January 28, 2024

I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore...

I woke up angry this morning. Yes, I know this is bad for the psyche as well as for my physical well-being but something I heard yesterday got into my subconscious and really rankled me.

One of the cable networks showed the clip of Orangina saying that he had “the greatest ‘brand’ in the world“ in a deposition. Oh really?

What about Coca Cola, Marlboro cigarettes, any automobile manufacturer? Howzabout Apple and Microsoft? Don’t much care for those…try Louis Vuitton or Hermes or Chanel. There’s Intel, PepsiCo, Amazon, and Google.

Of course there are dozens more recognized worldwide and to my knowledge, the CEO’s haven’t grabbed pussies or at the very least, made public statements that it’s ok to do so, raped women in dressing rooms, justified any and all fiscal behaviors with outright lies and fiduciary fraud, faked weather maps with Sharpies, publically desired their own daughters, and many many other behaviors which would damage the reputation of a brand.

But they let him get away with that lie like they let him escape from everything else. That’s why you have him. Hopefully, Judge Engoron does the right thing this week, and finishes this guy and his criminal crew off fiscally. Tired of the bullshit.

January 27, 2024

I want to reiterate...

Many many years ago, MAD magazine published a spoof of the comic Mandrake the Magician. For you young folk, and quite frankly, not so young folk, it was a daily and Sunday comic about a renowned magician who had two sidekicks, one male and one female, and he was capable of remarkable feats of magic and hypnotism, but I digress a bit…

In the MAD magazine satire, he and his two assistants are driving along and get a flat tire. Apparently, there is no spare and Mandrake announces that he will use his power of hypnosis to solve the problem. Lothar, his male companion, says something to the effect of “You can hypnotize us into thinking the tire is fixed, you can even hypnotize yourself into thinking the tire is fixed, but how are you going to hypnotize the tire into thinking it’s fixed?“

This is what Republicans have been doing since Bill Clinton was elected president. They have been hypnotizing the American people and themselves into thinking that they are essentially the propagators of the words and truths of God almighty. Now, finally, the chickens are coming home to roost, and it is just a matter of time until sufficient number of Americans finally awaken from their stupor and realize that it is essentially been, as my friend would call it, “all bullshit“. I should stay for the record that he says that about almost everything we have discussed during the last 45 years, that in the end, it’s all bullshit or “there’s nothing to know”. In many ways, he is a very bright guy, but he is my one friend who, when Sarah Palin came on the scene, was considering voting for the ticket Because she was so hot. My question to him was “Do you think she’ll let you fuck her?“ When he said no, of course not, I said “It therefore doesn’t matter what she looks like then, does it?” I also questioned his taste in women but that’s a story for another day.

Of course, you don’t need to convince everyone, just a sufficient number, such that all the wind goes out of their sails as a Party, and they are becalmed in the middle of nowhere politically. This all reminds me of the periodic “coming of age” of one of these apocalyptic preacher-demons who tells his flock that the world is going to end on a certain date so the people sell their businesses, gather their belongings, and ascend to whatever hill or mountain which has been designated as the place for the Moment of the rapture, and when it of course doesn’t come, the sociopath leader tells everyone that it was just a test, and the big day will be coming shortly and to be ready. Many people walk away, now knowing that this is all been a scam, but there will always be believers. There is nothing that you can do or say to these people. They are doomed to ignorance which in many cases is a certain brand of Hell, at least I think it can be….it depends of course.

January 26, 2024

MSNBC just used this photo onscreen

Sorry about the quality. It should be their stock photo for him instead of that 2016 flattering picture.

January 26, 2024

Ok, this is how far we have deteriorated...

In 1988, for you younger folk, the Democrats had a candidate by the name of Gary Hart. He was experienced, verbal, handsome, on point politically almost always, and was one of those guys who often appears as the almost-nameless generic President in movies and tv. Objectively, he seemed perfect….

But..UH-OH…it turned out that he’d…gasp….changed his name from Hartpence AND you’re almost not going to believe this, he actually CHANGED HIS SIGNATURE three WHOLE times. So he was on shaky ground but then the roof fell in.

He was “known” as a womanizer and “dared” the media to follow him. Well…that wasn’t the greatest idea…a photo appeared with a beautiful woman sitting on his lap on a boat, the name of which was, if I recall correctly, Monkey Business.

That was IT. DONE. GONE.

Of course she and he denied any sexual activity but even so…Didn’t matter.


Of course, Orangina was screwing and paying off AN ADULT FILM STAR, while he was married (to a former nude “model”)and (I will say parenthetically that I actually admire his taste in women’s looks for what that’s worth), and his popularity went up. Then he was “elected”. Jesus H.

We are clearly deteriorating as a political civilization.

Finally, as a note of exasperation, how many frigging years do we have to listen to the media idjits question as to what Orangina is capable of or going to do next. It’s like guessing what a rabid raccoon is going to “do”. He’s going to bite you. It’s what they do.

January 26, 2024

Hey folks! Anyone else being spontaneously "subscribed" to RW newsletters?

During the past three months, I have been inundated with “subscriptions“ to newsletters of the financial, economic, political, social, and religious right wingers. Now I’m not talking about idiocy like the commentators on CNBC or FOX Business. I’m talking about slanderous, malevolent, grotesquely false statements about Democratic politicians, particularly the president, who are “grossly undermining” the fiscal stability of the United States, and how you were going to be driven into financial ruin if Democrats are allowed to be elected to office… any office, high and low.

I spend at least a minute a day unsubscribing from new lists upon which I’ve been placed, and it’s beyond annoying. In addition to that, the headlines are enough to cause my blood pressure to spike a little bit. I won’t repeat any of them here, but I know you all get the Idea.

Obviously, I’m not alone, but thought I would share this with my good friends here at “the” (sic) DU.

As they ask at the end of a long or seemingly endless moderator’s diatribe on MSNBC, “”Your thoughts?”

January 23, 2024

Anyone else watch these two young goofballs on MSNBC?

“Hee hee hee…I don’t know…President Trump went to the March for life so…hee hee hee”.

Wotta maroon!

January 23, 2024

I want to say something about dementia in public officials:

I have posted this story here over the years but I believe at this time it bears repeating.

In 1980, I was a brand new clinician right out of school and thrust into performing very sophisticated dentistry for some very significant people in the Philadelphia area. I was honored to have many of these individuals in my practice at the time, since I had perhaps two years experience total at the time and was dentally reconstructing these individuals extensively.

One of my patients was a very famous older psychologist, who had taught generations of practitioners, many of whom became significant individuals within the profession themselves, and he was a very bright and engaging man and we used to talk… a lot. you have to understand that in those days doing crowns and bridgework for patients was extremely laborious and technique sensitive and we didn’t have the materials that we have today and so everything took 10 times the amount of time at least. One day during the 1980 presidential campaign. He asked me what I thought of Ronald Reagan, and I replied. “Aside from his politics which are horrendous, I’ll tell you what bothers me. The reporters keep talking about the fact that wherever he goes, he has to have a clear glass bottle of jellybeans within his eyesight. I think that’s a clear clinical sign that he’s no longer well-grounded, and needs familiar objects to fasten upon. We had a senile neighbor when I was a kid who had brightly colored objects in his house in all the rooms , and would stare at them, so that he felt that he was in familiar surroundings and so he would stay calm.”

The psychologist said to me in that psychologist way of speaking, “So what is it that you’re telling me?” And I replied, “I think he has early Alzheimer’s disease.” The psychologist nodded his head and said that he believed that that was the case as well.

Yes, I know you’re not allowed to diagnose over television, but this no question that this guy has lost several steps since he was first inaugurated in 2017 and is plummeting into the depths of Behaviors consistent with dementia . It will not be long in my opinion before something absolutely insane happens.

“It will be wild”. Believe me.

January 23, 2024

Bucks County, PA Emergency services down due to cyberattack

This is actually frightening on many levels.

https://nbcphiladelphia.app.link/RVN8jI2dBGb

Law enforcement officials in Bucks County are working to restore services to its computer-aided dispatch system, or CAD system, after a cyberattack on Sunday crippled the service.

However, county officials said 9-1-1 services remain operational and first responders are relying on phone and radio communication as the county investigates the incident.

In an alert sent out by the Bucks County Department of Emergency Communications on Monday night, officials said the CAD system has been down since Sunday afternoon and it currently remains out of service.


In fact, as of Tuesday, there is no projected timeframe for when these services might resume.

January 20, 2024

They had an ad for Trump on the Ravens/Texans telecast:

The lady in the ad said, “I had no idea that such a tiny little prick could be so powerful.”

Oh…sorry…it was for a weight loss medication. Now weirdly…they had an ad for a medication for dementia.

Hmmmm.

January 20, 2024

As an aside: so who's he screwing?

This guy is a lot of things but celibate is not one of them. Yeah I know: Eww.

That aside, what’s he up to? Come on….somebody has to know something. All suppositions will be considered.

In return for gossip, I’ll tell an old joke from my youth:

On his wedding night, the groom starts to get ready for his moment with the bride in bed, and before they get in, she asks him to give her $20. He thinks that’s kind of funny, and so he does, and for every ensuing “event“ she asks him for $20 and he gives it to her because he’s assuming that she’s using it for incidentals like make up or the hair salon or things for the house.

One day 35 years later, his wife comes home and finds her husband in the living room, holding a drink in his hand and crying in the middle of the afternoon. She asked him what’s the matter, what’s up? He replies that the company has undergone restructuring, and that he has lost his job , and that at his age it will be impossible to obtain a job paying a similar salary and so now they are in real financial trouble.

She goes to the bedroom and comes out with two items. The first item is a bank book which shows deposits and a balance of over $1 million and the other item is a statement from an investment portfolio company showing that she has over $3 million in stock and bonds. She tells him obviously we have nothing to worry about, we are going to be fine.

He burst into tears and she asked him why he’s crying. His response to her is “if I’ve known you were this good with money, I would’ve given you all my business.”