I hope everyone has seen this. I haven’t given a “Blog Hero Award” for a while, but…
Going Nuclear (Video)
If you hear about a single tactical nuclear strike, this is what happens next:
Then…
Goats Appear And Fade Away
Biden Crack Pipes
Obama phones
IRS targeted conservative organizations
Bill Clinton got a $500 haircut while holding up LA runway traffic
Obama born in Kenya
Hillary killed Vince Foster
John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals
George McGovern is a communist
The biggest investor in Solyndra was an Obama donor
You didn’t build that
Democrats cut Medicare
Seth Rich was killed because he knew Hillary secrets
Social Security is going broke
So so many many more. Repeated endlessly until they become “truths.”
Add your favorite in the comments.
Updates –
Welfare Cadillacs
Illegal immigrants get payments from the government
Be Careful What You Type
When I worked my first post-college job at Ford (later 70s) I worked on a PDP-11 in a remote lab (working on the 1st EEC – computerized carburetor.) To access the “disk” – a huge thing they would insert in the top of a huge device – you had to contact the “operator” at the big computer. Ford had a redundant system where everything typed was echoed across all of Ford’s computers, and data was stored in several places. I can only imagine the data loss that brought this about. One Saturday I was working and had to get to my data. I typed in “Sharon, please mount Dave Johnson’s disk.” But I typed a ‘c’ instead of an ‘s’. When I came in to work Monday every single person in the building was laughing.
Another time, when I was at Gobe, up in Portland, I gave a demo to a key client, using an overhead monitor. In front of everyone I was demonstrating how text could be made larger and smaller with a slider. I didn’t look at the keyboard, typed the word ‘TEXT’ and used the slider to make it huge. Well, the ‘W’ key is just to the left of the ‘E’ key, and the ‘A’ key is just to the left of the ‘S’ key and my fingers were just to the left…
Dem “Establishment” Lucrative Losers
The Democratic party “establishment”… The elderly “centrist” leadership, the high-paid consultants, the fundraisers, the lobbying class…
For all their “practicality” about turning to the right to win elections, obviously the only winning election strategy is showing voters they’re on their side. But the “conventional wisdom” and advice to candidates is rarely to do that.
It’s all about the money. Raising enough money for candidates requires backing off from anything that smells like it might be “to the left,” which means helping actual working people. (Also known as “the voters.”)
The “practical” belief that only lots of money (showing donors whose side they are on) can win elections has cost Democrats so many local and national seats over the years. And it has cost the country & planet almost everything. But you have to admit it has been a lucrative practice for a lot of top Dems.
It is difficult to get top Dems to understand something, when their lucrative payoffs depend on their not understanding it.
Hypnotizing Us Into The Biggest Slumber Mankind Has Ever Seen
“We live in a kingdom of bullshit.”
Is the climate crisis real? Is Covid real? Is Trump’s coup attempt real? Is inequality real?
Does anyone care about and of these?
Frm Mr. Robot:
Mr. Robot | Christian Slater) "REALITY" Speech Scene (S01E10) from MAKING THE CUT on Vimeo.
Is any of it real? I mean, look at this. Look at it! A world built on fantasy. Synthetic emotions in the form of pills. Psychological warfare in the form of advertising. Mind-altering chemicals in the form of… food! Brainwashing seminars in the form of media. Controlled isolated bubbles in the form of social networks.
Real? You want to talk about reality? We haven’t lived in anything remotely close to it since the turn of the century. We turned it off, took out the batteries, snacked on a bag of GMOs while we tossed the remnants in the ever-expanding Dumpster of the human condition. We live in branded houses trademarked by corporations built on bipolar numbers jumping up and down on digital displays, hypnotizing us into the biggest slumber mankind has ever seen.
You have to dig pretty deep, kiddo, before you can find anything real. We live in a kingdom of bullshit. A kingdom you’ve lived in for far too long. So don’t tell me about not being real. I’m no less real than the fucking beef patty in your Big Mac.
Congratulations Corporations, The Next President Will Be Your Business Partner (Updated)
This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy
It hasn’t sunk in yet but yesterday’s vote to allow Republican election-rigging and keep the filibuster marks the end of democracy. From here on out the fight is over. Republican efforts to rig the next elections will now accelerate. They know they have a free hand to do what they want. The public will tune out, understanding that nothing can change.
Billionaires and corporations funded and engineered the effort to keep the filibuster. Their thinking is that they’re at the top of a system rigged in their favor, and the filibuster keeps anything from changing. The filibuster has maintained their position at the top of the pyramid, blocking all efforts by the people to use government to change the rigged system. All Republicans were part of this pay-for-play operation, of course, but so were many Senate Democrats under Obama, and now Manchin and Sinema.
The corporations and billionaires think the current system of paying politicians to keep the money flowing to them has been locked in.
Continue reading
Sing Sing Sing Gene Krupa
1937. “The Benny Goodman big band playing Sing Sing Sing, featuring Gene Krupa at the end. We get the added benefit of hearing Mr. Harry James play a trumpet solo.”
1960:Ed Sullivan Show
1971:
For Reference, Old Reports
For reference:
The 2003 report, Education report120804DJ
The 2004 report, Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions is here. HTML version here.
The 2007 talk to the NEA Foundation, In This Together, is here.
Republicans Do What They Accuse
The old “Seeing the Forest Rule” (scroll down, it’s a whole category) is “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”
Today’s edition: Voter fraud. Republicans are accusing Dems of voter fraud. Turns out the only voter fraud is Republicans.
Daily Beast, Yet Another Resident of The Villages Busted for 2020 Voter Fraud,
A fourth retiree from The Villages has been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud at the well-known central Florida retirement community.
There are lots of examples of Republicans committing voter fraud. There aren’t any examples of Dems doing that. Of course.
The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party (Updated to recognize Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown)
Remember Howard Dean?
On March 15, 2003, Dean showed up at the California Democratic Party Convention and changed politics. He started his speech saying, “What I want to know, what I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President’s unilateral intervention in Iraq?”
He listed a few other things “so many Democrats” were doing, then said, “I’m Howard Dean, and I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
And that was that. He articulated something that had been bothering so many of us: what had happened to the Democratic Party that was supposed to support the working people of the US in the fight with the wealthy few?
We’re still fighting that fight.
“Thank you!
What I want to know, what I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President’s unilateral intervention in Iraq? [cheers].
What I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting tax cuts which have bankrupted this country and given us the largest deficit in the history of the United States? [cheers].
What I want to know, is why the Congress is fighting over the Patient’s Bill of Rights? If the Patient’s Bill of Rights passes, is a good bill, but not one more person gets health insurance and it’s not five cents cheaper.
What I want to know is why the Democrats in Congress aren’t standing up for us joining every other industrialized country on the face of the Earth in having health insurance for every man, woman and child in America? [cheers, chants “Dean”].
What I want to know, what I want to know, is why so many folks in Congress are voting for the President’s education bill — “The No School Board Left Standing Bill” — the largest unfunded mandate in the history of our educational system? [cheers].
As Paul Wellstone said — and as Sheila Kuehl said when she endorsed me — I’m Howard Dean, and I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. [cheers].”
You don’t have to listen after that. It was done, he started a movement.
UPDATE – What’s wrong with me? Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition in 1984. And Jerry Brown in 1992!! I somehow forgot the ‘We the People’ campaign, with the 800 number. I even set up the Santa Cruz effort, and held fundraisers.