? That ship has sailed. But you know which ship is still in port? The fucking 2018 election. You know what happened there? Republicans got reamed out in the House of Representatives. You know why? Because Americans wanted to see Donald Trump impeached. I've said it before: The message of 2018 was to go after the dumb orange motherfucker in the White House.
So, no, dicks, we're not overturning the 2016 election. We're honoring the results of the 2018 one. You got a problem with that shit? Take it up with Alexander Hamilton. Amend the Constitution. Otherwise, suck on Article 1.
One other thing: Republicans keep saying that Trump may have fucked up, but it doesn't rise to "high crimes and misdemeanors." And I keep coming back to the word "misdemeanors" because, well, it seems like the people who wrote that were thinking, "There might be some little shit that's not worth putting someone in prison for, but it certainly indicates that a motherfucker shouldn't be president. Yeah, we should include that." We've all done a misdemeanor or two, like public drunkenness or trespassing or disorderly conduct or a little Molly. Maybe violated an oath.
Either way, though, the presentations over the last two days by Democrats have proven that Trump is plainly, extravagantly guilty of a bunch of shit, large and small, so the point's a bit moot. Tonight, in particular, Schiff has been brilliant in starkly presenting Trump as a feckless, narcissistic dupe for anyone who will glorify him and give him power. His final speech tonight was the closest I've seen to someone finally just burning the whole thing down.
Either way, though, Republicans will be unmoved, but they will keep slinging this bullshit rhetoric all the way through 2020. Sling it back at them.
The one that pisses me off more than any other is that "Democrats want to overturn the 2016 election." On the most basic level, this is utterly and completely false. We don't rewind to November 2016 and declare Hillary Clinton the winner. Goddamn Mike Pence becomes president. Every judge fisted through Mitch McConnell's Senate sphincter still has their job, including odious cuntfleas Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Shit, everyone Trump appointed would probably be safer in their jobs than if Trump remains president. And, frankly, Republicans are more obsessed with 2016 now than Democrats are because they know, they fucking know, that Trump's victory is illegitimate and they have to do everything in their power to not let that fact become viral.
But even beyond, you know, facts, there is an insult to the American people in the assertion that somehow Trump's impeachment and removal from office would so upset Americans that they couldn't take it. It's like they want us to think that, for some reason, Donald fuckin' Trump, who is an overloaded garbage barge in an ill-fitting suit, is so intrinsic to the existence of the United States that the republic would crumble without him. And, surely, some of his most loyal chuds would have to learn to live without the center of their universe, but they can hock all that MAGA gear for cash for more oxy to ease the pain.
You know what would happen if Trump were removed? We'd all fucking breathe a sigh of relief, even a whole lot of Republicans. It'd be like the guards at the end of the film The Wizard of Oz after the Wicked Witch is melted, when the previously cruel men bow down and thank Dorothy for ridding them of her. Jesus, we'd all treat Adam Schiff like a god for freeing us.
"You want to overturn the 2016 election"? That ship has sailed. But you know which ship is still in port? The fucking 2018 election. You know what happened there? Republicans got reamed out in the House of Representatives. You know why? Because Americans wanted to see Donald Trump impeached. I've said it before: The message of 2018 was to go after the dumb orange motherfucker in the White House.
So, no, dicks, we're not overturning the 2016 election. We're honoring the results of the 2018 one. You got a problem with that shit? Take it up with Alexander Hamilton. Amend the Constitution. Otherwise, suck on Article 1.
One other thing: Republicans keep saying that Trump may have fucked up, but it doesn't rise to "high crimes and misdemeanors." And I keep coming back to the word "misdemeanors" because, well, it seems like the people who wrote that were thinking, "There might be some little shit that's not worth putting someone in prison for, but it certainly indicates that a motherfucker shouldn't be president. Yeah, we should include that." We've all done a misdemeanor or two, like public drunkenness or trespassing or disorderly conduct or a little Molly. Maybe violated an oath.
Either way, though, the presentations over the last two days by Democrats have proven that Trump is plainly, extravagantly guilty of a bunch of shit, large and small, so the point's a bit moot. Tonight, in particular, Schiff has been brilliant in starkly presenting Trump as a feckless, narcissistic dupe for anyone who will glorify him and give him power. His final speech tonight was the closest I've seen to someone finally just burning the whole thing down.
Either way, though, Republicans will be unmoved, but they will keep slinging this bullshit rhetoric all the way through 2020. Sling it back at them.
1/22/2020
Random Observations on a Cover-Up (Impeachment Trial Rules Edition)
1. Early yesterday (well, early for me), I made a prediction that democracy's maggot, Mitch McConnell, would allow for some changes in his ludicrously stringent rules for the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. I said that he would give in on the timeline of the opening statements, which were a punishing 24 hours over 2 days for each side, and on the admittance of evidence from the House investigation, which was going to require a vote on every piece introduced. I thought that it would come in a vote on an amendment from the Democrats, but, instead, McConnell made the changes (three days and accepting all evidence unless there is objection) before anything got started. This was the bone he tossed to give cover to the so-called "moderates," Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and Corey Gardner, along with the retiring Lamar Alexander. It will be the only ground McConnell gives. The fix is in so deeply that it would be impossible to pull it out of the clenched anus of the GOP.
2. Yes, you're right. Democratic House managers were incredible yesterday. They were so well-prepared, so eloquent, so passionate about the sanctity of the country, so filled with magnificent retorts and one-liners. It was the kind of ass kicking that even a barely literate electorate would watch, think, "Holy shit, Trump is just a motherfucker and so are these Republican motherfuckers in the Senate," and rise up to shut shit down until all Republicans were all chased out of town. But we are civic illiterates now, just hoping that we can live and die without anyone downvoting our Reddit comments.
3. Yes, you're right. Trump's legal team acted like a bunch of drunk frat douches (including fucking corrupt Pam Bondi) who knew their dads had already paid off the dean to make sure they get good grades so they can play on the lacrosse team this semester. They railed and ranted at the Democrats, accusing them of everything from hypocrisy to flat-out murdering the founders. They heaped praise on Trump, because of course they did. They talked shit and shit lies. They did everything but actually address a single fact. And they won't. They're giving a book report without having read the book. And they know they can do it because Mitch McConnell has already promised that this is a big fuckin' show that they're forced to go through because of that goddamn Constitution, which he can't actually rip up but would if he could.
4. We know how this ends. We know that the likelihood that there will be witnesses is the same likelihood that McConnell's face muscles will function like a normal human being's. And any conviction has the same probability that Lindsey Graham will remove his tongue from Donald Trump's asshole. The GOP does not have honorable people. They are cowards and punks and bitches and worms, dead frightened that Trump will say something fucked-up about them and unleash his bot and bastard online army to threaten to rape their dogs.
5. So if we know the outcome, then what's the game about? It's about 2020, obviously. It's about winning the Senate. It's about peeling away as many putative independents to tell Collins and Gardner to shove their moderation up their Trump-humping peeholes. The message should be as clear as possible: We're impeaching Trump now because he was trying to fuck with the 2020 election. If we waited until after the election, he'd have fucked with it. And Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell and the rest wanted his criminal ass to get away with it.
5a. Oh, and by the way, Trump still doesn't believe there was interference on his behalf in 2016, and McConnell has refused to do a goddamn thing to protect our elections.
5a. This is where the near-complete abandonment of the Mueller Report hurts Democrats. They could forcefully assert that Trump's attempt to get dirt on Biden was part of a pattern of soliciting foreign interference. But Democrats ended up allowing Trump and pudgy doom muffin William Barr set the terms of discussion of the report.
6. So we're getting a bullshit exercise in futility with this trial. But you should absolutely pass around clips of Hakeem Jeffries reaming Jay Sekulow. You should tell everyone about what a cockknob Pat Cipollone is. And you should campaign for whatever Democrats promise to burn the GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes.
2. Yes, you're right. Democratic House managers were incredible yesterday. They were so well-prepared, so eloquent, so passionate about the sanctity of the country, so filled with magnificent retorts and one-liners. It was the kind of ass kicking that even a barely literate electorate would watch, think, "Holy shit, Trump is just a motherfucker and so are these Republican motherfuckers in the Senate," and rise up to shut shit down until all Republicans were all chased out of town. But we are civic illiterates now, just hoping that we can live and die without anyone downvoting our Reddit comments.
3. Yes, you're right. Trump's legal team acted like a bunch of drunk frat douches (including fucking corrupt Pam Bondi) who knew their dads had already paid off the dean to make sure they get good grades so they can play on the lacrosse team this semester. They railed and ranted at the Democrats, accusing them of everything from hypocrisy to flat-out murdering the founders. They heaped praise on Trump, because of course they did. They talked shit and shit lies. They did everything but actually address a single fact. And they won't. They're giving a book report without having read the book. And they know they can do it because Mitch McConnell has already promised that this is a big fuckin' show that they're forced to go through because of that goddamn Constitution, which he can't actually rip up but would if he could.
4. We know how this ends. We know that the likelihood that there will be witnesses is the same likelihood that McConnell's face muscles will function like a normal human being's. And any conviction has the same probability that Lindsey Graham will remove his tongue from Donald Trump's asshole. The GOP does not have honorable people. They are cowards and punks and bitches and worms, dead frightened that Trump will say something fucked-up about them and unleash his bot and bastard online army to threaten to rape their dogs.
5. So if we know the outcome, then what's the game about? It's about 2020, obviously. It's about winning the Senate. It's about peeling away as many putative independents to tell Collins and Gardner to shove their moderation up their Trump-humping peeholes. The message should be as clear as possible: We're impeaching Trump now because he was trying to fuck with the 2020 election. If we waited until after the election, he'd have fucked with it. And Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell and the rest wanted his criminal ass to get away with it.
5a. Oh, and by the way, Trump still doesn't believe there was interference on his behalf in 2016, and McConnell has refused to do a goddamn thing to protect our elections.
5a. This is where the near-complete abandonment of the Mueller Report hurts Democrats. They could forcefully assert that Trump's attempt to get dirt on Biden was part of a pattern of soliciting foreign interference. But Democrats ended up allowing Trump and pudgy doom muffin William Barr set the terms of discussion of the report.
6. So we're getting a bullshit exercise in futility with this trial. But you should absolutely pass around clips of Hakeem Jeffries reaming Jay Sekulow. You should tell everyone about what a cockknob Pat Cipollone is. And you should campaign for whatever Democrats promise to burn the GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes.
1/20/2020
Martin Luther King Would Still Fuck Trump's Shit Up (2020 Edition)
Of course, the statement from Donald Trump's White House on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day would contain bullshit and bluster. The bluster is that Trump, who, with his terrible father, once excluded African Americans from their precious Queens condos, is making life better for black Americans when Barack Obama lit that economic fire that Trump has just not extinguished. The bullshit is this line: "The premise—and promise—of King’s dream is that we don’t need to replace or transform our Nation’s shared ideals to make our country a better place."
King talked about transformation of America's ideals for his entire life. Hell, in one of his last speeches, he talked about how "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." Indeed, his entire bullet-shortened life was devoted to saying that the status quo was not to be accepted, and that if certain "shared ideals" got us to this point, those ideals needed to be shitcanned (my word, not his). He had no use for the noise of conciliation. "A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus," he really did say (as opposed to all those fake quotes that float around Facebook memes.).
The above quotes are from a 1968 sermon. But I want to go back a decade, to his 1958 "Address Delivered at a Meeting Launching the SCLC Crusade for Citizenship at Greater Bethel AME Church" in Miami. In that speech, he assailed anyone who tried to prevent black people from exercising their right to vote (and he was very clear that it's a right, not a "privilege"). In doing so, King proved again that he would fuck up the shit of President Trump and the entire Republican Party. It was delivered on Lincoln's birthday as part of a big push by the Southern Christian Leadership Council to register voters.
Laying out how things should radically progress for black Americans, King said: "Let us make our intentions crystal clear. We must and we will be free. We want freedom now. We want the right to vote now. We do not want freedom fed to us in teaspoons over another 150 years. Under God we were born free. Misguided men robbed us of our freedom. We want it back; we would keep it forever. This is not idle chatter, for we know that sacrifice is involved, that brutality will be faced, that savage conduct will need to be endured, that slick trickery will need to be overcome, but we are resolutely prepared for all of this. We are prepared to meet whatever comes with love, with firmness and with unyielding nonviolence. We are prepared to press on unceasingly and persistently, to obtain our birthright and to hand it down to our children and to their children’s children."
And then, in one of those things that could have been written today, King lays the blame squarely at the feet of what we now call "red states" and on a political system invested in disenfranchisement: "Poor white men, women and children, bearing the scars of ignorance, deprivation, and poverty, are evidence of the fact that harm to one is injury to all. They, too, are victims of the one-party system that has developed in the South, a system that denies free political choice and real political expression to millions of white voters. With a limited electorate capable of being manipulated, reactionary men gained access to the highest legislative bodies of government. Today, because the Negro cannot vote, Congress is dominated by Southern Senators and representatives who are not elected in a fair nor in a legal manner. The strategic position of these men, as chairmen of the most important committees in House and Senate, enable them to filibuster and to bottle up legislation urgently needed for the economic and social welfare of all Americans, Negro and white. Hence, it may clearly be seen that it is not the Negro alone who suffers but the nation as a whole."
You got that, you cowardly motherfucking conservatives who desperately need to crush the radical Martin Luther King and remake him in your degraded image? King had your fucking number. He was beginning already in 1958 to push for a movement that would lift all people. And that scared the shit out of white politicians as much as allowing black people to vote and have power. Because if those poor whites figured out that the enemy wasn't their fellow poor people of another color but the rich pukes who kept them poor, the game was over. So the right retrenched on the racism and split the poor by exploiting the ignorance and prejudices of white people.
Martin Luther King would fuck our shit up today, still, because he saw our anti-democratic government for what it was. It's a goddamned shame that we still have done very little about it since the Civil Rights Act. Trump can take his "shared ideals" and shove them up his orange ass.
King talked about transformation of America's ideals for his entire life. Hell, in one of his last speeches, he talked about how "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." Indeed, his entire bullet-shortened life was devoted to saying that the status quo was not to be accepted, and that if certain "shared ideals" got us to this point, those ideals needed to be shitcanned (my word, not his). He had no use for the noise of conciliation. "A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus," he really did say (as opposed to all those fake quotes that float around Facebook memes.).
The above quotes are from a 1968 sermon. But I want to go back a decade, to his 1958 "Address Delivered at a Meeting Launching the SCLC Crusade for Citizenship at Greater Bethel AME Church" in Miami. In that speech, he assailed anyone who tried to prevent black people from exercising their right to vote (and he was very clear that it's a right, not a "privilege"). In doing so, King proved again that he would fuck up the shit of President Trump and the entire Republican Party. It was delivered on Lincoln's birthday as part of a big push by the Southern Christian Leadership Council to register voters.
Laying out how things should radically progress for black Americans, King said: "Let us make our intentions crystal clear. We must and we will be free. We want freedom now. We want the right to vote now. We do not want freedom fed to us in teaspoons over another 150 years. Under God we were born free. Misguided men robbed us of our freedom. We want it back; we would keep it forever. This is not idle chatter, for we know that sacrifice is involved, that brutality will be faced, that savage conduct will need to be endured, that slick trickery will need to be overcome, but we are resolutely prepared for all of this. We are prepared to meet whatever comes with love, with firmness and with unyielding nonviolence. We are prepared to press on unceasingly and persistently, to obtain our birthright and to hand it down to our children and to their children’s children."
And then, in one of those things that could have been written today, King lays the blame squarely at the feet of what we now call "red states" and on a political system invested in disenfranchisement: "Poor white men, women and children, bearing the scars of ignorance, deprivation, and poverty, are evidence of the fact that harm to one is injury to all. They, too, are victims of the one-party system that has developed in the South, a system that denies free political choice and real political expression to millions of white voters. With a limited electorate capable of being manipulated, reactionary men gained access to the highest legislative bodies of government. Today, because the Negro cannot vote, Congress is dominated by Southern Senators and representatives who are not elected in a fair nor in a legal manner. The strategic position of these men, as chairmen of the most important committees in House and Senate, enable them to filibuster and to bottle up legislation urgently needed for the economic and social welfare of all Americans, Negro and white. Hence, it may clearly be seen that it is not the Negro alone who suffers but the nation as a whole."
You got that, you cowardly motherfucking conservatives who desperately need to crush the radical Martin Luther King and remake him in your degraded image? King had your fucking number. He was beginning already in 1958 to push for a movement that would lift all people. And that scared the shit out of white politicians as much as allowing black people to vote and have power. Because if those poor whites figured out that the enemy wasn't their fellow poor people of another color but the rich pukes who kept them poor, the game was over. So the right retrenched on the racism and split the poor by exploiting the ignorance and prejudices of white people.
Martin Luther King would fuck our shit up today, still, because he saw our anti-democratic government for what it was. It's a goddamned shame that we still have done very little about it since the Civil Rights Act. Trump can take his "shared ideals" and shove them up his orange ass.
1/17/2020
Trump Loses Any Time He's Judged Objectively
This week, the Government Accountability Office, essentially the federal government's rule enforcer and auditor, located in the Legislative branch, put out a decision that the Trump administration violated the law when it withheld funds from Ukraine that Congress had appropriated for that country. The law that was broken is the Impoundment Control Act, which says that the president can only hold back funds if he or she asks Congress to do so. The law itself is very clear on how the president is supposed to inform Congress by a "special message" that includes several conditions. Donald Trump, of course, didn't inform Congress at all.
By the way, the law was passed by overwhelming bipartisan margins in 1973 and 1974 before being signed by Richard Nixon, who was, you know, a Republican.
The GAO's decision is pretty starkly clear: "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. In fact, Congress was concerned about exactly these types of withholdings when it enacted and later amended the ICA."
And it's fucking pissed at Trump and his Office of Management and Budget: "OMB and State have failed, as of yet, to provide the information we need to fulfill our duties under the ICA regarding potential impoundments of FMF [foreign military financing] funds...We consider a reluctance to provide a fulsome response to have constitutional significance. GAO’s role under the ICA—to provide information and legal analysis to Congress as it performs oversight of executive activity—is essential to ensuring respect for and allegiance to Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. All federal officials and employees take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution and its core tenets, including the congressional power of the purse."
You got that? Trump violated the damn law and told Congress to go fuck itself, and the White House's refusal to allow for any oversight is simply shitting on the oath of office. Although, really, considering that Trump-humping GOP senators took an oath to be objective in the impeachment trial, oaths don't really carry any weight for these disloyal pig fellaters.
The other thing that the GAO's statement demonstrates is a truism that has held throughout Trump's entire career: almost always, when an objective legal entity looks at Trump and the law, Trump loses or has to settle. He nearly invariably is shown to be a fucking scumbag. Of course, frustratingly, while he's lost, he has never faced consequences worse than losing some money. Others, like Michael Cohen, have, but not Trump. Still, Trump's record with his major cases is simply one of failure and loss.
(Note: "Objectivity," of course, is totally subjective. I'm saying that it exists when it doesn't involve someone who is a Trump toady, lackey, appointee, or Fox "news" regular guest. "Objective" means "relatively untainted by Trump.")
You could go with the Trump University fraud (settled for a $25 million payout), the Trump Foundation case (settled for a $2 million payout, an admission of misuse of funds, and a shuttering of the damn thing), or maybe the casino lobbying case from 2000 (settled for a $250,000 fine to avoid criminal prosecution over illegal lobbying).
Here's the thing: you don't pay millions of dollars in a settlement if you think you're innocent. You pay it just to stop a case before shit gets worse. In other words, so you can skate.
If there is one reason that Trump is losing his tiny fucked mind over impeachment and the Senate trial is because, in the minutely small possibility that shit goes south for him and Republicans grow a conscience (or dread facing a public that turns against them), there isn't dick he can do. Hell, he's fucked if witnesses are called. And he knows this. But there is no settlement this time. No deal to be made other than him quitting, and even then the SDNY is ready to cuff him.
He also knows that he's already, to some degree, lost by not stopping impeachment. He will forever be tied to Clinton and, even though he wasn't officially impeached, Nixon (I doubt he knows who Andrew Johnson is). His worse fear is being a loser, being mocked or laughed at, and he's already a loser and an object of derision.
The point here is that if the Senate were to actually have a "fair trial," Trump would be fucked beyond fucked. That's what Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and others have to prevent, and they'll likely be successful. I'm sure they'll come up with some way to calm down Romney, Murkowski, and other so-called "moderate Republicans." But there is always hope, however infinitesimal.
I just have to wonder: How fucking compromised do you have to be to wreck everything about the Constitution to support Donald fuckin' Trump? How low do you have to be? That's a question that we need answered some day.
By the way, the law was passed by overwhelming bipartisan margins in 1973 and 1974 before being signed by Richard Nixon, who was, you know, a Republican.
The GAO's decision is pretty starkly clear: "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. In fact, Congress was concerned about exactly these types of withholdings when it enacted and later amended the ICA."
And it's fucking pissed at Trump and his Office of Management and Budget: "OMB and State have failed, as of yet, to provide the information we need to fulfill our duties under the ICA regarding potential impoundments of FMF [foreign military financing] funds...We consider a reluctance to provide a fulsome response to have constitutional significance. GAO’s role under the ICA—to provide information and legal analysis to Congress as it performs oversight of executive activity—is essential to ensuring respect for and allegiance to Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. All federal officials and employees take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution and its core tenets, including the congressional power of the purse."
You got that? Trump violated the damn law and told Congress to go fuck itself, and the White House's refusal to allow for any oversight is simply shitting on the oath of office. Although, really, considering that Trump-humping GOP senators took an oath to be objective in the impeachment trial, oaths don't really carry any weight for these disloyal pig fellaters.
The other thing that the GAO's statement demonstrates is a truism that has held throughout Trump's entire career: almost always, when an objective legal entity looks at Trump and the law, Trump loses or has to settle. He nearly invariably is shown to be a fucking scumbag. Of course, frustratingly, while he's lost, he has never faced consequences worse than losing some money. Others, like Michael Cohen, have, but not Trump. Still, Trump's record with his major cases is simply one of failure and loss.
(Note: "Objectivity," of course, is totally subjective. I'm saying that it exists when it doesn't involve someone who is a Trump toady, lackey, appointee, or Fox "news" regular guest. "Objective" means "relatively untainted by Trump.")
You could go with the Trump University fraud (settled for a $25 million payout), the Trump Foundation case (settled for a $2 million payout, an admission of misuse of funds, and a shuttering of the damn thing), or maybe the casino lobbying case from 2000 (settled for a $250,000 fine to avoid criminal prosecution over illegal lobbying).
Here's the thing: you don't pay millions of dollars in a settlement if you think you're innocent. You pay it just to stop a case before shit gets worse. In other words, so you can skate.
If there is one reason that Trump is losing his tiny fucked mind over impeachment and the Senate trial is because, in the minutely small possibility that shit goes south for him and Republicans grow a conscience (or dread facing a public that turns against them), there isn't dick he can do. Hell, he's fucked if witnesses are called. And he knows this. But there is no settlement this time. No deal to be made other than him quitting, and even then the SDNY is ready to cuff him.
He also knows that he's already, to some degree, lost by not stopping impeachment. He will forever be tied to Clinton and, even though he wasn't officially impeached, Nixon (I doubt he knows who Andrew Johnson is). His worse fear is being a loser, being mocked or laughed at, and he's already a loser and an object of derision.
The point here is that if the Senate were to actually have a "fair trial," Trump would be fucked beyond fucked. That's what Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and others have to prevent, and they'll likely be successful. I'm sure they'll come up with some way to calm down Romney, Murkowski, and other so-called "moderate Republicans." But there is always hope, however infinitesimal.
I just have to wonder: How fucking compromised do you have to be to wreck everything about the Constitution to support Donald fuckin' Trump? How low do you have to be? That's a question that we need answered some day.
1/15/2020
Reminder: If You Defend Trump, You're Not Just Defending a Criminal. You're Enabling an Idiot.
Every time we click on the Twitter, we see that there is some new depth to which Donald Trump's criminality and venality and narcissism has sunk. In the latest, it looks like Lev Parnas, a power-hungry troll right out of hell's Central Casting, worked in coordination with ghoulish soul-sucker Rudy Giuliani and bloated Trump taint-licker Robert Hyde to spy on and, perhaps, at least entertain the idea of murdering then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch (Note: Parnas denied this outright in his interview with Rachel Maddow). The very foundation of the White House should have crumbled from revulsion at this point, but our capacity for scandal and shame has been calibrated to the point of uselessness. We need pitchforks and torches; we can barely manage to glance above our touchscreens because, well, really, what's the fucking use, right?
So if you're a Trump defender, whether one of his scum voters or a craven congressional worm, you're obviously comfortable with having a fucking criminal lead you because it makes you feel big and important. You're a failure of a human being, but fuck it. You gave up giving a shit when it turned out the Negro president was actually good at his job so you had to ignore reality and disappear into the Fox "news" matrix to survive. Now you're just a vessel getting pumped with a fantasy that comforts you and bears no relationship to the actual world.
And that means ignoring the blatant, pathetic, obvious truth that Donald Trump is not just a fucking criminal. He's a fucking dolt. He proves that every single time he opens that reverse garbage disposal of a mouth. Your mighty president really said this last night at his Rally of the Narrow-Eyed Dumbfucks in Milwaukee:
"I'm also approving new dishwashers that give you more water, so you can actually wash and rinse your dishes without having to do it. Ten times, four: five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Anybody have a new dishwasher? I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for that. It’s worthless! They give you so little water. You ever see it? Air comes out, so little water. So what happens? You end up using it 10 times, and the plates, then you take them out and do them the old-fashioned way, right? But what do you do? You’re spending 10 times for the electricity, right? So I’m putting the water back. Most places have so much water they don’t know what the hell to do with it. A lot of people don’t realize that.
So dishwashers, now, you’re going to have just as much as you’ve ever had, and you’re going to use now one shot, your dishes are going to be beautiful."
Let's pause here for two things. First, new dishwashers are fucking amazing and anyone who doesn't know that is so out of touch it's ridiculous. Yeah, it takes a little longer. Fuck you if that's a problem. Have a drink and chill. If you're complaining about dishwashers, you're sucking Koch brother cock because, of course, those oil-filthy sons of bitches don't want anything that's energy efficient.
And, second, listen to the crowd actually cheer for this bulbous dickhead as he rants about dishwashers and toilets. He's blatantly lying and exaggerating, but the coprophagic yahoos gobble this shit like it's falling from crucified Christ's dead asshole. That's the point, right? To make sure that everyone goes along with his stupid. To reveal just how decadently dumb the country is.
The evening went on with Trump agreeing with a numbnuts in the crowd and saying of Democrats, "They are traitors, when you think about it." The drooling cretins screamed their approval. He said, again about Democrats, "These people are sick, but they're the party of late-term abortion, socialism, and corruption." People in a state that received over $350 million in subsidies to help its farms booed socialism.
There's a moment in Trump's hee-haw rally in Toledo last week that has stuck with me. He was bragging about how the Iraqi and American forces handled the recent riots at the American embassy in Baghdad, comparing it to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. This is what Trump said last Thursday: "We did it exactly the opposite of Benghazi, where they got there so late. All they saw when they got there days later were burning embers from days before. It's all they saw. We got there very early. We saw what was happening. I saw what was happening. I said what's that all about? And that was going to be another Benghazi had they broken through the final panels of glass."
The "attack" on the embassy on December 31, 2019, was comprised of protesters pushing in, breaking some shit, and lighting some fires. It was quickly broken up with tear gas and by the protesters themselves, who backed off. The attack on the Benghazi consulate was by organized militias using grenades, mortars, and automatic weapons (and forces didn't get there "days later;" it was within hours). It's like comparing a stubbed toe to having your foot chopped off. But this motherfucker in the White House will hype every goddamn thing he does and degrade anything done by anyone else.
The House of Representatives just delivered the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate in one of our weird-ass rituals. The trial will start next week. Republicans will be defending a blatant criminal, a violent coward, and a rank moron, declaring that he must be allowed to complete his term and even be reelected. That says something sad and depressing about every single Republican and every single Republican voter.
Goddamn, don't you even think you deserve better? Or, perhaps, this dumb motherfucker really is the best you can do and you gotta cling to him like parasites on a plump body.
1/07/2020
This Cowardly Nation Has Learned Nothing Since the Iraq War
Donald Trump is a coward. This much we must agree on before moving on. Everything he does, everything he has done, is based on his soul-draining fears. He fears that he will not be perceived as a success, a tough guy, a charmer, a winner of everything. He lashes out at anyone who foments those fears, those who tell him he's wrong, or those who want to hinder him. He is driven by his panic that everyone will find out that he is entirely a fake, entirely a fraud. He is running away from the legacy of the still-beloved Barack Obama and the laughter that accompanies any comparison between him and the last president. Just like the buildings and products and businesses, he is merely a body, a vessel that has the word "Trump" stamped on it, and, goddamnit, that name better mean something or it all crumbles. In the business world, this led him to wildly overspend and wrongly invest, which led him to need financing from the skeeviest elements in the banking system, which led him to the presidency, which led us to this pivotal moment, one pivotal moment among far, far too many.
But we know that. We knew that when he started talking and blustering about all the ways he would kick this person's ass or that country's balls. A man who uses the phrase "bomb the shit out of them" when talking about a bunch of bedraggled, starving terrorists who live among civilians who don't want them there hasn't an ounce of courage in him. We know that we have been led by cowards who talk tough about the enemy because it's all they can do to cover up for their intense cowardice that hangs like a vulture ready to peck out their eyes. Mostly Republicans, yes, but too often pathetic Democrats join in this mask of bloodlust.
There is another kind of cowardice, the fear of action, the fear that if you say what you mean, reveal what you know, show where the bodies are buried, that you yourself will suffer even if it means stopping the suffering of, oh, hell, let's say the world.
The specific cowards I'm talking about here are the ones who proclaim anonymously to friends in the media and in the political world that what Trump is doing is wrong, is madness, and is opposed by people around him. This Twitter thread from Reza Marashi with "career U.S. government officials" talking about the breakdown of the entire foreign policy apparatus of the country is a good example, and there was a time where we could forgive people who are twenty years into their careers and just wanted to put food on the table for not wanting the wrath of Trump and his bot army and Fox "news."
But not anymore. Because, see, we did this fuckin' dance before. We did the whole "many people knew" but didn't say on the record jig on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now we're doing it again, this time with Iran and every other impending disaster. Democrats will tell us, "I've spoken to Republican colleagues who said Trump is wrong." And then there are the Republicans who speak to each other or to their favorite reporters without attribution that they are queasy about what Trump is shitting out today.
Look at this article from Politico in November. Once you wipe off the oozy glaze of insider jizz that is spewed across every Politico article, you get a glimpse of the depth of the cowardice of the Republican Party. The article is ostensibly about the treatment of Francis Rooney, a second-term Republican from Florida who dared to get bolder about his dislike of Trump.
Just a sample:
"Venting privately about the U.S. president has become a hallowed pastime in Republican-controlled Washington, a sort of ritualistic release for those lawmakers tasked with routinely defending the indefensible."
"Of course, the yawning delta between what Republicans feel privately and what they say publicly has been a defining theme of the Trump era."
"There is a sizable number of Republican senators and representatives who believe Trump’s actions are at least theoretically impeachable, who believe a thorough fact-finding mission is necessary, who believe his removal from office is not an altogether radical idea."
Every single motherfucking one of those Republicans is a goddamned coward, afraid of what Trump will do if they dare say that criminal is a criminal, that a madman is a madman, that an idiot is an idiot. And now we might be sending more soldiers to die and allowing untold thousands of civilians to die in another stupid, useless war based on a gruel of lies that's so thin that not even Colin Powell could force it down.
Democrats need to out the Republicans who oppose Trump privately. Make them have to deny or defend themselves. Reporters need to burn their sources. That last quote up there is "from dozens of interviews with GOP lawmakers, congressional aides and White House staffers over the past month." How many people need to die in order for a Politico reporter to scoop those bastards at the Washington Post?
Time and again, the cowards allow their fear to wreck us. And you might say that you're not a coward, that you actually believe in a war with Iran and everything the president says. Well, then you're just an accomplice.
And those of us who allow them to get away with it time and again, for, indeed, the crisis we're in now is a direct result of not punishing those who caused the crisis last time, we also risk becoming accomplices.
But we know that. We knew that when he started talking and blustering about all the ways he would kick this person's ass or that country's balls. A man who uses the phrase "bomb the shit out of them" when talking about a bunch of bedraggled, starving terrorists who live among civilians who don't want them there hasn't an ounce of courage in him. We know that we have been led by cowards who talk tough about the enemy because it's all they can do to cover up for their intense cowardice that hangs like a vulture ready to peck out their eyes. Mostly Republicans, yes, but too often pathetic Democrats join in this mask of bloodlust.
There is another kind of cowardice, the fear of action, the fear that if you say what you mean, reveal what you know, show where the bodies are buried, that you yourself will suffer even if it means stopping the suffering of, oh, hell, let's say the world.
The specific cowards I'm talking about here are the ones who proclaim anonymously to friends in the media and in the political world that what Trump is doing is wrong, is madness, and is opposed by people around him. This Twitter thread from Reza Marashi with "career U.S. government officials" talking about the breakdown of the entire foreign policy apparatus of the country is a good example, and there was a time where we could forgive people who are twenty years into their careers and just wanted to put food on the table for not wanting the wrath of Trump and his bot army and Fox "news."
But not anymore. Because, see, we did this fuckin' dance before. We did the whole "many people knew" but didn't say on the record jig on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now we're doing it again, this time with Iran and every other impending disaster. Democrats will tell us, "I've spoken to Republican colleagues who said Trump is wrong." And then there are the Republicans who speak to each other or to their favorite reporters without attribution that they are queasy about what Trump is shitting out today.
Look at this article from Politico in November. Once you wipe off the oozy glaze of insider jizz that is spewed across every Politico article, you get a glimpse of the depth of the cowardice of the Republican Party. The article is ostensibly about the treatment of Francis Rooney, a second-term Republican from Florida who dared to get bolder about his dislike of Trump.
Just a sample:
"Venting privately about the U.S. president has become a hallowed pastime in Republican-controlled Washington, a sort of ritualistic release for those lawmakers tasked with routinely defending the indefensible."
"Of course, the yawning delta between what Republicans feel privately and what they say publicly has been a defining theme of the Trump era."
"There is a sizable number of Republican senators and representatives who believe Trump’s actions are at least theoretically impeachable, who believe a thorough fact-finding mission is necessary, who believe his removal from office is not an altogether radical idea."
Every single motherfucking one of those Republicans is a goddamned coward, afraid of what Trump will do if they dare say that criminal is a criminal, that a madman is a madman, that an idiot is an idiot. And now we might be sending more soldiers to die and allowing untold thousands of civilians to die in another stupid, useless war based on a gruel of lies that's so thin that not even Colin Powell could force it down.
Democrats need to out the Republicans who oppose Trump privately. Make them have to deny or defend themselves. Reporters need to burn their sources. That last quote up there is "from dozens of interviews with GOP lawmakers, congressional aides and White House staffers over the past month." How many people need to die in order for a Politico reporter to scoop those bastards at the Washington Post?
Time and again, the cowards allow their fear to wreck us. And you might say that you're not a coward, that you actually believe in a war with Iran and everything the president says. Well, then you're just an accomplice.
And those of us who allow them to get away with it time and again, for, indeed, the crisis we're in now is a direct result of not punishing those who caused the crisis last time, we also risk becoming accomplices.
1/01/2020
Haiku Review of 2019: The Last Haiku (of 2019, That Is)
Yeah, yeah, officially it's 2020, but let's finish off 2019 with another bunch of haiku, submitted by you (maybe not you, but probably you). And then we'll put away the haiku machine for another year, assuming we survive this one.
And away we go...
From Pencederast from America in Ruins:
Our days in Trumpland
A grim ceaseless parade of
Huh? and what the fuck?
From Blake L:
Read Mueller's report
Tell me Trump did not obstruct
Then go fuck yourself.
From Sukatra:
Best Sex Ever
I'm imagining
a presidential jail cell.
Damn. Just orgasmed!
From Seattle Steamer:
Nancy moves on Trump
Like a bitch. They let you do
that when you're Speaker.
From Sheila in New York:
Mistress of the House
Living rent-free in Donald’s
Putin-controlled head
From Mel in rural Oregon:
When the chips are down
Nunes calls for his lawyer
To corral that cow.
From Kate in New York:
This year up in smoke
Marijuana busting loose
Growing like a weed
From Tom in Tucson:
Resurrection
A. G. Billy Barr
Wants his Jesus back pronto.
Democracy weeps.
From Grumpy, Esq:
War Criminal
Eddie Gallagher
Is the George Zimmerman of
William L. Calleys
From Defense Liberal in Maryland:
Swimming Lessons
Mar-a-Lago sinks
Beneath the warm rising seas
Foul faux Atlantis
From Zack in New Mexico:
Spoiler Alert
Innocent and old
I feel like Baby Yoda
Punched in the ruck sack
Now 2019 is done. Kick it to the curb and let's see if 2020 is gonna fuck up the joint more or help pay the rent.
And away we go...
From Pencederast from America in Ruins:
Our days in Trumpland
A grim ceaseless parade of
Huh? and what the fuck?
From Blake L:
Read Mueller's report
Tell me Trump did not obstruct
Then go fuck yourself.
From Sukatra:
Best Sex Ever
I'm imagining
a presidential jail cell.
Damn. Just orgasmed!
From Seattle Steamer:
Nancy moves on Trump
Like a bitch. They let you do
that when you're Speaker.
From Sheila in New York:
Mistress of the House
Living rent-free in Donald’s
Putin-controlled head
From Mel in rural Oregon:
When the chips are down
Nunes calls for his lawyer
To corral that cow.
From Kate in New York:
This year up in smoke
Marijuana busting loose
Growing like a weed
From Tom in Tucson:
Resurrection
A. G. Billy Barr
Wants his Jesus back pronto.
Democracy weeps.
From Grumpy, Esq:
War Criminal
Eddie Gallagher
Is the George Zimmerman of
William L. Calleys
From Defense Liberal in Maryland:
Swimming Lessons
Mar-a-Lago sinks
Beneath the warm rising seas
Foul faux Atlantis
From Zack in New Mexico:
Spoiler Alert
Innocent and old
I feel like Baby Yoda
Punched in the ruck sack
Now 2019 is done. Kick it to the curb and let's see if 2020 is gonna fuck up the joint more or help pay the rent.