Thought For The Night

No Mas(ks)

March 18, 2022

I cannot figure out why Ukrainians are so bent out shape. It’s not like Putin is forcing them to wear masks. 

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Supremely Disconcerting, Part II

Clowns Come A Courtin’

March 17, 2022

Unless something drastic is done with the Extreme Court, American justice, such as it has been, will be nothing but just another word for nothing left to lose. It you thought the Citizens United decision was devastating, and I’m guessing you did, and if you thought the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 via Shelby County v. Holder, which I’m certain you did, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. With at least three rabid radical right-wing religious rubes, two of whom sit in stolen seats, and one of whom is Mr. Ginni Thomas, the sewer’s the limit.

After the Shelby decision, which saw Chief Justice John Roberts, who had been dreaming for decades of destroying voting rights, cast the deciding vote, Roberts justified his heinous vote by implying that racism in America was a thing of the past. All those pre-Reconstruction, seditious Slave States had been essentially required to report to their electoral probation officer since they could not be trusted to allow black folks to vote. These states had according to Roberts, done their time, done been rehabilitated and should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want going forward, especially since Barack Obama was sitting president.

Can you guess what happened next? You don’t have to guess, because you know damn well what happened next. Before the disappearing ink had even dried on this horrendous, racist decision, all those White-Makes-Right states started turning back the hands of electoral time. Naturally, they did not turn back all the clocks, just the ones where most of the black folks lived.

Deconstructing Reconstruction

The Turmp-addled Extreme Court has once again stood up for racist gerrymandering, this time overturning a lower court decision to stop electoral shenanigans in Alabama. Roberts sided with the three powerless liberals on the court on strictly procedural grounds, but that was not enough to stop white-activist Justice Mr. Ginni Thomas and his even whiter cohorts from continuing their assault on the Voting Rights Act.

New reporting has revealed that Ginni Thomas was very busy hawking Tmurp’s Big Lie and working feverishly to support the insurrection and overturn Joe Biden’s election.

The current make-up of the Roberts Court

The Extreme Court continues to hack away at voting rights in general with the express purpose of making it more difficult for black people to vote, and of achieving one-party rule in perpetuity. A recent example of which was the Court meddling in election laws of Alabama. States’ rights bitches! 

Elena Kagan was not pleased with her colleagues siding with the racists: “It does a disservice to the District Court which meticulously applied the Court’s longstanding voting rights precedent. And most of all it does a disservice to Black Alabamians who under that precedent have had their electoral power diminished.” 

“Alabama is not entitled to keep violating Black Alabamians’ voting rights just because the court’s order came down in the first month of an election year.” 

John Roberts thought his colleagues should have left the lower court’s decision alone: “I respectfully dissent…the District Court properly applied existing law in an extensive opinion with no apparent errors for our correction.” 

I wonder if John Roberts still believes that racism is over and dark money in politics is working out really well. Just kidding. He never believed any such thing. 

Side SCOTUS Note: Unfortunately for Tmurp, the justices he was conned into appointing by Bitch McConnell, as directed by the anti-democratic Federalist Society, were only brought on to rid the nation of legalized abortion, to erase voting rights for people of color and replace the ballot with the buy-out by making corporations people and money speech. They were not installed – against the wishes of the majority of the American public – to protect Donald Tmurp. And so, the Court had a momentary lapse of treason and denied Tmrup’s appeal to keep documents that belong to the American people hidden from the Jan 6 Commission. I bet he wishes he’d had a bigger toilet.

But Wait, That’s Just The Tip Of The Shitberg

This artificially (i.e., stolen) ballooned radical-white-wing-extremist court is more than willing to toss decades of laws, regulations and democracy into the trash bin of history. If anyone still thinks there might be unintended consequences if a Democratic administration dares to expand the Supreme Court, just take a look at the intended consequences that the current Nein…I mean Nine are well on their way to implementing. They are poised to make the Tmurp days, which made the Bush years look like Camelot, look like Shangri-La. Unfortunately, it is likely that any attempt to do something like this would require the elimination of Manchin and Sinema – in some way or other.

Stay tuned for Supremely Disconcerting, Part III*. It’s just a hunch.

I. Mangrey. Panic responsibly.

*Where Clarence “Uncle” Thomas loudly demands to be impeached (by his actions, if not in fact by his words).   

                                                                                                               

Thought For The Day

Long Live The Amazing, Peerless Brady

March 16, 2022

I am so excited to hear that Brady is coming out of retirement. Brady was one of the most entertaining public figures in my lifetime. His amazing timing, his ability to get the most out everyone he worked with. And what amazing hair. I have never had such great laughs than I’ve had with the Alan Brady Show.

Best Brady ever

Wait, what? Tom Brady? Never mind.

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Bar Bill Barr

What Do You Do When The Comedian Is The Only Serious One?

March 14, 2022

Editor's note: This story discusses persons that some people may find offensive.

Twice-Former Attorney General Bill Barr is now in a public spat with the man whose shriveled balls he coddled, the man he aided and abetted and defended against justice, democracy and the American people.  

Barr is out flogging his self-serving book, insisting that he was simply a righteous man doing God’s work. Ignoring of course the fact that he was doing that work in service to one of the most godless men of all time, and doing it in a way the flew in the face of the oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, not to protect one sick, twisted, narcissistic conman. But why quibble over such massive transgressions?

Bill Barr replicating an almost human form in happier times

During the course of one of the many interviews no one should be granting him, Barr belched that even though he would hope his ex-owner would not become his party’s presidential nominee in 2024 he would vote for a man who tried to steal America, “because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.”

Really!? Progressive thinking and policies are the greatest threat?* Are you out of your flaccid fucking mind? Not the guy who called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people?” Not the guy who refused to accept the legitimate results of the election he lost even though you allegedly told him he definitely lost? Not the guy who stood up for Vladimir Putin at every turn? Not the guy who still praises Putin as “a genius” while the Russian madman oversees the wanton murder of Ukrainian civilians and bombs the fuck out of nuclear reactors, churches, hospitals, residences, schools, Holocaust memorials and individual women and children fleeing their beloved homeland? That guy isn’t the greatest threat to the country?

Zelenskyy has had to deal with two insane despots
Somehow Zelenskyy survived a "perfect phone call" from The Idiot 

Hey Bill, remember the part in your book where you said Tmurp exhibited a “detachment from reality that was stunning” to you? Remember when you lied about what the Mueller report said about him? How about when your idiot fucking boss withheld military assistance from Ukraine because Volodymyr Zelenskyy was unwilling to fabricate dirt on Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election? Zelenskyy ends up getting sandwiched between two of the most powerful, most sociopathic assholes on the planet. Thanks to you, your boy and his benefactor.

A comedian on the world stage:
Clown to the left of him, joker to the right
(okay, so it’s the other way around, so sue me)

Stealers Wheel – Stuck In The Middle With You

In a CNN interview with Jake Tapper (Why Jake? Why?) Barr mooed that “the progressive left is sort of showing sort of a totalitarian temperament.” He blames progressives, not his own lies and depredations and his party giving the store to Russia’s Choice Tmurp and white nationalists for dividing the nation. It might seem like Barr is just dodging responsibility, but he is just lying through his teeth. Dodging responsibility is just collateral damage.

On Fux News, Barr told Brett Baier that Tmurp “showed a detachment from reality that was stunning” to him as the Traitor-in-chief insisted that he would overturn Biden’s election and retain his Russian-backed presidency.

So Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Joe Biden who are trying to help those less fortunate to have a decent life, seriously address the climate crisis, bring America into the 21^st century, and fairly tax the super-rich, are more dangerous than a traitorous, anti-democratic, conman? Just because you were instrumental in helping him become all that he is? That’s the hill you want to die on? Please let me know how I can be of assistance.

I. Mangrey remembering. I don’t think I’ll be buying his book.

*Need you be reminded that Ratpublicans are literally running on elect-us-you-idiotic-gullible-fucks-and-then-we’ll-let-you-know-what-we-plan-to-do?

Thought For The Day

What’s The Points?

March 12, 2022

Pundits are racking their brains trying to figure out why Tsar Vlad the Shirtless has some of his tanks and military vehicles emblazoned with the letter ‘Z’ and why Russians who support Putin’s insane, barbaric invasion of Ukraine are also displaying the same symbol, one that does not exist in their Cyrillic alphabet. The answer is simple.

Only ‘Q’ and ‘Z’ get you 10 points for a single tile

The Russian military is apparently pathetic. If not for the relentless commission of war crimes against the people of Ukraine, they likely would have been sent packing by now. It appears that Putin desires to rule over many thousands of acres of rubble and dead bodies. We remember when his franchise owner Donald Tmurp gloated, “I love the poorly educated.” Putin prefers the poorly living. His military is not playing three-dimensional chess. They are not playing checkers. Or even Tic-Tac-Toe. They damn sure are not playing Solitaire. They are apparently going for the big Scrabble score. And since the only other letter worth the maximum 10 points has already been taken by another army of mental defectives, they grabbed ‘Z.’ Fortunately none of these nitwits can spell anything, so neither of these bands of malignant marauders will ever prevail.

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Thought For The Day

We'll Let You Know When We’re Good And Fucking Ready

March 11, 2022

You’ve heard of the Know-Nothing Party. Now we have the Do-Nothing party. Take, for example this actual recent exchange between a reporter and Moscow Mitch:

Reporter: “If Republicans [her word, not mine] take back control of Congress after the midterms, what will be your agenda?”

McConnell: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”

Now, he could have been honest and laid out the details of what they really want for this country. No one would be surprised to hear Bitch McConnell rattle off something like the following, though there would probably be major shock at the honesty:

We plan to raise taxes on the poor and middle class and lower them, as we always do, for the wealthiest Americans like me. We want to make abortions illegal even though almost two-thirds of Americans want them to be legal. We want to make sure there are fewer books and more shootings in our schools. We plan to make it even harder for people of color, especially black people, to vote. Ultimately, we would like to stop wasting so much valuable time and money – money that could very well be given to the wealthiest Americans like me – on elections altogether. Haven’t we had enough of this nonsense by now? We also want to kill the United States Postal Service, and with any luck, the United States itself.

But he did not.

Or, he could have at least lied better than saying wait and see, and hoping enough brain-dead voters want to make America Tmurp, who still owns the Ratpublican Party, again.

Vote for us. What the hell have you got to lose?

Clearly, not that they haven’t been proving this every day for decades, Ratpublicans have zero interest in governing this country, or upholding any kind of democracy.

So there you have it – like Seinfeld if it was the opposite of funny – a political campaign platform about nothing.

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Question For The Day

Cloudy With A Chance Of Fallout

March 9, 2022

Does nuclear winter cancel out global warming?

What if this is as good as it gets?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Oh, and don't forget to duck and cover.

Mitch McConnell’s previous job

 

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Well, duh.

Thought For International Women’s Day

Credit Where Credit is Due

March 8, 2022

Joy Harjo is a poet, musician, playwright, and author. She is the incumbent United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor.

Joy Harjo – A Map to the Next World

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BONUS TRACK:

Annie Lennox & Aretha Franklin – Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves

A Garland Of Lettings

Don’t Let These People Go

July 25, 2021 March 7, 2022

It appears entirely possible that Attorney General Merrick Garland is incredibly terrible at his new job. Several recent decisions strike this reporter as less than what is needed in this unique moment. Why is Garland letting the Turmp Sedition Crime Syndicate continue to walk free?

Garland is the only one smiling after some of his recent

legal decisions, well him and that Turmp guy

I am all for protecting the letter of the law. Maybe there is something I, not being a lawyer and all, simply do not understand. But I do not think that is the problem here.

_______________________________

I started the above post seven months ago, but decided to hold off and give Garland a chance to settle in. After all, he seemed like a stand-up jurist when Obama vainly attempted to nominate him to the Supreme Court. As usual, Obama was being conciliatory, nominating a centrist to replace the diseased…I mean deceased Antonin Scalia – who survived a highly questionable hunting trip with Dick “Shoot ‘Em In The Face” Cheney, but remains nonetheless entirely dead – unlike Obama’s successor who appointed the stunningly polar opposite of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – both in philosophy and gravitas – before Ginsburg’s body was even laid to rest.

Ratpublicans gave us lightweights and losers like John Mitchell, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Matthew Whitaker and Bill Barr – twice. Attorneys General appointed by Democrats were not always the best or the brightest, but come on, it is simply no contest here.

Nearly one year after the assault on the Capitol, in response to mounting discontent and pressure by much of the public and Democrats in Congress Garland said publicly, “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6^th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.” However, Garland has still not acted in any visible way, as he claimed, as though no one is above the law. I can think of no one further below the law than Donald Tmurp. While seemingly hard evidence that Tmurp was complicit in fomenting insurrection, there no evidence whatsoever that either Tmurp or his closest associates, all of whom appear complicit, have been targeted by DOJ in any way. So one question becomes impossible to ignore any longer. What the fuck is Merrick Garland doing?

We recently learned that the January 6 Select Committee has “a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.” If Congress has sufficient evidence to conclude that Tmurp acted criminally and file a formal complaint in court, then why does the Department of Justice not have similar evidence? We all saw and heard Tmurp incite violence at the capital on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to overturn the election he knew he lost. Why have we heard absolutely nothing from Garland’s DOJ?

Is the Department of Justice on an extended vacation on some sunny beach with no internet service and with their heads deeply buried in the sand? Why aren’t they burying their heads in the mountains of evidence already available that shows that Tmurp broke numerous laws? Not crimes like sexual assault or rape (which some two dozen women have credibly alleged), or even as something as comparatively harmless as shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. It could not be clearer that Tmurp at the very least incited the January 6, 2021 insurrection/attempted coup.

SEDITION! - A Randy Rainbow Parody

It could also not be clearer that Tmurp stole highly classified documents once he was forced to leave the White House. It would be unwise to assume anything other than that he stole these documents in order to sell them to foreign interests. And as he is so very fond of reminding everyone on a regular basis, he holds Putin in very high regard. Has anyone counted the number of times Tmurp sided with Putin over U.S. interests? What we do know is that this behavior started before the 2016 election and presumably continues to this day. Also, it is not difficult to imagine that the only documents Tmurp either digested or flushed whole were those for which he received no substantial offers.

I hope to be proven horribly wrong, or at the very least grossly impatient. You could lock me up for these transgressions if it means holding Putin’s Puppy Dog accountable for once in his miserable, self-serving life of crime.*

I. Mangrey reevaluating. Judge now lest ye be judged.

*Somewhat hyperbolic; Letitia James nailed his sorry ass for his fake charity, but it only cost Donny $2 million, and a federal judge ordered the Orange Oaf to pay out a $25 million settlement as a result of the court-ordered termination of his comedically fake Tmurp University.