Here's a thought:
GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM
And only an imbecile still doubts this.
Here's a prayer:
I pray that all of the people who love their guns more than they love their fellow humans DIE from their one true love.
Please let them take the politicians, NRA, gun manufacturers, and media people who support this madness with them.
And the sooner the better.
The calculus on this isn't too complicated.
Both of them have their heads so far up Trumpie's ass that they can count the polyps.
That makes them traitors.
This isn't complicated.
You support a traitor, you're a traitor, too.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
If that weren't bad enough, and for the Republican Party it obviously isn't, their policies make them demi-fascist assholes.
And yet one of these two might be the Arizona Republican Party's candidate for the United States Senate.
Whichever gets the nod, they will no doubt get 100% of the ass hat clown vote, and, if our Republican controlled legislature continues fucking with our right to vote, that may be a majority.Poor Sarah Palin.
She thought she had a lifetime lock on the coveted Ignorant Shrill Incompetent Republican Female title.
But, like they say, "you snooze, you lose."
After the intellectual triumph that was her VP campaign, and the resulting Obama years, wherein she basked in the warm waters of Fox News' outrage du jour machine, Sarah took some "me time" off.
She took her eyes off the ball, and what happened?
Other Republican females upped their game.
Merely being Ignorant, Shrill and Incompetent is no longer enough.
No, in the era of Boebert, Greene, Lesko, Blackburn, Collins and others too numerous to mention, you have to add a few more spices to the fetid, poisonous, soup you're cooking.
Now, the straight faced, hypocritical, bullshit of a Susan Collins is the most genteel additive. But it's way too subtle for the seething MAGA masses, i.e. the MAGAts. "Deeply concerned" just doesn't move the needle much with them.
What you need is that high octane racist, homophobic, xenophobic, paranoiac, Luddite, mix. Just sprinkle liberally, stir, and serve. (Always use a ridiculously large amount of hypocrisy as a starter base.)
Sarah, being cunning in her own stunningly simple way, recognizes this, and is no doubt working on her comeback. After all, even with their Russian sources dried up--at least temporarily--there's vast sums of other, corporate money to be begged for by all Republicans.
And she's certainly earned her place at the trough.
So, look out ladies! Sarah's back in town!
Remember, "you can't keep a miserable, opportunistic, publicity mad hack, down for long!"
People think Arizona is a western state.
And geographically it is.
But in its soul, Arizona is in the deep, deep South.
Whatever small spots of hipness, coolness, or progressiveness it may contain are constantly buried under an avalanche of Trumpist MAGA cunts.
It is essentially West Mississippi, and we kid ourselves to believe otherwise.
The Legislature is controlled by brain dead troglodytes, who do everything they can to kill public education for all by pumping millions of dollars into charter schools for the few. Their phony 2020 election "audit" and subsequent deluge of legislation designed to keep anyone but their festering base from voting should tell you everything you need to know about how they feel about democracy. As far as social issues, well, might as well put sheets on them and light a cross on fire.
The Governor, Mr. Cup or Waffle Cone?, is a corporate whore, in bed with ALEC and whatever right wing billionaires willing to contribute to his campaigns. (He thinks he can run for President someday. And given the current degenerate state of the Republican Party, he probably can.)
The main newspaper in the main city exists primarily to sell advertising, first, last, and always. Whenever their in-house "liberals" (and in any truly progressive state they would be considered "moderates") write anything remotely critical of the state's power structure, the resultant angry letters to the editor serve to highlight the low IQ's of the general populace.
The state has been in a drought for more than a decade, but that hasn't stopped countless new exurban subdivisions from being built, all with promises of 100 years of water. Because, you know, "free enterprise" always trumps common sense.
For years the state's mantra has been "we don't want to be another California!" No danger of that--except for the traffic. After all, California has countless world class Colleges and Universities. And major industries, including aerospace, defense, Silicon Valley, agriculture, shipping, entertainment--rather than relying on back office call centers, service industry jobs, and cheap houses, built further and further from the city core.
Another California? No, we're giving Mississippi, Alabama, and all the rest of good 'ol Dixie a run for their money!
First of all, Putin is not a socialist or a communist. Putin is a mobster. He is surrounded by a coterie of billionaire mobsters. They have stolen Russia's riches for years. And spread some of that wealth to like minded people all around the world.
Mobsters understand two things: power and money.
Fortunately for Vladimir, those are the two things that conservative politicians everywhere--but especially in the U.S. and Great Britain--understand.
I would venture to say that those are the only things that conservative politicians understand.
They certainly don't want to govern. Governing is hard work. It takes compromise, and often requires progress to be slow and incremental. It also requires explaining difficult solutions to hard problems to a bunch of simpletons.
These ideas are antithetical to the conservative mind.
Much easier to rile up the simpletons with the "dog whistle du jour."
Which conservative "news" organizations are more than happy to amplify.
Then, when the simpletons are all worked up about ridiculous things, the conservative are free to a) get their hands on the Treasury, and b) pass tax cuts for their richest backers.
That is the sum total of their governing. Everything else they do is designed to keep the simpletons in a constant state of rage..
Putin is thoroughly evil--but not stupid. (This may be the only thing that differentiates him from Trump, by the way.)
Recognizing the greed of conservative western politicians, he and his crew have been buying them up for years.
Throw in a bunch of completely amoral bankers, tax lawyers, and accountants, and you can begin to understand how we got to where we are.
Remember, it takes at least two willing parties to launder dirty money.
And there has been no shortage of willing partners with their hands out, falling all over themselves to get a little of Putin and Company's money.
"Kompromat" is literally compromising material.
The Russian's (and the Mob, for that matter) are famous for collecting--and using--kompromat.
It may be of a sexual nature.
It may be of a financial nature.
It may be of some other personal nature.
It is used to blackmail and extort.
At this point, it feels like almost the entire Republican Party is being blackmailed.
Why else would they have supported, and continue to support, a mobbed up tub of lard in debt to the Russians?
Why do they sometimes appear to be willing to say and do the right thing, only to suddenly change course 180 degrees?
Kompromat is the only logical answer.
The Russians and/or Trump must have serious "dirt" on all of them--especially the ones who openly grovel before Putin and his lapdog, Donnie.
We already know that Donald J. Trump is a coward, a fool, a liar, a racist, a tax cheat, a rapist, an adulterer, and a traitor.
But apparently, Roger P.O.S. Stone has something even worse to hold over Don Don's fat head...and so Roger P.O.S. Stone's sentence had to be commuted, and he had to be pardoned, lest he spill the beans on something unimaginably bad that he knows about Trump.
So the question is, what could be worse than what we already know--or suspect--about that traitor?
Now that the Proud Boys, who were Stone's personal bodyguards on January 6th, 2021, have found their collective tits in the wringer, and Stone is the next rung up the DOJ's ladder to the Orange Stain, I think we may just find out.
Because I don't think Roger would do very well in prison, the smart money says he will spill his guts about everything he knows to save his worthless ass.
And so, the question remains, "My God! How bad could it be?!"
