The Easiest Cure For Traitors And/Or Treason

So I'm watching The Guns of Navarone the other night.

Pretty good action flick. Solid performances from everyone--with Anthony Quinn especially good. Should probably be remade with modern special effects...

Anyway, at one point in the film, one of the team is found to be a traitor. 

Their treason has endangered the mission and all the other members of the team.

Of course, the traitor has their reasons. 

Traitors always have their reasons.

In the film a short discussion regarding the traitor is followed swiftly by execution.

That's it. 

That's all.

No appeal. 

No Fox News counter argument to obfuscate everything.

No Republican "what about?" bullshit. 

You are a traitor.

This is your punishment.

I guarantee if we put a few of our traitors up against a wall, this sort of shit would never happen again.

The Republican Playbook

1. Get elected any way you can. 

Lie cheat steal. It's all good if it gets you elected. 

Take money from any corporation, billionaire, or foreign state that offers it. It all spends the same.

Blow that racist dog whistle. Blow hard! All of those people who say, "I'm not a racist, but..." will appreciate your efforts.

Make up shit about voter fraud. Smart people realize that it is so infrequent and so statistically insignificant that it can barely be measured. But our base isn't smart, so...knock yourself out!

To attract independents, make up some bullshit about inflation, or baby formula, or Afghanistan, or somebody's laptop. Is Benghazi still a thing? Please, please, please let it be!

Whatever deviance you practice, claim your opponent practices it first. 

Do whatever you can to keep people of color from voting. Same thing applies to young people of all ethnicities.

Remember, rampant hypocrisy is a feature--not a bug. 

2. Once in office:

Continue spreading all the garbage that got you elected. You now have a pulpit. Use it!

You have one job: and that is to help the richest people get richer. Know which side your bread is buttered on, for Christ's sake.

After all, poor people are a drag. They need things. You know, food, education, affordable housing, health care they can afford. And, on top of all of that, well, let's call it what it is, BEGGING, they don't have any money to help your campaign.

STOP anything that might be good for the majority of Americans. Sane gun control, universal health care, higher minimum wage, etc etc etc. Repeat after me, You Are Not There To Help The People Who Need It. That's socialism, after all.

And always remember this: We are all good Christians--and they're not.

Sadly, despite your best efforts, and all that Koch and NRA and foreign money, ultimately you may lose re-election. So make sure that you've fucked up so many things, so thoroughly, that the Democrat who replaces you will have a mountain of things to fix.

3. Then, and this is the really fun part, start complaining as often and as loudly as possible, that they haven't fixed everything fast enough.

Kari Lake Needs Help!

I don't know Kari Lake.

I don't think I know anyone who knows Kari Lake.

Blessedly, we don't travel in the same social circles.

But if anyone reading this knows her, or knows someone who knows her, I'm begging you to organize an intervention.

She needs help. Poor little thing thinks that being a news reader--not even a real journalist, just a news reader--on a Fox propaganda station, in a minor media market, somehow qualifies her to be Governor of Arizona.

Of course, this is not unusual in Arizona Republicans. Our current Governor's sole qualification for office was being an ice cream salesman, after all. So, as they say, the bar is set very, very, low.

I'm not questioning Kari's Republican bona fides, either. She's got them down pat. The groveling and genuflecting to Trump, the haranguing about THE WALL, the fear mongering about hordes of immigrants, the lying about President Biden, the questioning of the legitimacy of the 2020 election. All of the standard Republican reactionary bullshit rolls off her lips so easily. It's really something to behold.

No, what causes me to ask for an intervention for dear Kari is that she promised recently, if elected, to hang a painting of Der Trump, dressed up as some sort of Revolutionary War soldier, in the Governor's office.

And that is a bridge too far. Cadet Bone Spurs as a soldier?! Puhleeeze.

(I suppose, somewhere in the deep dark depths of the internet, you could find a portrait of Hitler as a rabbi...you see what I'm getting at here?)

Anyway, if you truly care about Kari Lake's mental health, such as it is, get her some help, and quickly.

See, Arizona being what it is, if the Republicans can suppress enough Democratic votes, a former Fox News' reader with limited intellect, spewing venomous nonsense, might just be our next governor. 

(By the way, none of the other Republicans running for Governor are appreciably better. Maybe a little less strident, a little more polished--but they are all still pushing the same sad bullshit.)

Still More Thoughts. Still More Prayers.

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.

Looks Like Blake Masters And Jim Lamon Are Traitors, Too

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

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!"

Welcome To West Mississippi

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!