G'Day Bruce

Going to concerts used to be a primary form of entertainment for me. Some of that just comes with youth, but much of my concert history was because I worked in record retail for 13 years, starting in college. The job was shitty but the perks made up for it: free albums/tapes/CDs, posters, various swag, and of course, concert tickets.

From 1979 to 1996 I saw 95 concerts. In the 28 years since, only 14. And that’s fine… there are far fewer bands that I would even consider going to see. Sweetpea and I have only seen three. One was John Mellencamp, one of her favorites. That was a birthday gift for her in 2019.

Two years ago, we saw ZZ Top. It was my 5^th time seeing them and it seemed like each show was shorter than the last. This time, they started encores after an hour of playing, and the show wrapped up 18 minutes later.

This brings us to last Friday when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band played Camden Yards in Baltimore. (The baseball park where the Orioles play.) These tickets fell into my lap.

I had considered trying to go when the show was originally scheduled, but you know how Ticketmaster is with the big shows… First, you have to join some kind of club to get a special access password or some shit. Then log on at the split second the website opens for business. And maybe, just maybe, you win the right to pay an outrageous sum for the privilege of being allowed to attend. Who needs it?

Bruce postponed the 2023 concert due to health issues and later rescheduled it for last weekend.

My brother had bought a pair, I suspect on the secondary market, for him and his oldest son to go. But in the gap between the original show and the make-up date, the #1 Son moved to Philadelphia for a new job. #2 son was away at college. So, not wanting to go with anyone else, he offered the tickets to me. So thank you, Bluz Brother, for your incredible generosity.

I’d seen Bruce once before, on his 1985 Born in the USA tour, Pontiac Silverdome, north of Detroit. That was when he was at the height of his powers. He played for 3:20, not including a 35-minute intermission. He also told great stories, had detailed introductions to songs, and genuinely made all 68,000 of us feel like he was talking to each of us. That was an amazing experience. It was like, “How will any other show ever measure up to this?”

Like we did for the ZZ Top show, we decided to make a trip out of it and book a hotel downtown for that night. All the better not to have to worry about sitting in a massive parking lot traffic jam at 11:00 at night.

Unfortunately for us, all the “good” hotels were booked up, no doubt at the moment the new date was announced. But I managed to find a Days Inn about 2 blocks away. Not fancy, but it would do. All we needed was a place to crash for the night. And because this was an “event” night, they wanted $358 for this small, outdated room. Price gouging is real, folks! But whaddya gonna do? It was worth it not to have to fight the traffic.

Anyway, the seats were tremendous. Thanks again, bro! We were in the club level, first row. That’s the tier directly above the lower bowl, and being in the front row, there’s no one to stand up in front of you! Hallelujah! Given that Sweetpea is barely 5’1”, that’s always a consideration.

The place was pretty full but this wasn’t a rowdy crowd. It was mostly a bunch of white senior citizens. I don’t remember seeing anyone younger than 30. But that’s to be expected now at shows from the rock and roll dinosaurs of my youth.

This was our vantage point before the show started. No mosh pit, just some organized folding chairs. The stage was by the centerfield wall, with the legendary Warehouse lurking to the right.

At the stroke of 7:30, the lights went down and the band took the stage. Immediately, I tapped Sweetpea on the shoulder to acknowledge that her prediction was correct that Bruce would open with Hungry Heart. (Opening line: “Got a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack/I went out for a ride and I never went back.”)

For a 74-year-old guy, Bruce looked damned good. While he was spirited and energetic, he wasn’t doing any more end-to-end stage runs that ended up with him sliding on his knees. 74-year-old knees are nothing to play around with, after all.

This time out, there were no long stories, no charging everyone up like a Baptist preacher. He didn’t say much in this show, in fact, he barely spoke from the opening number until the 15^th song. Until then, all we heard between songs was an impassioned “1-2-3-4…”

I’ll tell you, video screens are what make these big shows enjoyable. I barely even followed the action on the stage… not that you could really see anything. I just watched the near-side video panel. But here, (above) you could see where he came down the steps, up close to the audience. He did that frequently throughout the show. I don’t think video screens became commonplace at concerts until the late 80s to early 90s. Before then, you just had to try to weasel your way up front to get a good view. I know in my old days, when I was going to see a band at a club or small hall, I’d get there when the doors opened, so I could dash up front to get close to the stage. Back then I could stand for the whole show. Now, it’s all about getting a good seat.

Some other thoughts via pictures:

There’s nothing more Rock n Roll than Bruce and Little Steven sharing a mic for a big chorus. I didn’t get to see Steven the first time around so I was glad he was there this time.

Is there anyone who gets a bigger sound from such a small drum kit than Max Weinberg? The guy can really pound. But his kit looks like something you'd get a kid who's just learning.

Saxophone duty was handled by the late Clarence Clemmons’ nephew. If you closed your eyes, it definitely sounded like The Big Man.  The kid played his ass off. One of the night's best moments was during 10^th Avenue Freeze Out. I was wondering how they were going to handle this part… When the line came up: “A change was made uptown when The Big Man joined the band…” they showed the unmistakable silhouette of Clarence, followed by some other pictures of him and the late E Street keyboardist Dan Federici. Oh man, that hit me right in the feels. I actually choked up a little.

Bruce did a cool thing I liked when we went down close to the crowd. It wasn’t exactly Angus Young soloing while being carried through a raging crowd on his roadie’s shoulders, but it was very Man of the People. Nobody was grabbing at him though. Mostly they wanted to take selfies.

As he was winding up with a raucous version of Twist and Shout, he hollered to the crowd, “Do we look tired?” as he wanted to know if the crowd wanted more.

With an incredulous look, he shouted, “You think you can outlast the E Street Band??”

Man, no one outlasts these guys. They may be old, but they run a well-oiled machine. It’s a joy to see people at the top of their craft, entertaining a crowd.

He wound up the show by 10:30, clocking in at an even three hours, (In other words, like more than two ZZ Top shows.) 

Worth every penny.

Director's DVD Commentary: My apologies if you were lured here by the headline and expected to see something about Monty Python's legendary Australian Philosopher's sketch, wherein everyone is named Bruce and they end with the classic "Philosopher's Song," containing the immortal lines:

"Aristotle Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,

Hobbes was fond of his dram.

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart,

'I drink therefore I am.'"

It's just that whenever I hear the name "Bruce," this bit is my go-to frame of reference.

The Setting Sun

I don’t know how big of a national splash this made last week but they announced that David Smith, the owner of the Sinclair broadcasting group, bought my local paper, the Baltimore Sun, as a personal investment.

Sinclair is an ownership group that buys up all the local stations it can muster and turns them into right-wing MAGAphones, including the mandate that they all run pre-recorded editorial content from the “home office.”

Maryland is a blue state and the Sun has traditionally reflected that, although not so much so that they didn’t endorse a Republican governor or two, over the years. But this has effectively come to an end.

The new owner says he wants The Sun to function like our local “Fox 45,” which is also owned by Sinclair. In other words, one more piece in the right-wing echo chamber. Sinclair owns Fox 45 in Baltimore, as well as the local CW channel.

Both networks specialize in attacking the local government and school systems. They love to ambush public officials on their way to their car at night, to lob loaded questions while the camera rolls. Every night, when I’m usually watching syndicated shows, I see the promos for their news broadcasts, and it’s always the same.

They proclaim how they’re “keeping local officials honest,” but that’s just a cover. It’s an unrelenting drumbeat of bad news, day in and day out.

It’s one thing to cover news that makes officials look bad. But it becomes disingenuous when positive stories are omitted or skewed to make them look bad. I’ve had this argument with people before when they say, “But what if this news is true? What if this really is a bad thing?”

I counter that there’s never a “good thing” aired, even when good things abound. Lies of omission are still lies. When a broadcaster’s only objective is to smear the ruling party, that’s not journalism, it’s just PR and propaganda.

A couple years back, I decided to take some notes on the subjects of the local Fox and CW nightly news promos, which I did for about a week or so before I lost interest. (I was hoping to make a post out of it, but you know… squirrel!) I still have the notes though, so, Score!

These were the stories they were hyping at the time:

·         CW: High price of gas.

·         Fox: Violence in Baltimore City, State’s Attorney ethics charges.

·         Fox: Save Our Schools: Lawsuits filed against the school district.

·         CW: Crisis at the Border, Baby Formula crisis haunts the Biden Administration.

·         Fox: Electric vehicle fires

·         CW: The danger of letting the WHO determine what is a pandemic.

·         CW: While government fights record inflation, migrants are flooding in.

As you can see, it’s just a compendium of Republican talking points, blaming Democrats for inflation, bad schools, the pandemic, corruption, and electric cars. It’s All Crisis, All the Time while propping up the fossil fuel industry, private schooling, and catering to the MAGAs at every turn.

This is what will become of our deep-rooted bastion of journalism, a paper version of Fox “News.” I’m sure we’ll never see another big half-page story on a decrease in border crossings, like the one I ran in my last post. Such good news will never be set in ink again if it benefits a Democrat.

What I’m going to do next, I don’t know yet. I’ve been a Baltimore Sun subscriber ever since I came to town in 1998. I’ve always been a newspaper guy, a habit I got from my dad, who always had the paper delivered, wherever we lived. Sometimes we even got two, like when we lived in Columbus Ohio, and got the morning Citizen Journal and the evening Columbus Dispatch.

In practical terms, I get most of my news online, via the blogs on my blogroll and my Yahoo home page. The Sun staff is a mere shell of what it used to be. Most of their content comes from news syndicates and affiliates. Aside from TV listings, my primary use for the Sun is the comics page and puzzles.

Doing crossword puzzles (and the Jumble and Sudoku) are baked into my weekday lunchtime routine. On the weekends, Sweetpea and I both work on the morning puzzles.

I know I can get crosswords online, but I don’t like doing them via computer, nor do I want to have to print the puzzles every damned day. But I feel sick at the prospect of giving those vultures any of my hard-earned dough.

For the time being, I intend to stay put and watch what happens. After all, this could be a good feeder system for Right Wing material to pick apart, or maybe even to rebut via letters to the editor. It’s not a bad idea to see what kind of BS the other side is pushing. It’ll let me know whether they have serious points, or if they’re pushing myths and illusions. Then when they eventually cross the line, I can, with haughty indignity, write in, refute their stories, and end it with “Cancel my subscription, you odorous band of kowtowing mullet-heads!”

Fun at the Grocery Store

Sometimes, when checking out a new grocery store, the aisles are arranged in such a way that I can create a little mirth, for those that know how to find it.

Bloody Vikings...

 

The Crazy is in Plain Sight

This story came out several weeks ago and I apologize for not working it in sooner, but I can’t let it pass without at least saying something…

I would believe this if it were a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, but “most Americans?” Seriously? I’d love to know what it is they think TFG did to make their finances better. Maybe it’s all the hype that Fox “News” puts on the TFG Tax Cuts so they think it applies to the general public. Nothing could be further from the truth. The big Tax Cut Lollapalooza of 2017 went almost exclusively to the richest 1% and was made permanent. The remaining scraps went to the rest of us and were designed to sunset after 7 years.

And while Republicans are losing their mind about the deficit, it was this tax cut package that made it explode. But rather than fix the deficit by repealing the Fat Cat Tax Cuts, they want to cut social services and our “entitlements,” meaning Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. How is it that “most Americans don’t understand these facts?

TFG also rolled out a giant tariff program, because he didn’t understand that the manufacturing country doesn’t pay these extra fees, they roll it down to the consumers, meaning US.

Maybe people are nostalgic for the days when gas was under $2.00 a gallon. They remember that but forget that the reason for the low price was that no one was driving, for fear of catching The Rona, the fight against which was criminally botched by TFG’s administration. No demand equals low prices. Was it really worth over a million American lives just to get cheap gas for a couple months?

At every turn, Republicans demonstrate that they don’t give a flying fig about the average citizen’s finances. If they did, they would do something about it. Democrats would join them, hand in hand. But that’s not what they care about.

And then, the part about how TFG and the Republicans would keep America out of wars? Just because they want to pretend the world ends at our border doesn’t mean they don’t want to keep the Defense Department and all the Defense Contractors flush with money. Just ask Tom Cotton, who wants to start deploying our personnel into Gaza.

No, there will always be a war, or some other “police action,” to keep the Defense money flowing. And I don’t mean to the enlisted personnel. We KNOW TFG doesn’t give a shit about them… He said they were “suckers and losers” for joining the military. He doesn’t care if they’re underpaid. But they sure want the biggest and best bombs money can buy.

It’s a testament to Right Wing messaging that TFG is even a factor in the next presidential race. Fox “News,” and the rest of the Echo Chamber ignore any and all gaffes, mistakes, and complete fuckups, and alibi out any that make it through to their fan club’s ears. Even with the glowing economic numbers being released over the last months, they have people thinking we’re in a recession and blame it on Biden. It doesn’t matter if it’s complete bullshit, people want to believe it because it plays to their biases. Like the bias that TFG is a sane, rational, being, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

(Trump gaffes)

This is right out of the GOP playbook, from Bush to Palin to TFG. Even when you’re wrong, claim to be right. If there’s proof, dismiss it as biased. Claim to be the victim of a media conspiracy. Do anything but admit you messed up. It would be funny if it wasn’t so alarming. Oh, and be sure to seek retribution against anyone who tries to hold you accountable.

And this isn’t a matter of letting all the pressure of this prosecution get the better of a public servant, it’s the re-elected president directing the Justice Department to round up his enemies and put them in psych wards. Hang the charges, hang the trial, then hang the accused. Jail them first, justify it later. (You know, in “two weeks,” when the long-awaited Republican health care program is going to roll out. No matter the date, it’s always two weeks away.)

How is it that Americans aren’t seeing these issues? Yes, I know, everyone is busy. But one should never be too busy to know what’s going on in one’s own country, even if it’s just for selfish reasons. After living through the clown show that was 2017-2020, how can anyone think we need to do that again, only with even less competence and more vengeance?

I don’t care if Biden’s old; he’s not evil. He’s not a crook. He’s not a psychopathic narcissist who will kill democracy to save his own ass.

And speaking of evil, thank goodness we have Mike Johnson to lead the charge against evil*.

*In the narrow way he defines it.

This is a guy whose public statements call for imprisoning doctors who perform abortions, eliminating hate crime laws, criminalizing gay sex, and giving up the right to privacy. (Except for political donors, of course. That’s nobody’s business.) Basically, the guy is a religious nightmare bent on making his own brand of fanaticism the law of the land. And the Republicans just put him second in line to the presidency.

And speaking of wingnuts, MT Greene is still out there fighting for relevance.

Now she wants to investigate the January 6^th investigators. I presume that’s because Fox “News” and the whole Right Wing propaganda apparatus can’t hype Hunter Biden’s Laptop into the crime of the century.

I watched most of the 1/6 hearings; I don’t understand what it is she thinks she can allege. I mean, they have tons of witnesses and reams of evidence. And this is coming from one of the ringleaders of the other GOP “investigations,” that have delivered one nothing-burger after another in.

I presume it’s just more performance theater with an audience of one.

Can’t we get Harlan Crowe, or one of the other Supreme Court “special friends” to ship her off on a cruise somewhere, just to get her out of town and minimize the embarrassment? The chipmunks driving the tiny wheels in her brain have to be due for a break.

In fact, the whole thing makes me want to “run away.”

(Let's hear it for this awesome Photoshop. Great job! Once I saw it, I had to find a way to use it.)

MAGA at the Movies

Do ever see sometimes during political arguments when someone posts a graphic showing all the things that, if they were proposed today, would get labeled as Socialism by the Right and get shot down?

Thinking about this made me wonder about movies, specifically if some older movies were released today, would the audience accept them in quite the same way?

Upon further review, I think it’s highly unlikely. With today’s ultra-polarized, talking-point-driven, political-team-sports masquerading as politics, a third of the country might have different rooting interests from the ones originally envisioned. To explore this, let’s take a look at:

The MAGA Guide to the Movies 

Odd Bits - The Running Man Edition

It is appalling in this day and age that something like the right to contraception is even debatable. But there they were, 194 Republican representatives voting against a measure that guaranteed Americans’ right to contraception.

There were also votes on bills to codify rights to same-sex and inter-racial marriages and to bar prosecution of women who travel out of state for an abortion. Again, an overwhelming majority (if not all) of Republicans voted against passage.

The bills all passed from all Democratic and a smattering of Republican votes.

I heard one weasel saying later that he voted against the bill because he thought it was unnecessary and was merely a publicity stunt on the part of the Democrats.

I would say that all those Republican “No” votes are what makes it necessary because they obviously can’t be counted on to uphold a very basic freedom, one supported by all but the wingnut fringe.

People like Mike Pence speaking to conservative gatherings and pushing for a national ban on abortion make it necessary. And this angle is how you know the Right’s draconian abortion laws aren’t really about saving lives but control. If it was really about eliminating abortion, they’d be all in on contraception, the number one way to prevent pregnancy aside from celibacy. But they’re not; they’re gearing up for a fight on contraception as soon as they can reach a majority in Congress and the presidency.

I agree with every word of this message:

Or in fewer words, Big Business Republicans love to support restrictions on abortion because it doesn’t cost them anything. And in return, they reap the votes from the Religious Right. It’s the perfect issue, as long as they don’t care about the quality of Americans’ lives. (And they don’t.)

I find the prospect of travel restrictions to be particularly onerous. Are we really going to become a country with checkpoints at every state border, with some uniformed prick asking for papers? Papers dealing with one’s medical health? And they want to talk about “Freedom” and “Liberty,” while pushing banana republic crap like this? The freedom to travel unhindered through this country is one of our signature benefits. I’m hoping once some of these proposals start circulating, the backlash will be fierce. But given our gnat-like attention span, I’m not optimistic.

This Week in Duplicity

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' administration announced he's reallocating some COVID-19 relief funds and sending $450 a child directly to struggling families in the state.

Yes, I think that’s a fine idea. But remember, just last week, I ran a quote from Mitch McConnell where he said the reason for the current “labor shortage” is that people are flush with government cash handouts? This just shows that Republicans don’t really have any specific principles, like “giving away money is bad.” It completely depends on who’s doing the giving. This week, apparently giving away money is good. Maybe they’ll get back to us again next week when a Democrat does it and they’re against it again.

More on the Hearings

The hearing in prime time last Thursday was the mid-season finale, designed to hold us until they air the next episodes in September. Thursday’s hearing focused on what TFG didn’t do, from the time his speech ended to the time he finally released a video telling people to go home, over three hours later. Meaning, that he did nothing to stop the violence. In fact, as he watched it all unfold, by himself in the West Wing dining room, he made calls to various senators, pleading with them to stop the vote counts.

It wasn’t until the National Guard finally showed up, at the Vice President’s behest, and all the Senators and Representatives were safe, that he finally consented to tell his fans to end the siege and go home. In other words, not until after it was clear that his last-ditch effort to overturn the election had failed.

One of the more visceral impacts was hearing that Pence’s Secret Service detail was calling out last goodbyes to their loved ones over the radio, as they were about to make a break for safety. That’s how serious the threat of violence was. It was a far cry from the political tourism angle first proffered by Republican apologists for the Capitol attackers.

The side-trip to take a whack at Josh Hawley was interesting because it had so little bearing on the big picture. I think some of the people on the committee, (probably Liz Chaney) just wanted to put a little hot sauce on his ass, just for being a punk. So there he was, egging on the crowd from a safe distance one minute, and Hawling Ass through the Capitol hallways the next, trying to flee the surging mob he just saluted. Naturally, it spawned a cottage industry of Running Josh memes. These were my two favorites:

Frame-by-frame capture of Josh Hawley’s escape.

It was also shown, via White Housel logs, that there were no phone calls noted from the President during those three hours. That can’t be an accident, all calls are to be logged for posterity. There were also no photographs allowed. The White House photographer was barred from the room where TFG was staying. This is also irregular.

This lack of record-keeping jibes with the Secret Service texts that somehow disappeared. I find it inconceivable that their deletion was an accident… just a big “oopsie” during the course of refreshing their tech. Funny how they didn’t disappear until after they were requested by the committee.

My favorite take I read on it was that what was on those texts must have been immeasurably bad to be worse than the heat they’re taking for deleting them. This should get people fired, if not prosecuted.

Although to hear the Republicans tell it the last few years, the only problem with the Secret Service is that two of their agents had sex with each other and neither one liked Trump. That’s the real institutional bias!

My guess is that if these texts ever surface, they’ll show that there was, in fact, a plan to remove the Vice President from the Capitol and keep him away, so to scuttle the vote count.

I don’t think there was ever any doubt that TFG wasn’t going to call in any military muscle to repel the attack. They were doing exactly what he asked them to do, and it was unfolding exactly the way he wanted, other than that he wasn’t there in person to continue to rally his mob. But it shows exactly how cavalier he was about the lives of others. There was no concern about physical harm coming to friends, enemies or allies alike.

“They’re not here to hurt me…” that should be on his tombstone.

It also came out that a couple of his campaign aides were upset that he never acknowledged the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. The committee had their texts, one of which said, “If he talked about the deceased officer, he could be implicating himself… If he acknowledged the dead cop, he’d be implicitly faulting the mob. And he won’t do that, because they’re his people. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control.  No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault. No way.”

That, my friend, is TFG in a nutshell. Never acknowledge, never admit, always deflect, always point the blame elsewhere. If you say it enough times, people will believe it.

I loved the outtakes from his videos, the “Go home, I love you” speech on 1/6, and the follow-up on 1/7. Anyone who sees that can never again talk about how Biden can’t read a teleprompter or has someone feeding him his speech. This guy can’t even say the word “yesterday.”

Maybe if he’d only listened to more Paul McCartney.

None Shall Pass

Well, Georgia went ahead and did it, they passed their onerous anti-voter bill, or in other words, Jim Crow 2.0. This is the bill that not only restricts absentee ballots but also reduces drop boxes and early voting opportunities, and famously forbids giving food or drinks to people in the long lines they just purposefully created.

Republicans are now saying it right out in the open. They cannot come up with any policies that will draw middle and lower-class votes, so they’re trying to reduce the number of voters. This is your “God, country, and apple pie” party. And now, it better be their God and their country and no foreigners better have picked the apples for that pie.

Regardless of the optics of their actions, the messaging machinery is out working in overdrive to convince people that they’re just trying to keep voting secure and that IDs are just the normal way of life.

This meme is bullshit on two levels. First, there’s the veracity of their examples. Out of all of these, banking is the only one where ID is required in every case.

·        Alcohol and cigarettes: Only if you look young, or in the rare case when an establishment cards everyone as a policy. I haven’t been carded in over 10 years, and then it was at a ballgame where they carded everyone, including senior citizens. But in almost every other case, obvious adults don’t get carded. And even then, it’s not about establishing identity, it’s for age only.

·        Buying a house: Only for the banking end of it if you need a mortgage. If you’ve got a couple hundred thousand to drop on a house, no one is going to check your driver’s license before taking the money.

·        Get a job: Do you think the migrants who picked your salad or cut your grass had to show a driver’s license?

·        Buy a gun: If you go to a gun show with cash, you’ve yourself got a gun. That’s a loophole that, against the lobbying wishes of Republicans and the NRA, reasonable people are trying to close.

So, the need for ID is only in particular situations, like the traditional, by-the-book, white professional cases. You know, those who already have driver’s licenses. The need for IDs is wishy-washy at best, which invalidates the basic thrust of the argument.

But, even if you accept that premise and stipulate that IDs are needed for these various transactions, it is still misleading in that it’s only part of the Republican track record on voting.

It’s racist because they, “with surgical precision,” promote the use of IDs that minorities are least likely to have and dismiss the ones that they do. Driver’s licenses and state IDs are in, WIC cards, SNAP cards, library cards, and student IDs are out.

Then they make it harder and more hurtful to obtain the “proper” IDs by closing DMVs in urban areas and raising the fees the citizen has to pay.

Republicans only want to show you this one card, “ID requirements are normal,” but keep their other cards hidden. Just because you have an ace in your hand doesn’t mean it beats a full house. You have to evaluate the entire hand and theirs stinks. It’s racist, autocratic, and blatantly un-American. Because after their ace, all they have in their hand is a deuce, a four, a Monopoly “Chance” card, and an Old Maid.

Actions like Georgia’s makes it clear that Congress must pass HR1, to ensure that racist shenanigans like this doesn’t fly. At least until the new Supreme Court can shoot it down.

So, Republicans can’t logically complain about progress on COVID, they can’t complain about the economy not coming back, OK, they try to “cancel” unfriendly entities as much as anyone, and they can put forth conspiracy theories that posit that the Clintons were behind that cargo ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal, but there’s always a batshit crazy theory to kick around. All they have left to work with is immigration. Work up that fear of ferners to keep the white men on edge about losing their influence!

When I initially saw this, I was like, “I thought Borders went out of business after being clobbered by Barnes and Noble.” Yeah, they have to get their capitalization under control.

And it always annoys me when they use the term “open borders,” which implies the border looks like the start of the Boston Marathon, rather than a TSA line.

This is another one that’s just wrong, in that a bunch of states are already open, with more opening every week. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it will sure keep hospitals in business.

But that aside, there are different criteria at play here.

With one, the Powers That Be have to weigh the inevitable spike in infections that comes with opening back up for business versus the economic and employment issues.

With the other, it’s a humanitarian crisis of what to do with the thousands of people who are already bottlenecked there, waiting for word on what’s going to happen to them. It’s not theoretical, it’s happening in real-time and has real consequences.

Republicans just don’t like it any time an immigrant makes it across the southern border, hence the heated rhetoric. They’re perfectly fine with stalling them in Mexico or wherever, until they either go back home or die. As I’ve said before, their position on immigration is being against it. How very un-Christian for a party that claims to have the highest reverence for Christ.

In fact, it’s quite similar to their stance on voter IDs.

·        Require state IDs but then make them harder to obtain.

·        Require legal pathways to citizenship but then choke off or eliminate those pathways.

At this point, they should just make moving goalposts an official party plank. (IF they ever get around to drawing up another platform.)

This one is also wrong, right out of the box. Who says they don’t take security measures at the border? It strains the imagination that immigrants would be able to bring bags or packages into the country without being checked. I mean, how many shootings or explosions have there been in these camps? Zero. (Not including people ICE have killed, of course.) If guns or bombs were coming through, don’t you think there would be loud, booming evidence of that by now?

Whether they’re wanded or not doesn’t much matter. They’re not boarding a metal cylinder traveling at 600 mph at 30,000 feet. Air travel should have more security involved than walking across an imaginary line.

The attacks on immigration and minority voting are all just part of Conservatives’ plan to Make America White Again. They might as well put it on their hats. And this guy should be their mascot.

Resistance is Feudal

We live in an alarming time, a time where it doesn’t seem like our country will ever go back to business as usual. The ‘Rona aside, we’ve got about half the country living in a partisan fog, unable to tell real things from fake. The politicians they elect, backed by the only media they listen to, continue blowing the fog into their faces, telling them things they desperately want to believe, that THEY are the “real Americans” and everyone else is an enemy of the state.

And I’m sure that if a Republican were to read that statement, he would assume I was talking about the Democrats.

The lengths that Republicans, elected and otherwise, have gone to overturn righteously-cast votes of other American citizens in the last few weeks, is appalling. Despite each debunking, they cling to the idea that this election was somehow stolen from them. And then when the lack of evidence becomes choking, they just start making stuff up, claiming it just had to be there because there’s no other way Biden could have won.

It’s kind of the same way so many believe that a God created man and earth out of nothing, just like they appear today. No volumes of evolutionary evidence can sway what they “know.”

They seem to ascribe to the Bigger Cheater Theory, which says, “Given how hard they cheated to win, (gerrymandering, limited voting places, and equipment, rigid ID requirements, sabotage of the post office to cripple the delivery of ballots both to and fro), the only way Democrats could have won is by cheating even bigger. And it was cheating so clever, it didn’t leave a single trace of evidence!”

Virtually every lawsuit brought to bear was laughed out of court. Even the Supreme one, where Trump was sure he had bought enough votes there to approve anything he needed.

The logic came down to, “We think they cheated because some people told us they did, but we can’t prove or validate any of it. We also don’t like how they held their election, although it was consistent with their state laws. So we want you to invalidate millions and millions of votes so we can try it again. Better yet, just hand us the presidency.”

And when a case finally went to the Supreme Court, over a hundred Republican Congressmen signed on with their approval of this logic. Despite having just won their own seats in that same election, the Trump part was somehow rigged, so all those votes should be discounted so Trump can win.

These people showed us that to them, our votes mean nothing. And that’s the new Republican paradigm… “Hang the voting, we’ll just pull strings behind the scenes to get what we want, which is to stay in power regardless of the will of The People.”

Just like Madison and Jefferson drew it up, huh?

All these people who comport themselves as such supreme patriots, these red, white, and blue Super Citizens, are willing to flush the Constitution down the toilet as soon as it becomes expedient. Such true-blue Americans! Paragons of justice!

These governors, attorneys general, representatives, and senators need to be remembered by the rest of us as the seditious shit-weasels they are and treated as such for as long as they cling to power or public life. They literally approved the nullification of an election whose results were as overwhelming as they were clear, solely because they didn’t like the result. Nothing else is relevant or applicable.

Even after the SCOTUS ruling, there’s still another avenue of pursuit, which is for Congress to disregard the voters’ decision when appointing and approving electors. And that really comes down to the same logic described above, just overturning the vote because they don’t like it.

The kindest explanation is that they’re terrified of the outgoing president and they don’t have the backbone to defy him and defend the Constitution, or the values this country is supposed to represent. They want to appease this troll so that one day he will smile upon them, thus directing his fan base to accept him as one of his loyal toadies, fund his campaign and attend his rallies.

All it costs is the soul of this country.

One day there will be history books about this time, which will either examine it as a black hole in our nation’s record or praised as the start of a new authoritarian government, where We the People have become nothing more than modern-day serfs, toiling in the fields for the benefit of our Masters.

“But we want a say in government!”

“Shut up and get back on the plow!”

“We’re crying out for justice!”

“I’ll give you something to cry about…”

“Come see the violence inherent in the system!”

 

Director's DVD Commentary: "Seditious Shit-Weasels" would be a great punk rock band name.

Massage Parler

Now into the second week past the election, the deluded Right is still clinging to the idea that somehow the election was stolen from them, due to what must have been a vast criminal conspiracy that entailed more people voting for the other guy.

At every turn, both Republican and Democratic voting officials have stated that there were no discernable voting hijinks, other than random clerical errors that happen in every election. (And are statistically negligible.) Not a single investigation from people who are extremely motivated to find voting malfeasance has been able to do so.

You know, if it doesn’t quack, it doesn’t waddle, and it doesn’t float around on the water, it’s just not a fuckin’ duck, and it won’t become one no matter how desperately someone wishes it.

Even Fox “News” has been going, “You know, we think he won.” I mean, they called Arizona before anyone else, thus earning the Orange Turd’s ongoing wrath. I mean, where is a despot supposed to turn when his own state-run media stops backing up his lies? OANN? Hell, I couldn’t even find it on my Comcast system. I even tried to use the voice function. All I got was an error message that said this:

“This television is equipped with a BS Chip. The BS Chip blocks the transmission of known purveyors of BS into households who might be either enraged or convinced by smoothly delivered lies, half-truths, skewed graphics, and logical fallacies. To view a channel blocked by the BS Chip, you must apply to the FCC and prove that you’re under 55 and your interest is purely academic. But we don’t recommend you do so. Surely there’s a game on somewhere, isn’t there?”

I tell you, the tech in those “Smart TVs” is really advancing.

So, how do Republicans square these hard, cold, facts with the bullshit stories with which they surround themselves? Well, it seems that they’ve started their own social media site: Parler.

They got tired of having mean old Twitter and Facebook correct or block their fact-free diatribes and racist calls to arms, so they’ve taken their tiki torches and gone home to play in their own yard, where no one can tell them anything they don’t already know.

Now they can claim there were a million MAGAts at the Million MAGA March and there will be no photographic evidence to the contrary. (Like this.) They can claim there was a vast rollout of Dominion voting machines bankrolled by George Soros, which changed Trump votes to Biden votes, without which Trump would have won Texas unanimously. They can forget about wearing masks because the Rona is merely a liberal plot to curtail their freedom. They can blow on dog whistles as long as they like and no one will ever make them feel like a racist because of it. In fact, it will remind them of the good old days, where the only thing you had to do before telling a racist joke is look over both shoulders.

I read somewhere that George Soros is one of the financial backers of the Parler platform. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it would be delicious if it were.

I hope that Facebook and Twitter don’t experience a mass exodus of conservatives, but it’s purely for selfish reasons. If they all leave, where else will I get my “Debunkery” material? I’m sure as hell not venturing over there. It would be terrible for my blood pressure.

Director’s DVD Commentary/Disclaimer: The BS Chip is a total fabrication, but wouldn’t it be cool if it weren’t? It just kind of leaped out of my head as I was considering if I could even find OANN on my assortment of cable channels. It happens.

Tales from the Hood

I’ve had this story circling the drain for months now but I’ve been waiting until I could marry it to a short primary topic. And here we are.

Our ice-maker is going screwy. You never really think about your ice-maker until you go to scoop out a fistful of ice for your gin and tonic and only come up with cold dust. Sweetpea and I go through a good deal of ice, especially in the summer, so this icy snafu went mission-critical a few months ago.

Upon investigation, we noticed that when the ice dumps, sometimes a couple pieces get stuck in the apparatus, which locks it up and prevents it from making any more ice. So we began checking on it more and more frequently, to either jiggle out the wayward wedge or melt it from the apparatus with finger heat.

One evening a few months back, I was endeavoring to unclog a piece of ice, but it was really jammed into the works. With nothing to grab onto, I had to settle for trying to melt it by pressing alternating fingers alongside it. It was in one of the rear-most slots, so I had to reach waaaay into the back of the freezer and curl my finger around the works from behind. It was kind of an awkward position.

At last, I felt the last of the ice chip melt away and the lever began to lower, signaling that it was resetting. The lever sits on top of the pile of ice (when you have enough ice to make one). When the pile of ice shrinks, the lever lowers and when it goes all the way down, activates more ice making.

What I didn’t know was that there are all kinds of gears and moving parts on the inside of the ice-making apparatus, right where I had my ring finger. As everything started moving, a piece of metal clamped down on my fingertip, locking it (and me) into place. As I pulled ever harder, this metal piece squeezed all the firmer, steadily increasing the pressure. Sweetpea was in the kitchen with me and I began to call out... “Honey… HONEY…”

I don’t think I said anything else in actual English because, at that point, I realized that I was about to be literally trapped there by the fingertip. I began to quickly consider the consequences. I mean, who do you even call for something like this? 911? The Maytag Repairman? How long would I have to stand there with my finger in the freezer and the ice-maker chomping on my finger?

I didn’t know how much force this thing was going to eventually apply but I decided I’d better pull my damned finger out of there no matter how much skin or flesh is scraped off. And I did.

I anxiously examined my finger for damage and was quite relieved to see that it was just a cut.

(This was AFTER it was all cleaned up.)

It was numb for a while but I was none the worse for wear. While it seemed like an hour-long ordeal, in fact, the whole thing, onset to escape, was over in about 15 seconds.

Good thing I got out, or else I KNOW my picture would have been on Facebook, or maybe even a video, with one finger stuck in the freezer and another one gesturing at the camera-person.

We still have to clear the ice-maker but I learned my lesson quite clearly. There is no more melting the ice with fingers. Now the first option, if it doesn’t pull out clean, is to shatter the ice with a knife handle.

A BUTTER knife. I do not intend to bleed all over our ice bucket. Even if it would make a more realistic Bloody Mary.

The Gaping Black Hole of Political Discourse

Director’s DVD Commentary: This is a special Bonus Post because I don’t think I can keep all this bottled up until my next post on Monday. Plus, it may well be talked out by then and we’ll be onto the next outrage.

But holy crap, what a shit-show that was last night, during what was supposed to be a political debate. And I’m not going to entertain any “both-siderism” on this. The blame is squarely on the Clown in Chief. He, alone, rendered this event unlistenable. I’d love to see the stats on the number of people who turned it off in the first half-hour. But let’s start at the beginning.

Even before the debate, you could see the Republicans scrambling. It’s was like they suddenly realized that their year-long effort to paint Joe Biden as a doddering, senile, brain-addled old man was about to come crashing down. America was going to get to see him speak off the cuff, without the courtesy of a dishonest Fox “News” edit. Fox disciples were bound to be shocked that Biden actually could string a sentence or two together. So to combat the sight of a coherent candidate, they began a whisper campaign that Biden needed to be drug tested for performance-enhancing drugs. The Biden campaign, naturally, refused.

Now, I don’t necessarily have a problem with pre-debate drug testing as long as it applies to both sides. And I’d need someone independent in there with Trump because if he can’t take his SATs himself, he’s certainly not going to take his own drug test.

Then they pivoted to claiming Biden would be wearing an earpiece, with someone telling him what to say. That ruse may fool the Trump base, but most people should know that it’s not easy to repeat things coming in your ear and repeat them in real-time as if they’re your own words. They, again, demanded that Biden be tested, with someone coming in to examine his ears. I’m sure they were told to go piss up a rope.

It’s clear that there’s nothing Republican media and leadership won’t stoop to, to prop up their campaign of lies.

Eventually, the debate began and it was enough to make you wish for more talk of piss tests and earpieces.

It was obvious that Trump’s strategy was to interrupt Biden at every opportunity and throw in insults, lies, and side tangents, to keep him from presenting a single coherent thought. Joe did as well as he could be expected to. He did better than I would have. I can’t believe he didn’t walk across the stage and start beating him with his shoe. (Now that would have made for great ratings.)

The result of this strategy was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, where great stretches of time were wasted with two people talking at once with no one understood. Reasonable people want to hear what both candidates have to offer. If I wanted to listen to a cacophony of lies, whining, name-calling, and exaggeration, I would have locked myself in a room full of 5-year olds.

I know they won’t change the agreed-upon debate rules, but Production really needs the ability to cut off the mics. That would solve the biggest problem with debate-watching. While Trump is by far the biggest violator of other people’s time, it was a problem at the Democratic primary debates as well.

They should turn off every other mic when one person is delivering their dedicated 2-minute statement or 1-minute rebuttal. Anyone that interrupts causes 30 seconds to be added to the interuptee’s time. At least we’d be able to get a clearer picture of who stands for what.

Or maybe leave the mics on but activate trapdoors under the candidates. Something’s got to give. All we get from this mess are headaches. Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic” featured better debate than this.

Or maybe we just bring in a more effective moderator:

So I didn’t have any problem with Joe getting a little irritated and throwing some elbows himself.

“Will you shut up, man?”

That’s putting it mildly. And I did like his referring to Trump as “this clown.” The thing is, Biden couldn’t take the “high road” completely or else he’d come off as a pushover. He had to be able to stand up to the blowhard. He should have just gone with the “Gambino Defense,” and said, “Everything that guy said was bullshit. Thank you.”

“This time, I’ll allow it.”

I think he lost a big opportunity to pin the Republicans down over their decision to speed through the SCOTUS nomination. Biden basically parroted the GOP talking points from 2016. That’s not really the issue. If the Democrats had been able to get the Garland nomination heard, I wouldn’t have a problem with the GOP doing the same now. The argument about how the “people need to be heard” was invalid then and now. The people were heard during the elections. Two decisive elections said that Obama should place Merrick Garland on the bench. Trump eventually pointed out that he’s the president and he gets to have his nomination. And that’s true.

The real issue is the Gumby Theater put on by the Republican Senate in 2016 and then saying the opposite now. Joe needed to point out that the Republicans changed the rules to suit their needs. They “created” this precedent and then reversed it once the opposition expected it to be followed.

As I mentioned in my last post, the GOP will say whatever it takes to get what they want, and then pivot to say the opposite as soon as it suits their needs. They literally stand for nothing. Anything they say can and will be used against YOU in a court of law.

But otherwise, I thought he acquitted himself pretty well. When Trump unleashes that “firehose of lies,” it’s hard to even know where to start. And he just went from one outrage to another. I felt bad for the fact-checkers. I bet they’re still soaking their swollen fingers.

I’m especially angered by Trump’s promotion of “poll watchers,” and how he has the nerve to complain about how they’re not being let into the polling stations in some areas. I say, GOOD! These people have no business hanging around the polls. They’re only there to intimidate minorities into leaving without casting a vote. It’s not like they can insinuate themselves into the check-in process, they have zero rights in that respect. So what are the criteria for challenging a vote? All they can go on is race and for Republicans, that’s enough. These creeps need to be given the bum’s rush out of there.

And then there was the Disavowal That Wasn’t. When given the chance to condemn white supremacists, Trump backpedaled and redirected. He acted as if it were some kind of magic phrase he needed to say to get him off the hot seat. It sounded to me like a bad boyfriend trying to get out of the doghouse with his girl… “Just tell me what to say, baby, and I’ll say it.” He sounded as if he were going to be just as sincere. The words would have rung as hollow as his soul.

But it turned that out he never said the words at all, telling the “Proud Boyz” to “stand back and stand by.” They sure got the message, too. Social media threads were rife with the celebration of their validation. He’s not even dog-whistling anymore, he’s sky-writing.

If this kind of hate speech doesn’t disgust independents, I don’t know what else will. And then our nation is truly in jeopardy.

As desperately as I wanted to go to bed as soon as this dumpster fire was over, I knew I’d toss and turn, replaying the aggravating parts in my head. I had to watch an episode of “Dexter”* just to feel clean again.

*OK, it was actually a rerun of “Modern Family.” Using “Dexter” was funnier.