The Cowardly Kittens

Since I don’t interact with Chumpbots/MAGAts on any regular basis anymore I don’t find myself debating them as frequently as I used to, but I like to share this kind of info because sometimes folks have to rebuff the bullshit spewed by the vast right-wing conspiracy apparatus—HRC sure got that one right—and this might help.

So, now that the 69-page pandemic preparedness playbook/report left by the Obama administration has been made public, this administration’s story has shifted from ‘they left us nothing’ to ‘what they left us was not enough’. Fine. The administration that authored the aforementioned playbook, put together a top-notch global health security team and held the total of H1N1 deaths to 12,400; Ebola: 2; and Zika: 1, did a lousy job of preparing the country for a pandemic, according to the Orange Turd and his circus of sycophants.

But the current criminal outfit is doing a great job: the Obama playbook was ignored; the Pandemic Preparedness Office was closed down, and the PREDICT global monitoring system was cut by 75%. Add 2 months of labeling C-19 a Democratic hoax and you get…almost 90,000 of our fellow citizens dead, more than half of whom could’ve have been spared if even bumbling action had been taken during the first week of March. And that number will continue to rise, sadly.

Meanwhile, Dear Leader and the Trumpistan flunkies pat themselves on the back and lie to the American people 24/7 while NO ONE with any real pull calls them on it.

So why isn’t the DNC on the attack? Why isn’t EVERY SINGLE PROMINENT DEMOCRAT, along with an army of political operatives and pundits, on every possible news or political talk show making sure this info is known to every man, woman and child in this country and rubbing it in the Orange Turd’s face?

And speaking of an army, why isn’t Michigan’s governor calling out the cops, the National Guard, or whoever the fuck is appropriate under the circumstances, to let the handful of fucking scumbag, Astroturf “protesters” know that they can’t intimidate the lawful government of a state?

How long are the fucking Dems going to play the Cowardly Lion routine?!

I’m sorry, “Lion”? I meant kitten. They are cowardly kittens.

And their ineptitude in facing this disgrace of a POTUS head on, is a big reason why in the middle of a horribly botched response, bordering on criminally negligent homicide, to a pandemic that will likely kill more than 100,000 Americans, the WORST president in American history has a chance of being re-elected.

Cowardly kittens, indeed.

Time to Idiotproof the Country

This might be as utopian as my dream of secession, but safeguards must be placed to avoid any old buffon like the Trump (or worse) to become POTUS in the future. If there's one thing the Trump presidency has taught us is that many of our norms and requirements for the POTUS are not laws but suggestions based on some kind of gentleman's honor code. Ridiculous! What we've seen is what happens when a scumbag shows up and says, "Oh, yeah? Whatever. Make me."

We must learn from this putrid orange nightmare and put legal requirements in place. For instance: No income tax record, no divestment of business? Can't be a legal candidate and are precluded from being on any ballot, period. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so MUCH MORE to be done to truly have the necessary checks and balances in place, in order to avoid repeating this horrid abomination of a mistake. And if we don’t, we’ll live thru this or worse next time. (Don't kid yourself: the GOP has among its ranks MUCH WORSE than Trump who happen to be smooth, smart and cunning, in addition to evil. Imagine an intelligent, more deplorable but skilled version of Trump. Yeah, they got those.) And that is simply UNACCEPTABLE, to say the least.

The founding fathers envisioned the rise of a PoS like Trump and thought there were enough options to protect the country from such a disgrace. What they didn’t take into account was a corrupt congressional bunch who would put party before country. And so, here we are. We have witnessed the TRAGIC result of what happens when there are no safeguards to a hold back a criminal, inept, murderous, narcissist, thief and traitor. This must be remedied at the first available opportunity. The POTUS is an office TOO important to place in the hands of any old buffon, especially one who is a murderous grifter, to boot. Otherwise, it'll be worse next time.

Much worse.

Bring The Noise

If, as the old saying goes, idle hands are the devil's workshop, then idle time and an internet connection are how you fill out the job application.
 

Having always had great appreciation for those who monitor wingnuttery so the rest of us don't have to, these folks have risen even more in my esteem since I found myself falling thru a YouTube rabbit hole recently and checking out some of the nonsense that passes for discourse out there. The good news is that now I know that if I accidentally swallowed poison, or anything else that harmful, I can count on some of these conservative, right-wing clips on YouTube to provoke enough nausea to propel the poison out. But what a price to pay.

I am happy to report that (with one exception) a combined hour's worth of watching the likes of Alex Jones or Tomi Lahren or Dennis Miller or Ben Shapiro spew their nonsense did not at any point in time lead me to think “Hmm. Not a bad idea. I should look into that.” The lone exception being that Miller and I agree that this country is too divided and polarized to keep operating with its citizenry as one people. But conservative douchebag that he is, he was coy about how to do it, and avoided bringing up the largest elephant in the room today: that most of the red states would likely starve without blue state money. 

Surprisingly, even in their element, amongst their own people, where one would assume they would let their hair down and speak freely, without having to couch their responses in a certain way in order to appear more palatable and reasonable to new converts, it’s very easy to see through their shtick and how they get across their heavily flawed ideas. I don't care enough to address the hot mess that is Lahren aka Blowhard Barbie, but Jones and Shapiro have a similar approach—at different intensity levels, tho: Jones like a madman off his meds and Shapiro like the annoying little teacher’s pet despised by all, who thinks he's righteous but is actually worse than the schoolyard bullies—which is reminiscent of the endless Trump barrage of lies and scandals. In other words, they spew so much continuous garbage you could get sucked in if you tend to be swayed by false premises and straw men. Miller, on the other hand, carries himself pretty much like the hep cat who is not as cool or smart as he thinks he is and these days is indistinguishable from his old colleague Dana Carvey’s scathing impressions of him back in their SNL days.

I could go on for days, but their positions are essentially the intellectual equivalent of rank Swiss cheese. So who's got time for that noise? Also, I must stop before I get deep into breaking down Dave Rubin, a vacuous wingnut talking head who consorts and defends homophobes who openly make their distaste for homosexuality known to Rubin, which he's fine with (I've witnessed it), despite being gay himself. But hey, I get people gotta make a living. And as long as there are wealthy right wing corporate donors you are willing to prostrate yourself before in order to get some of that blood money, their like will reproduce like the pestilence they are. Anyway...

Stay safe. 

Wash those hands.

Fun During Quarantine: Challenging the Chumpbots

Once in a while your boy likes to mix it up with the right-wing nut jobs because, frankly, who’s going to lay down some truth in their Chumpbot/MAGAt world? Plus, mental exercise is good. (Although this was more like stretching before a workout.)

However, I don’t care to rumble with the intellectually impaired—they won’t get it and it’s not a fair fight, anyway. But it’s the numbnuts who think they are smart and wise because they heard Jordan Peterson speak once and think Joe Rogan is some kind of Ayn Rand hero who are most entertaining to me. (I don’t dislike Rogan, btw, but he’s a dude who gets it wrong as frequently as he gets it right, and when he’s wrong it’s a doozy.)

So, without further ado, here’s a recent, brief exchange:

Kiko Jones: OK, let's play along: liberal colleges are bad because they espouse their close-minded point of view but conservative colleges are fine even though they espouse their own close-minded point of view. Got it.

Right Wing Nut Job: First off, I defy you to name a "conservative college." Second, there may be close minded conservatives, but the ratio is inverted when it comes to the left in terms of this close minded point of view. The right does not care about cancelling people, does not believe in respecting pronouns and did not start MeToo.

KJ: Ooh, nice. Here we go...
- No conservative colleges? Here's 5 just off the top of my head...Bob Jones, Brigham Young, Grove City, Hillsdale, Liberty...there's legion.
- To be conservative is to be by nature and definition close minded. Conservative thought is reluctant to embrace change and diversity and innovation. Look it up.
- Conservatives don't call it canceling but do it anyway: just ask any conservative who is gay-friendly and/or pro-choice how they get treated by and large by other conservatives. Pronouns? You don't care about respecting the people. You don't like them so you lash out at them by focusing on pronouns to clumsily cover your tracks. And finally, who would expect the 'boys will be boys/girls ain't shit' crowd who voted for a CONFIRMED sexual predator to be POTUS to look after sexually assaulted women? The same who say women should enjoy being raped? Nah.

Right Wing Nut Job: [groan] Yeah, whatever.

KJ: That's what I thought.