Q NOTES # K+48: Wrong, Ronnie

I just read an item at Daily Kos about Waste of Shit's leading challenger in the thrilling race to be the MAGA Monkey party's 2024 nominee. That would be Oily Ronnie DeSanitized, who's advocating a big shakeup in the MM Party power structure because of their losses in consecutive 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.

DeSanitized particularly pointed at 2022 in his critique: Most voters had a negative attitude about the country's direction, which should have produced midterm election results heavily favoring MAGA Monkeys. Maybe the oily asshole ought to consider the strong possibility that many (or most) American voters would blame their negative attitudes on MAGA Monkeys like Waste of Shit, DeSanitized himself, Empty Greene, Rafael (Ted) Cruz, Greg Abutt, Moscow Mitch, and all the other usual suspects. 

Oily Ronnie is rapidly turning Florida into a dystopian red state shit hole.

American media, especially powers like The New York Times, have failed miserably in their responsibility to keep the electorate informed. Most of the current mess in the USA could have been avoided if the media had reported nothing but the truth.

Scump vs Fox News

From what I've read, Scump has gone on the attack against Fox News again. He seems to believe that some elements at the network haven't been as subservient as he demands, and that he can whip them into line with a series of disdainful tweets. On Twitter, Scump can pretend that he's the baddest motherfucker in town.

It would serve the national interest if Scump could turn most of the zombies who follow him against Fox News.

PS: Exposing Scump's incompetence, corruption, and dishonesty is NOT the same as jeopardizing national security. Ignoring those things, however, does jeopardize national security.

What we think it is versus what it really is

One reason people are confused and depressed is that, by and large, our news media sources are incompetent in the way they present information. This may be the result of laziness in some cases. At any rate, there's an example of media incompetence creating a false understanding in process, and it's discussed here. Thanks to inept reporting, a lot of people are upset and shouldn't be, and a lot of others are happy and shouldn't be. When people who are paid to report news can't do it in a highly capable manner, bad situations can be made worse because of the speed at which misinformation travels now.

Another LTTE from an IRA re: AOC

Old habits die hard, and I suppose that's why I still buy newspapers in the ink-on-paper format once or twice a week, usually on impulse. I always skim the letters to the editor on the op-ed pages, and I've noticed that the Chronicle tends to publish letters from a select few IRA's (Ignorant Republican Assholes) on a fairly regular basis. One of the chosen IRA's apparently couldn't resist the urge to add his opinion to the right-wing hysteria re: AOC. This is a verbatim excerpt from the letter submitted by an IRA identified as J. Reynolds of Houston:

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a legislative perfect storm of economic illiteracy, vacuous constituency, entitlement mentality, and ignorance of history."

"The past is littered with similar obvious incompetents who attained power unexpectedly and then inflicted all sorts of destruction."

J. Reynolds is too eaten up with a severe case of the dumbass to realize he's just described The Motherfucker to a T. If I were making the rules, all of these people would be required to wear red MAGA caps and arm bands with IRA in big red letters. We need to be able to identify them at a glance.

Penalties

I've been pondering the matter for several weeks, and I've concluded that we need to be punished, and it should be swift, certain, and painful. The part about painful is especially important, because Donnie Doolittle is the kind of horrible mistake this country can never afford to make again. It's unfortunate that the people who actually voted for the worthless asshole won't be forced to suffer all of the punishment, but that's life. Nobody promised us it would be fair.

If (when) it comes, the punishment will surprise most people, since the media have neglected their responsibility to report the truth and keep the public informed. Instead, they've focused on the TV reality show aspects of the fiasco. 

A Closed Loop

There are reports that the so-called precedent (sic) spends several hours every day watching Fox News, which is now a primary information source for him. Every time he dreams up something like an Obama conspiracy to tap his phone, he then watches how his tweets are being covered on Fox News for the hourly dose of affirmation his sick ego requires. This is the validation that motivates him to churn out more feverish fantasies, which in turn leads to more public stroking from Fox News. Call it the circle game.

Speech Therapy

The so-called precedent (sic) is scheduled to deliver his first state of the onion (sic) address tonight. I wouldn't watch 10 seconds of that horse's ass without being financially rewarded, maybe 100 dollars per second for starters, then 200 dollars per second after the first minute.

I pledged when George W. Bush took office that I'd go out of my way to avoid seeing him on television in any live context (speeches, press conferences, etc), but frankly, Bush 43 looks like he belongs on Mount Rushmore compared to Comrade Creamsicle. If I refused to watch W, there's no fucking way I'll watch the azzwhole without significant compensation.

Daily Kos is pretty sure the azzwhole will bomb tonight, and it's only a matter of how deep the crater will be. One key will be how much time he wastes bragging about his personal awesomeness and his magnificent Electoral College victory.

The first speech he made after taking the oath of office probably set the pattern. That was widely criticized as the worst inaugural address since the invention of the radio. Will he do it again tonight?

Added 10:40 PM same day:

Holy crap, he just can't control himself, can he?

According to this shit nozzle on CNN, Comrade Creamsicle read some words for nearly an hour with no diarrhea other than the verbal kind, therefore tonight, he became the president. This is the sort of deep analysis and critical judgment that caused me to abandon cable news channels after the 2012 election.

Kneel before him?

He summoned them?

 Are you shitting me?

When will network leaders finally realize the orange asshole needs the networks a lot more than they need him?

Cut the fat motherfucker off today. Complete blackout.  He'll be crawling to them in less than two hours, begging for attention.

Take Juan and pass 'em along.

I'm always suspicious when a supposed liberal ends up on the Fox News payroll, which is why I'm not surprised that Juan Williams is mixed up in what is, at bare minimum, a serious violation of journalistic ethics. There was a time when I took Juan seriously, but that's over now.

Recruits

See, this is the kind of crap that pisses me off about the major media in this state. A story that's supposed to be about Texas A&M's recent success in football recruiting is mostly about the implications of Aggie success for the damned Longhorns.

Pushing It

There are downsides to everything, and one downside to American freedoms of speech and religion is Fred Phelps, who operates the Kansas sect known as Westboro Baptist Church. As I understand it, Westboro has about 70 members, most of whom are Fred's family and relatives. Fred and his small band of followers believe that God hates homosexuality so much that he kills off soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to punish America for allowing it. It would be better for everyone if God just held his breath until his face turned blue, but noooo. Fred realized that he can get lots of attention by pushing his free speech rights to the absolute limit, then well past that point, by picketing funerals. It's unfortunate, but the easiest way to get free publicity and TV time is to do outrageous stuff. Fred and Sarah Palin understand that, and take advantage of it.

More Newzzzzzzz...

As if he didn't have enough war to deal with in Afghanistan, it now seems that Obama is at war with Fox News Channel. Seriously, who gives a spinning shit about this "controversy"  except the usual whine-and-cheese crowd on the right wing ? No one with a lick of sense REALLY believes that FNC is a legitimate, objective news organization, and that includes many conservatives.

Clarification, etymology, maps and fails

Last night I got an email from my bro in Houston questioning the assertion in the preceding post that Speedbump could win the Electoral College vote by holding Ohio and Florida and flipping Pennsylvania. When I first read about the Repub strategy to concede the popular vote and win it in the EC, I went to the various websites that feature interactive EC vote calculators and other toys and began playing around to see if the scenario was plausible. Lo and behold, I found that it was, provided that Speedbump also wins four states that are currently classified as tossups: Nevada, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. In those states, Obama is ahead or behind within the margin of error, and all four have typically gone GOP in recent elections. In my mind, it was no stretch to award them to the Republicans again. Confusion, my bad.

Since 1968, Ohio and Missouri have voted for the ultimate winner in every single presidential election. These two states seem to be excellent predictors for election outcomes, and eventually the Dems need to figure out how to win at least one of them. As things stand today, Obama and Ace are neck-and-neck in both locations, and that's my single best reason for staying with my official position that Ace will win on November 4th.

A few weeks ago I subscribed to Slate Magazine's online daily newsletter. The other day, I read their article about the etymology of the word fail, currently used as a noun at virtually every blog I frequent. Fail (the noun) apparently originated in the world of arcade gaming, a world with which I'm totally unfamiliar but which is the breeding ground for many internet geeks. The term I frequently see is Epic Fail, the meaning of which is easy to discern: collapse of a high order of magnitude. The conventional wisdom is that Speedbump's campaign is an epic fail, but I can't shake my nagging concern that Obama's actually the one headed for epic fail.

A hot blog topic yesterday was the Associated Press national poll showing Obama with some ridiculously narrow lead, one point as I recall. This dragged his lead in all the poll averages way, way down and led to much glee at the rightwing blogs and much worried analysis at the liberal ones. AP, recently sympathetic to Speedbump, used "likely voter" variables that resulted in born-again evangelunicals being counted at a higher rate than they occur in nature. The conspiracy theorists on the left surmised that AP was administering a steroid injection to boost the spirits of Repub voters, hoping to prevent a "sitting-this-one-out" trend. The possible unintended consequence is that Dem voter alarm over reports that Ace is a hair's breadth from the White House may shake them out of the complacency that 10-point leads can generate.

Added 12:20 pm: From your lips to God's ear. Two new polls reported online this morning have Obama leading in Ohio by more than ten points. If Obama wins Ohio, it probably means he holds Pennsylvania and this bad boy gets put to bed early.

Am I dreaming things, or does it seem unusual that a campaign running on the slogan Country First is always comparing different parts of the country and finding some parts are more American (i.e., better) than others ?

Four more years ! Four more years !

It's time to get back into my hunker-down mode. Based on the signals we're getting these days, it's almost definite the next four years are going to look a lot like the last eight.

First, media cheerleading. From the time W announced his candidacy for the 2000 Repub nomination until the bottom fell out in 2006, the news media were signed on. Rove and his staff sat around the White House and planned what the news was gonna be, then sent it out and the media printed and broadcast it damned near verbatim. When Cheney decided we needed a war in Iraq, the media were cheerleaders for the effort from day one and did their part in selling all those lies that some dumbass Americans still believe to this day.

Now we see them doing the same kind of cheerleading for Ace and Sweet Pea. It's not that Ace isn't making any mistakes, it's just that they aren't getting reported in the news. And the Pea is almost totally a media creation. You don't skyrocket from the anonymity of Wasilla, Alaska to the office of VP without some really good publicity. The absence of an adversarial press made it easy for W's gang to get away with stuff bordering on high crimes and misdemeanors; based on all the signs so far, it looks like Ace and Mooseburger will also be getting a free ride.

Which leads to the second signal. The defining characteristic of W's administration, besides gross incompetence, has been secrecy and lack of accountability. Having the so-called free press as willing accomplices made it easy for the executive branch to dummy up any time it suited them, and of course Congress was also out to lunch. No accountability ever, until the majority of the damage had been done. Now we have one of Ace's campaign staff honchos announcing the media won't have access to Mooseburger until they've learned to be suitably deferential. Yeah, the motherfrakker actually said that. If it's starting this early, you can bet Ace's presidency will be just like W's when it comes to secrecy and no one ever being held accountable for anything.

It looks like the Dems picked the wrong year to mail in a forfeit.

Cokie and things better left unsaid

Some media talking heads, including Cokie Roberts, think Obama's making a mistake taking his vacation time in Hawaii. Not American enough.

I checked and sure enough, Hawaii was admitted to the union in August 1959. I was still a pre-teen when it happened, but I remember it. I would've thought a trip to Hawaii was pretty American.

Just how eaten up with the dumbass are our American news personalities ? When will they finally bottom out ? And by the way, are we really supposed to give a shit what somebody named Cokie thinks about anything ?

Mo' Mojo

In a subsequent e-mail, my buddy Mojo supplied his commentary on the "smear video" from Ace's campaign featuring the juxtaposition of Barry Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. According to Mojo, the comparison was apt because all three only appeal to young morons. I suppose I'm included in the moron category although the "young" qualification doesn't apply. Mojo is one of the millions of Americans who recognize they've been shafted by the Republicans, but can't come to terms with any of the current alternatives. It's a perfect dilemma, and he has my sympathy.

Anyway, I figured if this commercial was important enough to stir Mojo into pounding out a few sentences on his keyboard, I'd better check it out for myself. So I did.

It begins with the words "He's the biggest celebrity in the world, BUT..."

Here's Ace, not in the best of health and rapidly aging, married to an attractive younger woman with millions in the bank, and down in his gut he knows she'll be around long after he's history, still spending those millions. It probably eats at him, which is why he approved a message that reeks of envy: "He's the biggest celebrity on earth, and here I am, looking old and insignificant, and most people in my party are only supporting me because they haven't got a choice. Man, life sucks."

As if this campaign wasn't ridiculous enough already, there's an article in the Wall Street Journal that sprays fresh gasoline on the fire: Obama is too thin. He's slim and athletic, eats right and exercises. Plays basketball, for cryin' out loud. A significant portion of the voting public is made up of people who can't see their feet because their bellies are in the way, and whose idea of exercise is walking up and down the snack food aisles at Walmart. Barry, being young and healthy-looking, can't possibly "connect" with a country where obesity's considered an epidemic. So let's go with the old guy with cancer instead. Great. This is what passes for analysis in the WSJ and unfortunately may be closer to the truth than not, given what we know about the way Americans think.

On a tangentially-related note, Senator Ted Stevens pleads Not Guilty. He doesn't know how that 250,000 bucks got there, honest. Alaskans are apparently competing with Texans for the 'inexplicable voting' championship. In a perfect world, Stevens would finish out his years doing a little time, but he'll probably be elected to another term instead.