Flights of Fancy

by 10:55 am. It has 270 Comments.

First, a little perspective courtesy of valued commenter Jim, Foolish Literalist (in the morning thread):

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Don’t be complacent, but don’t panic. It doesn’t do any good, and it ruins your hairdo.

Also, take heart that you’re on the right side. Need more evidence that you walk among the sane? Consider this insane essay that has attracted quite a bit of positive notice in Wingnut World. It’s called “The Flight 93 Election.” The author argues that while it may seem crazy to vote for an inexperienced, wildly inconsistent, ignorant buffoon like Trump — who may very well not know how to run the country if elected — conservatives really have no choice.

He (I feel sure the anonymous essayist is a “he”) compares the situation of conservatives in the U.S. to that of the passengers on the hijacked United Flight 93 plane, and Trump and his voters to the group of passengers who stormed the cockpit of their airliner on 9/11. Here’s how the essayist describes present day America:

America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad. On the one hand, conservatives routinely present a litany of ills plaguing the body politic. Illegitimacy. Crime. Massive, expensive, intrusive, out-of-control government. Politically correct McCarthyism. Ever-higher taxes and ever-deteriorating services and infrastructure. Inability to win wars against tribal, sub-Third-World foes. A disastrously awful educational system that churns out kids who don’t know anything and, at the primary and secondary levels, can’t (or won’t) discipline disruptive punks, and at the higher levels saddles students with six figure debts for the privilege.

This is utterly detached from reality. Crime rates have dropped dramatically, as have teenage pregnancy rates, taxes and government oversight. It’s true that services and infrastructure are deteriorating, but that’s because “conservatives” refuse to pay for them. Terrorism is a stubborn problem, but even a disruptive punk in a failing school should be able to grasp that “bombing the shit out of ISIS” when were already doing that isn’t a panacea.

What this person is suggesting is more akin to a mutiny aboard Captain Sullenberger’s plane: crashing through the cockpit door to toss the Hero of the Hudson aside and install Mr. Magoo at the controls.

Of course, even the deranged essayist doesn’t imagine Trump will actually be able to make those damn kids pull up their pants or roll back globalization wholesale. But he eventually gets around to naming the chief benefit of electing Trump, from the “conservative” point of view:

Third and most important, the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle… The Left and the Democrats seek ringers to form a permanent electoral majority. They, or many of them, also believe the academic-intellectual lie that America’s inherently racist and evil nature can be expiated only through ever greater “diversity.”

So there you have it, folks: economic anxiety, that’s what’s driving the Trump phenomenon. Be glad you’re not that guy.


Department of Trumpenproletariat Relations

by 4:21 pm. It has 188 Comments.

Invasion1956

I know some of y’all have friends or family members who are voting for Trump, because I read your complaints about their ridiculous and/or offensive comments on Facebook. Here’s my question: How are you dealing with these people in real life? Are you ending friendships over it? Just not talking about it to maintain harmony?

I quit following wingnut family members on Facebook months ago, so I don’t have to read their kooky political bullshit. Now I only look at their pages occasionally for pictures of the kids or the weekend’s catch and skip over the crap. My wingnut dad and I agreed not to discuss politics decades ago because we used to argue bitterly over it, to no good purpose. Now I’ve extended that policy to other family members.

During the primaries, I was appalled when one of my uncles (who had voted for Obama in 2008 and written in a third-party knob in 2012) let me know that he was considering voting for Trump. But to his credit, Trump’s appalling behavior eventually put my uncle off, and now he’s going the third-party route again. (He won’t vote for Clinton under any circumstances.)

None of my close friends are Trump supporters, but I have neighbors and acquaintances who probably are. I know they’re Republicans, and they know we’re Democrats, and in past elections, we’ve engaged in lighthearted ribbing about our differences.

But this year is different. I find myself steering conversations away from the election, as if it would be too disturbing to learn that people I’m friendly with are that dumb and/or evil. I can’t decide if that is a legit coping mechanism for living in a red zone or plain old chickenshit rationalization. Probably the latter.

It feels like living in a horror movie sometimes: Invasion of the Brain Snatchers.


Listen, I Forgot To Mention…(S)He’s Not Alone

by 4:54 pm. It has 60 Comments.

Getting ready to watch this and thought you might like to, as well. I hear the President tells it like it is.





This post is in , and has 60 Comments.

Hey, Kentucky?

by 2:02 pm. It has 90 Comments.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your governor is bugfuck insane:

Transcript via RightWingWatch.org:

Somebody asked me yesterday, I did an interview and they said, “Do you think it’s possible, if Hillary Clinton were to win the election, do you think it’s possible that we’ll be able to survive? That we would ever be able to recover as a nation? And while there are people who have stood on this stage and said we would not, I would beg to differ.

But I will tell you this: I do think it would be possible, but at what price? At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots. Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren.

I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something, that we through our apathy and our indifference have given away.

Sounds like Bevin is saying the fat-assed white fundamentalist Christians attending the Values Voters Summit he was addressing will have to team up with Bevin’s nine tots to take up arms against the tyrannical Hillary Clinton. But nah — he clarified later:

Bevin later told the Lexington Herald Leader that he was referring to the sacrifices made by members of the U.S. military.

“Today we have thousands of men and women in uniform fighting for us overseas and they need our full backing,” he said in a statement. “We cannot be complacent about the determination of radical Islamic extremists to destroy our freedoms.”

I don’t doubt for a moment these folks’ bowels seize up at the sight of a burkini. But damned if they aren’t making me skeert of my husband’s pickup truck and the ungrammatical church marquee down the street. These people are fucking nuts.


The New Statute of Limitations in Politics

by 10:28 am. It has 108 Comments.

Trump has been a political dilettante for decades, but he first rose to prominence in modern GOP circles with his overtly racist “birther” campaign. When asked about it during this election season, for many months Trump has stonewalled, dismissing the question by simply saying “I don’t talk about that anymore,” and remarkably — with rare exceptions — he has gotten away with that.

But the Trump campaign’s outrage and attendant posturing over Clinton’s “deplorables” comment emboldened Wolf Blitzer (of all people!) to delve into Trump’s numerous absurdities, including the birther issue. Blitzer cornered Trump’s running mate on CNN yesterday; summary via TPM:

After repeatedly calling for an apology from Hillary Clinton for her remarks that “half” of Donald Trump supporters are a “basket of deplorables,” Trump’s running mate refused to say Monday whether Trump should apologize for his lengthy “birther” crusade against President Obama.

“We’re just not talking about that issue. It’s a 4-year-old issue,” Mike Pence told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, later adding that he believes Obama was born in Hawaii.

“It’s not what the American people are talking about, it really isn’t,” he said.

Actually, Peak Birther occurred five years ago, but now that Pence has specified that issues older than four years are off the table, we can look forward to Benghazi-free campaigning and coverage from here on out since the fourth anniversary of the Benghazi attack was Sunday. I know I’m relieved.

But Pence opened up a brand-new can of deplorable worms during the CNN interview:

Pence also refused to say whether he would call former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who has embraced Trump’s presidential campaign, “deplorable.”

“I’m not in the name-calling business,” Pence said, while arguing that the campaign already made clear it did not want Duke’s support.

The thoroughly deplorable Duke was happy to remain unrebuked by the Trump campaign:

For those keeping score at home, this is the Republican ticket’s second refusal to deplore / disavow / condemn the country’s most notorious Klansman and white supremacist.

Okay, yeah, Pence said the campaign made it clear it doesn’t want Duke’s support (wink-wink!), but 1) it’s laugh-out-loud ridiculous for anyone associated with the Donald Fucking Trump campaign to demur on the basis of name-calling, and 2) calling David Motherfucking Duke “deplorable” should be about as controversial as coming out against childhood hunger or in favor of world peace.

I don’t know, you guys. It’s almost as if the Trump-Pence campaign is taking great pains to avoid offending an important constituency…


Public Service Announcement

by 2:04 pm. It has 157 Comments.

It’s perfectly understandable to be worried about the election. The polls are tight. The media is largely comprised of lazy hacks who privilege phony balance above truth. But worrying is utterly useless unless it spurs you to action.

Freaking out while taking no positive action is worse than useless — it’s demoralizing. So don’t be that person, okay? President Obama often says, “Don’t boo — vote.” To paraphrase him, don’t freak out — volunteer. Or donate.

Open thread!





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The Morning In Three Photos

by 9:58 am. It has 318 Comments.

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And the press is all breathless over Hillary’s untrustworthiness. That seems to ‘trump’ her health, even they can’t bring themselves to believe she has health issues. But they had to do something with that dramatic video. (I’m sure there are some who are making issue of health…but it’s pretty weak tea)

Meanwhile, Trump, as usual gets a free pass, but not from the Hillary campaign:

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IMHO the most important issue for the present is Climate Change…but then that’s been my concern (and focus) for the last twenty years. It sure as hell isn’t a new issue. I have no idea if the photo below is accurate, but I’ve talked to many “deniers” who make me believe it.

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I have a crazy, busy day ahead on very little sleep. But it’s my own fault. I got caught up watching Brooklyn last night and lost track of time. When it was over, had a list of things I needed to complete before sleep. But it was a great little movie and I don’t regret it…at least not now, check back with me around 3pm MDT.

What’s on your agenda today besides trying not to despair over the state of the intelligence of our great country?