So, some of the big news of the week has to do with the passing of David Koch.  Now, he’s only the wicked witch of the East.  His brother, Charles, is the wicked witch of the west – known by all as “worse than the other one.”  The world is still waiting and hoping for Charles to die but David is gone now.  One less dark spot on humanity.  I saw a post in social media in which the poster was hoping for a speedy reunion for the Koch brothers.  I second the emotion.

I’d like to know where David’s buried so I have a place to pee next time I’m in Kansas.  His grave seems like an excellent place to dump any hazardous waste you may have around the house.  Change your engine oil?  Dump it on David.  Old paint around the house?  Dump it on David.  Need to pump your septic system?  Dump it on David.

David Koch hated the United States and, along with his evil, hate-filled brother, used his resources to undermine and destroy it.  If spoken at all, his name should be spat with hatred for as long as humanity has left.  The only time I really regret Atheism is when people like David Koch die.  I find the idea of someone like him burning in hell for all time quite comforting…

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So, does Prince Andrew actually think people are as stupid as he’s treating them?  I know, many of them are…but not enough.  His mea culpa didn’t really help him so much, did it?  “Oh, I didn’t know about Epstein’s behavior before he went to jail.”  Okay, maybe.  Maybe I can’t prove otherwise.  Now seems like an appropriate time to mention the photo.

Prince Andrew with his “conquest” and Epstein’s Madam at Epstein’s house.

This does NOT look like a photo of a person who was unaware of Epstein’s  predilections.  It looks more like a photo of a person who shares Epstein’s predilections.  It’s important to note the photo was taken in 2001.  The girl in the middle was 17 at the time.  The woman on the right is Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell.  She’s reportedly the person who recruited the young (too young) ladies for Epstein.  I don’t know, maybe they’re just friends.

But then?  He calls it a “mistake and an error” to continue seeing Epstein after his release in 2010.  It seems, to me, it was little more than an effort on the down low to continue to have sex with underage women.

It’s too bad our corrupt world will never hold such a wealthy person responsible.  He’ll get away with it because he’s a Prince of England.  If he was a normal person, Andrew would be out of luck…

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Yeah, poor segue but speaking of ‘Andrews,’ Andrew Luck has retired from the NFL at 29.  Indianapolis fans booed him as he left the field.  I’ve made several jokes about him in private – all ridiculing the notion that he’s retiring because he gets “owies” in the NFL.  I don’t think he played very well but I also understand he unexpectedly found himself on a not-very-good team.  But the team paid him through the nose to get beat up behind a porous line.  Retiring at 29 means he made his money and got out while the getting was good.  That’s not luck, that’s just smart…

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So…President Dumbass thinks Prime Minister Dumberass is the ‘right man’ to deliver Brexit.  Of course he does.  Stupid always feels camaraderie for stupid.  I’m just sitting back, watching the show.  Trump is assaulting the American economy.  Johnson is about to assault the European economy.  I’m expecting the usual Republican economic crash and it looks like it’s timing well for the upcoming “election.”

I don’t believe the “election” process in the United States is honest but most of the damage is done in close “elections.”  It’s harder to fake in landslides and I think with an economic crash, Trump will lose in a landslide.  Hell, even some conservatives might figure out who’s really screwing them.  (Right now, they think it’s desperately poor people from south of the border…)

In order to even have a chance, you’re going to have to get out and vote.  Vote on paper if you can but vote…

Remember that person from your youth?  (High school, college youth…)  The one you wanted to be with but, for whatever reason, never were?  Life went on, moved forward but that person – the fantasy of that person, anyway – stayed with you through the years fueling more than one…um…personal experience.

Life being what it is, currents somehow managed to bring the two of you back together.  You hit it off in ways you hadn’t before.  The conversation was great, the interaction easy and natural.  One thing leads to another and before too long, you find yourself on an unfamiliar sofa pursuing in real life that which had been relegated to fantasy years before.  As things heat up, you begin moving your head, lower and lower down their body, the promise of pleasure beckoning…and then you see it.  There!  And another one, there.  And there.  Warts…

I don’t know what you’ll do in that moment and this piece isn’t about your choice.  That would be a personal decision.  But whatever you choose, there’s one undeniable reality: you’ve been warned.  You KNOW there’s a risk to moving forward that will very likely affect you adversely for the rest of your existence.  You know it because you’ve seen the evidence…

Most of American history is made up of lip service about who we are, as a nation.  Most of it was and is pure bunk but I always believed it was aspirational bunk.  We weren’t describing who we actually were but who we wanted to be.  Maybe, we told ourselves, if we keep repeating that we’re good and honest and true, we might actually become good and honest and true.  Oh, well.  Nice try, I guess.

I have this basic, guiding rule: anything begun dishonorably is destined to fail.  At it’s founding, the United States of America institutionalized slavery.  If the rule is correct (it is) failure was inevitable despite our chanted group-mantra about “truth, justice, and the American way.”  (Even that line has become more of a threat: “Truth and justice?  Or the American way?”)

For much of the world, the United States of America seems very much like that object of your affections from your youth –  a place where dreams come true.  But if it ever WAS such a place, it surely is not any more.  When I look at the nation today, I don’t see us even pretending to be good anymore.  For clarity, I’m not talking about individuals, I’m talking about the nation as a whole – who and how we are as a group.  Our once-great nation has been taught to revel in the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

So, what if some country gets involved with us and doesn’t realize we’ve dropped the pretense?  What if, because of our old reputation and their outdated fantasies, they find themselves on an unfamiliar sofa, thinking they’re pursuing a dream come true?  Those countries need a warning.  Of course, they get to make whatever choice they deem appropriate but they should KNOW, up front, that getting involved with the US  involves a risk moving forward that will very likely affect them adversely for the rest of their existence…

For that reason, I’ve come to the conclusion that we should just do away with these dog-and-pony show “election” cycles.  Let’s just leave things alone.  We’ve managed, accidentally, to find the perfect warning to the world.  Why would we mess that up?  Houston, the Eagle has expired.  We have a NEW symbol to represent us.  It’s fat.  It’s orange.  It’s stupid.  It’s racist.  It’s lazy.  It’s arrogant and egotistical.  It’s downright narcissistic.  And it is us.

Donald J. Trump is the very personification of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride – the perfect reflection of who we the people truly are, the perfect symbol of the New United States.  Forget the past.  Forget the stories.  Forget the fantasies.  Disregard the sanitized history.  All that matters is the situation as it actually is today.  Donald J. Trump IS the genital warts of the United States…and you have been warned…

We’ve recently seen yet another spate of mass shootings.  No, don’t bother checking the date.  It seems this statement will remain true no matter the date.  The mass shootings in question were perpetrated by nut ball white guys.  They were shooting into unsuspecting, unarmed crowds.  In response, the protect-the-white-guy advocates posted this photo:

The photo shows everyone involved in a “mass shooting” in 2019 (so far).  The idea is to “prove” that most mass shootings are committed by people of color.  For the record, according to Snopes, the depiction is fairly accurate, depending upon how one defines a mass shooting.

MOST of these guys were involved in some kind of gang war or other crime.  Those types of “mass shootings” are specifically excluded from the FBI’s list of mass shooters because the shootings usually have some specific driving force other than domestic terrorism.

What this photo DOES make abundantly clear is that gun violence is FAR worse in the United States than most people realize – and most people already think it’s far too bad.  I don’t know if it’s a good idea to highlight just how out of control this country is with guns just to try to prove it’s not only white people…

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Many of my conservative brethren are really funny people.  I was reminded of this recently when that scumbag Epstein killed himself in prison.  My conservative friends started marking themselves “safe from being suicided by the Clintons.”  To me, that’s just funny.  You have to take into account that particular conspiracy theory – the one in which the Clintons kill anyone and everyone who crosses their path – a theory that clearly explains the unexpected passing of both Kenneth Starr and Monica Lewinsky.  Wait, what?  Still alive, eh?  Hmm, kind of a crap theory, then, eh?

Anyway, if you DO believe the drivel, that’s funny.  But it reminds me that the conservatives in this country don’t deal in facts or reality.  True, there are records of Bill Clinton traveling on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” airplane.  But there are videos of Donnie Dumbass actually partying with Epstein and a gaggle of young (perhaps, legally, too young) women AND Donnie on record acknowledging Epstein’s penchant for younger women.  It wouldn’t surprise me for a minute to find Epstein has – well, had – incriminating evidence against either of those “fine” gentlemen.

It was widely reported that Epstein had DVDs labeled [this person] + [this girl].  We were NOT treated to the identities of those names but Epstein had no visible means of support and had millions of dollars.  Blackmail seems a plausible explanation.  I expect the age of the girls in question will serve as the excuse to not release the details of the DVDs but I think someone with a lot of power and money is using it to make an “unpleasant episode” go away.  It should be noted at this point that, technically, it’s Donnie Dumbass who has ultimate responsibility for the safety of Epstein while in a Federal jail.

I’ll tell you this: I, for one, will be interested to see if Epstein’s untimely demise ALSO manages to keep the details of those DVDs out of the public eye…

I’ve got two bits of possibly unrelated information I’m going to put side-by-side, here.  They may or may not belong together but if I didn’t think they belonged together I wouldn’t spend all this time writing about it.  So, one: I noticed a little while ago that many of my conservative friends had disappeared from my social media.  There was some talk about looking for conservative sites that wouldn’t filter the bullshit they prefer to consume.  They found some that worked for them, apparently, and off they toddled.

The…um…quiet that resulted on Facebook was notable.  Turns out, it was dangerous, too.  As they congregated in their little conservative enclaves, the sites turned into feedback loops that reinforced their false and faulty narrative of victimization…

Two: as we know, Donnie Dumbass regularly says things – out loud and on camera – that are blatantly false and have no basis in reality.  Thinking people are often heard asking, “Doesn’t he know there are cameras and recording devices?  Doesn’t he KNOW those things he’s saying are provably false?”  He knows.  Those little fraudulent tidbits are for his “base.”  They get edited and delivered into the conservative bubble.  The self-isolated, trapped-in-the-bubble conservatives think they’re getting news.  Then, they think they need to act on that “news.”

As a campaign tactic – and, obviously, because he’s a bigoted shit-stain – Trump has been hitting the race card heavily, recently.  He’s telling the “low information voters” that the reason their efforts continually result in less and less return is NOT because of the very rich, very white corporations that exploit every breath they take in the name of profit.  Instead the “problem” is people of color, specifically, immigrants living in the lap of luxury at the expense of the hard-working and oppressed white man.

This false message is fed into and amplified by the lying, conservative, self-reinforcing feedback loop generally referred to as the conservative bubble.  The result?
–  July 28, 2019: Conservative white supremacist shoots at people of color at the Gilroy garlic festival, killing 3.
–  August 3, 2019: Conservative white supremacist shoots at people of color in an El Paso, Texas Wal-Mart, killing 20.
–  August 4, 2019 (Less than 24 hrs after the El Paso shooting): Conservative white supremacist shoots at people of color in Dayton, Ohio, killing at least 9.

Gun rights advocates will defend the shooter’s right to own the guns used in their private little race wars.  Bigots will pretend the shooter’s motives are unknowable – could have been anything.  Tea-bagging conservatives will pretend the shooters were probably not even tea-bagging conservatives.  Trump will distance himself from the shooters and offer “thoughts and prayers BUT…”

There’s a book out there called ‘The Turner Diaries.’  It has been called “The Bible of the Racist Right” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  It’s a novel.  The story is about the glorious cleansing of the world – “freeing” the planet of all people who are NOT white – along with any whites who “betrayed” the white race by NOT being bigots.

It’s just my opinion, of course, but I suspect someone read ‘The Turner Diaries’ to Donnie Dumbass and he, likely, thought it was a good read.  I suspect that ALL of these race-based, conservative acts of domestic terrorism can be traced back to that one, stupid book, with further inspiration provided by Trump’s rhetoric.  Oh, the glorious white dream, devoutly to be wished.

I’ll tell you this: these are the dumbest people on the planet.  The idea that they could ever take over the world and eliminate all people of color is ludicrous – but it seems they’re intent on trying, anyway…