Oh, They Will, Andy. They Will.

I don't believe in reincarnation but a big part of me wants Barrett, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito to come back as impoverished unwed pregnant teenagers." ~ Andy Borowitz

Take a Deep Breath…

…and repeat after me:

It is an opinion, not a ruling.

It is an opinion, not a ruling.

It is an opinion, not a ruling.

Yes, this definitely has the potential to turn into something truly horrific. And don't think for one second that the same religious lunatics who have their sights set on Roe don't also have designs upon Obergefell, Lawrence, Loving, and a host of other landmark civil rights decisions of the last sixty years. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the right wing of this country want to turn the United States into a Republican wet dream dystopian handmaid's-tale theocratic hellscape where only straight, white, heterosexual christian males have rights or power.

While certain members of the court are already timidly braking, assuring everyone "the leaked draft is real but not final and can change," I don't believe a word of it. But I hope the backlash that results from this premature ejaculation will cause them to at least rethink it.

Fuck Alito. Fuck Cavanaugh. Fuck Gorsch. Fuck Thomas. Fuck Barrett. And most of all fuck Trump and McConnell and every.single.person who voted for the assholes who put those monsters in place.

The majority of the country is firmly in agreement with a woman's right to choose—as well as  interracial marriage, gay marriage, and freedom to have sex with another consenting adult regardless of their sex.

And I find it ironic that the usual suspects on the far right are already braying about the leak itself, not its contents. They're more concerned that this information was released—no doubt because of the possibility that this will influence the midterm elections in the Democrats' favor—than they are at the contents of the leak and the warning klaxon it's sounding for rights across this country.

Maybe that's why it was leaked. Perhaps it was put out there by someone in full support of a woman's right to choose, hoping that the sleeping giant that is the majority of voters in this county can be woken from its slumber to beat this kind of mid-century nonsense back into the ground. This is something that has the potential to touch every single life in this country—and the right wing is scared shitless that when people wake up and realize this, they're toast.

And that is why it is vitally important that everyone vote BLUE in November.

At least that's the belief keeping me sane at the moment.

Some Thoughts on Current Events

"The best prediction I've seen about what is likely Twitter's future is neither the optimistic nor the extreme pessimistic views, but rather that it will be mostly the same but go back to the less governed model of half a dozen years ago in which there was more harassment, neo-Nazis and government-backed disinformation campaigns. The simple truth is that content moderation is much, much less about 'free speech' or unpopular opinions than some random guy DMing pictures of his penis every day for a year to a woman he's harassing, or hoaxes about people dying, or copyright infringement. Of course, as Musk knows as well as anyone, Twitter is also a great tool for market manipulation and securities fraud. In other words, it's less about 'speech' than the digital amplification of the predatory dimensions of people's personality disorders."

That's what this is and where we are: an extremely powerful and wealthy jackass on an ego trip. You can take the bro out of the frat house but you can't take the frat house out of the bro.

[Source]

Yup.

Idiot Desantis has still not realized you don't fuck with the Mouse. Disney can ground that little pipsqueak into the ground in so many delightfully painful ways that it's going to be interesting just to see which one they ultimately choose.

THIS is Why I Still Wear a Mask in Public

From Mock Paper Scissors:

As we say here, we might be done with the pandemic, but the Trump-Virus ain't done with us:

"The number of attendees who have tested positive for the coronavirusafterlast weekend's Gridiron dinner has risen to 67, organizers say, including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who became the third member of Biden's Cabinet in attendance who was infected."

The subhead of the article says that "More than 10 percent of attendees of Gridiron dinner have been infected with the virus." And as is typical for D.C., the WaPo didn't include the health status of anyone who worked the event. I guess the invisible are truly invisible.

As the Gridiron dinner was announced and the society pages at Der Tiger Beat auf dem Potomac filled with stories of who was going, tuxedo rentals, the bon mots of the guests, I kept wondering if it was going to turn into a super spreader event, and lo! it has.

Look, I get it. I've been hunkered down since March 13, 2020, and so going on 3 years without dining out, going to a concert, no travel, doing much of anything in public has been a chore and always a gamble after assessing the odds. But even a nobody like me,  I knew that this thing was not going to end well, and I wondered why the connected and powerful didn't see it.

Anyway, this is now an object-lesson for the rest of us. Keep following protocols. Stay safe.

Great Takes on the Current Madness

From Darwinfish 2:

I love that President Biden has come out publicly for a tax on the Super-Rich. It's about time. But it's funny seeing so many of the lunch-pail brigade criticizing the proposal as if it wouldn't make their own lives so much better. It just shows they've been well-trained by their overlords at Fox "News," who bleat about the plight of those poor, trod-upon billionaires, who are only trying to put bread on their family's tables, just like you and me. And by "bread," I mean thick bundles of cash and reams of stock portfolios, possibly tinged with the blood of those who did the work that reaped such benefits for the executives.

Already I see lots of moaning about the terrible unfairness of it all, how these put-upon billionaires would be taxed on earnings they haven't even realized yet. I say, screw'em. All the better to get some of that cash before they stash it in off-shore accounts.

This is a group that has had so much for so long, they don't even understand how badly the rest of us get screwed. Or maybe they do but WE don't. All I know is they can afford to shake some cash down to better the lives of the rest of us poor wretches, slaving away in stores, factories, or god-forsaken open office seating areas. And once they've been taxed, they'll STILL be billionaires, with plenty of dough leftover to fund their next yacht.

And if they still want to complain, my counter-proposal would be to keep the tax structure the same but eliminate all the loopholes they use to pay a lower tax rate than do you or I or the janitors who sweep up their offices after they leave. Just pay the taxes as already directed by the tax code, on the straight up. Then we'll see how they like the new proposal.

Russia Russia Russia!

Did you see this headline/story?

So this is how they're going to handle the acts of savagery being brought to light in Ukraine… by putting out absurd lies that no one with half a brain cell believes*.

*Except on Fox "News."

I wonder if Republicans know that this is how the rest of us look at their ongoing stream of bullshit stories. You know… BLM and Antifa were behind January 6th, Democrats are Satan-worshipping, child-eating pedophiles, TFG really won the election, tax cuts to the top trickle down to the rest of us, abortion laws are to protect women, recent local election rules were passed to fight election fraud, etc.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both Russia and the Republicans dissemble information and distract our attention from the truth in the same way. Top Republicans crave the kind of sheer, all-encompassing power wielded by Putin and Kim Jong Un. It's such an inconvenience to have to pledge fealty to a system of government that sometimes puts them out of power for the flimsiest of reasons, like ""The People" want someone else in charge" or "they totally botched the economy the last time they ran things." It totally interferes with their siphoning tax dollars into the pockets of those who have the most. The rest of us would just waste it, I guess. Stupid peasants…

Out, Out Damned Twat

Speaking of distractions, did you see the latest verbal excrement from the Colorado half of the famous performance art duo, Heckle and Dyed?

The quick answer is that buying beer or cigs is a decision, whereas sexual orientation is not. And I think most kids know pretty early on regarding where their interests lie. I know that even from my earliest school days, I was interested in holding hands with girls, not boys.

I think that ignoring the signs from your child regarding their orientation would be akin to abuse. Why punish a child for knowing that they're "different" at an early age? This needs to be an issue between the parent and child, and not the government, least of all some uneducated freshman Representative who's better versed in attention-whoring than passing legislation.

Knowledge is Knowing That We Know Nothing**

I see a lot of impatience afloat regarding the progress of filing charges against TFG and the rest of the 1/6 Planning Commission. All I'll say is what I said while the Mueller Report was being assembled: There's no sense in speculation or even forming opinions because we don't know jack shit yet. This process has been buttoned up and leak-proof. The wheels are turning slowly and that goes against the grain of our "I Need Answers NOW" culture. If we don't have the beginning, middle, and end of the story in 42 minutes, plus commercials, we have a collective fit.

Look, you'd like to see TFG get rung up, I'd like to see that too. But they have to tread carefully if they want charges to stick. It will be unprecedented to charge a former US President with such serious crimes. And you know what they say, "If you take a shot at the King, you'd better not miss." Because if he beats the rap, it will be open season for presidential corruption for the rest of our days. Given what we already DO know, you'd think charges should be obvious. But we don't know what we don't know. So there's no sense in squawking about the lack of progress while we don't know what progress has been made. So let's just breathe, huh?

And hope we're not in for another Mueller-sized swing and miss.