I took a break from everything yesterday. It felt good. Today, I woke up, stretched, and noticed all the wild and crazy things that are going on with fresh eyes, and thought everyone would appreciate a little reminder.
- The Republicans still want to dismantle the one reliable government institution, the US Postal Service!
- The Republicans are engaging in ongoing acts of voter suppression!
- Trans people are still getting murdered for being who they are!
- Did you remember…we’re still in the middle of a pandemic? That one slipped my mind!
- Republicans have shut down women’s medical services all across the country because they don’t want them to control their own reproductive health!
- Misogyny! It’s still a thing!
- The Republicans hate education, especially higher ed, and would like to shut it all down!
- Uh-oh. Climate change hasn’t stopped to give us a break — the planet is still warming!
- The Supreme Court is still in the hands of Republican ideologues!
- Mitch McConnell is still controlling the senate, blocking responsible legislation right and left!
- Our president is still a tyrannical narcissist!
- The Democrats are in the process of nominating an incoherent geezer in the pocket of the banks and insurance companies to run against him.
- Black people have been oppressed for at least 4 centuries, and white people like it that way!
I probably forgot a few crises and institutionalized horrors, but I just started on my first cup of coffee. AMERICA!
At this point, it is just a question of delaying United States’ slide down to becoming the worst third world slum enough so that our children or grandchildren can fix it. Biden will delay it by a couple of years (Bernie would’ve hopefully reversed the slide), while a second term for Cheetolini will hasten it by a decade or two.
So far, It looks like boomers are intent on destroying the country and us GenXers are just standing by.
Additions:
– the police seems to be specifically targeting journalists covering the protests, with an abnormal amount of arrests and assaults (https://twitter.com/uspresstracker);
– the police brutality against protestors is sickening, here is a thread of currently 185 instances (warning: not for the faint of heart): https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1268053040524918786.
Come now, if we get cops to aim at legs instead of torsos, surely that will fix everything!
On the plus side, the odious Steve King (R-IA) lost his GOP primary race.
This being in the US and today, I can’t tell for sure if the photo:
a) shows US cops
b) shows US military “policing” stuff
c) shows “concerned US citizens” / a militia exercising their god-given rights
Actually, I’d probably rule out c because I can’t see any guns.
Also, if it’s a or b, would they still be wearing masks if there wasn’t a pandemic on? Why do I have the feeling the answer is “yes” and that it would be suspicious, bordering on the bad? Those don’t look like filter masks. They look like “LEO who wants to be unidentifiable on video” masks. For clichéd desperados the hats are all wrong, so that can’t be it.
those fuckers on the steps look more like storm-troopers every day
uncle frogy
@ 6
Indeed!
on the horizon…if a black swan arrives in a perfect storm…
I’m wondering how things are going in the ICE centers. They were already dying from lack of medical treatment before the pandemic even started.
“He is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/31/donald-trump-coronavirus-pandemic-george-floyd-minneapolis-tweets
You reminded me of this song from my youth – It’s Good News Week!.
You had to ask about the ICE centers. They’re spraying the prisoners with toxic disinfectants.
There is no end of horrible things going on.
PZ, #12
Trump must have asked Stephen Miller how his disinfectant idea could be tested.
Republicans and Democrats: daddy’s beats us and mommy looks the other way. I wish people would stop trying to tell me that mommy’s better than daddy. The situation should not be considered normal.
drew@14,
No-one here is doing that. But if you could dispose of Daddy, you’d be better off than you are now.
@4, Good! More good, Ella Jones is now mayor of Ferguson:
@2 zenlike, quite on target, but you missed Australia’s PM inquiring sternly as to why his journalists were battered by lawless enforcement SS troops, all while on live international television. I do wonder, will there be five eyes remaining after Hair Furor burns down the building.
@PZ, I can’t manage to forget the pandemic. Our youngest is on the mend, thanks to early intervention with convalescent plasma. On the mend, nowhere capable of going to work at a position more strenuous than as a paperweight. 106,312 dead so far, which is why the Commandeer in Thief is blowing up the country, to distract attention away from the rapidly climbing death toll and his utterly incompetent non-response.
@5 komarov, you missed the D.C. National Guard investigating reckless endangerment antics by their helicopter pilots, to include previously protected MEDEVAC aircraft (they lose protection when they perform prohibited offensive actions). Buzzing crowds, hundreds of windows are shattered by overpressure from the rotor blades, yeah, their TAG is feeling some kind of way today.
I’m sure it’ll be swiftly addressed by a broom and edge of a rug.
@12 PZ, that’s a very, very, very old US tactic. Look up the 1917 Bath Riots, where migrant workers were required to wade through “harmless” delousing bath of a rather new substance called gasoline.
Yes, I’m serious and disgusted.
CS “gas” is also toxic in large quantities and is strongly suspected of being a carcinogen. Alas, my wife refuses to support my protesting, as CS only is mildly irritating to me.
Understandable, if the jackboot thugs saw me calmly smoking a cigarette while inside of a cloud of CS, they’d probably shoot live ammunition at the dangerously armed man with that thermonuclear cane tip or something.
There was one piece of good news this week. In Pennsylvania, mail in ballots have been flowing more freely than water. I dropped a ballot into the mailbox yesterday morning, it was sitting and acknowledgement e-mailed in York County ballot office by 2000 hours. As we’ve long been spoiled by, yet another coup by our embattled USPS! Despite the efforts against them by the God-King, Emperor Trump, long may he wane impotently.
Well leave it to one former Republican wordsmith to brighten my day by throwing down the gauntlet:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-want-four-more-years-of-this-taste-of-ashes/2020/06/01/1a80ecf4-a425-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
He calls out the Senate for Vichyite collaborationism with the “vulgarian” and wants them, his former party members, banished by the electorate. And:
“Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.”
Some current Republicans are staging an insurgence of their own:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/politics/lincoln-project-new-ad-trump-race/index.html
“The anti-Trump Republican group, The Lincoln Project, is planning to air a new attack ad blasting President Donald Trump’s record on race relations in the US.
The TV spot, backed by a $500,000 ad buy, will air in the key battleground states of Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan as well as in Washington, DC. The ad, entitled “Flag of Treason,” targets the support Trump has received from white nationalist groups.”
Sure they are conservatives but one can hope they make a difference in outcome of next election.
If I was an I-don’t-give-fuck teen I’d probably join the protesters that’s protesters not looters . But great grandma here can’t run like I used to .
Speaking of looters CNN had a video of 2 white guys standing in a crowd of black protesters. And guess who was trying to start shit ? And it wasn’t the Black people, they were trying to prevent them from starting the confrontation with the cops .
IMHO confrontation and looting is either being deliberately started or it a bunch of dumbass kids being dumbass kids. We got the dumbass kids version of looting and vandalism here in Queens 2 days ago
In other news: Tom Cotton, probably the most fascist of all Republican senators, in a bid for a post in the Trump admin, has written a deplorable opinion piece calling on Trump to deploy the military on US soil, and forcefully occupy different states, overriding the will of the local governments.
The New York Times, in a bid to further endear themselves with the New Regime, chose to give this screed a platform.
@ komarov, # 5: You can’t see any guns because they’re worn on the right side. We’re only seeing the left.
When Bill Kristol tweets something that resonates with me I don’t know if we have reached rock bottom or I need to self-isolate away from all media and seriously rethink myself:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1267970835358330881
FuckhellallshitWTF!!!! Weird times.
Welcome to the concept of “the lesser evil”, hemidactylus.
@23- John
Well I do empathize with Republicans who feel compelled to vote for Biden. That kinda sucks like a root canal without happy gas and anesthesia. But here we are.
When I had my root-canal procedure (two of them), the very instant they drilled into the pus-pocket and released the pus, the pain ceased. The pus was mopped-up and put in the hazardous waste bucket.
chigau if only there were as simple a solution.
@Jazzlet, well, it is possible. Hospitals stock ethylene oxide for sterilizing instruments. A canister of chlorine trifluoride and that would handle matters well.
The best part is, don’t have to do anything. Just leave them together and the maniacs will open them up all by themselves. So, we have a sterilizing agent that’s also a rocket propellant and a very, very, very strong oxidizer.
It’s called a self-limiting problem.