Links for the new year

Here are the links:

Hillary Clinton Makes Kids Gay

I like OLDMAN CAT

Is Jeb! giving up?

We Miss Calvin and Hobbes

This nails it

Star Wars: The Book

Couch Thing
That's it for now.

I know that you are afraid

The economy has recovered. Put that in quotes, though. "Recovered" in that corporations and the very wealthy are doing great. The average worker, however, doesn't feel much recovery. Wages have stagnated. The advent of the 401k in place of a pension means that most people will die working. Retirement is gone. A few very wealthy families own everything and the rest of us fight over scraps from the table. The good jobs have left and they aren't coming back. The safety net has been shredded.

All of this is by design. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

This was the fever dream of Art Laffer and Ronald Reagan and their Plutocrat masters. But don't worry about that. Ignore it.

They know that they can keep doing this, keep redistributing the wealth upward, keep turning Americans into indenture servants as long as they keep you afraid.

FOX news and The Moonies and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh work for the Koch Bros. They do their bidding and do it well. They've made you afraid of Mexicans who will steal your job because they are too lazy to work and want welfare (?????). Afraid of Muslim terrorists who are stalking your every move and murdering millions of American every year (!!!!!). Afraid of Blacks who are commiting genocide against cops (seriously). Afraid of gays who are forcing you to have hot gay sex (at least, they are forcing Lindsey Graham to have hot gay sex). Afraid of hippes and vegans. Afraid of atheists who will steal XMAS (we atheists are all very much like the grinch).

Stay afraid. Be terrified. Vote Trump (or Cruz, or Rubio, or Jeb! or any of the other corporate tools). Soon you can work 18 hour shifts to get company script to spend in the company store. Just do as you're told and follow the part line.

Republicans for Sanders?

This amazing image blew my mind:

More

Everything that is wrong with America in one image

Offered without comment:

He comes from downtown

I said this before, but I need to say it again:

Third prize is you're fucking fired

Am I the only one who looks at the current Republican nomination fights and sees a play written by David Mamet if Mamet had no empathy at all for his characters? Jeb is the former golden boy who has seen his glory fade and just wants a taste of what he had. He's willing to kill (or rob the store, or whatever) for it. Walker is the upstart who just know that he was born to win and will never, never get his comeuppance. Rubio is the wild card hustler living out on the edge and ready to make his move. Carson gets shot in act two. Sorry guys, but that's how it goes. Fiorina is the life beaten beauty, looking for one last score on the backs of taxpayers. Perry is the dangerous man. He's the goddamned godfather goddammit!

And the Trump. Trump comes from Downtown. Trump comes from Mitch and Murry. This watch costs more than your car and put that fucking coffee down! Coffee is for closers. It takes brass balls to win a nomination.  And these fools are all standing around playing guess his real name.

This shit would be funny if they didn't want to run the world.

Tonight the links are coming

It's not just me, right? Scott Walker always looks stoned:

And now, the links:


End of the world appeal

Christianist History

That Benson thing continues

Social Politics

Brooks and Trump

Campaign Zero

Racism and JEB!

Zombie Club

That's it, kiddies.

Trump and the Mirror

Everyone is talking about what a hate filled, bigoted, slow witted, unserious candidate Donald Trump is. Well, everyone who isn’t one of his millions of rabid acolytes, anyway. In truth, the everyone I’m talking about includes only those members of the punditry that aren’t also hate filled, bogoted, slow witted, unserious people. So, a few people are talking about what a hate filled, bigoted, slow witted, unserious candidate Donald Trump is. 

But, what isn’t being mentioned is that he isn’t an outlier. The GOP debate was filled with people who fit that metric. Jeb! May not hate the Mexicans as much as Trump, but he certainly hates the poor and all those “Asian anchor babies”. Walker is as slow witted and unserious as anyone ever. Rand TM Paul isn’t all that far from his Daddy Ron’s white power newsletters. Huckabee is one step away from saying gays must be stoned in the town square. 

They all seem to either hate women outright or at least view women as weirdly subservient sex providers and child raisers.

They all support policies that will gut freedom, wreck the economy and redistribute what is left of the wealth into the hands of a few wealthy individuals and corporations. 

They all fall in line with anti-science corporate greed.

They all support authoritarian police state tactics that lead to the murder of unarmed black men, women and children.

They all suck.

When will the media notice that all of the Republican candidates are just like Trump, but with better manners?

Trump's War on Megyn Kelly's Lady Parts

Over at Fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver argues that Donald Trump cannot win a war with FOX news. He has a good point. FOX is more powerful in the Republican echo chamber than most people can imagine.  However, I think that this may be a war that The Trump doesn't need to "win".

Ezra Klein gives some background at VOX that you should read. After you've absorbed that, consider this: Trump is building himself as the leader of the conservative malcontents, the outsiders, the TeaBagger King, as it were. These people actually believe that FOX is too liberal. This is the group that Cliven Bundy and Sovereign Citizens everywhere belong to (as much as anarchists can belng to groups). They see FOX as part of the Republican establishment, part of the JEB! wing of the party. They need FOX, but they are naturally distrustful of it.

This is the group that Trump courts by taking on Megyn Kelly. He gets to stand up to the group that no other Republican has the balls to stand up to. Sure, in doing so he likely turned off around 30% of REpublican primary voters, but another 30% fell in even deeper love with him. I think that he comes out ahead on this in the long run.

Plus, since he is fighting with a woman and doing so on clearly sexist terms (attacking her for bleeding from her "wherever"), he bolsters his he man woman hater cred, which is a great way to win the dumb white male over 50 vote (you know, Republicans). This is win/win/win territory. 

Seriously, in the battle for crazy and evil Trump is head and shoulders above the other Republicans.

On a side note, the audience during the debate cheered nearly everything Trump said. Only Trump excited the audience. When you're wondering who Republicans are and what they stand for, remember those cheers. 

Laugh about it, shout about it

The GOP debate was fucking weird. The FOX news crew teamed up with nine ultra-conservative fucks to try to ratfuck Donald Trump out of existence. The funny part was that they failed. Really fucking failed. These pissants cannot play at the same level as THE DONALD. The crowd loved the bloody red meat he kept flinging.

I'll eat my hat if Trump doesn't come out of this stronger. The thing is, this is what FOX and the Koch Cabal have been building. They have worked so hard to create an underclass of uninformed, spiteful, bigots to fuel their hegemony. Now Trump shows up to embody all of it and they are terrified that he could end up as their nominee.

On a side note, Rand Paul is finished. That's it.

The best debate commentary can be found here,  and

here

and

of course here but 

those good people at wonkette have the mostest and bestest things to say on the subject. Read them, not us.

Third prize is you're fucking fired

Am I the only one who looks at the current Republican nomination fights and sees a play written by David Mamet if Mamet had no empathy at all for his characters? Jeb is the former golden boy who has seen his glory fade and just wants a taste of what he had. He's willing to kill (or rob the store, or whatever) for it. Walker is the upstart who just know that he was born to win and will never, never get his comeuppance. Rubio is the wild card hustler living out on the edge and ready to make his move. Carson gets shot in act two. Sorry guys, but that's how it goes. Fiorina is the life beaten beauty, looking for one last score on the backs of taxpayers. Perry is the dangerous man. He's the goddamned godfather goddammit!

And the Trump. Trump comes from Downtown. Trump comes from Mitch and Murry. This watch costs more than your car and put that fucking coffee down! Coffee is for closers. It takes brass balls to win a nomination.  And these fools are all standing around playing guess his real name.

This shit would be funny if they didn't want to run the world.