If laughing and/or ignoring crazy Republicans worked, why did Trump win?

A panel discussion Thursday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe raised the prospect that far-right candidates winning Republican primaries could guarantee Democratic victories in the midterm elections. The problem with such an assurance is that there really is no such guarantee, because of the mainstream media track record of normalizing those candidates in the general election.

After all, media outlets held Donald Trump to a lower standard than Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then spent the next four years downplaying his outrageous behavior and publishing sympathetic profiles of his voters. There is no reason to think far-right candidates will be treated any differently in 2022.

Much of the MSNBC discussion centered on next week’s primary elections in Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Doug Mastriano — a QAnon conspiracy theorist who participated in the January 6 insurrection and has close ties to antisemites — now appears to be the front-runner in the race for governor. Also in the discussion was Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who has also built her campaign on 2020 election denial and now has Republican insiders worried about her surge in the polls. (Barnette has also claimed that her 19-point loss in 2020 for a safely Democratic U.S. House seat was really the result of fraud.)

“You look at who the Republicans may be electing in Pennsylvania,” host Joe Scarborough said, “Democrats, they may just go to France for the next six months and win.”

• a) signature
• b) veto
• c) mopey passive aggressiveness whereby he ignores the law and it goes Into effect without his signature.

Friday… the THIRTEENTH!?  Scary. Especially if you are a POC in Georgia at a “routine” traffic stop.

Law of unintended consequences & Putin’s war:

LONDON — Finland’s leaders said it intended to apply for NATO membership “without delay” — prompting Russia to threaten that it would “be forced to take retaliatory steps” if the Nordic country joins the Western military alliance.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Sauli Niinistö released a joint statement on Thursday announcing their support for Finland — which shares an 810-mile border with Russia — to join the alliance.

“NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security,” the statement said. “As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defence alliance.” The leaders added that Finland must apply “without delay” and expressed hope that the steps needed to make the decision would be “taken rapidly within the next few days.”

Maybe is time to address climate change now that rich people are being impacted? 

It seems very permissive and libertine for Democrats to allow Republicans to run in their primary elections. Like this Kelly Williams Maresca running against Representative Wilson-Anton for example.  She is super anti-science and Pro-Trump. She also appears to be endorsed by the gun fanatics at the “Women’s Defense Council.”

Or is this the kind of thing that happens to Sean Lynn, where the DEQOP knows goddam well they can’t win running a Republican in the general, so they get someone to pose as a Democrat in the primary?

The DEGOP and their MAGA proxies pushed to make this round of school board elections partisan. How did that work out? Not great. The DEQOP candidates lost 9 of 11.

Woodbridge – Corey Grammer – LOST

Capital – Joan Engel (I) – LOST

Colonial – Leo B. Magee, Sr. – LOST

Lake Forrest – Dj W. Silicato – LOST

Laurel – Joe Kelly – LOST

Red Clay – ​​Jim Casper – LOST

Seaford – George W. DelFarno – LOST

Smyrna – Brian Clements – LOST

Smyrna – Donna Austin – LOST

Delmar – Dawn Adkins Litchford – WON

Milford – ​Matt Bucher – WON

Pelosi/Coons Elitism – Can the “good” republicans please come back?

Coons and Pelosi share a kind of delusional vision of the world where “good” Republicans exists somewhere and they need to return to pubic life.

By “a strong Republican Party” she of course means a party run by her social peers – not by the unwashed rabble.

You may recall that Coons expressed similar nostalgia for the more elite Democratic Party when asked about the fact that in the “good old days” of bipartisanship “Congress was a lot more homogenous”

I want to believe of our country and ourselves that a more diverse Senate that includes women’s voices, and voices of people of color, and voices of people who were not professionals but, you know, who grew up working class and were the first in their family to go to school and so forth, that we can engage those voices and that they can be part of the debate, and that that doesn’t produce irreconcilable discord.

I think history may judge otherwise, but I appreciate your raising both points.

There are two parties in the United States, but when the mask slips we see that those parties aren’t “Democrats and Republicans” or even “left and right” but “Ideologically Aloof (because they are rarely impacted by policy changes) and The Rest (of us poor suckers down here in the muck).”

Monopolies and the Baby Formula Shortage

As of 2018, four companies—Abbott (which makes Similac), Reckitt Benckiser (Enfamil), Nestlé (Gerber), and Perrigo (which makes store-brand formula)—control about 89 percent of the U.S. market. Any disruption to one of their products will be magnified, whether it’s a recall for Similac or inability to source ingredients. A few companies in the market relying on the same sources creates a much more fragile supply chain.

Keep in mind that baby formula consists mostly of dehydrated cow’s milk, vitamins, and a ton of sugar. Yet it somehow costs at least $150 and as much as $428 a month, high enough to sustain a mass crime ring even before the price jumped 18 percent over the past year. This is probably not as distressing to the oligopolistic companies selling the stuff as it is for families.

Today’s flag is Switzerland, the home to one of the worst, most ethically bankrupt companies in the history of capitalism – Nestle.

With sales people dressed as nurses, Nestle gave out free formula to mothers of new borns in developing countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America.  Many of the mothers could not read the instructions regarding sterilization. These mothers took their babies home to homes without clean water or facilities to bottle feed, they were also unable afford to buy the amount of baby formula needed for the following 6 months so watered down the bottles with unsafe water. Babies died by the boatload, but ooh mama…those quarterly profits!!

The Swiss flag is one of only two square sovereign-state flags, the other being the flag of Vatican City.

Qanon lunacy is transnational & bottomless:

Followers of a QAnon influencer who’s convinced some Canadians she’s the true Queen of Canada are saying their utilities are being cut off because they were told by their sovereign that they no longer had to pay bills.

One woman has repeatedly told her fellow QAnon Queen followers she’s “stopped paying hydro, water, natural gas, property taxes, line of credit, and my credit cards.” She pushes hard on her fellow true believers to join her in not paying their bills and chastising those who continue to pay.

“The more who do it, the quicker we can be free of enslavement,” she wrote on one of the group’s Telegram channels. “Those still living in fear are making it harder to get out. Don’t be afraid, because we’re in this together.”

Many, many others have posted that they, too, have stopped paying their bills after hearing that Romana Didulo—a QAnon influencer who has them convinced she’s running Canada behind the scenes—made a decree that electricity is free. Several have posted their power has been shut off or that they were on the verge of having it shut off and relented to finally paying.

May (in Latin, Maius) was named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with growth and fertility.  I was going to make a connection between the month of May and Justices Barret and Alito referencing the need for abortion restrictions in order to maintain the “domestic supply of infants” available for adoption.  I was going to do that, but it fuck it. Who cares that the legal reason behind this court’s rulings are gibberish wrapped in nonsense?  The longstanding legal precedent of “LOL, Fuck you!” reigns from on high.

Here are a couple of two more sickening stories and one happy story to start your week. I’m rescuing the sickening ones from earlier post because the Monday shift is the glamor shift all posts hope to land on.

Support the “Abortion Providers Protection Act”

Laws that create special classes (where crimes against them get additional punishments) are mostly bullshit virtue signaling – as in “WhAt? yUo d0nT zuPp0rt tHe p0LICE!?!?!”  I mean if you support cops, get them de-escalation training.  If you support teachers, fucking pay them.

Regarding the DEGOP falling assbackwards into writing a law that explicitly protects abortion providers, a wise man said, “Sometimes the right thing happens for the wrong reason.” 

I can’t understand why this story is breaking nationally.  It is appalling. There is video, and it was written up with grace and precision by Sydney Anderson.  

DSU Womans Lacrosse Team Racially Profiled by Georgia State Police

The intermittent and unpredictable flag of the day is the Starry Plough. It was originally used by the Irish Citizen Army, a socialist Irish republican movement, and subsequently adopted by other Irish political organizations. It was first flown on 5 April 1914 over the Imperial Hotel by the Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Easter Rising.

It appears here because he political arm of the IRA, Sinn Fein, hailed a “new era” Saturday for Northern Ireland as it captured the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in a historic win.

I’m nobody’s Brexit expert, but I have to think (without looking it up) that having tasted the benefits of the EU, the good people of Ulster, catholics and protestants alike, have finally had it with the Tory assholes in Westminster.

This Gawker piece gets it.   Hero worship is a big problem for liberals.

For 50 years, conservatives have worked tirelessly towards the repeal of Roe v. Wade. While calling for “strict constructivism,” “judicial restraint,” and denouncing “judicial activism,” they trained and deployed cadres of lawyers as right-wing activists. They gradually took over institutions and then the key institution: the Supreme Court. This required them to adopt Machiavellian means: most of the justices in question swore up and down at their confirmation hearings that they had no designs on Roe, that it was the settled precedent. They were lying. In a certain way it’s a brilliant feat of political will and organization that should be studied.

But while the conservative movement has pumped out loyal foot soldiers who understood that the cause was the main thing, liberals have gotten caught up in the hagiography of their leading functionaries, making everyone involved forget that they are part of a larger movement and not the ends in themselves.A perfect example of this is the pathetic and embarrassing cult of Ruth Bader Ginsberg — the “Notorious RBG” T-shirts, the inane interest in the details of her workout regimen, the literal votive candles — part of that political tribe’s tendency to worship bureaucrats and officials as saviors, a process replicated in Comeyism (his trashing of Clinton’s electoral chances was quickly forgotten after he became a vocal Trump critic), Muellerism, and Faucism.

Liberals started to get everything backwards: women’s rights existed to produce a woman Supreme Court Justice who could be feted rather than a woman on the Supreme Court being there to guarantee women’s fundamental rights. When people called for Bader Ginsberg to step down, the sentiment was labeled “sexist:” “She doesn’t owe you anything,” the idiotic refrain went. Even after her death during Trump’s presidency, when the catastrophic reality of her decision was clear, her supporters vocally still insisted on her absolute right to stay on the job, come what may.

Republican voters are much less sentimental: when a figure betrays them or just insufficiently serves their interests, they turn on them, ruthlessly destroy their reputation, and cast around for better instruments. They are no respecters of persons. When they got the sense that they were being cheated by their establishment who would just collect checks, pal around in Washington D.C., and not deliver anything, they unleashed Trump to menace them. Their entire apparatus is a kind of grotesque vision of ideal democracy: an unruly mob terrifying and disciplining the elite. “Don’t get out of line, we will come for you.”

It wasn’t an idle threat; they tried to lynch the vice president. Will Roe satisfy the troops and prove to them that slow and steady takeover of institutional power is the way to go? No, now they have tasted blood and know they can get what they want. The justices must make themselves useful. The conservative media knows its role is to flatter and placate the mob: the leaker is the real traitor and insurrectionist, we should pray for the families of the justices. But conservatives know to fear the wrath of their own constituents, not angry liberals.

By not getting caught up in the myth of itself, the entire Republican movement worked in concert when it needed to. The conservative court gave a leg up to Bush in 2000 and, in return, he elevated more of them to the bench. When Trump appeared, they didn’t see an obstacle but an opportunity, a crude battering ram to crash through the gates for a final assault. During a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, when asked about the court, Trump said, “The Supreme Court…that’s what it’s all about.” On the one hand, it sounded dumb, like he didn’t know what to say and was reverting to his usual hyperbole and bluster. But it was a clear message to conservative voters: “I can deliver what you’ve always wanted.” And he did. Mitch McConnell invented a precedent out of whole cloth and blocked Merrick Garland. When it looked like Brett Kavanaugh might be sunk, the entire conservative movement and Republican party snapped into fighting formation. The prize was in sight. It was no time to break ranks.

FB, instagram, myspace, whatever social media you are on…please share this story. If you don’t use social media, print it out at work and send it to your aunt in Topeka.

DSU Womans Lacrosse Team Racially Profiled by Georgia State Police

BY OFFICIALHORNETNEWSPAPER ON MAY 4, 2022 • ( LEAVE A COMMENT )

“We believe in a right to privacy”. That’s it.

Of course I’m not a highly paid DC consultant, so I can’t grasp the virtues on trying to run on some Solomonic compromise with fanatics.   Big brain DC types like Coons probably have a good reason for “Why not abort half the baby?”  is a good Dem talking point.

Support Bush’s “Abortion Providers Protection Act”

Laws that create special classes (where crimes against them get additional punishments) are mostly bullshit virtue signaling – as in “WhAt? yUo d0nT zuPp0rt tHe p0LICE!?!?!”  I mean if you support cops, get them de-escalation training.  If you support teachers, fucking pay them.

But this special class bill that El Som covered by HB 234 and mentioned by El Som (here) strikes me as different.  Here he have a class that will actually need protection in the post Roe V Wade world.  If you attack someone working in women’s reproductive health care, you should have the book thrown you.

Therefor I fully support William Bush’s “Abortion Providers Protection Act” because if anyone needs protection from violent fanatics, it is abortion providers.   Furthermore, I want to publicly thank all of the co-sponsors for having the guts to stand up to the Delaware Family Policy Council on this.  Thank you for making anti-abortion protestors pay a significant price when (not if) they attack and harass abortion clinic employees.

New Mexico’s flag is one of our best state flags.

The State Flag of New Mexico has a modern interpretation of an ancient symbol of a sun design as seen on a late 19th century water jar from Zia Pueblo.  The red sun symbol was called a “Zia” and is shown on a field of yellow.  This distinctive design reflects the pueblo’s tribal philosophy, with its wealth of pantheistic spiritualism teaching the basic harmony of all things in the universe.  Four is the sacred number of Zia, and the figure is composed of a circle from which four points radiate.

Too bad New Mexico and the whole of the American southwest is going to be unlivable in our children’s lifetime.

Abortion is a classic example of an issue where the Democratic position enjoys large majorities, and yet the media always elevates the radical Republican position to give it equal stature with the widely popular position.

I guess, in a battle between telling the truth and lying,  it gets more click and eyeballs to constantly lie.

The Hissy Fits Are So Predictable