Welcome Back to Pottersville: December 2023

Sunday, December 31, 2023

We're Living in a Batman Comic Book

Only without Batman.

During each and every day of the Trump "presidency", during those bile-flecked four years, this blog was no longer "Welcome Back to Pottersville" but "Welcome Back to Gotham City." I'd decided to take a cue from the Washington Post and add something beneath the masthead: "The Bat Light's Busted." It's an artifact of the temporary name of my blog just as the WaPo decided to keep, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" as part of their masthead.

The day President Joe Biden took the oath of office on January 20, 2021, just a fortnight after the insurrection that eventually cost nine people their lives, "Welcome Back to Gotham City" reverted back to "Welcome Back to Pottersville" with, you can imagine, a great sigh of relief. No more nasty, stupid, puerile tweets, no more meatball governance, if it could be called that. It was a very welcome reprise of nice, boring government that occasionally did good things for the American people.

But over the past three years, Trump has really leaned into what can best be described as his Joker phase. He's not interested in prevailing over the criminal justice system as he is trying to dismantle it piece by piece. He spews venom at court officials, knowing damned good and well what his fan base would do in response. He's not interested in governing any more than he was the last time and the consensus is that if he gets voted in again, God forbid, it'll be the last election in US history.

There are some seriously good reasons to fear this.

Yes, there are theoretically such things as checks and balances but where were those guardrails on January 6th? The nation's Capitol got sacked for the first time since the British did it 207 years prior during the war of 1812. In that attack, President James Madison had to flee Washington DC. There were no plans whatsoever to do that for Trump. Think about that.

Then, earlier tonight, I was watching the preview trailers for Joker 2, or Joker: Folie a Deux. The title, of course, is French for "Madness for two" and details the meeting and blossoming love affair between Batman's arch nemesis and his psychiatrist, who later becomes Harley Quinn. The Joker's ability to corrupt and gain the love of someone who's supposed to be an impartial, professional psychiatrist and how Trump corrupts others around him, turning them into mini Trumps, cannot be ignored. The Joker has built a cult around himself. Trump is no different.

And as I watched these trailers, seeing the Joker as a free man, seeing the headlines in the fake newspapers crowing in 60 point bold about Harley Quinn and the Joker's love affair, I suddenly came to a realization: With celebrity and a disaffected fan base, literally anything is possible. With those things, that disaffected fan base will always find it in themselves to forgive any amount of chaos and any crime, no matter how heinous.

Celebrity and public support changes everything.

How are we not living in a Batman comic book, minus Batman? In some ways, we're living in Gotham City, It's just that many of us are prouder of that than others.

In 2008's The Dark Knight, the Joker goes after two prosecutors, Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. He kills one, permanently disfigures the other. Before this, he kills a judge, the police commissioner, anyone and everyone who opposes him.

It's all very reminiscent of how Trump is now going after Jack Smith and Fani Willis and Letitia James or Judge Tanya Chutkan or anyone who crosses his baleful radar. Trump might as well make his official campaign motto, "Do I Look Like a Guy With a Plan?"

Because he really doesn't. It's all about revenge. "I am your retribution."

That's a word cloud that Trump recently put up on his Truth Social account. He wouldn't have put that up unless he was crowing about getting through to his supporters. It was a word cloud that plainly shows what they want out of him. "Power". "Revenge"."Dictatorship". In other words, the motivations of a guy who doesn't have a plan. The late Heath Ledger's Joker was all about chaos. Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is motivated by betrayal. Trump is the perfect mix of the two.

Trump is absolutely outraged at prosecutors going after him for his crimes. And Trump's not even feigning innocence as much as he's saying we should let him be a criminal because he was allegedly once the "president".

And, as the Joker will no doubt do in the sequel what he'd only started in the first movie, Trump is turning this nation upside down because of a few million mouth breathers who don't understand they, too, could be victimized in a Trump dictatorship as those of us who plan to vote against him.

Trump had already infamously said years ago that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a single voter. That is Trump's singular genius, to size up his fan base and know what they're capable and not capable of. The 5th Avenue prediction could've come straight from the Joker's mouth.

And if you think I'm exaggerating with this running metaphor, allow me to show you a news article that was written in March 2023. When they began filming Joker 2 in New York City, they were shooting an outdoor scene that took place before a courthouse. They'd assembled a bunch of extras that were playing protesters during the Joker's trial. Then the cast and crew realized there was a real protest going on behind them that threatened to bleed into the production.

As the journalist wrote, "Reality and make-believe were suddenly colliding."

Life imitating art and all that.

Saturday, December 30, 2023

I Love You 3,000,000

Welcome Back to Pottersville was first launched in July of 2008. It's seen four presidential administrations and eight Congresses. I've written over 4300 posts for this blog, perhaps over a million words and finally, at last, I just reached 3,000,000 hits. Yeah, maybe I don't get the traffic I used to and maybe blogs are passe these days but I'd like to think, in my small way, that I helped to define this medium that was once so new and exciting 19 years ago. So, I'd like to thank you all for helping me reach this milestone, including those readers who've since passed from us, especially Dierdre in New Jersey and most especially Mrs. JP, who started out as a reader and discovered me on the blogroll of the Rude Pundit. I love you 3,000,000.

Live Free or Die in MAGAdonia

It happened, ironically, in a state whose motto is, "Live Free or Die."

Nikki Haley was always a triangulator. 13 years ago, when she was still running for governor, Haley defended Confederate history month, saying that if it was observed in a non-negative way (and I'd be fucked running to know it could not be), then it was all good. She was all rah rah sis boom bah regarding flying the flag of a failed rebellion (the Stars and Bars) over the state house.

That all changed in June 2015 after Dylann Storm Roof killed nine black parishioners at an AME church. Then Haley, always savvy to know when the political winds shift and in what direction, led the charge to remove the flag from the state Capitol, where it had flown since 1961. (As Eugene Robinson noted eight and a half years ago, it was flown in some impotent declaration of war over racial desegregation.)

So, when a voter stood up and asked her if she knew what was the cause for the Civil War, she turned her back on her questioner and sarcastically muttered that that was "an easy question." She then began rambling on about how it was about "how government worked", individual freedoms (like the freedom to own other human beings) and so forth. Basically the states' rights bullshit boilerplate. She then asked the voter what he thought the answer was and he said he wasn't running for president.

Haley then went on and on about every reason for the Civil War except the real one, which everyone not named Nikki Haley knows is slavery. Byron Donalds knew it. The president knew it. Hell, I guarantee you every black child knew it.

Haley either didn't know or pretended not to.

To quote Arthur C. Clarke, both are equally terrifying.

Haley, let's not forget, was once the governor of the state in which the Civil War started. This was on April 12, 1861, nearly four years to the day before the war finally ended, when Fort Sumter was shelled for 34 hours by the newly-minted Confederacy.

You'd think every schoolchild would know this, let alone the governor of the state in which this transpired. But no one ever accused Nikki Haley of being burdened with a surfeit of intelligence. So, maybe she didn't know about this.

Then again, there's always the possibility that Nikki was playing to the neoconfederate base that still calls the lost cause "the war of Northern Aggression."

If that's her tactic, then it's a very risky one, at best. Because Haley comes from the only state in the union that has an African American majority electorate. And they're not going to appreciate her ignorance or feigned ignorance on the matter of slavery.

So, what did Haley do the next day? Well, in tried-and-true Republican fashion, she "clarified" her remarks and, in the process, dug a deeper hole. She tried to feign a moment of clarity to say, "Of course it was slavery", tacitly forgetting to explain to the listeners why she couldn't even bring herself to list slavery as the reason for the Civil War.

Then, and this is where her industrious digging to China continued, she blamed her gaffe on the guy who'd asked the question, even calling him a "Democrat plant". You know, because the guy's presumed political affiliation is alone responsible for Haley's every neuron to leak out of her ears at that moment.

Then, like a right proper redneck, Sen. Tom Cotton jumped balls first into the fray to blame Democrats for starting slavery to begin with, blithely pretending not to know (or maybe he doesn't know) how the Democrats and Republicans from the antebellum era neatly switched ideologies starting around the 30s (the 60s in the south).

Let's not forget, folks, that the only reason we didn't have an anti-lynching law on the federal law books until last year is because of the modern-day Republican Party bitterly opposing it for decades. In 2020, such a bill that passed the House was blocked by Rand Paul of Kentucky. This was just days after the very public murder of George Floyd, by the way.

So, I think we can laugh off Tom Cotton's fallacious arguments about the Democrats of today being responsible for the slavery of yesterday.

Nikki Haley cannot be so easily laughed, off, however. As her questioner pointed out, she's running for president. And even though she wasn't born in this country, you think she'd know a very basic fact of what started the Civil War in her country and state. Because it seems the stupidest and most ignorant among us are getting voted into the most powerful offices and this trend needs to stop because it's not funny, any more.

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Pottersville Digest

"You know, I bet your family chased Michael's family through the Red Forest." I can perfectly imagine Trump saying something this colossally stupid, cruel and ignorant (Germany doesn't have a "Red Forest" but in Bavaria it has a "Black Forest").

Imagine swearing in as president a guy who has to have his parole officer next to him?

And this idiot has the top-rated podcast in America?

Great moments in signage.

In all fairness, Tarlov is the only real liberal on the Fox panel.

I was about to ask why in God's name he's dredging up an old fight from over four years ago before remembering he's infamous for this shit.

As Trump showed us, no one knows how to celebrate Christmas quite like a MAGA Republican.

One guy revitalized the economy, reduced unemployment, rebuilt the infrastructure, knocked down student loan debt and has kept us out of wars. The other one yells and screams from his shit-stained perch on Truth Social. Oh, and he stole Top Secret documents and led an insurrection against his own government. But both guys have the same unfavorability rating. We are the stupidest fucking nation on earth.

A regular Republican profile in courage. I was hoping we'd be rid of her this November. Looks as if we'll be stuck with her for at least another two years. You know what would make it real interesting, though? If Adam Frisch, who was going to run against her in CO-3, followed her to CO-4.

What is keeping Laura Loonie out of four point restraints will forever remain a mystery to me. This is the same woman, don't forget, who'd handcuffed herself to Twitter HQ in NYC.

Because it makes perfect to sack the Capitol on Donald Trump's orders after winning an election that defeated him. See how simple that was? < /sarcasm >

Whoa, whoa, lemme see if I got this straight- Haley was the governor of the state in which the Civil War started in 1861 and she doesn't know why it started? Or maybe Haley knows all too well what precipitated and started the Civil War. How could she not? She was the governor of the state in which the Civil War started. Maybe she cynically claimed ignorance because she didn't want to alienate the neoconfederates that still make up a large part of the electorate down south.

"The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail."

Let me get this straight- The same Postal Service that was sabotaged by Trump to delay the delivery of absentee ballots also delayed the arrival of the fake ballots? Louis DeJoy saved democracy? You just can't make this shit up. That's why we have Republicans.

This is exactly what Trump wants to turn us into. Look no further than Guatemala.

This idiot obviously thinks he lives in a James Cameron movie.

Gee, this is going to harsh the buzz of right wingers on Twitter crowing about Trump being temporarily put back on the Colorado ballot. Pity.

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Little Ronnie

No, that's not a photoshopped image. That's exactly how Ron DeSantis looked in a recent podcast, prompting some wags to speculate whether DeSantis' campaign staff hates him enough to set him up like this.

The fact that he sits in that big chair with his shoulders defensively hunched over just exacerbates his smallness. Frankly, I'm amazed that Trump hasn't pounced on it like the world's last Big Mac, although, after his Tiny Desk Man moment, maybe he should keep his big trap shut for once.

Indeed, DeSantis' Quixotic quest for the White House isn't so much a viable presidential campaign as it is a political death watch, with the MSM patiently perched on a dead tree, looking at DeSantis gasping and crawling across a desert floor. It's not a matter of if but when he finally suspends his campaign.

And with the Iowa caucus less than three weeks away and the NH primary eight days after that, DeSantis' soon-to-be-ironically-named Super PAC, Never Back Down, decided this would be a helluva time to pull ads from Iowa and New Hampshire television.

This $2.5 million clawback of rapidly dwindling campaign funds is actually the first evidence we've ever seen of DeSantis acknowledging the truth about anything. More than one poll has him in 4th place in New Hampshire. In Manchester, he's polling at 2%.

He's not doing much better in the Hawkeye State. In FiveThirtyEight's sampling of four major polls, Trump is far ahead (+30% in every poll) of DeSantis. Hardly a reason to throw good money after bad. If he stands no chance of winning a caucus or primary, why give him more money?

And that's another insoluble problem facing DeSantis. Even months before he declared, DeSantis had vacuumed up an estimated $200,000,000 in campaign contributions. So, what happened to it?

Here's a clue.

DeSantis took in more money than, as of 2020, all nations' defense spending save for the US and China. The number three country, Saudi Arabia, spends $67.6 million on national defense, which is just about exactly a third of what DeSantis racked up. So, assuming Ronnie didn't buy F-35s and ICBMs (Although, with his quick temper, one can never assume anything), what did he blow his money on?

Well, the NY Times did a rundown of that last August, when DeSantis had long since begun slipping in the polls. In fact, this was the story's lede:

"The super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spent nearly $34 million in recent months, pouring money into voter outreach, advertising, polling, consultants and other expenses as his standing in the polls steadily slipped."

By June, DeSantis' campaign had more cash on hand than anyone, even Trump (which is not surprising. Why throw tons of money at a presidential candidate who's fated to win the primary, anyway?). But, at least until this summer, when money began drying up, the DeSantis campaign was spending money like a sailor on liberty. Tour buses, consultants, door knockers, fundraisers at expensive resorts. That shit adds up.

Then they started lying about their hauls. $23 million became $30 million. Then ads started getting cancelled. By July, a third of the campaign staff got the axe. So, how did the guy who sucked up $200,000,000 in bribes burn through all that cash? Well, the $97,000,000 they had taken in by the end of June gave them the feeling that the money spigots were going to stay wide open.

In one quarter, the million dollar donors dried up to seven. One high profile Republican donor, real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow, stuffed his fat wallet back in his pants. Other rich donors followed suit. You could actually see the DeSantis campaign wither in real time faster than a pile of chicken shit in a typhoon.

So, why did the money stop coming in? Well, for one of two reasons. Either because DeSantis' poll numbers began dropping or because they began ditching him before that time when they actually met him and the evaporating money resulted in lower poll numbers. Chickens and eggs and all that.

But one fact is undeniable- Ron DeSantis is about as good at retail politics as a starving fox in a hen house. He's yet to learn that you need more than to say "woke" 50 times in a speech to sustain a presidential campaign. He can't relate to adults, he can't relate to kids, and he certainly can't relate to the press. Those he meet are left utterly chilled by his sociopathic manner and the only mystery is why someone hasn't seriously floated the possibility that Ron DeSantis is a low-functioning autism subject.

Donors have complained that he never thanks them even after getting seven figure donations. Like Trump, he completely lacks empathy. He's like a pod person vainly trying to pass himself off as the real deal.

Another defect in DeSantis' character is that he thinks because he beat Charlie Crist in Florida's last gubernatorial election by 19 points, that he'd be a shoe-in to get the GOP presidential nomination. He still thinks every state wants to be Florida. Well, New Hampshire and Iowa voters couldn't give a flying fuck about his pointless war with Disney, which has a major footprint in just one other state and that one hasn't been carried by a Republican since Bush in '88.

And perhaps most devastating of all is DeSantis' infallible ability to pratfall or step into one scandal or meme cringe after another. Between his questionable, faux Nancy Sinatra fashion sense to his lift shoes to his using shadowy airline carriers to export migrants to blue states to how he eats pudding, the man is a rapidly-rotating meme mill that never runs out of grist.

But it's obvious DeSantis' star is setting. Term-limited, he cannot run for governor again. Barring a Senate run against Scott or Rubio, the best DeSantis can hope for is winning back his old Congressional seat and even that looks dicey.

But before he can even hope to refill that seat or any other, first he has to fight his way out of that gigantic Lily Tomlin chair into which some enterprising genius had stuffed him for that disastrous podcast.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

I Really Did Have it All

This is what I'm used to seeing and what I now see all day every day and night.

In years past, this is what I'd be doing: I'd commandeer the bedroom first and wrap presents and stuff her stocking. Then, when she was able to, she'd take the bedroom and do the same. We'd place the presents under the lit tree "with care" then I'd take out the pork loin so it would be thawed for tomorrow's dinner. If I remembered, I'd put the Riesling in the lettuce crisper to chill.

This year, there's very little of that. To keep my hand in and to preserve a sliver of one of our Xmas traditions, I wrapped for my older son a Tibetan notebook bought at a town fair back in 2010, one made completely with Tibetan rag content. I wrapped it with a set of pens I also got him. My younger son, because he spent $500 on a handbag for his girlfriend at Nieman Marcus, is getting a gift card I know he'll need before his next payday.

The three of us went to Boston on Friday night so he could get that handbag. After making it to Nieman Marcus with less than 15 minutes to spare, we went out to an overpriced Italian restaurant in the North End called Eatily, which isn't so much an Italian restaurant as it is a mini mall for Italian food. Since number two son was acting like the Aga Khan after getting paid that day, he footed the bill for dinner. I ordered some pasta with a Bolognese sauce.

Taking the T Green Line back to Newton, I burst into tears as my sons sat on either side of me. Why? Bolognese was Barb's favorite sauce. For about 10 minutes I couldn't stop crying while a pretty young black woman stared at me. I never once took Barb to Boston much less that restaurant but just the sauce I had put me in mind of her.

I'm not going to lie to you. This Christmas is going to suck and I sincerely cannot wait until it's fucking over. I'm sick of hearing Christmas songs because they sound cruel at this point. The singers almost sound as if they're sneering at me.

I know some of you have lost loved ones. We all have. But every loss is unique and there's no complete overlap. It's like a Venn diagram. And while I am a writer who usually finds the words I need to express what I'm thinking and feeling, for once they fail me. I can't tell you or anyone how much Barb meant to me, at how deeply I was in love with her and why. At some point, it's like trying to describe color to a blind man or music to a deaf person.

Every day, I still wear the ugly shirt Barb got me on December 23rd last year. It was the last one she ever bought me for the last Christmas we ever spent together. It's about five sizes too large and is plaid. I hate plaid. Always did always will. But that shirt she got me is the most beautiful one ever because she bought it for me, with her own money, because it was the last one she'd ever buy me.

The rest of my presents are still in the paper bag they came in because she wasn't able to wrap gifts any more and hadn't been able to since 2020. I still haven't looked at them since Xmas last year because I just can't bear the sight of them.

In the last novel I ever wrote, Hollywoodland, there's a scene in which the villain, Sarah Prather, meets her future husband at the Landmark Tavern in Hell's Kitchen in January, 1900. They spend the night together and the next morning, Sarah goes through his suit trying to learn something about this inscrutable man she'd bedded. She finds a tintype, a photograph of a young man, and discovers to her horror it's the man she'd murdered in Central Park just days before. She'd slept with the boy's father the very day he'd attended his funeral.

She turns around and discovers him standing right behind her. He points out the two parcels that were found near his son's body beneath Huddlestone Arch in Central Park. She was with him that day right before she murdered him as he bought his father a pipe and a pound of pipe tobacco.

The dead boy's father, Zeke, explains to her why he hadn't opened the parcels.

“They found these parcels near his body, his blood still on one of them. Whoever did him in didn’t take his money,” he said as he faced her. “Just stabbed him over and over in the liver.”

“I am terribly sorry, Ezekiel. You don’t have to speak of this if you don’t wish to.”

“Naw. I suppose it helps to talk about it, Inga. I haven’t opened these presents because… I guess if I do, it’ll be the last thought Clem ever had of me and then once I know what it was, then he’ll be silent forever."

That's where I am right now. Yes, I saw them, pulled them out of the bag a year ago tomorrow but I've forgotten half of what she got me. And I'm afraid if I go through that awful bag again, she'll be silent forever.

Coming up on Christmas last year and for a few before that, I'd wonder if that would be the last one we'd ever spend together. And last year was the first we could no longer dodge that bullet that always had her name on it.

I can't tell you how much I loved that wonderful woman, by far the best one that ever walked into my life. I can't tell you in words what those excellent reasons for loving her was. But they were excellent ones. For over 13½ years, I had it all. May we all be so lucky.

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Ho, Ho Hos for Everybody!

(By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

So, Christmas is upon us like a liberal on a free Obama phone. As with every December, we've played our part, gotten the tree (I originally tried to get a Yew tree chopped down and sent to our brownstone on 5th Avenue but the British government wouldn't go for it), the presents are wrapped so all that needs to be done is gorge ourselves and get blotto on brandy Alexanders and spiked egg nog.

But there are many things that occupy my mind like persistent patchouli oil-smelling hippies in Zucotti Square. There are the 91 felony charges hanging over my friend Donald's head like the Sword of Pericles plus the quarter billion dollar civil suit by arch liberal Letitia James. There's my other friend, poor Rudy Giuliani, the finest legal mind that ever came out of the 13th century, on the hook for nearly $150,000,000 and the liberals who victimized him are suing him again!

Because of them and their fetish for the truth, my poor dear friend Rudy has had to file for bankruptcy and now I sadly await a fundraising plea from him at some place like Chapter 11 Lawn Maintenance or some such place.

I still haven't recovered from those Venezuelan leftists at Dominion who also victimized my friend Rupert Murdoch to the tune of $787.5 million because Fox News merely tried to substitute their reality about the 2020 election in contravention of liberally-biased facts.

So, yes, it's a challenge to remain in the Christmas spirit with all this far-left persecution attacking the conservative movement from all sides.

But nothing vexes me moreso than the unfair fall from grace of the Moms For Liberty. And it all came about because of an adult video, alright, two, came out in the liberal media. So, the whole movement should get flushed down the tubes because of one woman's libertine liaisons in the bedroom? That's like saying the National Socialist Party should've gotten flushed down the crapper because of one guy with a bad, funny moustache.

OK, so she munched the carpet in the privacy of her bedchamber while her ironically-named husband, Christian, buffed the bishop to little avail while their pre-school daughter slept feet away. And, yes, maybe Christian took liberties with one, maybe two women all over Florida when one of his concubines said she was more into lesbian sex with his wife than him.

And leftist liberals are now sneering accusations of hypocrisy because Bridget Ziegler wants to keep our school libraries clear of smut like Toni Morrison and John Milton's Paradise Lost (Puritan, my fat ass!). Now, Moms for Liberty school board candidates are losing races left and right in liberal sewers like Iowa and now everyone wants the Zieglers out of the way in Florida.

And now even my baby brother Cecil is seriously thinking of restarting his old website, www.cecilsprays.com, even though the first one is what got him sent to Rikers Island on charges of kidnapping and false imprisonment of Eastern European students.

In fact, Cecil has been saying around the house that it's a shame the big deal is about two women in Florida getting it on (he had to tamp down a gag at the word "women" but my kid sibling always did have a delicate constitution). But he's 100% convinced that a George Nader-like Republican on Capitol Hill will make the "proper love" great again and priming Cecilsprays.com for a second wave of success.

And my sweet impressionable daughter, Bertha, has recently taken to haunting Porn Hub and Onlyfans and leaving comments on W/W videos like, "Hey, don't mind me. I'm just waiting for the Moms For Liberty videos." And what the hell kind of a handle is, "Etheridgefan6969"?

That's the real threat to our nation's youth, such as my 40 something little girl. These liberals are obsessed with smut, especially those made by conservative Republicans, that it's leaking into the media ecosystem like Trump's essence in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. And this liberal obsession with sex is beginning to filter down to our innocent children!

My plea this holiday season is get out of the bedrooms of good conservative Americans such as the Zieglers who film their threesomes so we can get back to the good work of banning gay sex and keeping children from using cat litter boxes in school.

And, for the love of God and all that's holy, stop calling them MILFs For Liberty and Assholes With Casseroles!

Pottersville Digest

Go ahead, ask me why this doesn't surprise me.

OK, so when he doesn't pay, then what? Do we get to see him in an orange jumpsuit?

Fine. Let them take their deflated ball and go home.

Bullshit. Article three of the 14th amendment is quite clear on the matter: One doesn't have to be convicted of insurrection, just that they committed it. Judge Wallace said he did. And all seven justices on the CO Supreme Court said he did, including the three dissenters. This is the first time since the 40th Congress ratified the 14th amendment in 1868 that a presidential candidate has been kicked off a state ballot. There's no abuse, potential or otherwise.

If he was as innocent as all that, he'd welcome his day in court.

"(A)n unemployed fraud”? (snapping fingers) Who does that remind me of? It's on the tip of my tongue.

Jordan's a bomb-thrower, nothing more and nothing less, and I for one would love to take one of those cartoon bombs he loves to throw and shove it up his ass.

You tell me when was the last time a "president" put the arm on two low-level state officials like county canvassers to swing an election for him. It's especially ludicrous considering Trump lost Michigan by 154,000 votes.

I think, between this and the recent revelation that one of Trump's campaign staffers tried to start a riot in that same county (specifically Detroit), that AG Nessel will absolutely file charges just as she did with the fake electors in Michigan. And speaking of Dana Nessel...

Heh. No wonder the Michigan GOP is flat broke.

"And I’ll tell you what, the election was rigged, and we have plenty of evidence of it."

Yeah, along with Obama's "real" birth certificate, the GOP's health care plan, his taxes and the infrastructure bill. In Ivana's grave off the 9th hole.

"The Deep State is going to try to kill Donald Trump. He must be protected at all costs."

Yeah, Laura Looney's not in a cult. Perish the thought.

No more fascist gerrymandering bullshit in Wisconsin.

"Ziegler and her organization have succeeded in getting multiple books banned from Florida schools, and one school district has even gone so far as to pull John Milton's 'Paradise Lost'."

"Paradise Lost"?! John Milton was a fucking Puritan!!!! "Paradise Lost" is one of the most religious poems ever written!

While I have no great affection for Jeff Clark, Jenna comes real close to throwing stones at glass houses. During the countless failed lawsuits in 2020 and 2021, she was the very embodiment of MAGA. She even breathed in Rudy's farts for Christ's sake.

And idiots like this got Idiot Zero in the WH. We laugh at these simple-minded voters at our own peril because, don't forget, they only need enough brains to fill in little circles on a ballot. And over seven million more idiots voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016. And finally...

Elon Musk: Just another right wing asshole who refuses to pay his debts, honor his promises or contracts.

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Pottersville Digest

Boy, Ron sure knows how to pick 'em, eh?

As my friend CC said. "The fact that this case made it all the way to the top shows how morally bankrupt is SCOTUS (or at least six of its members)." Quote, "A lower court judge ruled that the obstruction charge did not apply to Fischer because he had not taken 'some action with respect to a document, record or other object'."

Seriously? People who saw the aftermath said that the office that got the most trashed was the Senate Parliamentarian's office. They were there for the electoral votes. Only the quick thinking of a young staffer kept those votes from getting ransacked.

Yeah, you might want to rethink your party affiliation, buddy.

Those wet-legged wimps. So far, Trump's batting 1.000 to these ballot challenges. What the hell will it take to get him kicked off one state ballot?! And, it has to be said if Senate Republicans did their fucking job during either impeachment, a conviction would've automatically rendered him ineligible to run for any office.

I always wondered what Goebbels would've sounded like with a brain tumor.

Adolf Jr's winning streak is finally over.

Jack Smith's got it.

Stormy Daniels once admitted to smacking Trump on his fat ass with a magazine with his jiggling puss on the cover, so I wouldn't be talking about fetishes, if I were him.

Meme intermission.

Good on her. I just hope her actions don't land her in hot water with the wrong people.

Our self absorption is going to be the death of us.

All I want to know is, who dropped the charges and why?

“If I would have known that Kristina Karamo would have turned out to be such a tyrannical incompetent dumpster fire I would never have worked so hard to get her elected.”
How could you NOT know this woman was a spittle-flecked banshee? Hell, I could've told you that.

Like Rahm Emanuel once famously said, "Never let a crisis go to waste."

No wonder George shitcanned her.
"(T)he cop tripped over a bicycle rack... [Fioranelli] then used his own hand to spread and rub the O.C. chemicals around Alshimary’s face... in the process, exposing himself to the O.C. spray chemicals and inadvertently rubbing them into his own eyes..."

Cops like this are not only cruel but stupid, as well.

Well, if anyone's an expert on divorce, it would be her. And finally...

A "real" Department of Justice, in other words, that would punish only Democrats and those who oppose his boss.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Matt Gaetz: Feckless Cunt Zero

There are a lot of things you can call Matt Gaetz.

You could call him a fearless champion for the inalienable rights of the common man, which I guess one would if they paid handsomely to watch repetitive NASCAR traffic and got all their news from Donald Trump's Truth Social feed.

You could call him George W. Bush 2.0, a professional rich man's son who, without Daddy Warbucks would, if the Universe weren't addicted to dark humor, be sucking cock out of a refrigerator crate in Boston's Back Bay for subway tokens. The difference between Gaetz and Bush, of course, is that Bush actually flew fighter jets.

You could call him the Firestarter of the Freedom Caucus for calling for the vacate vote that set up Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster last September because he didn't give Gaetz what he wanted, which was the shutdown of the US government. It can be said that Gaetz gave his blessing to McCarthy last January after 14 unsuccessful rounds and, after putting the gavel in his hands, he then took it right back out.

You can call him the Pennywise of the Republican Party, someone who, the minute he doesn't get what he wants, an artifact from his coddled frat boy days, will take the usual position in some sewer storm drain and take his revenge on the unwary.

You can call him Captain Venmo, as my friend Tara Dublin calls him, because of his penchant for making Venmo payments to future convicted felons such as his old wingman, Joel Greenberg, so he can have sex with underage girls.

Myself, I just call him Feckless Cunt Zero because he doesn't deserve a nickname that's more imaginative.

Matt Gaetz may not be representative of everything that's wrong with the House but he's representative of a lot of the symptoms afflicting the lower body. Like his former running buddy, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Gaetz was given a disproportionately large amount of power and influence in a shockingly brief span of time, power that he's neither earned nor deserved. Hence, the incomprehensible deference shown to him in his capacity of being a kingmaker regarding the Speakership.

Gaetz, like George W. Bush and others before him, is the stereotypical rich man's son that we've seen in all too many movies featuring similar characters we love to hate. After his DUI arrest in Florida, the charges mysteriously melted away, just like the subsequent federal "investigation" into him using Venmo to pay to have sex with an underage girl.

Undeterred, the Florida voters of the First District saw fit to make an unconvicted drunk driver their Congressman and to reelect him time and again even after it's been proven on countless occasions that Gaetz, like Jim Jordan, Greene, Lauren Boebert and so many others like him show no interest in actual governance. Instead, he's demonstrated an unquenchable thirst for performative art designed to harass those he perceives to be his enemy. Which, true to neonazi form, is anyone who even mildly criticizes him.

Add me to that group, Matty, not that I haven't taken pot shots at you over the years.

So, why am I writing this?

I refer you to the lead video above. It's the July 11, 2023 edition of Gaetz's "Firebrand" podcast. I'll do you a great favor and tell you to fast forward to exactly 25 minutes in when he starts inveighing, again, on the aforementioned Tara Dublin.

Tara and I follow each other on Twitter. I'm also followed by celebrities such as Nancy Sinatra and Juliet Landau but, unlike many on Twitter, I don't identify myself by who follows me on social media. Tara's a different matter.

Because Tara's a fellow traveler.

Yes, she has a following in excess of well over 100,000 but that's not why I chose to follow her. In fact, I generally refrain from following celebrities because, #1, I'm not impressed by celebrities and, #2, I refuse to give them an opportunity to completely ignore me. But, a quick review of her timeline showed me we are more or less perfectly aligned politically. And her enemies are my enemies.

That especially goes for Feckless Cunt Zero, Matty Gaetz, aka Captain Venmo.

And Gaetz crossed the line when he went after Tara not once but at least twice.

Because on July 11, he broadcast his podcast out of the Rayburn House office building in the US Capitol. He also cross-posted one of his attacks on Dublin on his official Congressional page, which is a clear violation of federal law.

Over two years ago, he attacked Dublin and put it on Facebook, a sleazy hit job disguised as citizen journalism in which he disparaged her looks.

But what else cam you expect from the world's most overgrown frat boy?

Gaetz proves that there's a reason why there are federal laws forbidding government employees such as Gaetz from going after private citizens. Trump has made a living out of punching down at his self-perceived enemies and has been doing so since the Central Park Five. But since 2015, Trump's gone after Gold Star families, congressmen and senators (reserving special venom for black women in power such as Judge Tanya Chutkan, AG Letitia James and Fulton Co. DA Fani Willis).

He's also infamously ridiculed a handicapped reporter, his own rape victim E. Jean Carroll and anyone in the media who didn't give him the sloppy backstroke he thinks is his due. And, like his spiritual daddy, Matty Gaetz is more sensitive than a skinned clitoris and will think nothing about using his bully pulpit to launch broadsides against his detractors.

Tara began swinging back when she started receiving, as a result of Gaetz's misgynistic harassment, rape and death threats from his hillbilly supporters. Gaetz knows precisely what he's doing. Like a typical Republican feckless cunt, like Donald Trump, he launches broadsides against people then lets others commit the actual crimes against them, thereby automatically establishing plausible deniability in an effort to keep his filthy hands clean.

It's the lazy man's way of silencing critics and rape and death threats are all the right wing has.

But that's not to say Gaetz hasn't committed any crimes. Remember, he records his "Firebrand" podcast from federal property during, presumably, working hours with the intention of making money from that podcast and to malign his so-called enemies. That alone deserves the attention of the House Ethics Committee if not the Department of Justice.

And, just as a personal aside to Matty: Acting like a quivering, skinned clitoris with an 18" pompadour doesn't make you a "firebrand". It just makes you a scared little boy hiding behind whatever congressional authority and gravitas still inexplicably remains to you after years of pulling stunts designed to get you attention. And all this is done with the nakedly avowed intention of undermining or overthrowing the very government for which you more or less work.

It just makes you, again, a whiny, feckless cunt who, like Trump before you, never had No said to you and was taught from a young age that wealth and privilege such as you've enjoyed is wholly incompatible with any meaningful comeuppance.