Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

~~~

General John Kelly: "He said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law."

Monday, January 30, 2023

This clown wants to be POTUS again...

 


and there are plenty of idiots out there who would vote for him.






Trumpy sounds a lot like this guy:





Remember this when he was running for re-election (AND LOST!)?





Oh George! Or Anthony ! Or Kitara Ravache! Oh Whatevah!


Make this fraudster the symbol of the current Republican Party.




Squeaker of the House Kevin McCarthy put this clown on TWO House committees!

George Santos has been welcomed by the GQP despite being a serial fraudster.






Embattled U.S. Rep. George Santos was drag queen in Brazil pageants, associates say  

 George Santos admits to dressing up as woman, but denies he was a ‘drag queen’






"Republican Congressman, George Anthony DeVolder Santos said on Twitter last Thursday that claims "that I am a drag Queen or 'performed' as a drag Queen" are "categorically false," adding: "I will not be distracted nor fazed by this." (Republicans are increasingly denouncing drag shows and performers, claiming they are harmful to children.) 

 While Santos' drag performances aren't an issue per se, the reports—as well as his denial of the claims and now his admission—are likely to put the Republican Party in a very awkward spot."


Speaking of Drag Queens (and I happily attended many of their fabulous shows in Provincetown, Mass., when I lived on the Cape), here's another famous one:





Saturday, January 28, 2023

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

A different kind of dancing:  

Liquid in slow motion with music. Enjoy.





Thursday, January 26, 2023

"...lunacy out there..."

 

I found this posted on Democratic Underground. All I know about the guy who wrote this is that he's from Philadelphia and currently lives on the Jersey Shore. 




We have I believe close to 340 million people living in this nation. In this era of billions and trillions the concept of a relatively “low” number like 340 million is not fully understood.It is in fact, a vast sea of people with every possible combination, genetic make up, mental capabilities and incapabilities, physical appearance, emotional disturbance, and everything and anything else that can possibly fit into the pool. 

 Thus, it is not shocking that a six-year-old would bring a gun to school . What might be shocking is that it doesn’t happen more often that we know of, and the fact that this Junior miscreant shot his teacher is horrifying, but in a world filled with random behaviors, almost expected at some point in the huge bell curve of behaviors. What is hard to believe is the story that no fewer than four reports of this child possessing this firearm were entertained by the administration, and a police officer was not called, the school was not locked down, the child was not searched along with his backpack and his desk, and all the other protocols which should be associated with the presence of a weapon in a school building. 

 It is the sheer idiocy of the administrators, and believe me, I have known many who rival this cadre of morons, who, for whatever reason did not do “the right thing“. But shock? Absolutely not… The level of utter disregard for common sense, for convention, for morality is low to nonexistent in a fair percentage of the population. The whole thing is a disgrace, and quite frankly if it were up to me, I would put some of these people in jail for disregarding a clear warning sign. 

 Now, let me tell you the reason why this upsets me enormously: when I was 14 I made the mistake in school of talking to this young lady who is a year ahead of me, but in my drama group , while we were getting ready to perform in a play. Her erstwhile psycho boyfriend saw me talking to her at length, and a day later, while walking on the campus was abducted, taken behind a wall, and I am not fabricating this or joking, placed the edge of a switchblade to my neck for no less than 10 minutes while screaming at me about how I was trying to steal his girlfriend and did I want to die. Of course, I was too afraid to report this, but it did get back to the faculty who did… absolutely nothing to this guy. The long and the short of it was that he and his equally insane brother eventually burned down their adoptive parents’ house, which contained countless valuable artworks, which had been collected over two or three generations. Rarely do I smile when I hear of someone’s death, but I did read that each of these boys, as older men, had died, and a wave of relief flooded through me because to tell you the truth, I was always afraid that this insane human being would think perhaps to look me up and kill me just because. 

 Anyone who thinks that this cannot happen is not paying attention. There is enough lunacy out there, starting with the very young and ending with the very old. I am tired of faux outrage and shock. This country, despite all the rosy pictures painted by the mass media, is filled with people who, if given a chance, would commit a capital crime if they thought they could get away with it. In this case, this kid who shot his teacher and threatened his classmate started young."

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Books and Guns

 

We live in a country where some states ban books but do not ban selling weapons of mass killings to teenagers.

Texas, for example, is among the leading book-banning states. In addition to being a state that doesn't ban teenagers from buying AR-15s, Texas is also in the top ten states with the most school shootings.

As far as I know, no teenager has committed a massacre holding a book in his hands.

Try explaining this to someone from another country.












US mass shootings:





Tuesday, January 24, 2023

HO BOY!

 


Classified documents found in unprotected area at Mike Pence's Indiana home

I'll repost the George (Whoever He Is) Santos piece later. This story is far more important.

 



Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated 

Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is also accused of taking $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence worker while still at the FBI NEW YORK — The FBI’s former top spy hunter in New York was charged Monday with taking secret cash payments of more than $225,000 while overseeing highly sensitive cases, and breaking the law by trying to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from a U.S. sanctions list — accusations that shocked the cloistered world of his fellow high-ranking intelligence officials. 

 [skip] 

 The name of Deripaska, a politically connected billionaire, came up repeatedly in recent U.S. investigations involving Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Deripaska did business for years with Paul Manafort, whose tenure as Trump’s campaign chairman became an intense focus of FBI investigations. Manafort and Deripaska have both confirmed that they had a business relationship in which Manafort was paid as an investment consultant. In 2014, Deripaska accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments without accounting for how they were used.



From a friend who sent this to me in an email:


"Inquiring minds want to know if Mitch McConnell was ever investigated over the reasons why he personally got Oleg Deripaska removed from the sanctions list well after it became pubic information, confirmed by the FBI, that Deripaska was neck deep in the Russian plot to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump. 

Are we to believe that it was just coincidence that Deripaska had paid Paul Manafort over $12 million to be his political fixer, in Ukraine, when Manafort became the Trump campaign manager in 2016 while still on the Deripaska payroll, and that Manafort secured the nomination for Trump? 

 Are we to believe it was some kind of odd coincidence that Deripaska announced the he would be making a $200 million investment in an aluminum smelter in McConnell's bottom feeding State of Kentucky on the very day that his removal from the sanctions list was announced by McConnell's Senate office? 

Was there an FBI investigation into how much money Deripaska funneled into the coffers of the Republican party PACs by way of straw donors? 

 It must be some kind of weird coincidence that Republican Rod Rosenstein forbade Robert Mueller's investigation from following the money during the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, an election cycle in which the National Rifle Association laundered an estimated $30 million contributed by Russian sources into Republican campaigns. 

 McGonigal is just the tip of the iceberg."


And this:


"I have been known to speculate that the last chapter of Trump's association with Russian mob figures and oligarchs since the late 1980's, when they colluded to launder money into Trump's real estate deals, will be the release of Putin's full dossier on him when the last drop of utility has been wrung from owning a 'president' of the USA as a final embarrassing blow to our prestige. 

 I don't expect that to occur until Trump has ripped the Republican party in two by taking the MAGAs with him when he fails to get support for his nomination from the party in the midst of his various criminal trials, and the Republican led House fails to curb Biden's commitments to support Ukraine through to Russia's defeat. 

 I do expect that Putin has amused himself with contemplating the impact of the dossier on America's self image as he struggles with the personal scope of the strategic blunder of a losing war he is so irrevocably enmeshed in. 

 At the least I am amused when contemplating such a fatal body blow to America's worst 'president' and what that would mean for the Republican Party as the leadership contemplates Putin releasing all of his Republican dossiers when they fail him too."

 




USA TODAY: Jury convicts Jan. 6 rioter who propped his feet up on a Nancy Pelosi staffer's desk







Monday, January 23, 2023

Republicans in IOWA propose a bill that would punish the poor.


h/t Dave Miller


I'm betting a majority of the folks who propose making poor people's lives more difficult than they already are -- those folks probably go to church or some place where they worship what they say is a loving god, ignore all of what they hear about loving their neighbor as themselves, and take joy in hurting who Jesus said were "the least of these." 

My take-away from what these awful folks are proposing? 

Cruelty to the most vulnerable Americans. Is THAT what their Savior taught them?









THE "FREE" STATE OF FLORIDA?




Free State of Florida: 


"Florida teachers are being told to remove all books from their classroom libraries OR FACE FELONY PROSECUTION 

 The new policy is based on the premise that teachers are using books to "groom" students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies." --Crooks & Liars


  Manatee County teachers close class libraries, fearing prosecution under new Florida law





The DeSantis administration would NOT say what is objectional about the AP African American Studies course.




DeSantis administration rejects inclusion of AP African American Studies class in Florida high schools 


"The administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is blocking a new Advanced Placement course for high school students on African American studies. 

In a January 12 letter to the College Board, the nonprofit organization that oversees AP coursework, the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation said the course is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” 

 The letter did not elaborate on what the agency found objectionable in the course content. A spokeswoman for the department did not immediately respond to a CNN inquiry."




This explains DeSantis's attack on African-American AP classes:


 "DeSantis’ move comes as his standing among conservatives has soared nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural issues and against public health officials and bureaucrats during the Covid-19 pandemic. He is said to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid."


Because nothing SCREAMS "Freedom" like banning African-American AP courses in your state, eh?

The Trumpistas will fall all over themselves in trying to get this DeSantis guy into the "White" House.


The Trumpista's anger over cancel culture that they complained about is now flirting with cancelling whole swaths of a certain American cultural demographic.

Don't forget this that was posted here earlier in the week:





Youngkin's handpicked Department of Education head, Aimee Rogstad Guidera, deleted references to MLK Day and Juneteenth from its history curriculum. According to a report in LGBTQ Nation, Ronald Reagan is mentioned five times, but President Obama, who made history as our first bi-racial POTUS, just once.


"VA Education Dept. Backtracks from Labeling Native Americans as “America’s First Immigrants” 

The commonwealth of Virginia is home to seven federally recognized tribes: the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Nansemond and Monacan. 

 Alton Carroll, a history professor at Northern Virginia Community College who is of Mescalero Apache descent, told Native News Online that his initial read of the proposed standards stood out to him for being “so glaringly wrong, and so heavily partisan.”



"...so glaringly wrong, and so heavily partisan?" How about disrespectful, spiteful, and cruel? I'd add those two descriptions as well.





The national teacher shortage is growing. 

In Florida, controversial laws are making it worse. Advocates say low pay and a hostile climate toward educators, particularly around LGBTQ+ issues and race, are pushing people out of the profession in droves.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Wednesday, January 18, 2023










Republicans, after gutting House Ethics rules, just appointed the guy pictured below to two House
committees where he will have access to sensitive government information, and they don't even know his real name.

 




THIS IS THE FACE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY:  A Liar, a Cheat, and a Fraud. 

The Current Republican/Trumpublican Party Currently Embarrassing Themselves AND America,




AND THE REPUBLICAN SNOOPS AND ANTI-FREE SPEECH HITS KEEP ON COMING: 




"House Bill 2199 restricts the definition of gender to the person's natural gender at birth and then requires that all pronoun use be reflective of that same gender. Any violation by an institution that receives state funding, including public schools, would be subject to a $1,500 fine."


******************************






Youngkin's handpicked Department of Education head, Aimee Rogstad Guidera, deleted references to MLK Day and Juneteenth from its history curriculum. According to a report in LGBTQ Nation, Ronald Reagan is mentioned five times, but President Obama, who made history as our first bi-racial POTUS, just once.


"VA Education Dept. Backtracks from Labeling Native Americans as “America’s First Immigrants” 

The commonwealth of Virginia is home to seven federally recognized tribes: the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Nansemond and Monacan. 

 Alton Carroll, a history professor at Northern Virginia Community College who is of Mescalero Apache descent, told Native News Online that his initial read of the proposed standards stood out to him for being “so glaringly wrong, and so heavily partisan.”



"...so glaringly wrong, and so heavily partisan?" How about disrespectful, spiteful, and cruel? I'd add those two descriptions as well.


**********************************




Insane:


The new GOP-controlled House is letting liars and conspiracy theorists lead its agenda 

******************************


"DeSantis COVID-19 advisor/radiologist, Tim Boyett doesn’t take vaccines but 'encourages people to reach out and call out to Jesus and seek first the Kingdom of God' at state sponsored DeSantis event 11/17/23. 












********************************





Wisconsin GOP makes conversion therapy legal again 


"The Republican-controlled Joint Committee for Review and Administrative Rules in Wisconsin voted to strike down a ban on conversion therapy last week, effectively making the practice legal. 

 Conversion therapy is a broad term that can describe many practices that generally involve trying to force homosexuals and other LGBTQ+ people to be straight. The methods involved in these practices are highly discredited by medical professionals, and those who have been victims of conversion therapy have described it as torture."

If  you could "de-gay" a person, could it be possible to "de-hetero" someone too? That would make sense to the homophobic wackos in Wisconsin, I guess.


*****************************


A Republican/Trumpublican loser and thug tried to take revenge on Democrats, because he obviously learned from a champ, (See 6th, Jan. 2021)  that that's the way to settle political scores. Amirite?


New details emerge about plot to shoot at New Mexico Democrats’ homes Solomon Peña, a defeated candidate for the state legislature, paid people to fire on the houses of four Democratic office-holders, authorities say. 

 Former GOP candidate arrested in shootings at N.M. Democrats’ homes 



*****************************


This is still, IMO, the stupidest of the stupid nincompoopery from the current  Republican/Trumpublican Party:



*******************************


Below is the Republican/Trumpublican Party's most admired US Representative's opinion about student debt he never incurred to go to a college he never attended.

(The coward and cajones-less Speaker of the House, McCarthy, has assigned this Liar, Cheat, and Fraud to House committees because, let's face it, the current GQP rewards folks who Lie and Cheat, and George Anthony DeVolder Santos is the kind of fake conman the current Republican/Trumpublican Party admires and believes is a great representative of Conservative Republican Christian values.








 Disabled Veteran: George Santos Took $3K From Dying Dog's GoFundMe 

Two New Jersey veterans say George Santos promised to raise funds for a lifesaving surgery for a service dog — then disappeared.

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Friday, January 13, 2023

Trumpublican Tax Dollars At Work?





The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives used its session’s opening day Wednesday to tighten the dress code for female legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone. 


 The changes were spearheaded by state Rep. Ann Kelley (R), a co-sponsor who was among the Republicans seeking to require women to wear a blazer when in the chamber. She was met by swift opposition from Democrats who called it “ridiculous.”

 


No. Not bear arms. Bare arms. They  a passed a dress code that would ban female legislators from wearing clothes that reveal their arms.  



"The caucus that lost their minds over the suggestion that they should wear masks during a pandemic to respect the safety of others is now spending its time focusing on the fine details of what women have to wear (and specifically how many layers must cover their arms) to show respect in this chamber," Merideth tweeted. 

You know who else makes laws like this? The sharia laws the GOP was warning everyone about." 





Another Republican politician not doing anything to help her constituents:


 "Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Bans ‘Latinx’ From Use in State Government On her first day of office, Sanders signed an executive order banning the term "Latinx" from official use in the state government."

Thursday, January 12, 2023

George Santos: The Grift That Keeps On Giving

 

UPDATE: 


" The Mysterious, Unregistered Fund That Raised Big Money for Santos 

A review of records and newly uncovered documents reveals that efforts to elect George Santos may have run afoul of campaign finance rules." 


Via Vox:  "On Wednesday, it was revealed that he lied to Republican officials about playing on a championship-winning volleyball team at Baruch College — not only did Santos not play on the team, he did not attend Baruch College. 

The New York Times also published a copy of the résumé that Santos had circulated when running for office, which included false claims about his college education and employment history."





Kevin McCarthy to grant George Santos* committee assignments despite national security concerns.


*George Santos, a Republican Liar, Cheat, and Fraud, was fraudulently elected to Congress from New York's 3rd Congressional district. Everything he claimed about himself and family was a blatant lie.

The Squeaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy thinks this Liar, Cheat, and Fraud should have committee assignments because McCarthy is a cojonesless weakling who is afraid of his own caucus.


NY Republican leaders and lawmakers call on GOP Rep. George Santos to resign over campaign liesHouse Republicans from New York joined state and local GOP leaders in calling for Santos to step down less than a week after he officially took office.





George Santos Took Donation From Migrant-Smuggler

LA FAMIGLIA

Serial liar and border-hardliner George Santos accepted support from an Italian caught piloting a yacht full of Chinese migrants and from his prominent restaurant-owning family.




Here's the Liar, Cheat, and Fraud's answer to his fellow Republicans from New York:


"I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living. I will NOT resign!"


Hey, Santos, everything out of your mouth has been a LIE. So we look forward to your resignation from the office you fraudulently took from the people of New York's 3rd Congressional district.





Tuesday, January 10, 2023

The Stupids of the McCarthy House...

  

UPDATE:

Squeaker of the House McCarthy bragged today, 1/12/23: 

In the first 5 days of the Republican-controlled House we: Stripped funding for 87,000 IRS agents


He, like Trump, loves the poorly educated. Why else would he make such a false statement.

In actuality, the Gooper House didn't "strip" funding for the 87,000 IRS employees. 

The Gooper House merely placed a vote against funding for the IRS. Squeaker McCarthy failed to mention the next step, which is the Senate, where it's certain to be DOA. 

If, by some miracle, it survives, it will be vetoed by Biden.

TRUTH: Squeaker McCarthy is gaslighting his "poorly educated" Trumpers.


Carry on.


...are wasting taxpayers' money by threatening to rescind funding allotted to the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last summer.  


President Biden will veto it. 


First CBO score of the new Congress is here. It says that the GOP IRS funding bill would reduce spending by $71.5B and reduce revenue by $185.8B. 

Net deficit increase of $114B.  


Goopers want to protect the rich tax cheats that line their pockets.





“This reckless bill would increase the deficit by nearly $115 billion over 10 years per an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office by enabling wealthy tax cheats to engage in additional tax fraud and avoidance,” the administration said in a statement, citing the score released Monday. --TPM



Andrew Wortman: 

 "1.) The funding has already been provided. It cannot be “repealed” nor rescinded. 

 2.) The IRS did not “hire 87,000 new agents.” 

The funding enables them to hire that many agents over the course of TEN YEARS; including agents who retire or leave in that time. 

 3.) The GOP is useless. 


 I understand that the GOP knows their base doesn’t read, but I still am lost as to who they are even trying to pander to with this: the bloc of voters that doesn’t pay their taxes or something? 

Pretty sure most of those people are ultra-rich Republicans."



They have no policy agenda but revenge, gaslighting, lying, and feeding the base with more red meat. 

Monday, January 9, 2023

DARWIN SAVE US FROM THE PATHETIC IDIOTS WHO BROUGHT THIS BEFORE THE SCOTUS!

 

From Raw Story:


The Supreme Court has denied a longshot lawsuit from three brothers who sought to remove President Joe Biden from office and reinstate Donald Trump. 


"Brother Raland Brunson was listed as the plaintiff on the Supreme Court petition. The brothers said that members of Congress violated their oaths of office by failing to investigate fraud in the 2020election. 

 "The complaint asks that the 387 members of Congress who voted to certify Biden’s election be immediately thrown out of office and barred from ever running again. Biden and Harris would also be removed from the White House and banned from running, as would former Vice President Mike Pence," the Salt Lake Tribune reported recently. 

 In an order issued Monday, the high court said that the case was "denied" but gave no explanation."



Good Gawd! Who are the whackos who read and believe this tripe? Oh, wait! QAnon and the deplorables who believe Trumpie won the 2020 election, that's who.

From the "Highland County Press," a dubious news source that apparently has no acquaintance with truth or reality.



"The important national security interests implicated in this case allowed the Brunsons to bypass an appeal that was frozen at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and get the case to the Supreme Court which has now scheduled a hearing for January 6, 2023. The Brunson Petition for a Writ of Certiorari would require the votes of only four justices to move the case forward. 

It seems astounding that the Court would wade into such waters two years to the day after the Congressional vote to install Joe Biden as president. But these are not normal times. Democrats may well push legislation in this month’s lame duck session of Congress to impose term limits and a mandatory retirement age for justices, and thereby open the door to packing the Court."


Utterly insane!



HAKEEM JEFFRIES IS BRILLIANT



Representative Jeffries is a gifted orator and exceptional Minority Leader in the House of Representatives.

He outshone McCarthy and is smarter and far more intelligent than the anti-democracy weakling the radical Trumpers installed as Speaker.

 

Hakeem Jeffries' speech:


“We will never compromise our principles. 
House Democrats will always put: 

American values over autocracy. 
Benevolence over bigotry. 
The Constitution over the cult. 
Democracy over demagogues. 
Economic opportunity over extremism. 
Freedom over fascism, 
Governing over gaslighting. 
Hopefulness over hatred. 
Inclusion over isolation, 
Justice over judicial overreach. 
Knowledge over kangaroo courts, 
Liberty over limitation. 
Maturity over Mar-a-Lago. 
Normalcy over negativity. 
Opportunity over obstruction, 
People over politics. 
Quality of life issues over QAnon. 
Reason over racism. 
Substance over slander. 
Triumph over tyranny. 
Understanding over ugliness. 
Voting rights over voter suppression. 
Working families over the well connected. 
Xenia* over xenophobia. 
Yes, we can over you can’t do it, and 
zealous representation over zero sum confrontation.” 


 *Xenia means hospitality. My late niece's name, "Xenia."



"Hakeem Jeffries' speech is a clarion call to have faith, be courageous, and to hold on. It was a love letter to democracy, a pledge to defend it, and to stand up for the American people always. It was in language the GOP will never understand and the rest of us will never forget." --Larry Middleton

Sunday, January 8, 2023

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 




"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." --H. L. Mencken

Saturday, January 7, 2023

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 


In keeping with the Clown Show in the US House, brought to you by the Trumpublicans:




THE WEEK IN CARTOONS

 

















V





























Friday, January 6, 2023

DID ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS TODAY?

 


The newest lying liar Trumpublican who lied about his own mother's death TWICE did this today when voting for Kevin McCarthy:





“Newly elected freshman Rep. George Santos (R-NY) flashed the white power symbol as he voted for House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy in the 10th round of voting for Speaker of the House on the 3rd day of Congress.”




Disgraced felon, Michael Flynn:





Zina Bash flashed it several times during the Kavanaugh hearings, so there's that.







MT GREENE: WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS:

 

The GOP used to stand for something; now it's just a gang of thugs, malcontents, and disrupters, caring not one wit for their own constituents. The GOP is nothing more than a Revenge Party, useless and pathetic:



The Biden Crime Family?

Marge T. Greene is EVERYTHING that's wrong with the Trumpublican Party, all wrapped up in one sad, ignorant pile of useless flesh.


And this sane Republican explains it all:






We are all this guy:




NEVER FORGET:  Two years ago today, the Trumpublicans tried to overthrow the US government and illegally install Trump, the loser of the 2020 election, as POTUS:



The Trumpublicans believe America wants more of their seditious chaos.