Month: August 2020

It was an emotional championship triumph. And I was tired of dumb league regulations designed to VIOLATE our CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOMS. The same tired old bogus excuse about protecting other people by restricting MY RIGHTS!

So I adjusted my MAGA hat and threw the winning ball straight to the cheering crowd, even though it was against the rules.

Now I’m banned from the local bowling alley.

 

From Margaret and Helen:

GET OFF OUR LAWN

You know why I am mad when I look at that picture? The real reason? It’s not the Hatch Act. It’s not impeachment. It’s not who is leading in the polls and who isn’t. It’s not about blue beating red or red beating blue. I am pissed off because America and Americans deserve better.

America hasn’t solved the pandemic yet and Americans are still dying by the thousands.

America hasn’t opened back up for business yet and Americans are holding on by a thread.

Parents want their kids back in school. Teachers want to feel safe.

Business owners want to return to business as usual. Customers want to shop. God how I just want to go out to dinner and see a movie.

Children want to visit their aging parents in nursing homes. And Grandparents want desperately to hug and kiss our grandchildren one more time.

How dare you. How dare you, Mr. President. We are out here in America doing EVERYTHING we can to NOT get or spread this disease. And some of us are doing it without knowing if we will be able to pay our rent next week.

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From News Corpse:

Among the most loathsome untruths was Trump’s dismissal of the horror that America is suffering through due to his negligent and incompetent mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has a perverse habit of downplaying human tragedies. For seven months he has pretended that the coronavirus was as trivial as the flu and completely under control. 180,000 deaths later it is still taking 1,000 lives every day.

So he is being true to form by beginning his speech with shameless bragging that “the casualties and damage [from Hurricane Laura] were far less than thought possible only 24 hours ago.” He doesn’t say what he considered possible, but there are six dead and estimates of total economic costs “in the neighborhood of $20 billion.” Hallelujah! What a success.

Trump’s speech was a meandering mess that checked off political boxes while ignoring the real world hardships Americans face. He demonstrated his priorities by mentioning COVID-19 only five times, but slandering Joe Biden 41 times. that included the ominous and hyperbolic assertion that Biden “will be the destroyer of American Greatness.” Trump also said that “For 47 years, Joe Biden took the donations of blue collar workers, gave them hugs and even kisses, and told them he felt their pain.” Trump emphasized “kisses” in an attempt to insinuate some sort of sexual aberration.

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From Bill Formby in MadMikesAmerica:

Thinking about the upcoming battle for the presidency reminded me of the song by Toni Fisher from 1960 called The Big Hurt. We begin the real race which will likely be one of the nastiest of at least my remembrance of political clashes. Joe Biden calls this a battle for the soul of this country. Is he right?

I believe that he is putting it mildly. There is nothing that Donald Trump will not do to win another term as president. I also believe that the Democrats must work the same way if they intend to send Trump scurrying back to Florida or New York or whichever rat hole he chooses to reside. Anything less than an all-out assault will not do the job because defeating Trump must be a decisive victory.

I do not anticipate that Trump will ever concede defeat regardless of the margin of victory it is should Biden win the presidency. Trump will still be fighting this race right up until he is escorted out of the White House by either the United States Marshals or the Military. I am not sure which one would do it since we, the people, have never in history witnessed anyone as self-absorbed as Donald Trump.

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• Green Eagle provides a 34 second read that summarizes the third and fourth day of the GOP diatribe. By the way, it helps if you know that Cthulhu is a gigantic entity worshiped by cultists, in shape like an octopus, a dragon, and a caricature of human form, which I got from Wikipedia, thus sparing myself reading anything by H. P. Lovecraft.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger points to a lack of a Republican platform this year as consistent with the Trump convention theme. With no other unifying message, the convention was designed to antagonize the opposition. The gathering and contained speeches were not a presentation of principle. They were little more than a performance of provocation. Let’s own the libs! Tiresome.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein points out that Trump botched his big speech, but nobody will care.
   
• At Margaret and Helen, Helen listens to the GOP convention and writes to her friend. Taking in the rhetoric can lead to unnatural acts involving bleach, light bulbs, and language. Yikes.
   
• Tommy Christopher collects twitter laughter about the over-the-top convention screech by Kimberly Guilfoyle.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil searches deep into his heart and finds a lonely place that might sort of almost feel sorry for a convention presenting member of the Trump family.
   
• In The Borowitz Report, Trump darkly warns that a Biden presidency would mean regular mail service and sports.
   
• In Hackwhackers a Trump speech maker makes reference to a Jimmy Stewart movie role, so Jimmy Stewart’s daughter speaks for the family, stomping all over Trump and convention hypocrisy.
   
• The old joke has an old farmer helping a census researcher with the area’s death rate. The farmer says it’s one per person. Frances Langum reports as Jim Acosta asks a senior White House official about the wisdom of cramming an audience of supporters shoulder to shoulder without protective masks during a dangerous pandemic. The answer from the White House is it doesn’t really matter. Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.
   
  So it’s one death per person. Now THAT is cold.

Continue reading “Unconventional Convention, No There There, Guilfoyle Screech, Blown Speech”

Sure, 180,000 Americans have died from coronavirus on Trump’s watch, but six years ago today, President Obama wore a tan suit. Happy Tanniversary, Barack! pic.twitter.com/fqEVrQeh3H

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) August 28, 2020

 

From Letters from an American:

That plan was in the news today as, in response to an inquiry from leading Democrats, the Chief Actuary for Social Security crunched the numbers behind Trump’s plan to end the payroll tax. Chief Actuary Stephen C. Goss said that the plan would end Disability Insurance in mid-2021 and Social Security by mid-2023.

Payroll taxes are just that: taxes that come out of your paycheck. In this case, the tax in question is the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) payroll taxes and the Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA) taxes. These taxes provide the money that funds Social Security and Disability Insurance. Trump has talked about eliminating the taxes, arguing that getting rid of them would put more money in people’s pockets. It would, in the short term but, as Goss explains, it would almost immediately destroy Social Security and Disability Insurance.

A disregard for social welfare laws is not limited to Trump. In the New York Times yesterday, former chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen and Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Priorities, note that the Senate is on vacation while thirty million American households did not have enough food last week. “The economics of this moment are not complicated,” they write. The economy can’t recover and sustain itself until the coronavirus is under control. Until then, it is imperative for Congress to fund a relief bill to put money back into people’s pockets, both for moral reasons, and to keep the economy from grinding to a halt.

The House passed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill in May, but the Senate refused to take it up.

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From JoAnn Williams:

The horrifying tenant in the ninety’s movie Pacific Heights would not vacate the premises. His reign of terror devalued the property and forced the owners into foreclosure as he stood by ready to pick it up for a song.

Sounds like another real estate developer doesn’t it, except the person I’m referring to occupies the people’s house and there is no question he has devalued the property.

The people have an opportunity to remove this undesirable tenant in November. I imagine an eviction notice will have to be served to remove him, his family, whoever else is hiding in the closet, and his belongings.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

OK, if that doesn’t squig you out, here’s the, er, money shot:

“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room.”

And it reminds me again:

Hypocrisy is not about failing to live up to your standards. Hypocrisy is teaching/preaching something you clearly don’t actually believe as demonstrated by your actions.

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From Max’s Dad:

He is the cool uncle, the relative everyone loves, the buddy who when he asks you how you are really means it. He’s a decent man. My hope for progressive policy and Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders was always a house of cards. Decency was what America needs.

When Bidens candidacy was saved by Rep Jim Clyburn and the black voters of South Carolina and the sudden dropping out of Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, and Mike Bloomberg “saved” the party from Bernie Sanders Joe was the apparent man. Lets face it, Sanders was a risk that could have been taken in 2016 but in 2020 wasnt a risk worth taking. Biden was the safe choice. The choice of the cautious. And dammit, cautious is what we have to do to rid ourselves of this fascist menace.

So here we are. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.A 78 year old white man and a 58 year old woman of color. Against a 74 year old loudmouthed strongman and a admiring closet case. Its not ideal but it is what it is.

Biden gave what is called the speech of his life Thursday night. He was forceful, decent and there were no gaffes. The Republicans sat there in awe, and could only rebut it with their normal far left obsessive screeches and the teleprompter insults. As if being able to read is a flaw. Why not be like our guy, a dyslexic Adderal addict with a tendency to go off the rails and tell people to inject bleach.

Decency. Normal.

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