Democrats stonewalled all year on a new pandemic relief package. Now they're proposing a new plan that undercuts even Republican proposals, and screws everyone but - get this - defense contractors
I can’t really agree that the Democratic Party is “weak” or “inept.”
Anyone who’s spent time close to their actual political processes sees firsthand what should be obvious to any distant observer: the Democrats who occupy office, and the paymasters who own those Democratic politicians, loathe—loathe—the working class and the middle class. The only people who hate Democratic voters more than alt-right online trolls are probably elected and appointed Democrats and their various moneyed pimps.
That’s why Democrats have spent the last thirty years aggressively (if covertly) supporting policies that intensify poverty and class division and perpetuate war, and, in the last four years, reviving the Cold War and spreading the most disgusting and obnoxious brand of racism. At some point even the most brand-loyal peasants will surely notice that, with the exception of a few well-intentioned weaklings like Bernie Sanders, Democrats are laughing their asses off at the suffering of the working poor.
Nancy Pelosi is getting exactly the deal she wanted.
My primary focus is on post content, not the person posting it. And if you page through these TK discussions, you'll find that I engage the content of many other comment writers, sometimes much more extensively.
as a card-carrying member of the Paranoid Psychotic Clique Union, I offer a resounding YES. but seriously, this is like the boilerplate example of a question you don't really need to ask because you already know the answer to it.
I don't make predictions of Doom. I prefer to remain focused on fending it off.
I'm in a much better position to deal with a collapse than most Americans. I'm not raising any children, for instance. I can still climb a tree, and hike 30 miles in a day on an empty stomach.
But I know better than to view the prospect of a total breakdown of civil society or civil war in my homeland as a grand adventure.
In the sense I intended the phrase, "fending off doom" is more like making sure a campfire is wetted down and the ashes have been stirred before turning in for the night. No predictions, just vigilance.
I'll take your post as a prompt, to check whether I need to add another two dozen extra words to the next brief observation of mine so that its meaning is clear beyond all doubt.
The worst part is that those who lust for power don't seem to care who they govern on behalf of. If China wants to flex it's will on the American people, they don't care so long as they get to stay on the top of the pile here.
They're greasy and need to go. They haven't done anything but sell out their own citizens for 35 years now.
The something "move vile" than Trump, Mascot, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Obama's trade rep negotiated. It will, if passed during fast-track rules by Congress, transform what remains of our form of democratic, self-gov't into corporate self-gov't. Corporate actors wrote much of the TPP during secret negotiations.
I think you're being overly harsh or obsessive about Scott's comments. The two I see are divergent, radical and factually accurate. Let's tar and feather Trump and Biden!
Because Scott didn't mention the TPP in his comment, I had no inkling that he was referring to it.
As for the TPP, I've heard more than one of its advocates parse one of the main goals of the agreement as a framework for outflanking the current status quo of over-reliance on the CCP regime, a ruling power that is not exactly a role model in many respects, including trade policy. It doesn't particularly bother me to learn that any trade negotiation is closed to outside scrutiny; with all due respect to democratic advice and consent, that's best reserved for reviewing the terms of the agreement after it's been crafted by the negotiators. I spent little time reviewing the content of the TPP when it was proposed under Obama, or weighing the arguments pro and con; I only recall that it was defeated.
It wouldn't surprise me to find Biden trying to revive the TPP, but I have no reason to view that as a certainty. My attitude toward President-elect Joe Biden at this point in time is the same as I held in December 2016 toward Donald Trump- and for that matter, toward other newly elected predecessors: the guy hasn't even done anything yet.
Biden is part of the globalist crowd, of course his regime will resurrect it. TPP will be sold as a way to contain China, and it will pass congress with a bunch of RINOs and DINOs and much hand wringing.
Lovecraft wrote undiluted fantasy, with purple prose. I recommend sticking with Hawthorne and Poe, both of whom possess a more subtle sense of thematic content, and a better sense of plot resolution. And Coleridge, who has a superior command of imagery.
Coleridge......the last concert I went to before the pandemic was Iron Maiden....I honestly can’t remember if they played Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I also give Coleridge credit for inventing the term “pleasure some”!!
Poor ol' HPL. He was just a nerd who suffered the misfortune to live before the Internet. All of the John W. Campbell-era writers who wrote each other copious letters through the U.S. Mail were trying to create the Internet! If the aliens were to mistakenly drop a time machine in my slovenly yard I would go back in time and shoot the great science-fiction writers of the 20th c. before they could do even more cultural damage.
My entire lifetime, we've been told republicans are idiots, and the ivy league dem lawyers are their superiors - yet, they couldn't haggle for a trinket without spending double the original asking price in the end.
We are told these superior intellects constantly botch basic negotiation - decade after decade.
it's a punch and judy show, but it's the democratic voters who get bopped in the head, repeatedly, decade after decade.
it's enough to make me wish I could grab the stick and finish the job.
That misreads the situation quite a bit- and also lets the Republicans off the hook. After all, if the GOP really cared about the working and middle classes they'd come back at Nancy with something more like the original proposal, to answer back at the inept, disgraceful climb-down of the Democrats. But they won't, because most of the Republicans don't care. Particularly not Mitch McConnell.
I've been a subscriber here for a few months. Every comment section for every story so far gravitates to the same theme -- Dems are awful and ugly and don't care about the working class.
I do agree! I apologize for not being argumentative on that point -- since argument can be entertaining.
But . . .
1) Do these so-called "Democrats" get elected? Yes? or No?
Most would say "Yes, the got elected." Some might say "No" -- not only is the system rigged but so are all the voting machines." I'm not entirely skeptical of that suspicion!
2) So if they did get elected, then why?
At some point, an addict has to face himself or herself. It isn't easy quitting anything addictive. A lot of people fail at it. Sometimes the addiction kills you. At what point are all the complaints I read here about "the Democrats" -- all of which I agree with -- the fault of voters?
Do we ever blame voters?
Or do we always blame the elected politicians?
It gets tedious reading the same comments every story . . . over and over and over . . . and over . . .
If the Democratic Party is weak or inept, what is the Republican Party? Climate change denying Trump cuckolds too scared to say what they really think because they fear his wrath? Treasonous politicians willing to choose party over country while their vile leader tries to tear down our democracy? Both?
Reading the comments on this site, you'd think Republicans are the paragons of morality and truth. Are you people blind? As is the case with most things, the truth is far more complicated. Last time I checked, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were perpetuated by W and the real puppet master, Dick Cheney.
Both parties are severely flawed. That's why we're in the mess we're in.
"the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were perpetuated by W and the real puppet master, Dick Cheney"
being correct about certain obvious facts does not absolve you from basic contextual analysis
1st US war on Iraq occurred under GHW Bush (entirely, coincidentally, W's pop)
we are still killing unarmed children in the name of "national security" in AFG. it will have been 20 years in 10 months
among the many things that i think W should be called to account for, "perpetuating" the AFG war after he left office in early 2009 is pretty low on the list. no one was at the wheel after that?
Pelosi had a chance to get a 1.8T bill before the election. She and the Democrats have failed so pathetically because of their deranged hatred for Trump. Ro Khanna was right: They had a moral obligation to act and yet they didn’t. Now there may be no bill at all. The Media tried their best to gaslight us on Pelosi’s failure but I think many saw thru it.
TL/DR: All Summer and Fall the Democratic leadership prioritized dissing Trump over any help for the populace. If that is not clear let me spell it out: DNC dgaf about you, or any American. Your pain was explicitly their gain. DNC is pure globalist power and globalist money. Plus they just stole the election.
Funny how the Dems rise to power was due to slick Willy stealing the bribe money away from the republican party that sold old to the old money clear back in the 1860's.
There's only one party in DC, the loot and pillage party that just so happens to have separate funding arms.
Is anyone really surprised? This was of course what the Dems were going to do.
They are literally destroying their own states with the lockdowns. Why aren’t we hearing if explosive death counts in the retirement state of Florida? Give me a break.
If you thought the Dems were ANY good, I have a bridge that falls off a cliff to sell you.
The Dems got caught cheating in the primaries in Iowa, changed the rules throughout the primaries to stop Tulsi from being a part of the debates, had governors that sent Covid patients into nursing homes ensuring the death of the elderly in their states, forced Bernie to concede to Biden because they continued the primaries IN PERSON in the middle of a pandemic, filled the CARES Act with a bunch of crap going to their donors, had Dem mayors and governors allow autonomous zones in multiple states during the riots which resulted in multiple kids dying, had some members ENCOURAGE the looting and rioting, created funds to bailout the rioters, and are NOW ensuring the destruction of small businesses all through their states with draconian lockdowns (martial law with curfews) that didn’t work the first time with Costco, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. packed to the gills with people.
Again... if you still think the Dems are in any way going to help anyone but themselves, you haven’t been paying any attention. They will literally kill people to get what they want.
We're being raped and they are figuratively smearing a shitty cock on our faces.
This is not "public discourse". It's paid for and private. Also, fuck that shit anyway. What needs to be public is the truth and sometimes the best way to say it in as few words as possible is to just fucking cuss it out and go vulgar.
You can take your civility and set it aside for later. Read up on some Thucydides if you want to see how far civility gets you in such an age:
He details how those who pretended to stay civil were merely brushed aside by those who chose to act; however barbaric it seemed. We've reached a point where "working within the system" won't get you anything but shafted -the system is rigged.
Scott, your level of "action" isn't any more decisive or powerful than anyone else who writes stuff in a public forum. There isn't anything about cussing that confers it with some extra measure of forcefulness. As written words on the screen, it's more like a lazy substitute for clarity.
Are you going to grade my paper? I don't call sitting here bullshitting about an article "action". I'm just here to sprinkle a few "cunts" and "fuck-offs".
As I've said, I like swearing. Feels good.
I also like to eat a good home cooked meal... because that feels good. Sex? You bet.
I'm sorry if your editorial senses are offended, but that's on you. You could just keep scrolling and fuck off, too.
Looking at covid deaths is the pinnacle of craven vulture partisanship. One can parse any statistical analysis of any set of numbers to support any narrative one wants.
To wit, Utah Country has roughly the same number of people as San Francisco County with roughly half the number of covid deaths. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing.
True, since overall deaths from all causes are actually DOWN this year despite a pandemic.
A disease so deadly you need a fucking test to know if you have it.
Please. It's a foil. Maybe deadly for some... I'll admit, and definitely contagious... and certainly not something to scoff at but that doesn't remove accountability from those who were seeking to profit from lockdowns and mayhem throughout the whole thing.
"...overall deaths from all causes are actually DOWN this year despite a pandemic."
Where are you getting this from? According to the CDC:
"Based on NVSS data, excess deaths have occurred every week in the United States since March 2020. An estimated 299,028 more persons than expected have died since January 26, 2020; approximately two thirds of these deaths were attributed to COVID-19."
Seriously the CDC?--the patent owners along with Fauci. These guys are Pharma and will say what ever will make them money. Please we in the real medical treatment industry (not projections, " public health" , govt lackey, funded Pharma vehicle--WHO, CDC0 , understand how it works.
Yeah, I'll take a Canadian's word over Dr. Fauci, who devoted his life to public service in 1968. He knows a lot more about infectious diseases than any pinhead (myself included) on this site.
When it was between just Scott and the CDC I wasn't sure who to believe. But now that Carol Jones from "the real medical treatment industry" has weighted in, there can be no doubt.
It's learned behavior since we have been indoctrinated over and over again by the same technique to keep us terrified and divided while the elite punish each other by starving each other's peasants.
yes the question was about how come Florida hasn't been ravaged with all their elderly people, I was simply pointing out that it has indeed been ravaged.
The issue is two tiered. 1) Florida is NOT locked down. 2) the average age of the Florida population is quite old because it is a retirement state. Based on the media, we need to lockdown so that old people don’t die. Since there is no second lockdown in Florida, why aren’t we hearing of overflowing morgues and freezer bins of the dead in Florida?
In other words, the lockdowns in the Dem states are not to save the elderly. It is to destroy small businesses since the governors and mayors have NO problem with big box stores that have tickets on Wall Street being packed.
Exactly. The PCR test is bogus. Cases do not equal deaths. Underlying conditions are what people die of, that and the lack of medical care that they now cant get regularly.
No, the question was "why aren't we hearing about the explosive death counts", even though that was meant to imply they weren't explosive. FL is 20th ranked state by deaths/1M, so explosive is average, but I suspect the reason there's not a lot more about FL elderly deaths in the news has more to do with the media. It's just like limited opioid epidemic reporting. Few of the modern media care about old white people in FL and they do care about underprivileged populations, so they write about the latter.
Don’t you love it when politicians play power games that screw the average worker? How does anyone get behind any of these long term scumbags? How does Pelosi keep getting re-elected? How does McConnell? Ugh.
You live in a plutocracy where most of the population still believes it lives in a democratic republic. It's really that simple. People just believe what they want to believe in order to avoid dealing with reality.
Even worse, most people in the U.S believe they live in a democracy (not a democratic republic). This of course shows the ignorance of the populace, reinforcing the preference of a republic over a democracy.
Sadly, as Franklin allegedly warned, we were unable to keep the republic, and are regressing to a feudal state where the masses WILL be content to eat their cake all alone in the basement where the terrifying covid can't reach them
They just don't differentiate between the two terms. They understand they're supposed to be represented by the people they think they elect despite voting off a stacked slate that gets loaded by the uniparty.
Honest answer: Committees are key to legislative power and they're determined mostly by seniority. Thus party voters are incentive'ized both directly and indirectly to re-elect congresspeople that absolutely suck because to either Primary or throw them out in a General is to give up tremendous power.
For example: Pelosi's district directly gained outsized federal power compared to almost any other district in any state when she was serving in committees like Approprations and Intelligence. Now she's Speaker whenever the Dem's have a majority which means more power. So then why would her own district willingly give up this much power and control even if they did hate her? These DC Brahmins know that they know this, of course. It keeps them safe every two years.
Indirectly: Additionally it can be perceived as a bulwark against the opposing Party gaining this all-important committee power. these same Brahmins - once again - like the people to think like this. Logically speaking, doesn't it seem like this type of system would lead career politicians on opposing sides helping each other stay in office through stoking of fear of what the other side would do?
This is a major reason why congress sucks, even when you don't include the anti-democratic-by-nature Senate in consideration of said suckage. They're not all equal. If you can't get a committee to work with you on your bill, you're dead in the water. They force newly elected congresspeople to make all sorts of stupid compromises and pay fealty for years before they let them even get a vote on anything.
Hey, I looked it up and you're correct that Gingrich led a committee rules change. I honestly wasn't aware (my social studies schooldays came before these changes in the mid 90's).
It appears that the Party Leadership now selects committee members, which means you're probably de facto correct about the fundraising being the determining factor for membership.
So I guess everyone can toss all that committee stuff out except when applying to the Senate, which as I mentioned sucks in its own anti-democratic way.
I can only guess the answer then becomes that Pelosi and McConnell and their ilk just have their respective Party leaderships that keep them in power on committees. Just gold ol' fashioned casual corruption of dogshit politicians keeping each other in power. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If that's the case, is it not still to my point that they're too powerful and entrenched for their districts to give up?
For the record I don't disagree about your point here and in another reply about the government - using my words here - probably crossed the point of becoming hopelessly corrupt and a de facto Plutocracy. I just don't know what to do but keep trying our best to push them to help where they can until people finally get pushed past the brink to the point of R_________. I don't know, the future is very frightening and bleak either way it goes.
We're just along for the ride at this point. When the elite fight each other for control they use siege warfare. WW3 is in full swing and I think all this austerity is a big game of chicken since there are so many nuclear countries aligning in different factions while all trying to hedge their bets.
You just have to remember that the elite cherish being elite and don't want to die because it would end their elitism and no one would be left to remember them.
Fair enough about no longer having any power or hope to re-establish a real democracy now. I agree this is a likely case.
I'd add that on top of the Siege, I think part of their strategy is to foster resentment between the different classes, disguising it as incompetency. I see them doing this on even more local levels now.
The nukes are a tricky deal for the ultra-wealthy to navigate, along with climate change. I think they always look for opportunities to help their hand, even if they're playing with the ultimate Fire. It'll be "interesting" to see at what point they try to lock them down if they think it has gone past the point of using it for submission.
Regarding the mentality of what they want, I always think in terms of the elite class wanting as many people under their thumb as possible - which is why they don't really care at all about the overpopulation problem (in addition to the fact that it fosters class warfare). More desparate people is better for them along with a greater pool from which to snag the doctors and scientists they'll require.
It's funny to me, I was imagining a few weeks ago that centuries from now in an underground or domed bunker, they'll probably be teaching the descendants of Bill Gates and whomever else bunkered with them about Bill and what a legendary leader he was and how he tried so hard to help the people with his vast intellect and grace but they wouldn't listen so they all suffered and died without him. Basically they'll give him the Christopher Columbus treatment in the history books. Does it matter? Kinda bitterly funny to me.
The strategy is definitely to foster resentment between different groups that are not part of the elite. Fostering discord either internally or ideally externally with other countries is a great way for the elites to get people to focus on something other than their gross corruption. This is why endless wars are popular on both sides of the aisle.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad makes a pretty good case in his book The Condemnation of Blackness that the separation of blacks as a class and race statistically from the rest of US society is a control mechanism. It not only controls blacks by isolating them from the rest of society it also keeps other demographics focused on them as the problem rather than looking at the system that oppresses them as the issue. Having someone to blame other than elites for society's problems goes a long way towards keeping those elites in power.
The old classic "no I know voted for Nixon" [which wasn't what PK actually said]. Chances are, you've voted for a politician just as despicable, if not more so.
«How does Pelosi keep getting re-elected? How does McConnell? Ugh.»
One factor is because a significant minority of the population actually benefits from the neoliberalism of the Democrats: many property owners who see their property prices rise, and many people who work directly or indirectly for finance. The significant minority of winners also votes more frequently than the majority of losers.
But the real reason is that in a first-past-the-post system voting for parties other than Republican or Democratic is largely pointless, so all the elites have to do is to ensure that the Democratic leaders are neoliberal, just a tiny bit less nasty than the Republicans, and even those who detest neoliberalism will have to vote for them, because they are by that tiny bit the lesser evil.
Listen, progressives...Anyone But Trump was the goal. Mission accomplished. Congratulations. If the people you cheerfully voted in have already shown you their asses twice before Inauguration Day, I don't know what to tell you. "Gee, what a surprise." Get used to it for a few years. Find some way to enjoy the view. Elbow your way into line for some of those identity politics trinkets they'll be handing out as consolation prizes. Take up transcendental meditation. 2024 is only four years away.
It may make you feel good to trash progressives but can you honestly defend the choices we are given every election? As a progressive, I did vote for Biden and knew exactly the trash heap I would be getting in order to sweep out the other trash heap in the White House. This is what our elections have become.
Berta, you knew you voted for a dumpster fire because you felt the other choice was a bigger dumpster fire.
This thinking is EXACTLY why we'll never get out of this loop.... too many people convinced to buy into mythology. I get it. I bought into it for a long time, too.
If you want progress forward, expecting it from people holding things back is nonsense. You have to take a risk with your vote. That means not voting Democratic party candidates.
You’re right. Can’t stand Biden but can’t stand Trump either and when I see the list of potential 2024 candidates , it’s just depressing. I keep hoping for some massive awakening of the population but it just seems the majority are willing to live life in an ever shrinking set of possibilities. To be honest, I don’t know the answer but for now unless something drastic changes, no more votes for mainstream democrats at the top unless the party remakes itself into one that serves the people and until the leadership changes I don’t see that happening.
There shouldn't be any voting for any incumbent.... ever. The political parties epitomize what personal destructive relationships resemble - one person abusing the other but expecting to be treated like royalty. Don't enable this behavior.
False dichotomy. There were multiple 3rd party candidates, and of course you can always write in Mickey Mouse. You were told that anything was better than Trump, and like a sucker you bought the lie. If enough people start voting 3rd party then maybe we'll get some better choices. There probably would've been a bigger bill under Trump, he was at least a populist. Enjoy the next 4 years, you deserve what you get good and hard. And i'm sure you'll line up again next election cycle just as your told, ready to throw away your vote.
I voted for Biden knowing that nothing will get done during his term. I and 80M others were tired of the things that were being done by the Orange Menace. It’s as simple as that.
I’m a sometime progressive who has concluded that this country is ungovernable at the federal level, and should probably break up. In the absence of the good sense that it would take to accomplish such a break-up, I’d rather have nothing get done and ideally for the federal government shrink severely.
Judging by the comments I read here and elsewhere, the citizens of the US are ill-informed and have unrealistic ideas about what government can do to make up for the poorly managed lives of the citizens.
Biden will get nothing done outside of what he can order the executive branch to do. Fine with me. And he will order things to be done that will he less menacing than what Trump has done over the last four years, so I voted for him. Not a hard choice!
Yeah - I think a lot of people thought it out and reached the conclusion that Trump had to go . That doesn't mean we are fooled into thinking Biden will do anything beyond the usual not much. It's a pathetic state of affairs really.
How about not voting? how about taking that time, money, resources and helping people in your local neighbourhood. Building up local supports and services. Geez you guys really drink the koolaid
Agreed. I don’t defend it. I could have gone with Green, not voting but I knew factually what Trump was doing as far as economic sanctions, the environment, refugees, increase in weapons sales, the disaster with COVID and more. Things I felt had to stop. I view Biden as a faulty set of brakes on a runaway car. They may fail but what we had - had to go.
My vote was free will. I thought about all the options and came to the best conclusion I could. It doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect - Two bad choices preclude a perfect decision. Not voting wouldn’t have been a perfect decision either in my opinion. The only way that works to change anything is if there’s an organized mass movement and there wasn’t. Random people not voting does what?
Make no mistake: these are not some vast machinations of "the Left" or of "Progressives".
They are being used, as are the tools on the other end of the spectrum. They're scared into this by something far more nefarious than both.
This is the Machine masquerading as "The Left" only by virtue of the usual voter base. If the tables were turned, (and they have been many times,) someone would be railing against "The Right". Just so many clever foils to the real scam -stealing a presidency through the use of foreign money that wants to rule a nation of 321 million and not have to actually govern them.
Mission Accomplished and I'm happier than a pig in shit. Biden is the man of the hour. A decent human being who overcame unimaginable tragedy on multiple occasions in his life. in the debates, he showed more empathy to American's who lost family members in 15 seconds than Trump did in 9 months.
Trump was scared of Biden because he knew he was the only one he'd lose to. That's why he asked the Ukrainian President to dig up dirt on him. Bernie would have lost. It had to be Biden.
I frankly feel embarrassed that this dragged me up from underneath my bridge, but a troll gotta troll. I suspect that I myself am being trolled by a far more powerful and ancient Ur-Troll; a creature from the vasty deeps of legend. The Draugr, himsel'.
Who sincerely propounds the "Biden is a decent human being" discourse? He served as "The senator from MBNA" for nigh 4 decades; this jape was appelled by his jollicose colleagues, stalwarts all. I guess if your definition of "decency" is protecting and further enriching concentrated financial interests, which he has spent his entire career doing -- on the record -- he is the man for you.
Enjoy rolling in the shit, pig. I presume you can afford to do so.
It's funny now... until they turn on YOUR favorite brand of populism.
I'm sure people in Germany said, "Who cares? They're only going after the Jews." and later had to be paraded by the camps and see the piles of dead skeletons while their country was occupied by Americans and... RUSSIANS.
Sure... keep laughing at Trump if it makes you feel good, but know that they are only shutting that group down because it threatens their scam. Once YOU threaten the scam, you're next.
The Trump Republican governors aren’t locking their states down. It makes a huge difference which party runs your state. Those of us in Dem run states are screwed.
Matt is so brilliant and fair but I just do not understand how he could not say the incredible harm the Heroes Act supported went far beyond bailing out blue states in debt. It enshrined voting practices rife for fraud, i.e., universal vote by mail forever. The Heroes would require every state to allow “no excuse” absentee voting, provide postage-paid mail-in ballots, mandate that votes are counted up to 10 days after Election Day, and eliminate voter ID laws.
Please do not respond to argue using your unsupported opinions- I already know you do not believe this, and I assume you have not looked at the text of the Heroes act. I won't respond to trolls. Of course, if you have proof this is false, post it, but otherwise, I do not see a reason to argue and I won't respond.
As for 3T stimulus - easy to reach some compromise there or even give in, though doubtless much of it was not needed and would not go to people who needed it. The voting problems listed above are the real reason the so-called Heroes act could not be passed. They would have resulted in a one-party country, which would have lead to totalitarianism.
I think Matt is eventually going to come out with a piece attacking voter practices that will lead to a one-party country, such as no voter ID, required ballots to all on voter lists that are never purged, etc. so I will wait for that. He is too good and brave not to see this and say something.
Don't you see? The left believe the right are facists and believes it is perfectly moral to cheat in order to defeat facists.
Worse, the leadership of the left does not care what terrible suffering they brought about from Covid merely to make Trump look bad (and also pander to certain groups). ***Witness all other countries where kids got to go back to school - science says they can - while ours are confined. *** That is just one example. I deplore Democrat leadership for what they have done to children and small business.
As someone who's never missed a local or national election I just don't understand the pushback on showing a ID to vote. Is it really asking too much? I don't think so.
It’s to brainwash a population into thinking that minorities are incapable of getting an ID (soft bigotry of low expectations) and so that they will give the Dems the ability to cheat.
Every person I know got their ID by the time they were 18, some 16 for driving. It’s a right of passage in America.
I think we should abolish voter registration and switch to just being able to show up with a valid ID. Opponents to voter ID say it's an unnecessary barrier to voting for less politically engaged citizens who don't have time to get one... then what exactly is our Byzantine voter registration process?
In Ohio we accept virtually any document with one’s address on it short of a Chuck E Cheese rewards card. Anyone screaming seriously about “obstacles” to voting has ulterior and nefarious motives, imo.
Local elections are based on where you live. Most people don't rush down to DMV when they move to update their license, esp. when they like the picture they already have.
When you change your address through the post office, it asks whether you want to change your voter registration. It’s very easy to update your voter registration.
I find it hard to believe that people move without leaving a forwarding address with the post office. I’m sure it happens but I doubt it’s massive numbers of people doing this.
Most do leave that forwarding address. Now, you work at the post office. Do you create the extra hours needed to manage another change-of-address request ? Or do you put the note in a to-do stack of papers ? Both responses can and do occur. Although we left our former residence in another state five years ago, leaving full change-of=address info, we still received mail-in ballots to help us vote in that state in 2020. If we wanted to, I'll bet we could follow the Devil down to Georgia and still make some mischief there.
The destruction of trust is because of the partisan spin - and the nature of tribal loyalty to party over truth. Each party lies about the other's objectives with regard to the franchise, and that what was acceptable to all yesterday is now hopelessly corrupt. The percentage of people who don't have ID, or have trouble getting it is vanishingly small.
Never mind the irony that the party that pushed the 3/5ths compromise and spent decades after the Civil War actually disenfranchising blacks makes political hay out of accusing the other party of wishing to do so.
Byzantine might be an exaggeration in some places, but people are getting purged from registration rolls due to "inactivity," and many people, especially since the 2008 crash, are transient, meaning they need to constantly re-register and are unsure if they are even allowed to vote come election day because they're somewhere else (mostly young and poor people, who are also least likely to have licenses). I think an ID and a basic proof of address (everybody's got bills) should be enough to walk into a polling place and vote. 50 million (24%) Americans aren't even registered at all, with our paper-based form system, while Canada has 94% people registered with an online system. I would challenge any argument that Canadians simply care more about politics.
There's a good reason France banned mail-in ballots in the middle 1970s. The Moroccan elections were so rigged that more votes than citizens showed up and they had to act -just t save face.
Nowadays the elite don't bother with "face". They don't care.
Had literacy tests not been used for utterly corrupt purposes, they might be a reasonable solution. But that ship not only sailed long ago, it burnt to the water line and sank in the Bermuda triangle.
Ironically, literacy tests could conceivably be computerized these days, and randomized to ensure fairness. But from what I've read, maybe half of the voters would flunk the most bonehead simple introductory civics questions.
It's an aliterate age. Which does account for why I'm preparing like a pessimist, while at the same time advocating the most optimistic solutions I can find.
Yes! and Mars will be/ might be the new frontier. Liberty thrives on hard work, isolation, and unlimited hunks of unclaimed land. So do robber barons thrive. It's back to 1866 !
Matt is not objective so I wouldn’t refer to him as a reporter. He’s creating a niche where he criticizes but not so much to the point where he himself will be canceled by SJW or legacy media.
Both parties seem so desperate to beat down the other , while neither seems to concerned with the peasants caught in between. Meanwhile the press and many state governments, like the one I live in (NYC), cheer the perpetual lockdowns and closings.
If anyone here thinks either party cares about any of us plebs, I think you might be delusional. Again cheers to Matt for creating content no one else is writing.
This piece, quite apart from leaving me properly aghast (distinct from "surprised"), reminds me of what I perhaps appreciate most about Matt's work -- these dollar figures we're all seeing arithmetically laid out in a single comprehensible piece had to be culled from a bunch of sources, all of which I assume go to some trouble to obfuscate what's being said.
So yeah, while I'm among those who enjoys the zingers and wordplay, I have a feeling that the meat here takes a lot more effort to separate from the bone (and from the wild itself) than most forms of journalism. There may be others who do this, but from the liberal side? They're all cowards.
But seriously, these fuckers in Congress? This isn't some abstractable from of government harm. This is as tangible a fuck-you as it gets.
I seem to be traveling in tighter and tighter Internet circles. I'm a subscriber to "Singal-Minded," and that introduced me to de Boer and terms like "offense anthropology" (not at issue here, but the SJW antics are another big and deepening bucket of shit altogether).
I seem to remember reading something along these lines Gulag Archipelago. Something along the lines of the government organs exist first and foremost to spend their budget and second to fulfill their purpose. And since so much money was given to the construction of prisons and the secret police under Stalin, there was always a perverse incentive to arrest more and more people, innocent or not, to fill those prisons up so they wouldn't lose funding next year.
The Democrats were more than happy for the entire working class to drop dead if that's what it took to give Trump the boot. I mean, all of THEIR voters were working from home which was made possible by all the blue collar schlumps they love to hate being exposed to the virus while they were safely hiding under their beds.
But are they still willing to do that, now that the conservative Dems joined up? Essentially, the Republicans wanted to give 2 dollars, the Dems originally wanted 10 dollars. So they agreed to 6. Now the Dems feel no pressure from the public and many of them (Joe Manchin, etc.) actually wanted 4 dollars, and most Republican politicians are delighted. So that's where we are. Your arguments completely contradict everything Mitch McConnell says. Josh Hawley is a Republican who agrees with you and is a good example, but he's one of just a few Republicans with that view.
Also.. they do the same shit but don't seem to get caught in it as much. Probably because we expect them to be shitty. Isn't it high time we expected what the DNC's horrid track record and stop pretending that either party is somehow better than the other?
All hail the Purple Plutocracy! Endless war, global imperialism, market manipulation, cozy buddies with the CCP and their concentration camps... yeah.
It's all right here sitting on your face, dribbling pee while informing you that you're being rained on.
Republicrats. Demopublicans... what the fuck ever. It's all the same shit and it's time to stop them.
It's impressive that the Democrats still have the capacity to amaze us with their duplicity after decades of straight bullshit, but there you have it.
The old DLC/Clinton formula remains unchanged: make a bunch of noise about social issues while letting the rich do whatever the hell they want, with the side benefit of making it possible to be simultaneously wealthy, liberal, and sanctimonious. If anything, this has gotten much worse, as we are all now treated to endless lectures about how everything in America is awful and always has been, often from people who have endured such horrors as attending Ivy League colleges, working at national media outlets, and exercising political power while (somehow) becoming millionaires.
If there is anything surprising about this, it's the twist the Democrats have added to the narrative of how a democracy is supposed to fail. According to the old formula, democracy was a fine idea, but would inevitably stop working when the people realized they could vote to get free stuff from the government. The Democrats don't even want to go that far - they'd prefer not to hand out free stuff unless you're already rich - so instead they've decided to satisfy their voters by taking a pass on enforcing laws for favored political constituencies and encouraging the application of social and economic consequences to dissenters in the name of "justice."
It's appalling how well this is working, how many people are willing to not only hop on the new social issues bandwagon but even to shave their heads, put on robes, and start proclaiming The Word. The levels of grift and graft reach unprecedented heights while mobs fight in the streets over manufactured controversies, propelled to violence by the messaging necessary for the longest of cons to keep rolling along.
This relief bill is more of the same. Sure, there's money flowing out. But most of what we're going to see, moving forward, is largely symbolic gestures like this one accompanied by a continuing breakdown of social and political systems so as to provide moral and legal "goodies" to voters instead of money or any other economic benefits, all while the upward transfer of wealth continues, not only unabated, but mostly unnoticed.
No you are not fucked, you just have to walk away from government. Don't depend on it for anything-- protection, valued money, economic support, health care etc. Free yourself
Hey, who cares about doing the people's business?! As long as we get a black female president, all is good as the sun sets on the Potomac and the Empire!
And a diverse cabinet. Qualifications used to come first. Now it is only this PC crap. The swamp is back stronger than ever. Just look at the folks who are in the new administration.
The Republic will only be perfect when we have a vegan, trans-gender, half Native American, half African American psychopath carrying the Nuclear Football.
Diversity lol-SecDef nominee Austin-he’s black-soooo historic-and his Sec State nominee, are both partners in Pine Island, a “defense and strategic assets investment firm” or some such military industrial monstrosity.
I mean it's obvious they held out for political purposes. They didn't want a "win" for Trump before the Presidential Election. Afterwards, they couldn't care less ... see: bill.
I wonder... maybe it's not that they don't care, but they completely lost their leverage after the election. Before the election, Trump needed that aid to win, and so R's were willing to stretch way farther than normal (for them). Once the election is done, R's have no reason to stretch nearly as far.
It's too bad politics is such bloodsport in the U.S. now. In a sense, D's probably made the right political move: an aid package right before the election could have lost them the election. So they win the presidency by forgoing a ton of COVID relief. Interesting trade.
Democrats stopped working for the People in 1993. Bill Clinton paid off big for Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors, and started using trade deals and open-door immigration policy to dismantle the American middle class. Lose your good-paying job at the mill but pay less for Chinese-made blue jeans. The monolith of DONOR OLIGARCHY has controlled the levers of both parties ever since. Trump was a poor substitute for a genuine political force aimed at helping those thrown under the bus and out the window by the sycophants of the Oligarchs. As the so-easily-fooled Bernie-Liz-Yang supporters have learned, the Oligarch Empire has struck back. Joining the Anti-Trump parade was a severely self-destructive move by the "Progressives." [Liberty or death] has no meaning for these Milk-Toast "Progressives." Do we even have a half-decent supply of the key ingredient we need to water and replenish the Tree of Liberty ? If we do, slandering Trump and ignoring the Oligarchy has not proven astute or constructive. We need to blood of patriots to save the Republic, not scolding and hand-wringing.
Brilliant! I don't know if Bernie is just dumb, or he knows too well that it wasn't his time, and rather than bite the hand that feeds him he's content to take their offers of committee chairmanships and a total pass on his family's ethical hypocrisy. The people who really got duped are the true progressives, beaten down by endless messaging that it's more important to hate Trump *this time* while getting zero actual return for their vote. With Trump in for another 4 years, Progressives could have fielded a candidate with an actual shot at winning, but now that they have capitulated to Democrats, their window got pushed off at least 8 years and maybe 12. Hate him as much as you want, but Trump was the catalyst for change progressives should have wanted, not for his policies but for the very real disruption he caused to the Washington establishment elites. Suckers, every one of you.
Perfect, you hit it, especially the last 2 sentences. Trump was the left's last chance- there was at least the chance of a level playing field. With the Dems in charge, forget it.
But then, a lot of so-called progressives are really quite regressive and as controlled by the MSM as any true believer Dem. Suckers every one of them. They'll have at least a couple of years to think about it and you could well be right that it could go 8-12 years.
I wonder if Matt will eventually tie onto your words and admit that he had it (Trump) wrong. Would he write that essay? Would he admit to the self-destructive move he and other progressives made? I look forward to reading it.
The wheels will grind along- who knows where we will end up but I've never been more pessimistic for the country.
Trump disturbed the conventional narrative flow, and seemed to replace it with personal sound-bites. He's no professional, and he's an oaf. But he never owed his soul to the Oligarchy, as every single other Democratic and Republican nominee for President has since 1992, if not earlier. So far, money wins elections continues to be the best betting rule.
This is the US- we're surrounded by oafs; makes perfect sense to elect one, I guess.
But could an oaf, fought at every step along the way, take on the establishment and overcome it? Ron Paul is a doctor, but he couldn't do it.
Be careful about demanding perfection in an imperfect system. Maybe the best you can hope for is reasonably competent, well- intentioned and thick skinned.
Love the phrase "hyena idiocy." Lord North might have said it of Sam Adams, but it fits Trump. Here's toxic: over one million non-combatants killed, and another 15 million displaced from their homes, in Iraq, Stria and Afghanistan under Clinton-Bush-Obama "sweet politeness" policies. Here's toxic: repealing Glass-Steagall, inviting the foreclosure of over 18.7 million homeowners' properties in 2007-13, while another 62 million lost over $8 Trillion of homeowners' equity between late 2005 and mid-2012. Worse than the Great Depression. Here's toxic: never once addressing the crying need for a single national health information database -- so that, when a pandemic strikes, we are not stuck with 17th-century models of knowing who might be affected by contagion.
I am always flabbergasted by how much vitriol we can expend on Trump, while ignoring that his three predecessors perpetrated insane, unforgivable atrocities in the real world. They might have talked nicely, but their actions were vicious, unwise, and anti-democratic. None of that was created by Trump -- who, nevertheless, amply exemplifies the sobriquet "hyena idiocy."
Yeah, you're tiring to deal with, but that is because it is difficult to understand you and the direction you travel in your posts. Sometimes you make sense and other times, right off the rails.
On the other hand, I make sense with every post. No drugs necessary :)
One thought for you: Trump was only a step along the way to what you term a populist revolt. Rough around the edges but effective in getting people to recognize their plight in a way a Ron Paul couldn't. In the end he was ousted, but still managed to demonstrate to many the nature of how we are controlled. Or at least the start of understanding the mindfucking.
The system is definitely not worth saving- it's unsustainable at multiple levels. Perhaps we differ in who or what each will put his faith in for determining a new system.
I can’t really agree that the Democratic Party is “weak” or “inept.”
Anyone who’s spent time close to their actual political processes sees firsthand what should be obvious to any distant observer: the Democrats who occupy office, and the paymasters who own those Democratic politicians, loathe—loathe—the working class and the middle class. The only people who hate Democratic voters more than alt-right online trolls are probably elected and appointed Democrats and their various moneyed pimps.
That’s why Democrats have spent the last thirty years aggressively (if covertly) supporting policies that intensify poverty and class division and perpetuate war, and, in the last four years, reviving the Cold War and spreading the most disgusting and obnoxious brand of racism. At some point even the most brand-loyal peasants will surely notice that, with the exception of a few well-intentioned weaklings like Bernie Sanders, Democrats are laughing their asses off at the suffering of the working poor.
Nancy Pelosi is getting exactly the deal she wanted.
The wealthiest people on earth got what they wanted... as they did during Trump. As they did before that...
Trump was probably a grand distraction to set the stage for something much more vile.
You may think you're the heir to George Orwell, Scott, but you sound more like H. P. Lovecraft on meth.
Really is this comment necessary Mascot?
I just happen to think that Scott is phoning it in. He's capable of better, but he'd rather saw on his one-note violin of paranoia.
"Mussolini" over on the Intercept- now THERE is a troll.
I'm an ATROLL fan, too, on Disqus.
Scott isn't there yet.
You seem obsessed and excessively competitive with Scott. You think he needs a cooler looking avatar?
My primary focus is on post content, not the person posting it. And if you page through these TK discussions, you'll find that I engage the content of many other comment writers, sometimes much more extensively.
as a card-carrying member of the Paranoid Psychotic Clique Union, I offer a resounding YES. but seriously, this is like the boilerplate example of a question you don't really need to ask because you already know the answer to it.
Regardless of your feint at literary criticism, don't you have the nagging feeling that something much worse is in store from these creeps?
One doesn't have to fit in a category to be right or wrong -or to not trust these cunts.
I don't make predictions of Doom. I prefer to remain focused on fending it off.
I'm in a much better position to deal with a collapse than most Americans. I'm not raising any children, for instance. I can still climb a tree, and hike 30 miles in a day on an empty stomach.
But I know better than to view the prospect of a total breakdown of civil society or civil war in my homeland as a grand adventure.
Awwww, a virtue signaller! how sweet. Please tell us all how you are So wonderful
well, dag. I suppose I should have known that only apocalyptic scenarios and doomstruck hyperbole are approved by the thread patrol.
Uh.. OK dude.
Don't make predictions.
Who cares?
To be fending off doom is to be predicting it (in the absence of your valiant efforts).
In the sense I intended the phrase, "fending off doom" is more like making sure a campfire is wetted down and the ashes have been stirred before turning in for the night. No predictions, just vigilance.
I'll take your post as a prompt, to check whether I need to add another two dozen extra words to the next brief observation of mine so that its meaning is clear beyond all doubt.
The worst part is that those who lust for power don't seem to care who they govern on behalf of. If China wants to flex it's will on the American people, they don't care so long as they get to stay on the top of the pile here.
They're greasy and need to go. They haven't done anything but sell out their own citizens for 35 years now.
Oh, it's coming... this poor person isn't fully aware of how bad this whole thing really is.
The something "move vile" than Trump, Mascot, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Obama's trade rep negotiated. It will, if passed during fast-track rules by Congress, transform what remains of our form of democratic, self-gov't into corporate self-gov't. Corporate actors wrote much of the TPP during secret negotiations.
I think you're being overly harsh or obsessive about Scott's comments. The two I see are divergent, radical and factually accurate. Let's tar and feather Trump and Biden!
Because Scott didn't mention the TPP in his comment, I had no inkling that he was referring to it.
As for the TPP, I've heard more than one of its advocates parse one of the main goals of the agreement as a framework for outflanking the current status quo of over-reliance on the CCP regime, a ruling power that is not exactly a role model in many respects, including trade policy. It doesn't particularly bother me to learn that any trade negotiation is closed to outside scrutiny; with all due respect to democratic advice and consent, that's best reserved for reviewing the terms of the agreement after it's been crafted by the negotiators. I spent little time reviewing the content of the TPP when it was proposed under Obama, or weighing the arguments pro and con; I only recall that it was defeated.
It wouldn't surprise me to find Biden trying to revive the TPP, but I have no reason to view that as a certainty. My attitude toward President-elect Joe Biden at this point in time is the same as I held in December 2016 toward Donald Trump- and for that matter, toward other newly elected predecessors: the guy hasn't even done anything yet.
Biden is part of the globalist crowd, of course his regime will resurrect it. TPP will be sold as a way to contain China, and it will pass congress with a bunch of RINOs and DINOs and much hand wringing.
Other than the fact that Lovecraft was a bitter anti-Semite (which Scott appears not to be at all), I’d consider that a compliment!
Lovecraft wrote undiluted fantasy, with purple prose. I recommend sticking with Hawthorne and Poe, both of whom possess a more subtle sense of thematic content, and a better sense of plot resolution. And Coleridge, who has a superior command of imagery.
Coleridge......the last concert I went to before the pandemic was Iron Maiden....I honestly can’t remember if they played Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I also give Coleridge credit for inventing the term “pleasure some”!!
“Pleasure dome”.....not some!!!
Poor ol' HPL. He was just a nerd who suffered the misfortune to live before the Internet. All of the John W. Campbell-era writers who wrote each other copious letters through the U.S. Mail were trying to create the Internet! If the aliens were to mistakenly drop a time machine in my slovenly yard I would go back in time and shoot the great science-fiction writers of the 20th c. before they could do even more cultural damage.
Truth. and tragedy.
My entire lifetime, we've been told republicans are idiots, and the ivy league dem lawyers are their superiors - yet, they couldn't haggle for a trinket without spending double the original asking price in the end.
We are told these superior intellects constantly botch basic negotiation - decade after decade.
it's a punch and judy show, but it's the democratic voters who get bopped in the head, repeatedly, decade after decade.
it's enough to make me wish I could grab the stick and finish the job.
Every now and then rulers need to be tarred and feathered.
Remember that old saying, "it's your turn in the barrel"
That misreads the situation quite a bit- and also lets the Republicans off the hook. After all, if the GOP really cared about the working and middle classes they'd come back at Nancy with something more like the original proposal, to answer back at the inept, disgraceful climb-down of the Democrats. But they won't, because most of the Republicans don't care. Particularly not Mitch McConnell.
They're also relieved that Trump won't be around to upset the 3 card monty table.
Go back to work
I've been a subscriber here for a few months. Every comment section for every story so far gravitates to the same theme -- Dems are awful and ugly and don't care about the working class.
I do agree! I apologize for not being argumentative on that point -- since argument can be entertaining.
But . . .
1) Do these so-called "Democrats" get elected? Yes? or No?
Most would say "Yes, the got elected." Some might say "No" -- not only is the system rigged but so are all the voting machines." I'm not entirely skeptical of that suspicion!
2) So if they did get elected, then why?
At some point, an addict has to face himself or herself. It isn't easy quitting anything addictive. A lot of people fail at it. Sometimes the addiction kills you. At what point are all the complaints I read here about "the Democrats" -- all of which I agree with -- the fault of voters?
Do we ever blame voters?
Or do we always blame the elected politicians?
It gets tedious reading the same comments every story . . . over and over and over . . . and over . . .
The "Democratic" Party is corrupted by money and ideologically ("centrist," i.e., neo-liberalism) "evil."
It is so depressing how right you are.
If the Democratic Party is weak or inept, what is the Republican Party? Climate change denying Trump cuckolds too scared to say what they really think because they fear his wrath? Treasonous politicians willing to choose party over country while their vile leader tries to tear down our democracy? Both?
Reading the comments on this site, you'd think Republicans are the paragons of morality and truth. Are you people blind? As is the case with most things, the truth is far more complicated. Last time I checked, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were perpetuated by W and the real puppet master, Dick Cheney.
Both parties are severely flawed. That's why we're in the mess we're in.
"the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were perpetuated by W and the real puppet master, Dick Cheney"
being correct about certain obvious facts does not absolve you from basic contextual analysis
1st US war on Iraq occurred under GHW Bush (entirely, coincidentally, W's pop)
we are still killing unarmed children in the name of "national security" in AFG. it will have been 20 years in 10 months
among the many things that i think W should be called to account for, "perpetuating" the AFG war after he left office in early 2009 is pretty low on the list. no one was at the wheel after that?
dance party by the potomac.
Pelosi had a chance to get a 1.8T bill before the election. She and the Democrats have failed so pathetically because of their deranged hatred for Trump. Ro Khanna was right: They had a moral obligation to act and yet they didn’t. Now there may be no bill at all. The Media tried their best to gaslight us on Pelosi’s failure but I think many saw thru it.
TL/DR: All Summer and Fall the Democratic leadership prioritized dissing Trump over any help for the populace. If that is not clear let me spell it out: DNC dgaf about you, or any American. Your pain was explicitly their gain. DNC is pure globalist power and globalist money. Plus they just stole the election.
Funny how that all happened with bipartisan support from the republicans. Why did you not mention the other funding arm of the plutocracy ??
Because the RINOs are the minority conniving players, simple snouts in the trough, not the brains.
Funny how the Dems rise to power was due to slick Willy stealing the bribe money away from the republican party that sold old to the old money clear back in the 1860's.
There's only one party in DC, the loot and pillage party that just so happens to have separate funding arms.
Different sides of the same coin, so to speak.
This is true. Goldwater is spinning in his grave, Dubya sold the brand to the Ds to fund his revenge tour for daddy.
I really want Barry back but I would settle for getting Tricky Dick back at this point.
EXCELLENT comments
Indeed
Is anyone really surprised? This was of course what the Dems were going to do.
They are literally destroying their own states with the lockdowns. Why aren’t we hearing if explosive death counts in the retirement state of Florida? Give me a break.
If you thought the Dems were ANY good, I have a bridge that falls off a cliff to sell you.
The Dems got caught cheating in the primaries in Iowa, changed the rules throughout the primaries to stop Tulsi from being a part of the debates, had governors that sent Covid patients into nursing homes ensuring the death of the elderly in their states, forced Bernie to concede to Biden because they continued the primaries IN PERSON in the middle of a pandemic, filled the CARES Act with a bunch of crap going to their donors, had Dem mayors and governors allow autonomous zones in multiple states during the riots which resulted in multiple kids dying, had some members ENCOURAGE the looting and rioting, created funds to bailout the rioters, and are NOW ensuring the destruction of small businesses all through their states with draconian lockdowns (martial law with curfews) that didn’t work the first time with Costco, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. packed to the gills with people.
Again... if you still think the Dems are in any way going to help anyone but themselves, you haven’t been paying any attention. They will literally kill people to get what they want.
They didn't even wait for mid-terms to smear the shit-covered rape penis across the public's bloody mouth.
Is this the best you can do for public discourse?
Yes, Rob... for this scenario? Yes.
We're being raped and they are figuratively smearing a shitty cock on our faces.
This is not "public discourse". It's paid for and private. Also, fuck that shit anyway. What needs to be public is the truth and sometimes the best way to say it in as few words as possible is to just fucking cuss it out and go vulgar.
You can take your civility and set it aside for later. Read up on some Thucydides if you want to see how far civility gets you in such an age:
https://documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/-460_-400,_Thucydites,_History_Of_The_Peloponnesian_War,_EN.pdf
He details how those who pretended to stay civil were merely brushed aside by those who chose to act; however barbaric it seemed. We've reached a point where "working within the system" won't get you anything but shafted -the system is rigged.
Get nasty.
Scott, your level of "action" isn't any more decisive or powerful than anyone else who writes stuff in a public forum. There isn't anything about cussing that confers it with some extra measure of forcefulness. As written words on the screen, it's more like a lazy substitute for clarity.
What if I just like to swear?
Are you going to grade my paper? I don't call sitting here bullshitting about an article "action". I'm just here to sprinkle a few "cunts" and "fuck-offs".
As I've said, I like swearing. Feels good.
I also like to eat a good home cooked meal... because that feels good. Sex? You bet.
I'm sorry if your editorial senses are offended, but that's on you. You could just keep scrolling and fuck off, too.
I don't really care.
I promise you it doesn't really matter.
cussing? how quaint. Can you say swearing? Geez--
"Cuss" was a word first used in the comment I replied to.
But fwiw, I do view swearing and cussing differently. Swearing involves verbs, and cussing is about adjectives and noun labels.
I do agree they rigged the primary though.
we are hearing about those deaths in Florida. Florida is roughly half the population of CA, with roughly equal the number of deaths.
Looking at covid deaths is the pinnacle of craven vulture partisanship. One can parse any statistical analysis of any set of numbers to support any narrative one wants.
To wit, Utah Country has roughly the same number of people as San Francisco County with roughly half the number of covid deaths. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing.
True, since overall deaths from all causes are actually DOWN this year despite a pandemic.
A disease so deadly you need a fucking test to know if you have it.
Please. It's a foil. Maybe deadly for some... I'll admit, and definitely contagious... and certainly not something to scoff at but that doesn't remove accountability from those who were seeking to profit from lockdowns and mayhem throughout the whole thing.
Bunch of cunts.
Yup they are DOWN, and here in Canada we have the same number of deaths as we do ANY OTHER FLU SEASON.
"...overall deaths from all causes are actually DOWN this year despite a pandemic."
Where are you getting this from? According to the CDC:
"Based on NVSS data, excess deaths have occurred every week in the United States since March 2020. An estimated 299,028 more persons than expected have died since January 26, 2020; approximately two thirds of these deaths were attributed to COVID-19."
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm
Seriously the CDC?--the patent owners along with Fauci. These guys are Pharma and will say what ever will make them money. Please we in the real medical treatment industry (not projections, " public health" , govt lackey, funded Pharma vehicle--WHO, CDC0 , understand how it works.
Funded by lord Gates as well. The self appointed surgeon general of the world.
Yeah, I'll take a Canadian's word over Dr. Fauci, who devoted his life to public service in 1968. He knows a lot more about infectious diseases than any pinhead (myself included) on this site.
That is false information.
When it was between just Scott and the CDC I wasn't sure who to believe. But now that Carol Jones from "the real medical treatment industry" has weighted in, there can be no doubt.
Scott, what is your source?
I've read time and time again that deaths are up in 2020 compared to 2019/
https://usafacts.org/articles/preliminary-us-death-statistics-more-deaths-in-2020-than-2019-coronavirus-age-flu/
It's learned behavior since we have been indoctrinated over and over again by the same technique to keep us terrified and divided while the elite punish each other by starving each other's peasants.
Think about the age demographics in Fla vs. Cali
yes the question was about how come Florida hasn't been ravaged with all their elderly people, I was simply pointing out that it has indeed been ravaged.
The issue is two tiered. 1) Florida is NOT locked down. 2) the average age of the Florida population is quite old because it is a retirement state. Based on the media, we need to lockdown so that old people don’t die. Since there is no second lockdown in Florida, why aren’t we hearing of overflowing morgues and freezer bins of the dead in Florida?
In other words, the lockdowns in the Dem states are not to save the elderly. It is to destroy small businesses since the governors and mayors have NO problem with big box stores that have tickets on Wall Street being packed.
It is bullshit.
Exactly. The PCR test is bogus. Cases do not equal deaths. Underlying conditions are what people die of, that and the lack of medical care that they now cant get regularly.
No, the question was "why aren't we hearing about the explosive death counts", even though that was meant to imply they weren't explosive. FL is 20th ranked state by deaths/1M, so explosive is average, but I suspect the reason there's not a lot more about FL elderly deaths in the news has more to do with the media. It's just like limited opioid epidemic reporting. Few of the modern media care about old white people in FL and they do care about underprivileged populations, so they write about the latter.
Would you like me to give you links for everything I have noted? I can back up every statement I made about the Dems.
Don’t you love it when politicians play power games that screw the average worker? How does anyone get behind any of these long term scumbags? How does Pelosi keep getting re-elected? How does McConnell? Ugh.
You live in a plutocracy where most of the population still believes it lives in a democratic republic. It's really that simple. People just believe what they want to believe in order to avoid dealing with reality.
Even worse, most people in the U.S believe they live in a democracy (not a democratic republic). This of course shows the ignorance of the populace, reinforcing the preference of a republic over a democracy.
Sadly, as Franklin allegedly warned, we were unable to keep the republic, and are regressing to a feudal state where the masses WILL be content to eat their cake all alone in the basement where the terrifying covid can't reach them
They just don't differentiate between the two terms. They understand they're supposed to be represented by the people they think they elect despite voting off a stacked slate that gets loaded by the uniparty.
Biden's candidacy was clear evidence of that, but people still seem to think he legit won the nomination.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/12/iowa-caucus-dnc-report-444649
Don't you mean a military democracy (sic)?
Hear hear
Honest answer: Committees are key to legislative power and they're determined mostly by seniority. Thus party voters are incentive'ized both directly and indirectly to re-elect congresspeople that absolutely suck because to either Primary or throw them out in a General is to give up tremendous power.
For example: Pelosi's district directly gained outsized federal power compared to almost any other district in any state when she was serving in committees like Approprations and Intelligence. Now she's Speaker whenever the Dem's have a majority which means more power. So then why would her own district willingly give up this much power and control even if they did hate her? These DC Brahmins know that they know this, of course. It keeps them safe every two years.
Indirectly: Additionally it can be perceived as a bulwark against the opposing Party gaining this all-important committee power. these same Brahmins - once again - like the people to think like this. Logically speaking, doesn't it seem like this type of system would lead career politicians on opposing sides helping each other stay in office through stoking of fear of what the other side would do?
This is a major reason why congress sucks, even when you don't include the anti-democratic-by-nature Senate in consideration of said suckage. They're not all equal. If you can't get a committee to work with you on your bill, you're dead in the water. They force newly elected congresspeople to make all sorts of stupid compromises and pay fealty for years before they let them even get a vote on anything.
"Committees are key to legislative power and they're determined mostly by seniority."
Wrong, Newt Gingrich changed this from seniority to highest fund raising clear back in the 90's.
The coup was over long ago and the people lost.
Hey, I looked it up and you're correct that Gingrich led a committee rules change. I honestly wasn't aware (my social studies schooldays came before these changes in the mid 90's).
It appears that the Party Leadership now selects committee members, which means you're probably de facto correct about the fundraising being the determining factor for membership.
So I guess everyone can toss all that committee stuff out except when applying to the Senate, which as I mentioned sucks in its own anti-democratic way.
I can only guess the answer then becomes that Pelosi and McConnell and their ilk just have their respective Party leaderships that keep them in power on committees. Just gold ol' fashioned casual corruption of dogshit politicians keeping each other in power. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If that's the case, is it not still to my point that they're too powerful and entrenched for their districts to give up?
For the record I don't disagree about your point here and in another reply about the government - using my words here - probably crossed the point of becoming hopelessly corrupt and a de facto Plutocracy. I just don't know what to do but keep trying our best to push them to help where they can until people finally get pushed past the brink to the point of R_________. I don't know, the future is very frightening and bleak either way it goes.
We're just along for the ride at this point. When the elite fight each other for control they use siege warfare. WW3 is in full swing and I think all this austerity is a big game of chicken since there are so many nuclear countries aligning in different factions while all trying to hedge their bets.
You just have to remember that the elite cherish being elite and don't want to die because it would end their elitism and no one would be left to remember them.
Plus ca change, plus la meme chose
Fair enough about no longer having any power or hope to re-establish a real democracy now. I agree this is a likely case.
I'd add that on top of the Siege, I think part of their strategy is to foster resentment between the different classes, disguising it as incompetency. I see them doing this on even more local levels now.
The nukes are a tricky deal for the ultra-wealthy to navigate, along with climate change. I think they always look for opportunities to help their hand, even if they're playing with the ultimate Fire. It'll be "interesting" to see at what point they try to lock them down if they think it has gone past the point of using it for submission.
Regarding the mentality of what they want, I always think in terms of the elite class wanting as many people under their thumb as possible - which is why they don't really care at all about the overpopulation problem (in addition to the fact that it fosters class warfare). More desparate people is better for them along with a greater pool from which to snag the doctors and scientists they'll require.
It's funny to me, I was imagining a few weeks ago that centuries from now in an underground or domed bunker, they'll probably be teaching the descendants of Bill Gates and whomever else bunkered with them about Bill and what a legendary leader he was and how he tried so hard to help the people with his vast intellect and grace but they wouldn't listen so they all suffered and died without him. Basically they'll give him the Christopher Columbus treatment in the history books. Does it matter? Kinda bitterly funny to me.
The strategy is definitely to foster resentment between different groups that are not part of the elite. Fostering discord either internally or ideally externally with other countries is a great way for the elites to get people to focus on something other than their gross corruption. This is why endless wars are popular on both sides of the aisle.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad makes a pretty good case in his book The Condemnation of Blackness that the separation of blacks as a class and race statistically from the rest of US society is a control mechanism. It not only controls blacks by isolating them from the rest of society it also keeps other demographics focused on them as the problem rather than looking at the system that oppresses them as the issue. Having someone to blame other than elites for society's problems goes a long way towards keeping those elites in power.
That has been their strategy for 30 years!
"How does Pelosi keep getting re-elected? How does McConnell?"
California. Kentucky.
The old classic "no I know voted for Nixon" [which wasn't what PK actually said]. Chances are, you've voted for a politician just as despicable, if not more so.
«How does Pelosi keep getting re-elected? How does McConnell? Ugh.»
One factor is because a significant minority of the population actually benefits from the neoliberalism of the Democrats: many property owners who see their property prices rise, and many people who work directly or indirectly for finance. The significant minority of winners also votes more frequently than the majority of losers.
But the real reason is that in a first-past-the-post system voting for parties other than Republican or Democratic is largely pointless, so all the elites have to do is to ensure that the Democratic leaders are neoliberal, just a tiny bit less nasty than the Republicans, and even those who detest neoliberalism will have to vote for them, because they are by that tiny bit the lesser evil.
Listen, progressives...Anyone But Trump was the goal. Mission accomplished. Congratulations. If the people you cheerfully voted in have already shown you their asses twice before Inauguration Day, I don't know what to tell you. "Gee, what a surprise." Get used to it for a few years. Find some way to enjoy the view. Elbow your way into line for some of those identity politics trinkets they'll be handing out as consolation prizes. Take up transcendental meditation. 2024 is only four years away.
It may make you feel good to trash progressives but can you honestly defend the choices we are given every election? As a progressive, I did vote for Biden and knew exactly the trash heap I would be getting in order to sweep out the other trash heap in the White House. This is what our elections have become.
You're not a Progressive if you voted for Biden, dumbass.
Progressives aren't on board with his War Machine bullshittery, and neither are "right wingers".
This is the Machine.
This guy above is confused, as you are and you're all really in the same camp: The Unwashed Masses.
The trash heap is a swirl of red and blue. Really, it's a purple plutocracy.
You.... and the guy complaining about "Progressives" are both fooled.
Get UNfooled, cracka.
Funny, cracka being the only approved racial slur.
But it’s fine; lets have it in the open, we’ll only demand and enforce reciprocity.
And we are unfooled.
A mistake to take away the fig leaf of voting.
I’m sure you’re just a gem when it comes to persuading others to your point of view.
Berta, you knew you voted for a dumpster fire because you felt the other choice was a bigger dumpster fire.
This thinking is EXACTLY why we'll never get out of this loop.... too many people convinced to buy into mythology. I get it. I bought into it for a long time, too.
If you want progress forward, expecting it from people holding things back is nonsense. You have to take a risk with your vote. That means not voting Democratic party candidates.
You’re right. Can’t stand Biden but can’t stand Trump either and when I see the list of potential 2024 candidates , it’s just depressing. I keep hoping for some massive awakening of the population but it just seems the majority are willing to live life in an ever shrinking set of possibilities. To be honest, I don’t know the answer but for now unless something drastic changes, no more votes for mainstream democrats at the top unless the party remakes itself into one that serves the people and until the leadership changes I don’t see that happening.
What incentive do D's and R's have to offer anything better when you willingly vote for them, every time.
There shouldn't be any voting for any incumbent.... ever. The political parties epitomize what personal destructive relationships resemble - one person abusing the other but expecting to be treated like royalty. Don't enable this behavior.
DONT VOTE
I'm not trying to persuade anyone.
I'm just a gem.
Also... most people are shit-heels and I don't care. Really.
exactly!
False dichotomy. There were multiple 3rd party candidates, and of course you can always write in Mickey Mouse. You were told that anything was better than Trump, and like a sucker you bought the lie. If enough people start voting 3rd party then maybe we'll get some better choices. There probably would've been a bigger bill under Trump, he was at least a populist. Enjoy the next 4 years, you deserve what you get good and hard. And i'm sure you'll line up again next election cycle just as your told, ready to throw away your vote.
I voted for Biden knowing that nothing will get done during his term. I and 80M others were tired of the things that were being done by the Orange Menace. It’s as simple as that.
I’m a sometime progressive who has concluded that this country is ungovernable at the federal level, and should probably break up. In the absence of the good sense that it would take to accomplish such a break-up, I’d rather have nothing get done and ideally for the federal government shrink severely.
Judging by the comments I read here and elsewhere, the citizens of the US are ill-informed and have unrealistic ideas about what government can do to make up for the poorly managed lives of the citizens.
Biden will get nothing done outside of what he can order the executive branch to do. Fine with me. And he will order things to be done that will he less menacing than what Trump has done over the last four years, so I voted for him. Not a hard choice!
Yeah - I think a lot of people thought it out and reached the conclusion that Trump had to go . That doesn't mean we are fooled into thinking Biden will do anything beyond the usual not much. It's a pathetic state of affairs really.
How about not voting? how about taking that time, money, resources and helping people in your local neighbourhood. Building up local supports and services. Geez you guys really drink the koolaid
Agreed. I don’t defend it. I could have gone with Green, not voting but I knew factually what Trump was doing as far as economic sanctions, the environment, refugees, increase in weapons sales, the disaster with COVID and more. Things I felt had to stop. I view Biden as a faulty set of brakes on a runaway car. They may fail but what we had - had to go.
how about not voting-hello-- free will??? good god.
My vote was free will. I thought about all the options and came to the best conclusion I could. It doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect - Two bad choices preclude a perfect decision. Not voting wouldn’t have been a perfect decision either in my opinion. The only way that works to change anything is if there’s an organized mass movement and there wasn’t. Random people not voting does what?
There is no perfect choice, but voting for faulty brakes - to use your analogy - doesn't pass the sniff test either.
If voters really are tired of this garbage, their votes have to reflect that sentiment. Otherwise it's just yelling at the clouds.
I'm pretty progressive and voted T. His foreign policy and prison reforms were more progressive than anything Biden will do.
Make no mistake: these are not some vast machinations of "the Left" or of "Progressives".
They are being used, as are the tools on the other end of the spectrum. They're scared into this by something far more nefarious than both.
This is the Machine masquerading as "The Left" only by virtue of the usual voter base. If the tables were turned, (and they have been many times,) someone would be railing against "The Right". Just so many clever foils to the real scam -stealing a presidency through the use of foreign money that wants to rule a nation of 321 million and not have to actually govern them.
Cunts. Cunts. Cunts.
Mission Accomplished and I'm happier than a pig in shit. Biden is the man of the hour. A decent human being who overcame unimaginable tragedy on multiple occasions in his life. in the debates, he showed more empathy to American's who lost family members in 15 seconds than Trump did in 9 months.
Trump was scared of Biden because he knew he was the only one he'd lose to. That's why he asked the Ukrainian President to dig up dirt on him. Bernie would have lost. It had to be Biden.
I frankly feel embarrassed that this dragged me up from underneath my bridge, but a troll gotta troll. I suspect that I myself am being trolled by a far more powerful and ancient Ur-Troll; a creature from the vasty deeps of legend. The Draugr, himsel'.
Who sincerely propounds the "Biden is a decent human being" discourse? He served as "The senator from MBNA" for nigh 4 decades; this jape was appelled by his jollicose colleagues, stalwarts all. I guess if your definition of "decency" is protecting and further enriching concentrated financial interests, which he has spent his entire career doing -- on the record -- he is the man for you.
Enjoy rolling in the shit, pig. I presume you can afford to do so.
You know I can afford it.
Grisha, please tell me you ride with Trump. It's all I want for Christmas.
Almost forgot. No more Rude Tweets!
It's funny now... until they turn on YOUR favorite brand of populism.
I'm sure people in Germany said, "Who cares? They're only going after the Jews." and later had to be paraded by the camps and see the piles of dead skeletons while their country was occupied by Americans and... RUSSIANS.
Sure... keep laughing at Trump if it makes you feel good, but know that they are only shutting that group down because it threatens their scam. Once YOU threaten the scam, you're next.
Thanks Dad!
Maybe I'm slow but why would anyone expect something different?
The election is over.
They already have the presidency.
They now have no use for voters.
The time to pressure politicians comes before you vote for the little sociopaths.
Once you cast your vote you are, at best, an annoyance.
It's not like the Democrats give a shit about the poor & the working class.
They've been shafting them for, at least, the last 30 years.
Then again, maybe this is really a Dem Xmas gift for America.
Pelosi & company understand that money is just a burden.
All those decisions people have to make.
Do I pay rent?
or
Do I pay for a cheeseburger?
or
Do I buy my meds?
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
But with the Democrat method, no decisions at all. A nice pressure free holiday.
And once people are evicted they'll be guaranteed more sunshine.
Folks just don't get enough sunshine these days.
Y'see Nancy Pelosi really is Momma Bear.
Wouldn't have made any difference who won the election. We live in a plutocracy so elections are just a control mechanism.
The Trump Republican governors aren’t locking their states down. It makes a huge difference which party runs your state. Those of us in Dem run states are screwed.
No need to pay rent. Momma Bear won't let the big bad landlord evict you. Go out and buy that cheeseburger and new iphone
Sadly this is very true.....
Matt is so brilliant and fair but I just do not understand how he could not say the incredible harm the Heroes Act supported went far beyond bailing out blue states in debt. It enshrined voting practices rife for fraud, i.e., universal vote by mail forever. The Heroes would require every state to allow “no excuse” absentee voting, provide postage-paid mail-in ballots, mandate that votes are counted up to 10 days after Election Day, and eliminate voter ID laws.
Please do not respond to argue using your unsupported opinions- I already know you do not believe this, and I assume you have not looked at the text of the Heroes act. I won't respond to trolls. Of course, if you have proof this is false, post it, but otherwise, I do not see a reason to argue and I won't respond.
As for 3T stimulus - easy to reach some compromise there or even give in, though doubtless much of it was not needed and would not go to people who needed it. The voting problems listed above are the real reason the so-called Heroes act could not be passed. They would have resulted in a one-party country, which would have lead to totalitarianism.
I think Matt is eventually going to come out with a piece attacking voter practices that will lead to a one-party country, such as no voter ID, required ballots to all on voter lists that are never purged, etc. so I will wait for that. He is too good and brave not to see this and say something.
Don't you see? The left believe the right are facists and believes it is perfectly moral to cheat in order to defeat facists.
Worse, the leadership of the left does not care what terrible suffering they brought about from Covid merely to make Trump look bad (and also pander to certain groups). ***Witness all other countries where kids got to go back to school - science says they can - while ours are confined. *** That is just one example. I deplore Democrat leadership for what they have done to children and small business.
As someone who's never missed a local or national election I just don't understand the pushback on showing a ID to vote. Is it really asking too much? I don't think so.
It’s to brainwash a population into thinking that minorities are incapable of getting an ID (soft bigotry of low expectations) and so that they will give the Dems the ability to cheat.
Every person I know got their ID by the time they were 18, some 16 for driving. It’s a right of passage in America.
I think we should abolish voter registration and switch to just being able to show up with a valid ID. Opponents to voter ID say it's an unnecessary barrier to voting for less politically engaged citizens who don't have time to get one... then what exactly is our Byzantine voter registration process?
In Ohio we accept virtually any document with one’s address on it short of a Chuck E Cheese rewards card. Anyone screaming seriously about “obstacles” to voting has ulterior and nefarious motives, imo.
Local elections are based on where you live. Most people don't rush down to DMV when they move to update their license, esp. when they like the picture they already have.
When you change your address through the post office, it asks whether you want to change your voter registration. It’s very easy to update your voter registration.
I find it hard to believe that people move without leaving a forwarding address with the post office. I’m sure it happens but I doubt it’s massive numbers of people doing this.
Most do leave that forwarding address. Now, you work at the post office. Do you create the extra hours needed to manage another change-of-address request ? Or do you put the note in a to-do stack of papers ? Both responses can and do occur. Although we left our former residence in another state five years ago, leaving full change-of=address info, we still received mail-in ballots to help us vote in that state in 2020. If we wanted to, I'll bet we could follow the Devil down to Georgia and still make some mischief there.
No, there are only lies told by each side.
The destruction of trust is because of the partisan spin - and the nature of tribal loyalty to party over truth. Each party lies about the other's objectives with regard to the franchise, and that what was acceptable to all yesterday is now hopelessly corrupt. The percentage of people who don't have ID, or have trouble getting it is vanishingly small.
Never mind the irony that the party that pushed the 3/5ths compromise and spent decades after the Civil War actually disenfranchising blacks makes political hay out of accusing the other party of wishing to do so.
Byzantine might be an exaggeration in some places, but people are getting purged from registration rolls due to "inactivity," and many people, especially since the 2008 crash, are transient, meaning they need to constantly re-register and are unsure if they are even allowed to vote come election day because they're somewhere else (mostly young and poor people, who are also least likely to have licenses). I think an ID and a basic proof of address (everybody's got bills) should be enough to walk into a polling place and vote. 50 million (24%) Americans aren't even registered at all, with our paper-based form system, while Canada has 94% people registered with an online system. I would challenge any argument that Canadians simply care more about politics.
There's a good reason France banned mail-in ballots in the middle 1970s. The Moroccan elections were so rigged that more votes than citizens showed up and they had to act -just t save face.
Nowadays the elite don't bother with "face". They don't care.
Had literacy tests not been used for utterly corrupt purposes, they might be a reasonable solution. But that ship not only sailed long ago, it burnt to the water line and sank in the Bermuda triangle.
Ironically, literacy tests could conceivably be computerized these days, and randomized to ensure fairness. But from what I've read, maybe half of the voters would flunk the most bonehead simple introductory civics questions.
It's an aliterate age. Which does account for why I'm preparing like a pessimist, while at the same time advocating the most optimistic solutions I can find.
Yes! and Mars will be/ might be the new frontier. Liberty thrives on hard work, isolation, and unlimited hunks of unclaimed land. So do robber barons thrive. It's back to 1866 !
Matt is not that brilliant and fair...
Matt is not objective so I wouldn’t refer to him as a reporter. He’s creating a niche where he criticizes but not so much to the point where he himself will be canceled by SJW or legacy media.
Whatever...
Well said. What is to be done? We can’t keep grousing about it. Action is needed. Our political system has been corrupted by the very people we elect.
Stop voting incumbents back into office - that would be a good start.
It'll take the young people to drag them out of the homes, tie them to rails and start tarring and feathering them.
Or.. guillotines.
I'm too old for that shit ahha
Both parties seem so desperate to beat down the other , while neither seems to concerned with the peasants caught in between. Meanwhile the press and many state governments, like the one I live in (NYC), cheer the perpetual lockdowns and closings.
If anyone here thinks either party cares about any of us plebs, I think you might be delusional. Again cheers to Matt for creating content no one else is writing.
In actuality it's really just two separate funding arms of the same party competing for the lions share of the bribe money.
This piece, quite apart from leaving me properly aghast (distinct from "surprised"), reminds me of what I perhaps appreciate most about Matt's work -- these dollar figures we're all seeing arithmetically laid out in a single comprehensible piece had to be culled from a bunch of sources, all of which I assume go to some trouble to obfuscate what's being said.
So yeah, while I'm among those who enjoys the zingers and wordplay, I have a feeling that the meat here takes a lot more effort to separate from the bone (and from the wild itself) than most forms of journalism. There may be others who do this, but from the liberal side? They're all cowards.
But seriously, these fuckers in Congress? This isn't some abstractable from of government harm. This is as tangible a fuck-you as it gets.
I seem to be traveling in tighter and tighter Internet circles. I'm a subscriber to "Singal-Minded," and that introduced me to de Boer and terms like "offense anthropology" (not at issue here, but the SJW antics are another big and deepening bucket of shit altogether).
I seem to remember reading something along these lines Gulag Archipelago. Something along the lines of the government organs exist first and foremost to spend their budget and second to fulfill their purpose. And since so much money was given to the construction of prisons and the secret police under Stalin, there was always a perverse incentive to arrest more and more people, innocent or not, to fill those prisons up so they wouldn't lose funding next year.
The Democrats were more than happy for the entire working class to drop dead if that's what it took to give Trump the boot. I mean, all of THEIR voters were working from home which was made possible by all the blue collar schlumps they love to hate being exposed to the virus while they were safely hiding under their beds.
Now, tell us about the Republicans.
The Republicans were prepared to pass coronavirus relief that was DOUBLE the amount the Democrats are now settling for post-election. Happy now?
But are they still willing to do that, now that the conservative Dems joined up? Essentially, the Republicans wanted to give 2 dollars, the Dems originally wanted 10 dollars. So they agreed to 6. Now the Dems feel no pressure from the public and many of them (Joe Manchin, etc.) actually wanted 4 dollars, and most Republican politicians are delighted. So that's where we are. Your arguments completely contradict everything Mitch McConnell says. Josh Hawley is a Republican who agrees with you and is a good example, but he's one of just a few Republicans with that view.
Nope. Not a peep. They will do what the big money wants, just like the rest of them. Their track record should be enough to illustrate this.
They work for the same giant money.
Also.. they do the same shit but don't seem to get caught in it as much. Probably because we expect them to be shitty. Isn't it high time we expected what the DNC's horrid track record and stop pretending that either party is somehow better than the other?
All hail the Purple Plutocracy! Endless war, global imperialism, market manipulation, cozy buddies with the CCP and their concentration camps... yeah.
It's all right here sitting on your face, dribbling pee while informing you that you're being rained on.
Republicrats. Demopublicans... what the fuck ever. It's all the same shit and it's time to stop them.
Understatement
It's impressive that the Democrats still have the capacity to amaze us with their duplicity after decades of straight bullshit, but there you have it.
The old DLC/Clinton formula remains unchanged: make a bunch of noise about social issues while letting the rich do whatever the hell they want, with the side benefit of making it possible to be simultaneously wealthy, liberal, and sanctimonious. If anything, this has gotten much worse, as we are all now treated to endless lectures about how everything in America is awful and always has been, often from people who have endured such horrors as attending Ivy League colleges, working at national media outlets, and exercising political power while (somehow) becoming millionaires.
If there is anything surprising about this, it's the twist the Democrats have added to the narrative of how a democracy is supposed to fail. According to the old formula, democracy was a fine idea, but would inevitably stop working when the people realized they could vote to get free stuff from the government. The Democrats don't even want to go that far - they'd prefer not to hand out free stuff unless you're already rich - so instead they've decided to satisfy their voters by taking a pass on enforcing laws for favored political constituencies and encouraging the application of social and economic consequences to dissenters in the name of "justice."
It's appalling how well this is working, how many people are willing to not only hop on the new social issues bandwagon but even to shave their heads, put on robes, and start proclaiming The Word. The levels of grift and graft reach unprecedented heights while mobs fight in the streets over manufactured controversies, propelled to violence by the messaging necessary for the longest of cons to keep rolling along.
This relief bill is more of the same. Sure, there's money flowing out. But most of what we're going to see, moving forward, is largely symbolic gestures like this one accompanied by a continuing breakdown of social and political systems so as to provide moral and legal "goodies" to voters instead of money or any other economic benefits, all while the upward transfer of wealth continues, not only unabated, but mostly unnoticed.
Feint left, swing right.
SSDD.
Time to tar and feather.
your first paragraph hits the nail squarely on the head. well put.
In a nutshell, we’re fucked.
No you are not fucked, you just have to walk away from government. Don't depend on it for anything-- protection, valued money, economic support, health care etc. Free yourself
"Don't depend on it for anything... especially the truth!
Way ahead of you 😉
Hey, who cares about doing the people's business?! As long as we get a black female president, all is good as the sun sets on the Potomac and the Empire!
And a diverse cabinet. Qualifications used to come first. Now it is only this PC crap. The swamp is back stronger than ever. Just look at the folks who are in the new administration.
Everyone can be a defense industry lobbyist yet still check off boxes to ensure said cabinet is "diverse". Back to brunch!
LOL yeah... diverse in genitalia alone. Their guiding principles are still rotten.
The Republic will only be perfect when we have a vegan, trans-gender, half Native American, half African American psychopath carrying the Nuclear Football.
Diversity lol-SecDef nominee Austin-he’s black-soooo historic-and his Sec State nominee, are both partners in Pine Island, a “defense and strategic assets investment firm” or some such military industrial monstrosity.
I mean it's obvious they held out for political purposes. They didn't want a "win" for Trump before the Presidential Election. Afterwards, they couldn't care less ... see: bill.
I wonder... maybe it's not that they don't care, but they completely lost their leverage after the election. Before the election, Trump needed that aid to win, and so R's were willing to stretch way farther than normal (for them). Once the election is done, R's have no reason to stretch nearly as far.
It's too bad politics is such bloodsport in the U.S. now. In a sense, D's probably made the right political move: an aid package right before the election could have lost them the election. So they win the presidency by forgoing a ton of COVID relief. Interesting trade.
Yep, you guys will be amazed at what you voted for- like nothing you ever would have expected.
That's why you shouldn't bother voting in fake elections. Funny how people still actually believe they mean anything.
Democrats stopped working for the People in 1993. Bill Clinton paid off big for Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors, and started using trade deals and open-door immigration policy to dismantle the American middle class. Lose your good-paying job at the mill but pay less for Chinese-made blue jeans. The monolith of DONOR OLIGARCHY has controlled the levers of both parties ever since. Trump was a poor substitute for a genuine political force aimed at helping those thrown under the bus and out the window by the sycophants of the Oligarchs. As the so-easily-fooled Bernie-Liz-Yang supporters have learned, the Oligarch Empire has struck back. Joining the Anti-Trump parade was a severely self-destructive move by the "Progressives." [Liberty or death] has no meaning for these Milk-Toast "Progressives." Do we even have a half-decent supply of the key ingredient we need to water and replenish the Tree of Liberty ? If we do, slandering Trump and ignoring the Oligarchy has not proven astute or constructive. We need to blood of patriots to save the Republic, not scolding and hand-wringing.
Brilliant! I don't know if Bernie is just dumb, or he knows too well that it wasn't his time, and rather than bite the hand that feeds him he's content to take their offers of committee chairmanships and a total pass on his family's ethical hypocrisy. The people who really got duped are the true progressives, beaten down by endless messaging that it's more important to hate Trump *this time* while getting zero actual return for their vote. With Trump in for another 4 years, Progressives could have fielded a candidate with an actual shot at winning, but now that they have capitulated to Democrats, their window got pushed off at least 8 years and maybe 12. Hate him as much as you want, but Trump was the catalyst for change progressives should have wanted, not for his policies but for the very real disruption he caused to the Washington establishment elites. Suckers, every one of you.
Perfect, you hit it, especially the last 2 sentences. Trump was the left's last chance- there was at least the chance of a level playing field. With the Dems in charge, forget it.
But then, a lot of so-called progressives are really quite regressive and as controlled by the MSM as any true believer Dem. Suckers every one of them. They'll have at least a couple of years to think about it and you could well be right that it could go 8-12 years.
Trump was the result of a populist movement... not MY populist movement, but one nonetheless.
Wait til the Machine turns on a more popular populism.
I wonder if Matt will eventually tie onto your words and admit that he had it (Trump) wrong. Would he write that essay? Would he admit to the self-destructive move he and other progressives made? I look forward to reading it.
The wheels will grind along- who knows where we will end up but I've never been more pessimistic for the country.
Trump disturbed the conventional narrative flow, and seemed to replace it with personal sound-bites. He's no professional, and he's an oaf. But he never owed his soul to the Oligarchy, as every single other Democratic and Republican nominee for President has since 1992, if not earlier. So far, money wins elections continues to be the best betting rule.
This is the US- we're surrounded by oafs; makes perfect sense to elect one, I guess.
But could an oaf, fought at every step along the way, take on the establishment and overcome it? Ron Paul is a doctor, but he couldn't do it.
Be careful about demanding perfection in an imperfect system. Maybe the best you can hope for is reasonably competent, well- intentioned and thick skinned.
Love the phrase "hyena idiocy." Lord North might have said it of Sam Adams, but it fits Trump. Here's toxic: over one million non-combatants killed, and another 15 million displaced from their homes, in Iraq, Stria and Afghanistan under Clinton-Bush-Obama "sweet politeness" policies. Here's toxic: repealing Glass-Steagall, inviting the foreclosure of over 18.7 million homeowners' properties in 2007-13, while another 62 million lost over $8 Trillion of homeowners' equity between late 2005 and mid-2012. Worse than the Great Depression. Here's toxic: never once addressing the crying need for a single national health information database -- so that, when a pandemic strikes, we are not stuck with 17th-century models of knowing who might be affected by contagion.
I am always flabbergasted by how much vitriol we can expend on Trump, while ignoring that his three predecessors perpetrated insane, unforgivable atrocities in the real world. They might have talked nicely, but their actions were vicious, unwise, and anti-democratic. None of that was created by Trump -- who, nevertheless, amply exemplifies the sobriquet "hyena idiocy."
If you are a dupe for the media, sur, you could come to that conclusion.
Yeah, you're tiring to deal with, but that is because it is difficult to understand you and the direction you travel in your posts. Sometimes you make sense and other times, right off the rails.
On the other hand, I make sense with every post. No drugs necessary :)
One thought for you: Trump was only a step along the way to what you term a populist revolt. Rough around the edges but effective in getting people to recognize their plight in a way a Ron Paul couldn't. In the end he was ousted, but still managed to demonstrate to many the nature of how we are controlled. Or at least the start of understanding the mindfucking.
The system is definitely not worth saving- it's unsustainable at multiple levels. Perhaps we differ in who or what each will put his faith in for determining a new system.
Off to finish that quart of rotgut....