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.
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.
Brayden Harrington on how Joe Biden helped him manage a stutter
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.
Farm workers laboring through thick smoke in Salinas, CA, area: https://twitter.com/PocketNihilist
From Nan’s Notebook:
As hundreds of fires burn across California forming a heavy cloud of smoke, these farm workers trudge on keeping the essential agriculture industry alive.
Of course they have few other options since there is no paid time off for sick days … and most of them NEED that $5.50 an hour (and $1.60 per box filled) in order to survive in a state like California with an outrageously high cost of living.
So they continue to toil under record-high temperatures and suffocating smoke — many without any protection from the terrible air quality. Even though state regulations require companies to provide masks for workers when the air quality reaches a certain threshold of “very bad,” it doesn’t always happen.
Few appreciate these workers. In fact, there are those in our society who look down on them.
Nation Building: Not a game
From Anthony Stahelski at The Moderate Voice:
We failed to transform South Vietnam into a democracy. The Nixon-Kissinger assumption that introducing capitalism into China would lead to democracy failed- China is now more menacingly dictatorial than ever before. Our attempts to help Russia become democratic in the early 1990s failed miserably.
Attempts to introduce democracy into the republics carved out of the former Yugoslavia have been marginal at best, and, despite our great sacrifice in blood and resources, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have become democratic. Finally, despite the initial democratic idealism of Arab Spring, the only Arab country that has progressed toward democracy is Tunisia.
So should the United States give up nation building? Not necessarily.
Kimberly GGahhhuilfoyle roars at empty studio
From Strangely Blogged:
You know, it might just be another of those days ending in “y”, but let’s tear into this RNC week with all the verve of Don Jr’s girlfriend trying out for Evita whilst not being able to feel her lips. At all. Like, is her face even attached? What is going on in this picture?
Anyways, it was a tough day in TrumpWorld, what with the investigation in NY going on with whether the Trump Organization was both committing tax fraud and bank fraud being announced, and also with the “pool boy” in the Falwell saga coming forward with the receipts on a seven-year affair with both Mrs. and Mr. in what I believe the kids these days call a “cucking” scenario. Before being revealed as a kinky grifter, the son of the far-right Rev. Jerry Sr.’s endorsement was very valuable to Trump in getting a toehold on the evangelical set.
(And I assume the evangelicals will forgive Falwell, and continue to support Trump, for reasons.)
RNC Audience Frightened By Tim Scott’s Ominous Story
From The Onion:
CHARLOTTE, NC—Admitting that the terrifying details would likely give them nightmares for weeks, Republican National Convention viewers told reporters Tuesday they were chilled by Senator Tim Scott’s ominous story of a black man who rose to a position of power.
No Republican Platform this year, but we will support Donald Trump.
I never entirely agreed with Republican principles as I understood them.
When I was a toddler, they were the party of civil rights. That was the main reason my grandparent and parents were enthusiastic Republicans, at least at that time. I would have been as well, had they allowed twelve year old kids to vote.
The libertarian wing of the party had taken hold by the time I was a teenager. It was called classic conservatism in those days. The emphasis was on militant balancing of the federal budget, limited government, and elimination of the social safety net. The exaggerated embrace of states’ rights was part of the same ideological package. So was your right to sell your house to whomever you wanted – or to refuse to sell to anyone you disliked for any reason.
The flirtation with what was euphemistically called “racial conservatism” seems inevitable in retrospect. White racial resentment of black progress spilled into anger at any hint that somewhere, somehow, some undeserving black person might be getting away with something.
What were classic conservatives to do? Turn away those who wanted many of the same things, but for the wrong reasons?
The surrender to temptation came in increments.
Ideological conservatives would not tolerate racist talk, but they often did deny that racism existed, except in very rare cases. This allowed many to condemn civil rights agitators for stirring up trouble over imaginary wrongs. Racism was an artifact from the past, a mere rhetorical cudgel: an unfair weapon in a contrived war of words.
Throughout it all, conservatives made valiant efforts to advance their clear principles. Until those principles eroded, melted away by the alliance many denied.
Every four years political parties have reaffirmed the values by which their existence is justified. Political platforms are usually disregarded by political campaigns and ignored by office holders between elections. But they are valuable within themselves. They are a mechanism by which political parties affirm to the faithful that they stand for something, and that the something for which they stand is worth fighting for, is worth voting for.
This year has been a special year in that regard. We watched as the slow erosion became a meltdown.
The party of fiscal responsibility became one in which taxes are slashed for the wealthiest while expenses are driven upward.
The party of limited government puts children in cages and clubs protesters for the sake of presidential photo ops.
The party of civil rights has completed the process of repudiation even of the pretense. Voter suppression and the violation of basic liberties is now very much in the open. Democracy itself is seen as a partisan issue.
Many of us have waited with curiosity, wondering what sort of alternate facts, what manner of pretzel logic, would be shone in this year’s quadrennial statement of principle. And now we have an implicit acknowledgment, unexpected but truthful after a fashion. The statement of principles, the Republican platform, has been reduced to this: We don’t know what Republicans stand for, and we don’t know who to ask.
The RNC has unanimously voted to forego the Convention Committee on Platform, in appreciation of the fact that it did not want a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement;
Attorney General Orders Fox to Muzzle Trump Critic – Andrew Napolitano
From News Corpse:
Another excerpt from the book was just published by The Guardian. This one describes a meeting that took place last October between Barr and Fox News Overlord, Rupert Murdoch. News Corpse speculated at the time that the meeting resulted in the resignation of Fox host Shepard Smith, which was announced the next day. But Stelter’s book reports that there was another topic of discussion on their agenda:
“The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to ‘muzzle’ Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network. […] Trump ‘was so incensed by the judge’s TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person … about ‘muzzling the judge’. [Trump] wanted the nation’s top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitano’s legal analysis had been.’”
Just to be clear, intimidating and manipulating the media is not a part of the Attorney General’s job. In fact, it isn’t a part of any government official’s job. It is a totalitarian tactic to control speech and clampdown on the free press. And this sort of suppression of the constitutional rights of journalists is part and parcel of the Trump Doctrine that has designated the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”
