I've stepped away from most of my political ranting here because it was consuming my life. Politics is so heinous in these United States of America that justice doesn't even fucking exist here. And people just don't care. Thus it's pointless to keep screaming into the void.
Everybody reading this blog knows that I have a healthy distrust of government, loathe 98% of our politicians, and detest the fact that wealthy & powerful people own this country and those we pay to represent us. It's why I advocate for term limits and breaking the stranglehold that lobbyists have over the oppressive load of shit that our government shackles us with.
And yet there are times...
This morning on Facebook somebody reposted this tweet from 2020:
This was referring to this article: Open-Access JSTOR Materials Accessible to the Public. The tweet was based on a minunderstand presented in the article (which has since been cleared up with a revision)... but the sentiment being presented is accurate.
Our government drove a brilliant and tireless political activist to suicide with a heinous campaign of overreach and lies.
As our government does.
Past precedent shows us that the government will always, always, always exterminate those they cannot control.
And we let them.
I first became aware of Aaron after his Infogami CMS was merged with Reddit, of which he is listed as a co-founder. But he didn't move to the forecfront of my thinking until his work in stopping the horrific government SOPA and PIPA laws. Aaron, along with others, got me to be a vocal opponent of this stupid shit, and removed any doubt that the poiticians making our laws don't give a single fuck about being educated about the legislation they advocate. They only do what their wealthy asshole owners tell them to do so the rich get richer at the expense of our citizens. And the only reason... THE ONLY REASON... that our government reversed course on SOPA and PIPA was because enough people got mobilized that their power and wealth were threatened.
And we can't have that, can we?
The U.S. Government: The Best Government You Can Buy!
And so now I am furious all over again... hence this blog post.
Aaron Swartz deserves to be remembered for the fucking hero he is. And of course it's equally important that we remember that our government of the money, by the money, for the money, shall not perish from the earth! We vote in people to keep it that way, after all. Hope you have a ton of money so you can take advantage of it.
If you want to know of Aaron's fascinating story, have I got a video for you. This documentary is essential viewing, so I'd get on that right away if I were you...
Rest in Peace, sir.
And thank you.
If you're in a video-watching mood, Johnny Harris has yet another incredible video that's worth your valuable time...
So it goes...
DON'T EVER LET YOURSELF BE GASLIT.
Thank you so very, very much to the Progressive Insurance supervisor who pulled my Snapshot cancelation call WHERE I PAID THE $20 DISCOUNT REVERSAL TO THE AGENT BEFORE HANGING UP. I received a bill tonight... the only bill I received since canceling Snapshot. I didn't understand what it was for, so I went online to check. It was that Snapshot deduction reversal plus a $10 late fee. Ugh. I thought all this billing error crap would at least take a break after finally canceling AT&T!
So I contacted Progressive via chat to explain what happened. The chat agent did not give a fuck. Tried to tell me I had received multiple emails with the charge, so she wasn't going to waive the late fee (which I did not get, or I would have called just like I did with the one I received tonight). THEN I told the chat agent to pull my phone call. Told her that it was so memorable to me because the agent almost hung up before taking my payment and I had to stop him to give him my credit card. The chat agent said that pulling the call was not necessary because the payment wasn't made and this was all my fault. Essentially gaslighting me into believing that I imagined paying a bill just last month. I imagined not receiving the emails. Or, more likely, she believed I was lying.
Well screw that. So I called Progressive instead. I made the payment (sans late fee) and then asked to have my original phone call pulled. She transferred me to a supervisor who then pulled the call (apparently since I'm in Washington State they couldn't refuse to pull it even if they wanted to).
AND, YEP, IT ALL HAPPENED EXACTLY LIKE I REMEMBERED. EVERY DETAIL I PROVIDED WAS CORRECT. WE DID TALK ABOUT HIS HOME IN CLEVELAND. I DID HAVE TO REMIND THE GUY HE DIDN'T PROCESS MY PAYMENT. I DID GIVE HIM MY CREDIT CARD.
Yet they didn't believe me. Or didn't give a shit if they did believe me.
This is some huge bullshit right here.
But at least Progressive made it right in the end. They waived the late fee due to THEIR error. They pulled the call. They apologized. They confirmed that I'm not delusional and imagining things. I guess I can't really ask for more than that.
EXCEPT TO SAY... might want to try believing your fucking customers. I know that a lot of people are liars and scammers... but I asked for the call to be pulled. THAT'S how I was trying to prove that I WAS NOT a liar or a scammer. And yet the chat agent wanted none of it. Would rather make me think I'm an insane liar than value my concerns.
DON'T ALLOW THEM TO GASLIGHT YOU.
YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN THAT.
YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
And it turns out those calls actually ARE recorded for your protection. At least mine was. The protection of my sanity.
UPDATE: And it gets worse.
Today is Tuesday, June 29th. The day after I just had to go through all this crap. I receive an alert on my phone from the Progressive app that I owe $30 AGAIN. I click through to see what the issue is, and this is what I see...
Well, that's interesting. You sent me a bill... IN THE FUTURE?!?
So I call. Again.
I get gaslit. Again.
I explained calmly that I just received a future bill dated July 14th, 2021 on the Progressive app for something I just resolved last night. Only to basically be told that they don't see it. That it was dated yesterday. That no bill exists. I need to read the bill again. So I get upset. I DO HAVE A BILL. IT DOES SAY IT WAS SENT ON JULY 14th, 2021. Then they start telling me to calm down that I don't owe anything. Says I'm yelling at them when I'm definitely not. Then I apologized and tried to explain that the reason I'm upset is because of what I went through last night and I'm being told I'm imagining something... AGAIN! Jesus Christ. The way Progressive treats their customers is just beyond horrible.
DOES THAT SCREENSHOT NOT SAY THAT A BILL WAS SENT ON JULY 14th?!?
"CALM DOWN! WE DIDN'T SEND YOU AN EMAIL! YOU NEED TO READ THE BILL!"
Well, as I said, it wasn't an email. It was an alert on the Progressive app. AND I AM LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW!
This is just... beyond abusive at this point. It's AT&T all over again. What is it about these companies that they can't handle their fucking billing? I am going to find a way to record ALL my phone calls with companies. Then I'm going to post the shit on social media because being called a delusional liar OVER SHIT THE COMPANY DID is getting so old.
Calm down? After what you just said to me?
How am I NOT supposed to get upset when your company continues to call me a delusional liar? Even when I have PROOF that I'm not imagining things and NOT a liar? When I have to keep contacting you and getting treated like shit FOR YOUR ERROR? When I have to get a supervisor to pull my call so you'll believe me? Do you honestly expect me to be Miss Mary Sunshine under these conditions? Unreal. Your company is just unreal. But I shouldn't be surprised. This is what companies do now-a-days. I'm just sad to learn that Progressive is the same as all the rest. Flo always seems so nice in those commercials.
I bounce back and forth between wanting to know absolutely everything that's happening in the world today... and wanting desperately to know nothing about anything anywhere. But I couldn't live with myself if I turned an ignorant eye to all the crap that's happening, so I do my best to stay informed and wade through the sewage forced upon us by the bullshit media with their bullshit agendas.
Right before my birthday happened, the "big news" of the day was Vice President Kamala Harris not saluting the military detail for Air Force 2 as she walked onto her personal jet to go do... something... or whatever. People were beside themselves with rage over her blatant disrespect.
Except...
The President of the United States of America salutes our troops out of (relatively) recent tradition because he is COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES. And even then it's not required OR expected. The Vice President isn’t in command of jack-shit when it comes to the military, so she doesn’t salute them. She's just a civilian in public service.
And yet here comes shitloads of people throwing a fit about it.
Which is like being big mad because a grocery store clerk doesn’t salute our troops, but okay.
Every damn day this country gets more ignorant and more idiotic because people are fucking sheep who don’t even know why they’re mad any more. Somebody on TV or the internet tells them to be outraged, so they get outraged. All people care about is whether the outrage fits the narrative they've been programmed with. Facts, evidence, experience, accuracy, and knowledge simply Do Not Matter.
And I don't know what else to say about it except "Well, have at it then. Keep on being that person who can’t help but announce to the world how big of a dumbass they are." — Because what else can I say? There's no changing anybody's mind, and patiently explaining why Vice President Harris didn't salute the guys outside her fancy plane would make zero difference. They would still be outraged.
And can you imagine if she had saluted?
Then the outrage would be SHE'S NOT MILITARY! SHE'S NOT IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND! HOW DARE SHE THINK SHE IS WORTHY OF SALUTING OUR BRAVE TROOPS! WHAT A DISRESPECTFUL PIECE OF SHIT!!!
Because that's what the outrage machine does. That's all they're good for, apparently.
Which brings me to this bit of genius from comedian Russell Brand, one of the foremost thinkers on the planet (whether you agree with him or not)...
"I mean in England we have a Queen for fuck’s sake. A Queen! We have to call her things like 'Your Majesty!' Like she’s all majestic... like an eagle or a mountain. She’s just a person. A little old lady in a shiny hat — a shiny hat that WE paid for. Or 'Your Highness.' What the fuck is that?! What, she’s high up above us at the top of a class pyramid on a shelf of money with her own face on it? We should be calling her Mrs Windsor. In fact that’s not even her real name, they changed it in the war to distract us from the inconvenient fact that they were as German as the enemy that teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted actually, to die fighting. Her actual name is Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
All this drama. All this outrage. All this hate. It's all built around mere humans that used to exist to serve us... but now exist to be worshipped by us. If you are a Republican you are required to worship at the altar of President Regan. If you are a Trump-Republican you are required to worship at the altar of President Trump. If you are a Democrat, then President Obama is your god... with President Biden as some kind of god-adjacent deity or something. And once you've been programmed with which god you'll be worshipping, you are expected to be blindly loyal to them... all while hating everybody's else's god... regardless of circumstance.* Which is how we get to "KAMALA HARRIS IS A DEMON IN LEAGUE WITH THE GREAT SATAN JOE BIDEN AND WE NEED TO BE OUTRAGED WHEN SHE DIDN'T SALUTE EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO SALUTE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT OUR GOD DEMANDS OF US! (as handed down from on high by Fox News, restrictions do not apply)"
And, I gotta tell you, I'm exhausted by it all.**
If only we could get back to a place where political leaders are public servants again.***
Though, if I'm being honest, I think we've gone too far down the rabbit hole to ever go back. It's going to be politicians as gods, mandatory blind worship, generated outrage, and hate on top of hate on top of hate, from here on out. Which is both sad and inexplicable, because I think if you sat people down individually and asked them if this is what they really want, their answer would be "no." But nobody has time for that conversation. They have to get back to being mad about somebody over something that somebody told them to be mad about.
*Which, coincidentally enough, is how world religions seem to work, but I digress.
**Not exhausted enough to pick a god, but still... I digress.
***Or, at the very least, aren't able to be bought by lobbyist payola... no more digressing.
Not a great day to be Dave, just sayin'.
I worked a half-day on Sunday so I could be ahead of the game when I walked into the office this morning. That was absolute folly, because I was confronted by or Horrendous Monday Problem the minute I sat down and checked my email. Nothing that was my fault or the fault of anybody I work with, mind you, it was a 3rd party problem which is now my problem. In all honesty, I wouldn't be upset about it if I didn't have so much work already on my plate, but here we are. Oh well. It's not like I have anything piling up on my social calendar. Though I really, really need to clean my house.
Other than the impending cascade of work which will be falling on my head over the next several weeks, my mind has been focused on one thing and one thing only today...
Yep... next Saturday before bed we will be "Falling Back" an hour because we're fucking stupid like that. And I am already mortified at the idea of it because after the change all the daylight hours will be happening while I'm at the office. Instead of getting a small slice of sunshine at the end of my work day, I'll be getting jack-shit and total darkness. Which is buckets of fun when it starts snowing heavy.
Honest to God I don't know why people aren't in open revolt and advocating anarchy over the government forcing us to dick with the clocks twice a year. At the very least politicians should be voted out of office for refusing to do anything about it. NOBODY WANTS DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME TO END, SO JUST MAKE IT PERMANENT OR WE WILL FUCKING END YOU! Is that what it's going to take?
Oh probably.
In today's non-calling-for-the-heads-of-our-politicians news... NASA announced there's water on the sunlit surface of the moon. As in our moon. As in THE moon. It's not like a lake full of water, it's a relatively tiny amount of water... and it's apparently trapped in glass bead or some crazy shit like that... but it's still kinda a big deal. Water is heavy. Getting water off the surface of the earth is difficult, expensive, and takes a lot of energy. Being able to get it off the moon somehow would be a game-changer for space exploration and building a human colony on the lunar surface.
Given how we seem to be intent on fucking up the planet with the Supreme Court "justices" we're installing, the moon may very well be the only source of clean water we'll have left.
Until we fuck that up as well.
If there's one thing I'm confident of, it's that we will continue to burn down the planet because it's inconvenient to try and save it. If there's two things I'm confident of, it's that we will continue to burn down the planet because it's inconvenient to try and save it... AND we're going to be stuck with senselessly fucking with the clocks forever because politicians are too big of fucking assholes to give a shit about what US citizens want or need. There's lobbyist dick to suck for cash and reelection to think about, and that's all that matters to the pieces of shit.
And to us, apparently, since we keep reelecting them.
I don't know which I detest more... Kool-Aid Drinking Conservatives or Kool-Aid Drinking Liberals. At least with Kool-Aid Drinking Conservatives they can usually point to That One Thing which makes them a Kool-Aid Drinking Conservative. Let's pick abortion as an example. They are against abortion, everything else is secondary, so they live and die for their Republican candidates and the GOP no matter how big of a stupid Republican asshole ends up in office. Mitch McConnell has built his entire existence as a career politician relying on exactly this kind of idiocy. He can literally do no wrong and get away with as much hypocritical fucked up bullshit as he wants because his base will support him and believe him no matter what he does or how obviously he lies.
Whether it's abortion, guns, lower taxes, or the right of Christians to persecute people they don't like, Conservatives know exactly which hot-button issues sends them to the voting booth over and over again. And that's regardless of all the other issues Conservatives saddle them with that are against their best interest. There's always That One Thing which keeps them loyal. "Sure I can't afford health care, the water is poisoned, and I have to work three jobs just to scrape out a living, but at least my local hospital can refuse to treat queers!"
That's fucked up, but I can kinda respect it. I feel the same way about Daylight Saving Time. I fucking hate it, it's fucking stupid, and I am so fucking sick of it that I often joke about voting for whichever candidate promises to get rid of it forever. Asshole politicians come and go, but dicking with the clocks twice a year is (apparently) forever.
But it's not the same for Kool-Aid Drinking Liberals, is it?
Some of them have That One Thing... like a woman's right to choose, perhaps. But most of the liberals I know can't boil it down like that. They can't point to a single issue and say "THAT'S WHY I'M A BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL!" Their reasoning is usually far more complex and esoteric. Ask them and you'll end up with something like "I'm a liberal because I believe in human rights and equality!"... and then they will yammer on for hours to rationalize their blind devotion to the DNC. And I get it. Honestly I do. I usually vote for Democrats now-a-days because even though they are bought and paid for by lobbyists just like Republicans, at least I know that social issues which favor regular people over billion dollar corporations and favor oppressed minorities over religious persecution will (hopefully) be addressed.
I feel you on all of that.
But it's still horribly frustrating for me to understand drinking the DNC Kool-Aid and believing that Democratic politicians are above reproach and can do no wrong.
Take for example, Senior Senator Patty Murray from my home state of Washington.
Public domain photo provided by the United States Congress
I fucking despise her.
Well, I should clarify... I despise all politicians, but I really despise Senator Patty Murray.
I've disagreed with her on several matters. But my true loathing started after she voted against affordable drug re-importation from Canada. She offered up all kinds of fucking bullshit to excuse her stance... like questioning the "safety" of allowing drugs coming from Canada... but it was all crap. I mean, where are all the news stories of Canadians dying by the thousands due to bad drugs? You won't find them. What you will find is hundreds of stories of thousands of Americans who can't afford critical drugs and have to go without, damaging their health and ending their lives. No, the real reason that Patty Murray voted against drug re-importation was because she takes piles of money from Big Pharma and has a vested interest in protecting their profits.
Just like all the other politicians, Senator Murray has her price, and is willing to sell out herself and the State of Washington to anybody who will pay it.
And Democrats don't fucking care.
I've heard all the excuses, but this is my favorite: "She's a senior politicians with lots of power in the Senate! We can't lose Patty Murray because then Washington State will lose the power that we get from having her entrenched in office! We need her fighting for us!" To which I can only respond "What good is all that power if she uses it against us from time to time? Shouldn't we vote in a politician who won't sell us out for lobbyist cash?" But then Democrats just take another sip of the Kool-Aid and smile. They don't care. "Vote Blue No Matter Who isn't just a catchy slogan, it's a way of life. But why can't it be a different blue than Patty Murray?
And that brings us to good ol' Mitch McConnell and his love of taking a shit on The Constitution. Yesterday the US Senate voted to allow the feds to grab your online history with NO WARRANT and NO DUE PROCESS. They can essentially spy on you online with absolutely no oversight whatsoever.
Now, don't get me wrong here... I fully support our government agencies doing what they can to fight terrorism and keep us safe. And they should absolutely be given the tools to do that. No question there at all. But to have such sweeping power without oversight? To be able to intrude on our personal lives without cause or due process? Who the fuck supports that? Who the fuck thinks this is enforcing our right to privacy and freedom?
Senators Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) and Steve Daines (Republican, Montana) asked this same question and came up with the same answer I did. We absolutely don't support warrantless intrusions on American citizen lives. And they drafted an amendment to prevent it from happening. 59 out of 100 senators agreed with them and voted to support it. But because you need a 60 vote majority to pass anything, the legislation failed.
Four senators... Patty Murray (Democrat, Washington), Bernie Sanders (Democrat, Vermont), Lamar Alexander (Republican, Tennessee), and Ben Sasse (Republican, Nebraska) didn't bother to vote. Had Patty Murray showed up to do her fucking job... the job we fucking pay her to do... the amendment would have passed.
Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the behind-the-scenes manipulations that go on in American politics would have still set up the amendment to fail because secretly all our senators want it to fail. And all of this bullshit is just a dog and pony show that endangered politicians can point to when they run for reelection. Who can say? All I know is that worthless piece of shit Senator Patty Murray who represents me didn't bother to go on record saying that invasions of our privacy should have oversight and warrantless invasions of American lives should not stand.
Which is why the cynic in me is thinking "God only knows what skeletons the FBI dug out of Patty Murray's closet to make her sit out the vote like this."
As you might have guessed, I am fucking livid.
Because as more and more of our lives is digitized and put online, we lose more and more control over what we choose to share of ourselves. Now the feds can LEGALLY perform a search WITHOUT a warrant and WITHOUT due process. They can break into your life on a whim whether you have done anything wrong or not. Your right to online privacy is gone. So what’s next? Senator Patty Murray sits out on a vote for legislation which says we can be dragged off to prison without cause as well?
Fuck that and fuck her.
We need to find somebody new to represent us who is serious about serving the people of Washington and supporting the legislation which preserves our right to privacy. Find somebody who will actually show up to vote on legislation which affects our lives. Find somebody who will actually do their job. That "somebody" sure as hell is not Patty Murray, so let's get her out of office and find somebody new who will show up for us. President Trump is constantly railing against "Do-Nothing Democrats," which is a laughable and provable lie (most of the stuff Democrats are trying to do gets blocked by Mitch McConnell, natch) but it turns out sometimes it's true. And we deserve better.
As I close out this rant on the horrors which pile on the "new normal" for American citizens, I'd like to leave you with this clip from the film The Pelican Brief (copyright Warner Bros. Pictures)... assuming it hasn't been taken down for copyright infringement...
Julia Roberts is right. They are wrong.
UPDATE: The Patriot Act reauthorization bill passed the Senate today in an 80-16 vote. Senator Patty Murray voted "no," but fat good that does us when she fucking knew it was going to pass. And that's awful. But it could have passed with an amendment to prevent warrantless invasion of privacy when it comes to our online lives. Whether this is due to Patty Murray's incompetence or indifference is anybody's guess. All she gives a shit about is that she can point to the Patriot Act and say "I opposed that!" when it's time for her to be reelected. And, while technically true, it's actually a lie. But what else do you expect from a politician?
Look, if I end up contracting the Coronavirus and die, so be it. I've been as cautious as I can be. I've had a decent life. Shit happens. I'm good to go.
But if I end up dying because I was attacked by a murder hornet? Yeah, just kill me now. I have no desire to wait around for that.
As you have undoubtedly read, so-called "murder hornets" have reached the United States and... in what I can only describe as a fucking horror story and just my luck... where they've landed IS RIGHT HERE IN MY HOME OF WASHINGTON STATE!
Disturbing photo by Yasunori Koide via Wikipedia Commons
My reaction to the news?
You know that moment in Galaxy Quest where Sigourney Weaver finds out they have to run through "The Chompers" in order to keep the ship from being blown up? And her line is "Well fuck that!" but they changed the film from an R-rating to a PG-rating, so she ends up saying "Well screw that!" but her mouth is still saying the original line?
It was like that.
Murder hornets (which actually aren't called that anywhere but here in the USA where absolutely everything has to be sensationalized) are 2-inch long death-bringers from the sky who get their kicks ripping the heads off of bees and pulping their thorax to feed to their baby murder hornets.
Considering that a huge chunk of our food supply either directly or indirectly comes from bees polinating flowers and crops, this is insanely bad news. I hope that once everybody studying the Coronavirus comes up with a vaccination or cure or whatever... they turn their attention to finding a way to kill every last one of these bastards before I have to worry about running into them when I walk out to check my mailbox.
I tell you... the way things keep going on this planet, the more I am hoping for alien abduction.
All too often we humans speak of the planet as if humanity is the only thing living on it.
This attitude is mortifying, and a huge part of why animals of all kinds are rapidly losing their homes. Whether it be due to climate change... or deforestation... or pollution... or any number of other human-induced disasters, our fellow creatures are not long for this earth. "Adapt or die" is a phrase that's tossed around like it excuses everything, which is easy to say when you are able to adapt more quickly than all the so-called "lesser species" on this planet. If our home is destroyed, we rent a
This past week articles were hitting the news saying that koalas have become "functionally extinct" thanks to horrible wildfires raging through Australia.
Subsequent responses are all over the map. Some say that this is a vastly-overblown statement and koalas are nowhere near going extinct. Others say that "functionally extinct" is a statement considering future trends, and is completely accurate. In any event, Forbes changed their headline from "Expert claims Australia's beloved marsupial is 'functionally extinct' after bushfires destroyed 80 per cent of their natural habitat and killed thousands"... to "Fires Have May Have Killed Up To 1,000 Koalas, Fueling Concerns Over The Future Of The Species"... which they claim is to "better reflect the content of the reporting." So make of it what you will. Interesting to note that the original headline is still part of the URL...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/11/23/koalas-functionally-extinct-after-australia-bushfires-destroy-80-of-their-habitat/
As I am neither an expert on koalas nor their survivability chances, I'll bow out of that fight.
I will, however, weigh in with my opinion, which is this: Once humanity stops caring for all life on this planet, we are dooming ourselves just as surely as if we found a way to crash the earth into the sun. Life here is co-dependent and if you want to be exposed to something that will keep you up at night, start reading articles on how close we may be to eliminating a keystone species. Well, at least those "keystone species" we know of.
Koalas may... or may not... be a keystone species upon which most life on this planet relies (it's something you can only ever truly know in hindsight). But they are amazingly sweet, gentle, inoffensive, and adorable creatures who deserve better than what they've gotten by our hand. When I visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Australia, theirs seemed like such a dire predicament eight years ago... and it's just getting more hopeless as time goes on.
How much better off would life on this planet be if we weren't here fucking it up?
Humans, such as we are, may not be functionally extinct... but we are quickly becoming functionally inhuman.
I honestly don't know where I land on all the impeachment stuff.
I mean, yeah, the president abused his office for personal gain. There is no debating this. It all really happened and there's a preponderance of evidence that it happened. Of course the president denies it happened... but then, like every other time he's accused of something he did, he tries to suppress evidence and tell lies to convince people it didn't happen. Then real evidence is uncovered, proof is found, and he starts screaming "Fake News" so his supporters will look the other way. This has been happening since he assumed office. And it's obviously a strategy that works for him because he should have been thrown in jail long ago.
Except... don't all politicians do crap like this?
The issue at hand here is that President Trump's corruption is so much easier to see. Because. He's. Just. That. Damn. Stupid. And he surrounds himself with fucking morons like Rudy Giuliani who is happy to go on live television interviews and admit everything. And, oh yeah, President Trump's crimes run bigger, badder, and worser than most politicians, so there's that. He is effectively giving this country to billionaires, special interest groups, and foreign countries (many of them our enemies)... all while eradicating small business and the middle class to do it. People who benefit him get everything. People who cannot benefit him get fucked.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
So, yeah, sure. Impeach him. Remove the president from office. Let bat-shit crazy insane Vice President Pence eradicate what few personal liberties remain and start World War III by nuking all the non-Christian nations (it's the jihad he's been masturbating over for decades). Or let President Trump continue his term... possibly get a second term... and run this country so far into the ground that it can never recover. Either way, we're fucked. The world is fucked.
The only way that impeachment will actually mean anything for the rest of us is if ALL the crooked politicians get thrown in jail. ALL of them. Then we can establish term limits... eliminate gerrymandering... abolish lobbyists... curb corruption... strive for equal representation... nurture personal liberties... repair our environment... protect our wildlife... set our clocks to permanent Daylight Saving Time... and work towards being a country that lives up to the ideals of who we want to be. Who we really want to be once all the slime has been eradicated and our government works for everyone and not the few.
Make that happen and I would gladly tune into the hearings.
In other news... I hope Netflix is offering Aamer Rahman a pile of money for his own special. I've shared a video from him before, but here's some more...
Some of his stuff is wonderfully insightful, flipping the script on race to illustrate exactly where we're at...
I don't find anything offensive in truth. If people do, then that's probably a good thing.
I'm in the future! This post is for Wednesday but I'm writing it on Thursday because stuff happened.
My flight to Boston was great (thanks, Alaska Airlines!). My hotel at midnight was nice. My drive up to Maine was painless. My lunch was very good. My hotel is great as always. But work was pushed back several times over many hours, so I'm kinda in that limbo state that happens when you're sleep-deprived yet having to concentrate on the job.
Somewhere in all that, I needed a snack so I grabbed a bag of Mango Pineapple Mix. I love dried pineapple and mango, so it was an easy choice.
Except...
When I started chowing down, I noted that there was hardly any mango or pineapple taste to be found. As you chew it, it tastes more like peanut butter and raisins...
INGREDIENTS: PEANUTS, RAISINS, SUNFLOWER KERNELS, MANGO, PINEAPPLE, CASHEWS.
Well, shit.
Here in the USA, ingredients must be listed in order of volume. But they don't have to tell you the percentage of each ingredients. For my "Mango Pineapple Mix" my guess is that it's something like this...
So... not really a Mango Pineapple Mix after all. The ingredients might as well have read...
Mango, pineapple, and cashews are expensive, so they are used sparingly. Peanuts, raisins, and sunflower seeds are cheap, so they are used as filler. Which is fine, except in this case the filler is so overwhelming that you never really taste the ingredients that the mix was named after.
The product is a lie.
Which is nothing new. Companies lie to sell their crap all the time.
Just like politicians.
As the presidential race starts heating up, you quickly realize that all the threats and promises the candidates are making are just filler. Cheap lies they say so they can get elected. Promises, after all, cost nothing. If I were to break down the ingredients for a politician's motivations when running for office, it would probably go something like this...
Yes, I realize that all adds up to 500%, but you've seen how politicians operate... tell me that I'm wrong. And don't kid yourself, that 2% is very much dependent on whether having "concern" will jeopardize their bigger priorities.
The product is a lie.
Which is nothing new. Politicians lie to sell their crap all the time. Their "ingredients" might as well read...
Why American citizens don't give a shit about this obvious scam is beyond me. I see the headlines and marvel at the fact that people aren't rioting in the streets. Take this one, for example...
Trump said he wouldn’t cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. His 2020 budget cuts all 3.
You work your entire life so that one day you can retire. Significant chunks of your paycheck are taken for Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, with the expectation that this money will come back to you so that you don't have to spend your "golden years" living in disease and poverty.
And yet here we are.
If you're one of the wealthy individuals benefitting from the money being stolen from working-class America, congratulations, you got the country you paid for. If you're not one of those individuals, then I hope you enjoy your "golden years" living in disease and poverty. You voted for it, after all.
Change your mind? Here's a checklist for a good start...
That last one is the ballgame. It's also complex and interesting. Fortunately, CPG Grey has you covered. Watching these videos is well worth your time if you're at all concerned about just how badly fucked you are by our current political system...
And... back to work. And my shitty trail mix.
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