Biden, His Time?

Fuck Joe Manchin Biden Already

July 9, 2022

Joe Biden is facing unprecedented challenges. He had to follow the most criminal, anti-democratic, ignorant, vengeful and most impeached president in American history. Biden had to carry on after his predecessor attempted to overturn the 2020 election. After the tool he helped insert into the White House had been ousted in a landslide, Vladimir Putin went berserk and invaded Ukraine, razing the entire country and upending the word’s economy. Biden also had to try to reverse Turmp’s deadly response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden of course, has had to deal with all of this while the disloyal opposition, led by Bitch BcConnell (I’m sorry, I have a cold) and fellow traveler Joe Mansion stood in constant, unwavering obstruction at every turn. On top of that, the Turmp-addled Extreme Court has decided that they run the country, legislating from the besotted bench on everything from shooting down gun control, to aborting reproductive rights, to eviscerating environmental protection and coming soon to an ex-democracy near you – our handing our entire election infrastructure over to the party that believes any election they lost was illegitimate. And don’t look now, but rumor has it (as of this moment) that Clarence Thomas hopes to rescind the Fourteenth Amendment. According to Thomas, “I would rather see Black people once again in chains, where they always belonged, than allow a bunch of Democrats, liberals, Blacks, women and Jews have any say in how this country goes about its business.”* In case you missed it, Clarence Thomas, by all appearances, is an African American, though it would not be surprising to hear him deny it. Certainly, his actions have done nothing to contradict that impression.

Cleaning up after Turmp was never going to be easy – trying to bring this country back from the brink of fascism and irrelevance. The political equivalent of rebuilding Hiroshima. Thanks to the juggernaut campaign of perpetual upstart Bernie Sanders, Biden – for decades, the senator from Delaware Citibank – had to at least appear to walk away from the pro-corporate, centrist nature of his entire political career.

Biden has talked a pretty good game since running for and taking office. And it is understandable that he would go out of his way to bring a completely different persona from the feces-flinging, rabid-dog, psycho-killer image (and reality) of Donald Turmp. That walk-softly-and-carry-a-limp-stick, kindly grandpa façade Biden exuded was all well and good at first, but what this country – especially those who voted for Biden – needs now is a fighter. An energetic defender of women, people of color and all the people without “Inc.” after their names. Biden thinks he is still living in a political ecosystem where one can reach agreements with the opposing party. Wake up and smell the napalm, Joe.

The Joe You Know

Biden helped usher Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court, in part by protecting Uncle T from the extremely credible allegations of Anita Hill and others who accused Thomas of sexual misconduct.

Biden sponsored a bankruptcy bill that successfully erected numerous roadblocks for everyday Americans struggling with debt in order to protect credit card companies, and doing so just before the financial crisis of 2008. You may remember that Obama and Biden subsequently bailed out the banks and not the people in their attempt to pull the U.S. out of the economic disaster left behind by George WTF Bush. As if the Biden Backed Bankruptcy Bill was not bad enough, it completely eliminated the ability to discharge generally usurious student loan debt. It is very likely that this was the single piece of legislation most responsible for our current student debt crisis.

That was then, this is now…

Defenders of Social Security on Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to block President Joe Biden's little-noticed nomination of Andrew Biggs—an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow with a history of supporting Social Security privatization—to serve on the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board (call your senators at 202-224-3121 to put a stop to this one).

It appears that not only was there some sort of unconfirmed backroom deal percolating between Biden and McConnell to appoint an anti-abortion Federalist Society denizen as a federal judge –- set to take effect just as McConnell’s hand-picked coat-hanger aficionados aborted Roe v. Wade. Any Democrat who thinks dealing with McConnell will end well has either been asleep for the past 20 years or just lacks the balls to kick Moscow Mitch where his may or may not still be. Or maybe I’m just sick to death of rich, old white guys running things.

Just like the extremely weak gun reform shepherded through by Dems and signed into law by Biden, which did little more than give Ratpublicans the ability to claim they did something, Biden’s new executive order on abortion access is more window dressing than body armor. And Biden wonders why his poll numbers are so low. Turmp at least had the advantage of the unwavering stupidity and Sterno-drinking-blind loyalty of his millions of fanatical followers. Biden is getting no love from either side of the aisle while he puts us all to sleep.

Biden appears to be moving in cowardly slow motion at a time when he needs to stomp on the accelerator (notice I did not say ‘gas pedal’) and bring on the road rage before he gets t-boned in the midterms.

Take that thing out of reverse and floor it, gramps

All of this begs the question: Is Joe Biden just ineffective and ill-equipped for this moment in history, or just returning to his roots?

____________________________________________________
*Possibly not a real quote…at least not one spoken aloud.

I. Mangrey reconfiguring.

Question (And Sociopathic Answer) For The Day

It’s A Freak Country

July 8, 2022

Larry Kudlow to Mike Pence:

“Have you ever seen a president who refuses to accept blame and commits so many falsehoods, I’m being very polite here, calling it falsehoods. Falsehoods, on any given day he’s out there just sayin’ stuff that just ain’t true. You ever see anything like that?”

Mike Pence:

“Never in my lifetime.”

This has been your Paying Attention™ Question (And Sociopathic Answer) For The Day.

Fun Fact For The Day

It’s All So Cheesy

July 6, 2022

One of the attorneys advising Donald Turmp during the lead-up to Trump’s attempted coup goes by the name of Kenneth Chesebro. On November 18, 2020 Cheese Bro – a Wisconsinite – advised that fake-president Turmp’s campaign should organize its own fake (i.e., illegal) electors in swing states that Turmp had lost.

Chesebro laid out in detail what (illegal) actions Mike Pence should take on January 6, 2021 to subvert the election. He provided a paper trail by spelling out his treason in memos to Rudy Giuliani and Turmp (not so) legal advisor John Eastman.

Cheese Bro provided a Microsoft Word document template for the fake elector plot and allegedly worked with the chair of the Georgia GOP to have 16 people secretly meet in the state capitol building to serve as fake electors.

He has now been subpoenaed – along with Giuliani, Eastman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Turmp) and other Turmpworld denizens – to appear before a grand jury in Georgia to splain hisself.

Just thought you might like to know.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Fun Fact For The Day.

Happy Fourth Of Koyaanisqatsi

Make America The Colonies Again

July 4, 2017

July 4, 2022

Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi

I. Mangrey Martin Niemöller

First they came for the recent meager gun control regulations, discarding over 100 years of precedent, and many of us said something because a huge majority of us wanted gun control very badly.

Then they came for a woman’s right to choose, overturning 50 years of admitted (lied-about) super-precedent, and a large majority of us rose up in disgust, horror and disbelief, because a large majority of us were strongly in favor of women being treated like people, with the right to control their own bodies.

Then, they came for our ability to combat the climate crisis by crippling the Environmental Protection Agency as part of their longstanding collusion with corporate greed and devastation, even though most people in this country don’t want the Earth to become inhospitable to human existence.

Then they said, “Fuck anyone who doesn’t like our racist, radical-Christian, corporate-owned, gun-obsessed fascism, we’re just getting started.”*

Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Clowney Barrett
Be afraid. Be very afraid. They won’t go near brains, but they will eat your soul.

The three (in)justices appointed by the disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous, ex-one-term-president and failed blogger, who lost the popular vote by a large margin, and then again by a huge margin. We are now living in a tyranny of the minority. A minority that wants to take this country back to, at best the Monarchy Era preceding 1776, but evidently, back to something more like the Middle Ages, but with assault weapons. They are a dangerous, backward-looking, theocratic cabal of dimwitted nimrods. Other than that, they’re very nice people…just kidding, deep down they are all arrogant, unserious people. And this super tiny, unelected, incredibly unpopular minority is one that cannot be regulated, cajoled, or stopped. For decades to come, unless...**

The Pioneers - Time Hard

The Pig Lie

Stay tuned as the Extreme Court goes gunning to abort election law. The Court is poised to take power away from state courts and hand over control of election results to state legislatures. Hypocrisy much? Just so happens this is the very maneuver the Children of The Big Lie wanted to pull off in order to overturn the legitimate election of Joe Biden. It’s time to over-ride – preferably, run roughshod over – this Court with the will of the people before it’s too late.

Olivia Rodrigo - Fuck You (feat. Lily Allen) (Glastonbury 2022)

Clarence Thomas immediately threatened to go after same-sex marriage and contraceptives. Yes, you read that right – contraceptives.  If that diseased mutant was not in an interracial marriage would that also be on his hit list? Yes. It would.

Thoughts…

…and prayers

This is all incredibly fucked up.

________________________________________________________
*Oh yeah, and they pissed all over the Separation of Church and State.
**HEY DEMOCRATS, EXPAND THE FUCKING SUPREME COURT ASAP!!! The “Supreme” Court is even less popular that you. Run on expanding the fucking Court. If you don’t, the Ratpublicans will do it as soon they decide they need want to. Like to make abortions completely illegal by federal fucking law. Like to make any mention of Climate Crisis a felony.***
***As if they hadn’t done enough already with the Citizens United and Shelby County decisions

I. Mangrey revolted.

BONUS GOLDEN OLDIE:

Zappa/Beefheart – 200 Years Old

Taking The Fourth

Original Spin

July 1, 2022

The cancerous legacy of America’s disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous, ex-one-term-president and failed blogger continues to poison the legacy of America itself. A legacy, I might remind you, that began with the (still ongoing, albeit in slower motion) genocide of the land’s original inhabitants, followed by the inhuman kidnapping and brutal (even by historical standards) enslavement of Africans. Throughout all of this gaudy freedom, women were given neither respect or rights of any kind. At least they weren’t slaves…well, not technically. In what can best be classified as utterly disgraceful, it was decided to count a slave as 3/5 of a person, but women did not even get a mention, honorable or otherwise.

Eventually, the genocide of Native Americans slowed down, the slavery of Black people was outlawed (unless you count the prison system), and women were finally given all the rights previously reserved for white men…just kidding, they were eventually permitted to vote and hold office. Oh, and, many decades later, finally allowed to make 82 cents on the male pay dollar for the same, and often better work.

Women’s Wrongs

One woman, Rep. Mary Miller (R-ILL), an anti-government libertarian who also gave Hitler kudos in the past, seems fine with all that has just happened and all that is about to happen. The day after the judicial murder of Roe v. Wade, Miller had this to say, “President (sic) Trump (sick), on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday.” Miller’s campaign later tried to walk back what was at best a Freudian slip, saying she misspoke, though she could be seen reading directly from her script as those words fouled the air, and after uttering those blatantly racist words was seen applauding along with the considerably racist crowd who were also applauding and loudly cheering. Miller did not see fit to “correct” herself in real time.

Miller, triumphant after lauding “white life.” And look who’s right there behind her.

History Lessen

At long last, America would become what it set out to be – a world for rich, white men to run roughshod over not only their nation, but as much of the world as they could get their greedy hands on. Oops, I don’t think that was what was ultimately hoped for, though it sure was what was originally designed. And we finally elected a Black president, though he was immediately succeeded by the most racist white motherfucker in modern, if not all of, American history – a president, I may remind you, that was only elected on the technicality we call the Electoral College (also a racist artifact), a feat he thankfully could only accomplish one time – but don’t tell him that. He’s like the Japanese soldier who continued fighting WWII several decades after everyone else in the world agreed it had ended. Unlike the Civil War here at home that far too many think is still going on. It is unclear how many of these super-geniuses also believe that the Earth is flat.

Now that the Extreme Court has done its Medieval Two-Step backwards with their heinous assault on women’s rights, women’s health and women’s literal bodies, we are living in a fundamentalist…I mean fundamentally Cowardly New World.

Zappa – Jesus Thinks You’re A Jerk

Anyway, America’s birthday is nigh. Hence the nostalgic longing above. Independence Day. A day that has been celebrated for more than two centuries (at least by white folks).

I know many of you are looking forward to the upcoming holiday weekend as our great and glorious nation prepares to celebrate the Fourth of July – American Independence Day. Sure, you might not be feeling quite as gung-ho or patriotic as in other times, but fuck it, a day off is a day off. But, not so fast hippie trash, you will have to burn your flags some other day. Rumor has it that the Extreme Court (ostensibly) of the United States will be canceling Independence Day – and in short order any semblance of independence – since Independence Day is not in the Constitution that six of the (in)justices claim to be upholding.

Holding-up something is not the same as upholding it.

“Remember, there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.” 
Frank Zappa

I. Mangrey resisting.

Paying Attention™ LATE EDITION - SURPRISE!!

Snitch Cassidy and The Super-Dunce Cad

June 28, 2022

Cassidy “The New John Dean” Hutchinson testified in a surprise public hearing in front of the January 6 Committee. Prior to her time in Trump’s Island-of-Dr.-Moreau-esque West Wing at the age of 22, Ms. Hutchinson interned for (gulp!) Raphael “Ted” Cruz and then Rep. Steve “Not As Bulletproof As He Would Have Liked” Scalese.

Hutchinson was in the rooms where it happened in the stumble-up to the traitorous events of January 6, 2021. Every day. Bigly. She was a special assistant to the disgraced, twice-impeached president during the tenure of that guy’s fourth chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson was a top aide to Meadows. Her office was a five-second walk from the Awful Oval Office. Hutchinson knows where all the bodies were meant to be buried.

At times during her testimony Hutchinson could barely
contain her bemusement at the behavior of the Baby-in-Chief

The testimony provided by S could be seen as incredibly damaging, but only if there is any semblance of truth and/or justice in the American Way. I hope that Attorney General Merrick Garland was watching this one live. The only question I have right now is: When will the Department of Justice be seizing Donald Trump’s mouth? Like all the computers seized from Jeffrey Clark and the phone seized from John Eastman – two of Trump’s legal looneys up to their eyeballs in the planning and carrying out of the attempted coup – because there was credible evidence that these devices were involved in the commission of a crime, Trump and his very, very large uh-mouth were almost certainly up to his tonsils of crime. Big crime.

However, as is all too often the case, we have someone who had critical, first-hand/eye witness information that the American public needed to know in real time. This testimony would have come in quite handy during the Second Impeachment. But, better late than never I suppose. I do have one more question for Ms. Hutchinson: Did you vote for Donald Trump and if so, would you do it again?

On January 6, 2021, Trump’s security team warned that there was a weaponized and body-armored mob ready to storm the Capitol. Trump basically countered, “I don’t care if they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”

When the fuck is Trump going to be subpoenaed? Dragged out of his bed in his pajamas while they search his toilet? Frog-marched? Arrested? Lock him the fuck up already.

On January 6, 2021 when informed by his Secret Service detail that he would not be allowed to go to the Capitol to join his minions at the insurrection and witness the American Carnage he laid out during his horrifying inaugural screech in 2017 Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel whining, “I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.” A Secret Service agent had to physically restrain the Big Baby. “Sir, you have to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.” Adding (allegedly), “You’re being a very bad little boy, sir. Don’t make me come back there, or we’ll both be sorry. You’re this close to losing your ice cream privileges today, Mr. President. You’re going to go right to your room and no tweeting and no tv. And you will end up being impeached. Again. Is that clear?” Little Donny continued to try to overpower the agent – attempting to choke him – but was predictably unsuccessful, being much more like a bloated glob of mashed potatoes than someone who could overpower a dazed slug, let alone a Secret Service agent.

For some reason this scene came leaping to mind

This was a great day for the good guys. We witnessed disquieting first-hand testimony detailing a smorgasbord of criminal activities committed by one Donald J. Trump. What a maroon! Unfortunately, where this clown-car-of-crimes stops nobody knows, but we can once again at least try to enjoy a moment of satisfaction, if not schadenfreude. Stay tuned.

I. Mangrey rejoicing (just a little).

Thought For The Day

Death Be Not Proud, Boys

June 27, 2022

This should cheer you up…

The Second Amendment is still holding a gun to the head of the First Amendment and the rest of America. And this ain’t Russian Roulette – with only one live round in the chamber. Nosiree, this is American Roulette – with all live rounds in the chamber. The only question is when will the trigger be pulled, and the target du jour. We just simultaneously saw Congress pass the most substantive (albeit less than substantial) gun reform legislation in decades – perhaps the most significant since California Governor Ronald Reagan outlawed open-carry in response to Black Panthers with rifles exercising their first two amendment rights at the state capitol – and the Extreme Court reversing 100 years of states’ rights by sanctioning limitless concealed carry at the federal level. 

But that’s not why I asked you here today.

The Proud Boys, as it turns out, might be the closest thing we have to this nation’s original founders. Most of those responsible for our founding documents and social structure were white male slave owners. The Proud Boys are, almost exclusively, white males. And as racist as they come. If owning slaves was not illegal, you can bet those Boys would be chomping at the auction block.

The Proud Boys are, whatever else you might think about them, a militia that while definitely not regulated - well or otherwise - appears fairly well trained at combat-esque activities. They proved this unmistakably (albeit completely illegally and pathetically) on January 6, 2021, which is coming into clearer and clearer focus as we learn more details of exactly what happened at the Capitol on that day. Whatever their status, they are certainly not sanctioned by the nation or any state in the union, though they were (and one assumes still are) sanctioned by the white, male, racist 45^th president of the United States to “Stand back, and stand by,” apparently until the time was right to help him attempt his coup. They need to be regulated...behind bars.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Broken News

Miscarriage Abortion Of Justice

June 25, 2022

The Extreme Court has finally checked off the biggest box, band-aided over the ooziest wound that has plagued the Radical Christian Right and their Ratpublican lackeys for decades. A significant majority of Americans – of all Americans – support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, especially in cases of rape and incest. The Turmp Court’s uber-conservatives have managed to fuck women in a way that will never get them pregnant, and will certainly not allow them to get an abortion if they did.

Five men and one fringe-cult-Christian woman have done what they were appointed to do – end American women’s right to control what happens with their own bodies – by ending a fifty-year long constitutional right to have an abortion. All three of the nominees put forward by Turmp/McConnell (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Clowney Barrett) lied right to our faces during their confirmation hearings, assuring the Senators questioning them that Roe v. Wade was beyond any thought, concept or judicial consideration was settled law. The end of Roe v. Wade. One day after overturning a century of law allowing states to control what their citizens may do with concealed deadly weapons.

Nice 14^th Amendment You Got There, Be A Shame If Something Happened To It

While (In)justice Alito lied that overturning Roe would have no other far-reaching effects on other issues like contraception, his colleague Clarence “Uncle” Thomas explicitly called for the need to "reconsider" marriage equality and the right of couples to use contraception. Ho. Lee. Shit. But it’s okay for his wife to be up to her neck in helping to plot the overthrow of the government Thomas claims to serve. 

Unfortunately and ironically, Sen. Joe Biden was instrumental in enabling Clarence Thomas’s lifetime (dis)appointment to the Court. I guess the “high-tech lynching” Thomas whined about being subjected to over his sexual harassment of Anita Hill, during his confirmation hearing, permanently cut off the analog oxygen to his brain.

This whole abortion issue is a hoax. No baby has ever not been born. Why are people wasting so much time fighting against something that doesn’t exist?

No one has ever gotten an abortion. All these women and their doctors are crisis actors. This is a hoax perpetrated by either China, Hugo Chavez, Alex Jones or possibly Martians. That’s right, Martians. Crazy, you say? Go ahead and mock. Mock my words. You can’t prove anything.

There is no such thing as an embryo. I’ve never seen a fetus. Not even on the subway.

Everyone knows that babies are brought by a stork. Not the stork, as has been taught since the beginning of time. There’s no way one lone stork could deliver every single baby. That’s like believing there’s only one Tooth Fairy. There is an entire army of baby-bringing storks. And where do all these storks get all these babies? No one knows. No one can know. It just is. And no one knows exactly how many babies were never delivered, but were instead mis-carried or eaten by rogue storks.

You know what else is a hoax? The Supreme Fucking Court. And Susan Collins's brain.

Al Franken – Why the founding fathers didn't mention abortion in the Constitution

This has been a Paying Attention™ Special Broken News report.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled incredulity.

Schmuck Of The Day

Vice Precedent

June 24, 2022

“He is a great man, who loves his country almost as much as he loves himself. Of course he was upset by losing an election that, frankly, he won. What a terrible disappointment for him, after cheating so thoroughly. How could I blame him for siccing his mob on me? I let him down. I would take a noose for that man. Even though we haven’t spoken since the day he tried to have me killed, I know he still loves me.”
                  Mike Pence, June 21, 2022 (alternative quote)

After all that has taken place, including his boss declaring that maybe he deserved to be hanged by the violent mob Turmp unleashed on the Capitol and the nation, gutless, spineless, dickless Mike Pence still cannot extract his forked tongue from Donald Turmp’s ass. Pence still claims that he and his hateful, disloyal, treasonous boss parted on good terms, and that Turmp “never stopped fighting every day to deliver on the promises that we had made to the American people.” Really? Even on January 6, 2021? I guess he never promised the American people to get you hanged…it was just on his wish list.

Dramatization of actual hoped-for (by Turmp) event

Yes, Pence had a momentary lapse of treason and did the right thing after exhausting every other option. The only reason he backed out was he finally realized Turmp’s insane plan was doomed to failure. Then he sat on his lying ass for two months while his boss continued his traitorous attempt to steal America. Pence knew exactly what was going on – as did other witnesses – like Bill Barr – who have testified both privately and in the public hearings into the attempted coup of January 6^th. Pence and his fellow unravellers were accomplices, not heroes. None of those people was either heroic, courageous or patriotic. They all stood by either aiding and abetting or waiting to see if Turmp’s nefarious plot would succeed, hoping to keep their cushy, undeserved jobs on our dime. They are all scum who waited until we had reached the eleventh hour and fifty-nine seconds, and finally relented to tell the American people what happened. Gee, thanks. Fuck ‘em all. Hang ‘em all. At the very least lock them up. After a trial by a jury of our peers of course.

Dick and Dickless

Amoeba

a lifeform with more spine, balls and brains than Mike Pence

This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck Of The Day. Feh.