What the fuck is even wrong with these people?

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a man nailed to two pieces of wood. Especially if it's me. ~George Carlin, Interview With Jesus.

So I guess the other day, Prosperity Gospel Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne got arrested for violating emergency regulations because he was still holding full services and large gatherings at his mega-church in Tampa, Florida.

Good.

Fuck you, asshole.

Coronavirus aside, it's about time somebody start holding these fucking dickbags accountable for their bullshit. This kind of Christianity does nothing but destroy the faith, finances and lives of millions of people and brainwash millions more into fanatics that end up being a danger to themselves and others, who believe things...both in terms of religion and in terms of the real world that are simply not true, that then influence our politics and social atmosphere and hurt millions of more people, many of whom had never even heard of this silly bullshit before the last few years when these people outed themselves by getting close to Trump.

But see, here's the thing, I've been aware of this shit for over 20 years.

And outright lawbreakers like Rodney Howard-Browne are pretty common. The fact that they know they can play the "God" card with their own followers, if not the State, is about the only thing keeping the crime rate down. this particular religious movement is rife with child molesters, liars, scammers, small-time con-artists, and outright  thieves, not to mention those who fantasize either about killing their neighbors themselves, or who think that God is going to do it for them.

In the last few decades the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and a lot of other large denominations have had very public debates on things like sexual abuse in the church, and can generally be counted on to cooperate with the State to some degree if there's an investigation...and don't get me wrong, organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention, that have a lot of Fundamentalists in them, have a lot of the same problems.

The difference is that Rodney Howard-Browne will likely be hailed as a hero by his own followers. Not in spite of putting their lives in danger, but more or less because of it.

If you wonder where Trumpism gets a lot of its death-cult zeitgeist or why some insane yahoo coke-head like Mike Lindell (the "My Pillow" guy) could be considered authoritative despite his main contribution to the world being selling massively overpriced bedding at Wal-Mart, start there.

Fanaticism for its own sake, or worse for the sake of getting glory from idiots, combined with greed and stupidity. Throw in a little racism and some lies and at the rate we're going...I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Lindell replaces Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce if we're dumb enough to give that orange motherfucker a second term in office.

And ya know, the worst part is, there's an awful lot of mentally-unbalanced Evangelicals out there that are so desperate to see their views shouted back at them by the world at large that they don't see the scammy, skeevy coke-head businessman that sells a $3 item for $45 at Wal-Mart...they'll talk in almost ridiculously glowing terms about the My Pillow Guy because he talked about the Bible on TV.

I'm just sayin' Evangelicals, maybe ya'll need some kind of higher standards.

Or maybe, any standards at all.

It seems to me like especially lately any grifter that's willing to say nice things about Donald Trump and say the word Jesus a few times these days is perfectly well welcome in y'all house. And people wonder why I'm not a Christian anymore?!

There's a fucking pandemic raging and these goddamned morons want to have a "Christian Woodstock" just because the local government told people to stay at home.

And while the rest of us argue with these fucking people and try to talk some sense into them or wait for their fever dream of racism, religiosity and stupid shit to break, people are dying.

Including their own people.

And they don't care.

Because it's not about any of the things they ever said it was about. It sure as hell isn't about Jesus. If it was, maybe these motherfuckers would be thinking about somebody other than themselves.

Listen, ya'll, I used to be a Christian, I know what I was taught.

And this?

This ain't it.

An open letter to the Bernie Bros, Part Two.

I watched, along with all of you, as the tens of thousands of our people stood patiently in long queues for many hours. Some sleeping on the open ground overnight waiting to cast this momentous vote. ~Nelson Mandela, announcing the African National Congress election victory, May 2, 1994

A few weeks ago, I wrote an open letter to the Bernie Bros.

Since then I've mostly taken a flamethrower to the stupidity of Donald Trump and the mismanagement of the Coronavirus crisis.

Apparently, I need to refocus my ire on the Leftist version of 'These Fucking People' yet again.
Now, mind you, my wrath is not against those who simply voted for Bernie in the primaries. I didn't, but everybody is entitled to their own opinion and to vote as they choose. This is America and that's the point.

No, my problem here is with those people who would rather vote for Trump than the Democratic nominee if that person is not Bernie Sanders.

I mean, seriously, the fuck kind of leftists, or liberals, or revolutionaries are you?!

It's not that I don't get it. It's that I see it as people literally committing treason against the values they claim...ironically, much the same as many Republicans did after Trump got elected...because of course their only true value was power. In so doing, they have largely destroyed any soft power that they may have had, only to find out that much of the hard power of this country is in fact sworn to the Constitution, and none of it to the Republican Party in particular. In so doing, these people have given up much of the power and social status that they did have...and by their own behavior, reduced the credibility and thus the power of the Federal Government, and thus the United States of America itself, even over it's own people. It remains to be seen, especially in the middle of a pandemic, if America itself will survive even that. Effectively, Republicans lit themselves on fire to "Own the Libs" and to please Donald Trump, and they largely failed and Trump didn't appreciate it and all they managed to do was run around screaming and set a bunch of other stuff on fire like one of those back yard disaster videos on YouTube.

They made the Republican Party all about Donald Trump, and by extension the wealthy, only to find out that neither was actually particularly well-liked by anybody but the basest of their base.

And the average Redcap in the trenches? They're usually not actually a doctrinaire conservative in any traditional sense. Hell, a majority of them can't really explain why they like or support Trump, and to be honest, they hate most Republicans, too.

This seems like a bad set of variables. Republicans painted themselves into this corner by choice.

Don't do something similar to the Democrats.

Especially considering you're not even the majority of us.

Maybe ya'll don't understand this, but "Progressives" and "Social Democrats" have no such position of power to screw up and lose in the first place, not because there's some kind of conspiracy against you, but because Bernie supporters, and the kind of liberal in general who become Bernie supporters... Don't. Show. Up. To. Vote.

Thus, moderates like me, people of color, senior citizens and women are determining the course of things.

It's not a conspiracy, we showed up in the numbers needed. You. Didn't.

If you don't participate in the core functions of Democracy vs. your own people to get your guy over the top...WHY IN THE HELL would you throw in with the enemy of everything you claim to stand for just to deny the people who did show up the shot at victory that they damned well earned? If the Republicans are comparable to the Vichy French...what are ya'll, Soviet collaborators? People who had in many cases espoused and fought for the ideas of Communism and socialism, only to sell out to the fascists for their own survival?

Now, I'm no fan of Communism, but a hell of a lot of those people got exactly what they had coming after the war was over and the allies handed them back to get shipped off to firing squads and gulags. It sucked for them, but if you stand with Nazis, you're a Nazi. I have no sympathy. I don't see selling out everything you say you stand for as a particularly forgivable offense, and I've written thousands of words railing against Trumpist conservatives for exactly that.

Bernie Bros who want to vote for Trump, where exactly do you think you're going to stand when all this is over? Maybe we don't do firing squads and gulags...and I hope it doesn't come to that...but you sure as hell will make things a lot harder for your own movement or people who share your beliefs in the future.

More to the point, if you believe in the guy who champions Medicare For All and who has effectively forced that idea into the national consciousness and the Democratic Party's platform alike almost single-handed...how exactly is any of that served, by voting for a self-glorifying wannabe fascist who supports Medicare For Nobody and who seems to hope to use the COVID-19 crisis to take out his political enemies and punish people who didn't vote for him?! (By which he means both you and me.)

Let me tell you what I've been doing over the course of the last couple days while Donald Trump has been glorifying himself and talking stupid.

One of my ferrets, Rokea, has Insulinoma, it flared up over the weekend, and I finally was able to get her to the vet this morning. A $45 vet bill, the first of many such to come, likely including next week.

Last Tuesday I found out that I was going to be laid off from my job due to the shutdown for the virus. That takes effect tomorrow. We were told to apply for Unemployment (which we will get automatically) today. In theory that sounds good, except that neither my roommate, nor myself, nor several other co-workers could file because the offices are closed, the phone lines are busy, and the website keeps crashing. I have to try again at night, when they say that it'll be easier to get through and accomplish this. But won't a bunch of other people be doing the same? Don't get me wrong, this makes a good case for a Universal Basic Income...but you have to win first, and winning means you have to show up, and I'm going to show up because at this point, politics might just be the determining factor in whether or not I live or die and my and my dog and ferrets all get to eat.

Fuck progressive policies, we need to get Republicans and Trump out of power to even have basic liberal democratic policies and a social safety net. As the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run. At this point I'd be happy with a decently staffed state-level department of Labor.

And do you know who ran Michigan and its economy and its political system into the ground, mostly in the service of the DeVos family? Republicans. We'll be picking up the wreckage from Rick Snyder for 20 years.

On a larger scale, America as a whole will be picking up the pieces from Donald Trump's misrule for 50 or 100 years...if we survive this virus mess as a whole country...and America or some or all of its successor states will probably have to regain our previous soft power somehow. Likely, by drowning Chinese or Russian military aspirations in a river of American blood. Is 50,000 or more dead Americans from defending the Baltic States, Poland or the Ukraine worth it?

Not really, but that's the way the world works and the idea is to try to avoid situations where you fritter away soft power and have to do things like that in the first place.

I'm not going to lie, one of the reasons that I like Biden is because I liked Obama, and I'm old enough to remember being taught that a person would be judged in part by who their friends are and by what those friends do and by whether or not they supported those actions. We are the company we keep. We are what we will tolerate.

If you're willing to tolerate Trump and all the bad behavior, mismanagement, racism and sexism that goes with him, do me a favor and don't insult my intelligence by telling me you're on my side.

If you'd vote for Trump because Democrats didn't nominate Bernie, you're not a liberal, you're an arsonist.

And the house you want to burn down belongs to all of us.

COVID-19 does not care who you are. It's a Virus..

“You step outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. And nowadays you breathe, you risk your life. Every moment now you don’t have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you’re risking it for.” ~Hershel Greene, The Walking Dead

I live in Michigan, a state now being put at risk because our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, told the truth and (rightly) refuses to kiss Donald Trump's ass. So the Trump administration instructed suppliers not to send medical supplies to my state. I'm serious, how in the fuck is this being tolerated...by anybody? How in the hell is this narcissistic dickbag not being run our of the country on a rail after a nice tar-and-feathering on the National Mall? I'm serious, is this America, or what?!

I support my governor, 100% not just because I don't like Trump, but because I don't like the fact that Republicans aren't standing up to this dude. Somebody's gotta fuckin' do it!

I mean, fuck, if you think about it, I've also found common ground with some pretty hard-right Never Trump people, and for the same reason.

I'm not kidding here, I spent a majority of my life as a Republican...and seriously...I wonder how in the fuck Republicans are tolerating this bullshit, simply because any one of them could be next, and really, you don't even have to actively do anything to get Trump to turn on you and start treating you like yesterday's dog shit. I mean, come on, did every goddamn Republican man who stayed in the Party after January of 2017 or so have to have their balls surgically removed? I mean, come on!

Might as well replace the sign above the door that says "Republican Party" with one that says "Donald Trump's Bitches." You can't rationalize that away. Y'all gave up everything you ever stood for to bow down and worship Donald Trump, or follow behind him like a bunch of cowardly little lackeys.

Honestly, to me the worst part of all this bullshit isn't so much what Republicans have turned into, or maybe they always were these cowardly shits under the surface, I don't know. But the worst part is that this motherfucker expects that everybody else will be the same way, and then he gets mad like a goddamned teenager when they don't.

A teenager in the body of a man in his 70's, that has way the fuck too much power, and way the fuck too many enablers. Just sayin' maybe voting for some asshole with a personality disorder was a bad idea. I hope you're proud of yourselves, Michigan Republican voters and Third Party voters and people that were too good to vote for Hillary Clinton. And I hope the fuck you don't get sick.

Why?

Because it's a virus. It doesn't care about you. It is incapable of caring about you. It's not going to target your political enemies, or mine. It's not going to target only people of color or the poor or the sick. This thing targets everybody, with a higher mortality rate in certain age groups.

And oddly enough, a lot of those older people tend to vote Republican.

So, really, if anybody is being targeted by your careless stupidity and apocalyptic fantasies, in effect it's you.

But ya know, hospitals being overwhelmed and people dying isn't really good for anybody, and the possibility of our mortuary systems being overwhelmed by a couple of million deaths only brings the possibility of more deaths by equally ghoulish means.

I'm just sayin' maybe it's better to put aside the politics and listen to the medical professionals on this one. All that the modern "Conservative" M.O. of making everything a partisan issue will do is get people killed. No, this will absolutely not benefit you, because yet again, this is a virus. It doesn't give a fuck about you or what you want or what you think you're going to get.

Reality is what it is, and you and your beliefs are not the center of the universe.

I mean, I suppose we could ask Boris Johnson how ignoring social distancing guidelines to "Own the Libs" or whatever worked for him. Oh, wait now he's got the virus, Listen, if Trump's Limey Mini-Me getting this shit doesn't prove my point that this virus doesn't give a fuck who you are or what your political ideology is, I'm really not sure anything is going to.

And it's not just me, or yourself, that you're putting at risk by playing games with this thing, it's everybody. The virus doesn't care who you are, what you think, or how much money you have. If you're a warm body, you're a target.

I know there's a lot of people out there who think expertise or knowledge are somehow "liberal" or something. That's bullshit and it basically comes down to people figuring out that if they don't know anything, they can believe whatever they want.

That doesn't work out well against a virus that is incapable of having beliefs or being reasoned with and you can't bullshit it either.

The only thing that's going to get us out of this is reason and science.

If you think reason and science have some kind of liberal bias...well, maybe the problem is you and your beliefs, because reason and science and caring about other people, not to mention self-preservation are the same as they always have been.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. If we want things to get better, we can't vote for or support assholes like Donald Trump who would write off whole states if they could get away with it. Trump is just one fucking guy, who is given power only because other people give it to him. Seriously, if you turn on this motherfucker, he's a cowardly schmuck, all he's going to do is say mean things about you on social media. He probably doesn't even have the guts to say them to your face.

At this point, if you want the United States of America to come through this as one country, instead of one that divided itself and split up according to preference for or against ONE FUCKING GUY, you'd best pull your head out of your ass and stop voting Republican, or open your eyes and start paying attention and participating.

Whistling past all the graveyards as you go along on your merry willfully ignorant way ain't cutting it.

The virus doesn't give a fuck about you. Internalize that.

Whistling past ALL the graveyards...

Suppose that you were an idiot, and suppose that you were a Republican, but I repeat myself. ~Harry S. Truman

Seriously, what the actual fuck is wrong with these fucking people?

Republican governors are overruling local shelter in place orders, one goddamned idiot tried to hold up the vote on the Coronavirus relief package...over supposed concerns about the deficit, of all fucking things...somehow earning the ire of both Donald Trump and John Kerry in the process, and yet with that passed, Trump is right back to picking fights with the Democrats, refusing to invite any of them to the signing ceremony for the package he'd never have gotten passed without them.

I'm serious, what the fuck is it going to take before everybody else gets as tired of these fucking people as I am?

I mean, Republicans are literally trying to use this virus to kill people, in the hope that it'll take out more of the people that they don't like than it will of them.

Again, and I can't say this enough, it's a fucking virus. It is incapable of giving a shit about you.

Coronavirus doesn't care if you're rich or poor, it doesn't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, and it doesn't care what you look like or what group you belong to. It will kill you just the same.

It's a fucking virus, what the hell is so hard to understand about that?!

Seriously, these people's abysmal handling of this crisis, this soup sandwich of an emergency response, has led to the United States surpassing China in the number of infections.

America, fuck yeah, I guess.

And then these fucking people, if Dinesh D'Souza or my Evangelical ex-partner are any indication, are all but crowing about the number of cases in places like New York City.

I mean, the fuck what?

If you look at places like Alabama, the Florida Panhandle or Mississippi and the health indicators involved...Republicans are whistling past their own graveyard as they slouch towards an apocalypse that's going to hit them worse than it does anybody else. The reason that it looks like there's more cases in "Blue" states is because those states are doing more testing and more proactive in their handling of the situation.

It's the crisis response equivalent of not paying your bills...and then bragging about how much money you're saving. That works out fine, until you start getting notices taped to your door, the heat goes off, the lights go out, and then you're in the hole for a lot more than you would have been if you'd just done shit right and paid your bills to start with.

It seemed like a good strategy when I was 18, too, until my Mom found out about it, explained the facts to me and made me pay my goddamn bills. Seriously, don't any of these people have mothers?

Seriously, when the closest parallel to Republican behavior that I can come up with is the behavior of shitty teenagers and twenty-something dumb asses, ya'll have a problem. I mean, aside from the argument that these people are intentionally trying to get people killed (which I can't really disagree with, but since I know how natural phenomena work (i.e. they don't care about you) I can pretty well see how that's going to work out. It isn't going to work the way Republicans think it will. But then, stupid people never think it's going to happen to them.

The problem is, in a case like this we're only as smart as the dumbest fucking person. We're only as strong as the weakest link...because there is nothing whatever to prevent some person from getting infected and then spreading the virus where ever they go. Somebody showed a tracking video on Twitter, of all the cell phones of Florida spring break beach kids and by the time the video was done playing, the little lights had spread all around the world, an ocean of little lights that looked exactly like one of those pictures of the earth's night-side from space.

Think about that for a second.

I wonder if all those 4-Chan idiots are still so happy that they helped to get a meme elected President in 2016?

And then of course there's the religious nuts, here we have anti-Semitic Fundamentalist whack-a-nut Rick Wiles saying that "God is spreading Coronavirus..." You know, if the Evangelicals aren't real damn careful, they're going to create one hell of a lot more Atheists before this is over.

When something bad happens, telling people that God caused it, or worse that God is on the side of whatever shitty little ethnic cleansing pogrom you think you'd like to see in this situation, you're not going to get people to believe in your God. It's the same with politics, you aren't going to get more people to vote for you by being an asshole. In fact, your pool of followers will probably get smaller, because eventually your behavior will begin to prick at the consciences of those for whom the cruelty is not the point of it all.

I mean, I get that these fucking people whack off to thoughts of some kind of pure, white, fascist America where everybody is (or at least has to pretend to be) the "right" kind of white Evangelical. But the problem with that is that over 200 years of history and reality point in completely the opposite direction, and conservative white people are not only already in the minority, their power and wealth are slipping fast with every dumb shit thing that comes out of the President's mouth.

Honestly, I just wish that it wouldn't have taken something as bad as this virus to make people see stuff like this, or care enough to go out and vote. If Americans weren't, by and large a pack of apathetic fools who need to be smacked upside the head with stuff, this wouldn't be happening.

Yes, the situation in New York City or San Francisco, or for that matter Italy or Spain, is going to be bad. But you know what? It's going to be a lot worse in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi if nothing changes. Why? Because this is a bad situation and it's worse if you don't prepare or if you want to make everything some kind of political bullshit or see how much money you can make instead of keeping your eye on the ball and your mind on the science and your focus on protecting the people.

The governor of Mississippi is right that his state will never be China. What he doesn't understand is that per capita it could in fact be a lot worse off. But of course, understanding that would require giving a shit in the first place.

Here's the thing I don't understand, Republican voters...and mind you I ask this as a former Republican myself; When all we've seen from Republican elected officials is bottomless contempt for everybody else in general...and for the voters in their own states in particular, how do you justify supporting that?! Do you somehow think that they have utter contempt for everybody else in Florida but you? Those of you who vote for a fruitcake like Thomas Massie, do you think he hates everybody else in his district...except you?

How does that work, exactly?

If you want a better country, you have to be better citizens. If we want a better country, we're going to have to stop electing these goddamned morons.

American Resurrection.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. ~Matthew 28:1-7

Reopen the country, they say. Everybody go back to work! they keep saying.
Let all the old people die of disease, they say.
COVID-19 is just a hoax to bring down Trump, they say.
Open up all the churches on Easter! they say.
Grandma should die to save the economy, they say.

You know, I'm fairly sure by the end of the week, various and assorted right-wingers will be calling the virus some kind of Illuminati plot to bring down Trump, destroy America and install some kind of one-world government. How that might work with, say, China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan, Israel and...well, all its neighbors, North and South Korea, or ya know, just a good old thorny mostly-white-Christian problem like Northern Ireland, nobody has ever actually bothered to get to the bottom of. There's usually some kind of vague hand-waving talk about somebody basically waving a magic wand and there magically being some kind of false peace.

Oh, wait, who in the ever-living FUCK am I kidding?! I know people, people I have the misfortune of having once been extremely close to, that are there already. I mean, are you fucking kidding me with this stupid bullshit?

Ya know, speaking as a former member of the End Times Prophecy Movement myself, I really don't want to say anything to legitimize any of that garbage, but based on what I've seen over the last couple weeks if there is such a thing as the AntiChrist, that person is probably a Republican.

Do you want to know what makes me say that? Really? Do you know what I haven't heard, not a word of it, from Republicans in the last few weeks?

Have we once heard, from any Republican who is in power or any current Trump Supporter, one single word about caring about other people, following the Ten Commandments, having faith in something greater than ourselves, loving thy neighbor, and treating even those we might consider to be enemies with decency...ya know, even the kind of thing that was standard for damn neat every public appearance by officials of the Bush administration for months after 9/11...and in broader popular culture the effect persisted for several years...though there was a backlash against it that was largely hidden if you didn't frequent Christian and conservative forums on the internet.

Nope. Now it's all me, me me, divide, divide, divide, money, money, money, and oh by the way who can we kill?

This is the inboxes full of venom that I got throughout the aughts, for standing up for facts and humanity, moderation and reality from both Christian and conservative points of view...busting through the wall like some kind of giant green toxic waste Kool-Aid Man at long last for all the world to see.

Except it's not even "He who shall not work shall not eat" it's "He who shall work, let him die of disease and kill half his family in so doing, because my stock dividends."

I'm pleasantly surprised to see most people recoiling in horror, but there's more...

How is any of that Christian?

20 years ago, if you would have told me that there'd come a day when Nancy Pelosi was the one quoting the Pope while the Republican was the one snidely trying to quote stock market numbers I'd have laughed at you. Having been a conservative throughout the entire 1990's I'd have assumed it would be the other way around.

Now, is it just me, or are Conservatives devolving into weird robotic behaviors, religious fuckery and outright Trump worship since this virus hit?

It's like I said awhile back, these people would rather live through the horror of a nuclear war than face change. But now, the change is coming anyway, and the source of it is not something they can fight with anything they understand. The same thing that always worked before will not, religion isn't making it go away, and the more they worship their incompetent Leader, the more he is exposed as incompetent. It's like the missiles have hit their targets, but the bombers got airborne first, just in time for the crews to see a big flash and hear the pop and sizzle of the radio as the electromagnetic pulses hit and their command and control facilities were shortly thereafter turned into radioactive dust. Now, they've got nothing to go on but pre-generated orders that make no sense given the situation, and no updates are coming from the Looking Glass aircraft, because that's off the air too. Basically, they're facing a crisis they don't understand, without leadership because the President has cracked and thinks he's Wild Bill Hickok. So...they're going with what they know...which, painfully, isn't much of anything.

They're trying to ratfuck and smear the Democrats, but somehow forgetting how to string words together properly and running out of ideas, or there's a fault in the programming. They can't make science go away, but decades of Creationism and woo woo bullshit is making them think they can.

Some of them want to be religious, and hope that God will get them out of this mess, but they forgot that religion itself had requirements. They forgot the 'Relationship with God' part and only wanted the trappings to get Man's approval for their shitty beliefs...and now they're calling, and God's not answering the phone anymore, because He wasn't stupid and realized it was never about Him, only what they could get.

So, they're trying to turn to the President "Save us, Mr. Trump!" But all too late they're finding out that they got sold a bill of goods as much as the rest of us, and Grover Norquist's conceit that they didn't need a leader, just somebody to sign this stuff, has (as anybody who knew anything about it could tell you) was never actually going to pan out. It turns out in a crisis when hard calls need to be made and people have to have the guts to step up and take the consequences, an auto-pen with an ego isn't actually going to work out.

The actual problem, is that they won't just kill themselves with their incompetence and selfishness. The way this works, they're going to kill a hell of a lot of other people too.

It seems like it would be really damn easy to care about other people enough to stay the fuck home. These fucking people would rather live through The Walking Dead, or do almost anything, than have to care about other people. Somehow, in today's modern world, Going Galt isn't really a thing...and in any case it's turning out far more like the undersea slaughter house of Rapture from the first Bioshock game than anything else...only instead of being on the bottom of the ocean it's right here at home.

Somehow, it's not that hard to imagine walking down the stairs by the fish market, creepily listening to some Republican singing "Jesus Loves Me This I Know..." while he cuts somebody up.

I guess it just seems to me like it would be easier to just give a shit about people, or the truth, or....I don't know, something besides money. Like maybe your own life? Seriously, again, this is a virus. It doesn't care about you.

Seriously, if these people were talking this way on the street instead of in a political setting or on TV, all any of them would have to do is add "...in accordance with my manifesto" and they'd be getting put into straitjackets by the cops and taken to the nearest mental hospital for a psychological evaluation. For fuck's sake, you wouldn't let people who talk blithely about letting your parents or grandparents die watch your kids, or your pets.

Why the fuck do you want to let them run our government?! These fucking people would take Easter Sunday, which is supposed to be about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and turn it into a day that's all about Donald Trump...even as it turns into a new Day Of The Dead by the time the sun begins to set.

All in the hope not of some spiritual resurrection or regeneration of the soul...but because they hope to resurrect the stock market.

I'm sorry, but if you support that shit, FUCK. YOU. I ain't dying for no damn stock market.

It really is that simple.

If we want a better country we have to be better citizens.

This? This ain't it.

Ravening Wolves

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. ~Matthew 7:15

Yesterday, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick suggested that old people should be willing to die off to save the stock market, and thus reduce the impact of Coronavirus on moneyed "Conservatives."

The next person that tells me Republicans are the "Pro-family" party is going to get asked the question "Did somebody order a knuckle sandwich" and very shortly after that be picking their teeth up off the deck.
Seriously, fuck these motherfuckers.

Let me tell you why these people are full of shit. In any legitimately conservative or traditional society (much of Africa, and throughout the Islamic world, and central and south Asia for example) the aged, moneyed and otherwise, are effectively one of the top tiers of society. It doesn't matter if they can't work anymore...or aren't "productive" in American capitalist vernacular...they are taken care of, even, perhaps especially in societies that don't have much of a social welfare system. Families take care of them, they do things like provide child care and informal or religious education, and they are respected for their experience and wisdom...and in many cases religious piety as well.

People from those countries are often appalled, when they come here, at America's treatment of its elderly. In countries from Morocco to China...it is not uncommon for three generations or more of a family to live under the same roof.

Just sayin' though, I'm pretty sure there's not many billionaires in Afghanistan.

Hell, as of today it's not even just the elderly that "Conservatives" want to throw under the bus.

It's literally everybody, they want to kill us all to try to save their stock portfolios, even though it probably won't work.

They see people working together and stepping up to fill the gaps left by Trump's incompetence, and the various fixes proposed by Democrats and even some Republicans and they're horrified.

Because all of it means that they might have to do with just a little less, and that their ideological woo woo spell-casting won't have a hold over more than a small percentage of the population.

My state went to "Shelter in place" yesterday and you know what? I'm going to be honest, I haven't heard a single person bitch about measures being taken to protect them and I haven't seen a single MAGA hat since this crisis hit. Oh sure, those people...what of them are people rather than Bots...are all over the news and social media...but I sure don't know any.

So yeah, on a certain level I can kinda see why "Conservatives," Republicans and wealthy people are terrified.

That rather gamble on surviving an Apocalypse with some of their money and power intact (and in the hope that the Apocalypse kills all the people they don't like) than just hang on and try to adapt like the rest of us have to doesn't seem like a particularly acceptable response.

Mire baffling, way the hell too many of these fucking people don't seem to understand that COVID-19 is a virus, it doesn't care about your politics, about how much money you have, or know, let alone care, who you are. It is utterly incapable of caring about any of that kind of stuff. It's like these motherfuckers don't understand that it doesn't matter how much money you have if you're dead. Ideology and wealth won't get you out of this, only science and listening to people who know how diseases work, how to manage crises, and if all else fails those who know what to do when the situation inevitably goes sideways, who know how to do more with less and survive.

Just sayin' that last is absolutely where immigrants and people of color are going to come in real damn handy. I have a lot of useful survival skills myself, but I'm not really in any kind of physical shape for this shit. But ya know, I have knowledge that I can give those people so they might help me survive.

How about you, tech bro? How about you?

Of course, from what I have personally observed there's a lot of people out there who don't even know how to cook rice, of all things. I'm not sure it would be anything more than an exercise in particularly dark humor to attempt to quantify the survival rates of people who can't even boil water, drop the rice in and add butter and salt. Some of these people seem to be the kind of people who think meat comes from the grocery store. How are they going to figure out how to build a fire and cook the rice when the power goes out?

I can guarantee you most of those people...not least of all many of the Gun Nuts themselves...have never fired a weapon under field conditions, or with distractions, or without adequate ear protection. How many of these fools would survive the steep learning curve of civil disorder, much less civilization collapsing?

And these are the people who think they're going to throw any percentage of the population under the bus to try and save their stock portfolios? I'm here to tell ya, bro, that's the kind of thinking that gets rich people guillotined or strung up from lampposts and if there's one thing even a cursory examination of 20th century history tells us, it's that the fastest way to bring about socialism is to make sure that the vast majority of people don't have any money. Of course, you're vastly more likely to end up with a bigger equivalent of Castro's Cuba than socially democratic Sweden after that...along with years of conflict and terrorism.

And honestly, that right there probably is the worst of it. These fucking people are basically basing their ideas for a response on their own woo woo bullshit beliefs that bear no relation to the reality on the ground. It's a safe bet that the unexpected consequences would kill at least as many people as the virus.

Like I said yesterday, the possibilities here range from eight MILLION on up to thirty-some MILLION deaths...and even ONE MILLION would probably massively over-strain our national capacity for dealing with death. But some people think the bodies stacked up like cordwood waiting to be buried will only be their political enemies or people of color or...I don't know. I don't know what the fuck they're thinking, because the truth is they're not.

Imagine having a new government department, Graves Registration, and a Secretary for Mortuary Affairs, or maybe a Coroner General?

Fuck, I don't even know. Screw Coronavirus, if we have eight to thirty million deaths, we'll have epidemics of typhus and shit because of lots of bodies laying around if people keep handling stuff this badly. You think I'm joking? If these people keep screwing this shit up this bad, mass graves that are nothing but lime and dirt are in our future. People will spend decades, or maybe even centuries digging up bones and trying to figure out what happened and to whom.

I saw a Tweet earlier posted by a very stressed out nurse who pointed out that her hospital morgue has a capacity of three bodies, and she got yelled at for suggesting they stack them on top of each other. Hell, I've been reading posts from stressed out medical workers all day. And that's not even counting Corrections, or education, or mass transit or any of the thousands upon thousands of other ways people have to function in close quarters while stressed. That said I hear Riker's Island prison in NYC is a disaster waiting to happen, but Liberty University is set to reopen like nothing is happening, so there's that.

How many people do you think Jerry Falwell Jr. is going to kill with that decision?

These yahoos think they're going to reopen America, especially without any preparation...when we're still spinning up to deal with directives generated by the professionals last week and reacting to the developing needs of a stressed out population under siege from a goddamned virus?

And these fucking people are making fun of doctors?!

Listen, yo, "Conservatives" are basically turning into a cult of death and wealth and hoping that their worship of the latter somehow prevents the former.

All too many of these people apparently never bothered to pay attention in science class, much less gain any actual knowledge of how stuff works.

I'm hardly a professional, but I know that mixing drugs and taking fish tank cleaner is a good way to end up dead, and these are things that have happened. Trump and his ignorance are things that are not helping, and people have died as a result of things that he has said in his press briefings. Making fun of the people who are struggling to save lives, who are furthest forward on the front lines of this mess, is only going to get more people killed.

All the pro-life talk, all the religion, and all the values were never anything but a put-on and a scam. If you didn't know this before, you damn well should know it now.

That said, expect right-wingers to go a little loony in the head, especially as this thing escalates...because as I've said before a lot of these fucking people are fanatics who crave some sort of Apocalypse and I wouldn't be one damned bit surprised if eugenics, racism, and religion are all contributing factors besides greed and stupidity. Cult-like behavior, fear and superstition also have the potential to kill millions.

'Cause I'll guarantee you, one of the first casualties of this thing is going to be Jesus, or rather one hell of a lot of these people's belief in Him...and let's not forget that a lot of these fools basically think that their belief in God is the only thing stopping them from going out and killing people.

The religion is bullshit. However, the penchant for tribal religiosity is not.

And these fucking people have somebody who wants to be their "God."

And that person apparently doesn't like doctors and experts.

Think about that for a second.

Not one goddamned one of these motherfuckers deserves to be anywhere near a position of power.

Remember that, come November.

Addendum: And this is what the rest of the world is doing. Go ahead and tell me we're not the fools of the goddamn world, right now. Go right ahead, I fucking dare you.

Is America great yet, MAGA's? (Part Two.)

Thou Shalt Not Steal
~Exodus 20:15

I was, unfortunately, out and about quite a bit today. Mostly, this is because my state is implementing a shelter in place order and I needed to make sure I had certain things, fill a few holes in my groceries, put some gas in the car, and get dog food and ferret litter. Thankfully, for whatever reason the pet store qualifies as essential services, so things aren't as desperate as I'd feared. However, this all but guarantees I'll be off of work longer, and that's fine...as long as the paychecks keep coming.

Which can't be indefinite.

Not least, because I'm not a corporation.

Seriously, fuck these motherfuckers.

Republicans tried to sneak through a 500 BILLION dollar money pot for corporations and the wealthy that, as I understand it, was supposed to be disbursed at Trump's discretion? Are you fucking kidding me? Like THAT wouldn't be abused?!

And also, where'd we get the money for this?

I first saw this mess while I was out, and all day I've seen Republicans whining about Democrats "playing politics" with the stimulus bill.

How come it's always "Playing politics" when the Democrats try to look out for the common person, not to mention taxpayers who will ultimately be saddled with paying off all this debt, and somehow Republicans claim that giving FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS to their wealthy donors and friends is...I don't know...essential services or something?

How is it, that at least one third of Americans take shitty Republican beliefs and giveaways to the wealthy that less well-off Americans will almost certainly eventually have to pay for as absolute gospel, but anything anybody else wants to do is "Ideology" and "Playing politics?"

You know, I don't know about you but I'm goddamned tired of this hypocritical bullshit.

Listen, Cletus, it's time to wake up and realize that when it comes to that 500 billion...if they get it, you're not going to get any. So you might as well just vote your own self-interest, at least. And no, nobody besides a minority of white men gives a fuck about patriarchal white supremacy. In point of fact, the capitalist system our ancestors created can no longer afford for only one group to have all the money...and too much is concentrated at the top as things currently stand. If this virus doesn't cause the whole mess to come crashing down like a game of Jenga at a drunken college frat party in the next few months I'm going to be damned surprised.

To avoid that, at this point, requires our government not putting a foot wrong.

That's not where we're at. Where we're at it "Incompetent dick-bags actively trying to kill people by aggressively stupid decisions."

Do you know what's going to happen to the American economy if we lose a million or two million people on top of all the rest of the damage? Let alone if we lose eight, up to maybe 33 million people?

At the low end, we're not going to have an economy, and the damage will take years to sort out. On the high end? Collapse of civilization and you'll be more likely to die of typhus than Coronavirus at the end of the day, because do you know what happens when there's a lot of dead bodies laying around? More disease outbreaks!

Do I like the current situation? No. I like that I'm getting paid, but on the whole it's a big inconvenience and a lot of worry. However, ignoring the virus won't make it go away or magically regenerate the stock market.

You bet your ass I'm staying at home and social distancing because I don't want to get sick. Government guidelines aren't going to change that. I used to be a conservative, and I've never lived by what the government told me when it wasn't a job requirement to do so. I sure as hell don't understand how today's "Conservatives" ever arrived at the idea of rabid hatred for the government when anybody else is in power (including standard Republicans) and living by every word the Leader doth speak when it's Donald Fucking Trump.

Listen, people, if these motherfuckers were coming at you with guns and knives to kill you and take your shit, you'd defend yourselves, correct?

Why is it any different when they're coming at you with laws and votes?

And why, when the only real defense against this shit IS the other political party, have so many fools allowed themselves to be programmed to hate the very people who are trying to make sure they have health insurance...not to mention essential services, food and money in the midst of the worst crisis in generations?

If hating the people who are trying to protect your ass is American greatness, count me the fuck out.

Vote these Republican sons of bitches out, ALL of them. Vote like your life depends on it, because it probably does.

Part One.

Is America great yet, MAGA's? (Part One.)

Thou Shalt Not Kill.
~Exodus 20:13

Make America Great Again.

You know, Trump's infamous slogan, hell, his entire unarticulated, unplanned non-plan of a campaign promise.

I have to ask, are we there yet?

Because so far, multiple times just today I've seen various Republican talking heads effectively saying we should just let 2.5% of the population (or more, i.e. whoever is vulnerable to Coronavirus) just die.

First, let's clear something up; That's something like eight and a half million people. Do you think American mortuary services could reasonable or even unreasonably cope with that many deaths, much less do so in any kind of proper fashion and according to the law and standard medical procedures?

The truth is, it'd probably be a lot closer to 7% to 10% of people, and there's no real way to manage who the two and a half-percent (on the low end) to ten percent (on the high end) might be. A rich old white Republican Senator is just as likely to be vulnerable, or get the disease and die, as is some African-American spring break kid on a beach in Florida. Thinking "It won't happen to me" sure didn't work out for Rand Paul, did it? What makes you think you're immune?

Do you think any of the funerary or medical professions could deal with 33 million deaths? Because that's what ten percent of our population is. We'd be burying people in mass graves and then spend a hundred years trying to identify bodies and patch things up properly just for the most basic things like identifying who the fuck they were in the first place. We'd make the killing fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia look downright civilized, not because of Communist revolution, or war, or zombie apocalypse or somehow magically only killing off all the people conservatives don't like, but because of simple, downright sociopathic carelessness.

Do you want that on your conscience? I sure don't.

Second, the virus has not peaked and is not trending down. If anything, it's hitting its upswing and we can expect more infections in about three weeks or so, plus a steady stream until then.

Third "European social problems?" What the fuck? Like, my dude, the fuck did I just read?

This is a virus, it literally does not give a fuck about your politics or shitty ideology. It is, in fact, incapable of doing so.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm REAL damn tired of the whole "This virus is just a scam to take down Trump" line of bullshit from "Conservatives." Again, it's a virus, it doesn't know and doesn't care who Donald Trump even is. But you know what I'm even more tired of? The same goddamned people who say that, all being the first ones to line up when it comes to trying to find some way to profit from this goddamned thing.

It's real enough when ya'll think you can make a buck off it, ain't it?

Fuck you, Republicans.

Not only that, but Republicans and Trump are perfectly well content to mock anybody who's even remotely trying to do any kind of decent goddamned thing in this mess. I mean, Comcast, for fuck's sake?

Under normal circumstances dealing with Comcast, especially anything to do with tech support is like being transported to the uppermost of the Nine Hells of Baator, and suddenly they're going very far out of their way to help home-bound people, seniors and veterans stay connected?

Fuck yeah, I'll take it, and not least because a decent number of my people are home-bound seniors, some of whom happen to also be veterans, and all of whom are dependent on human connections that may not be forthcoming otherwise in these troubled times. For fuck's sake I've met people whose daily human connection was the Meals On Wheels delivery guy, back when my Mom was doing her internship in Saginaw. If some of those people, today, can use the internet to deal with the issue of loneliness in these troubled times, hell yes, absolutely. Good on Comcast for making it so.

But of course these are the same goddamned dirt-bags making fun of Mitt Romney for self-quarantining, even though Mitt is old, and so is his wife and on top of that his wife has a medical condition that means this virus could easily kill her. Feel proud yet, MAGA's?

I'm curious, if Trump has so little regard for a rich Republican senator like Mitt Romney, what do you think Trump thinks of you?

Just a reminder, Mitt Romney is Ronna Romney-McDaniel's uncle.

You know, you'd think she'd care. Family values, right?

Oh, pardon me, I'm sorry. That's SO 1990's.

SO, I have to ask, MAGA's, now that we've sacrificed the family and are actively plotting to sacrifice anywhere from eight to thirty-three million people, many of them being old white conservative Senior Citizens that voted for this bullshit...is America great yet?

Go ahead, I'll wait.

To say that Republicans don't give a fuck about you is an understatement, so why do you support them?

Part Two.

In the name of God, Go!

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
~Oliver Cromwell, dismissal of the Rump Parliament, April 20th, 1653.

I had to go run my usual payday errands today, and get a tire fixed.

While I was somewhat surprised at how much and what was still open, and cautious because of the virus, I'm going to be honest. I'm just glad I was able to get almost everything I needed and help a couple friends of mine get their own groceries and stuff.

Except...I decided to check my social media feeds right before I headed home, and I saw this. When asked if he had anything to say to Americans who are scared, Trump decided to attack the reporter for asking. In other words, when asked to care...when even the most half-assed positive response would have been preferable (See Also: Mike Pence) and given people something to hang on to...when asked to be human...Trump declined.

In the middle of a crisis, Trump as much as told the rest of the country "Fuck off and die."

When even a simple "We got this" would have calmed at least some people's fears and slathered him in praise from his red-capped hordes, Trump basically told Americans to kiss their ass goodbye.

And yet, and YET, that somehow managed not to be the worst thing that I've seen from Republicans today. Thus far, as of right now, Jim Inhofe, Kelly Loeffler, Richard Burr and Ron Johnson are all embroiled in an Insider Trading scandal since they dumped stocks apparently based on information from Senate intelligence briefings that the public was not privy to.

In other words, they knew this was coming, they knew how serious it was and instead of taking their duty to their country and the public seriously, they chose to enrich themselves and leave the rest of us to flap in the wind.

Note: I am specifically saying, here, for those in the back who aren't paying attention, Basic Republicanism has effectively shown itself to be as bad as or worse than Trump. See, Trump would just as soon tell us all to fuck off and die. Republican Senators on the other hand, want to actively make just exactly that a possibility while earning a tidy profit on the side.

Remind me again, just why in the hell we allow these absolute motherfucking bastards anywhere near government or public policy?!

They sold every American...all of us, conservative or liberal, rich or poor, of all colors and creeds, their donors as well as their critics...out for personal profit, and since then have done their level best as a group to prevent an effective response to the goddamned virus. Are you fucking kidding me with this ridiculous bullshit?!

This goddamned fucking cunt right here, Senator Loeffler, is worth half a billion dollars. Somehow, it's never enough, is it?

So much for the old bullshit conservative argument that the wealthy somehow can't be bought, eh?!

Listen, yo, I don't give a damn if you don't like the harsh language, there simply is not one better thing that can be said about this person. She's a fucking traitor who sold us out, not to a foreign power, but to a goddamn virus, for her own personal profit.

As far as I'm concerned her goddamned fortune and all of her holdings should be nationalized and the funds used to fight the fucking virus and she should be put on trial before a special tribunal and end her life posing for rifle shots in a dusty courtyard.

If you or I did this, or any Democratic Senator or Congress-person, did this shit and it got out we'd be lucky if our epitaph wasn't "Skinned alive by an angry mob." But ya know, Republicans and all too many of their voters will just be like "MAGA, bitches" while Senator Kelly laughs all the way to the goddamned bank.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

ALL of them.

While people are dying and millions of other lives are disrupted, while our economy grinds to a halt and Asian Americans have to worry about racist attacks, I (who am at least off with pay for awhile) worry about groceries and pet food...not to mention not getting the damn virus, because I have critters and people that depend on me.

Yes, there's incompetence, as often is demonstrated by Trump, his appointees, and his right-wing enablers.

This isn't that, this is just plain evil, malicious, monstrous greed...and for once, it didn't come from Donald Trump.

As far as I'm concerned this puts us in the territory of Nuremburg Trials, special tribunals and firing squads, people will die because of what these assholes did. They need to be held accountable, just as much as Trump does. In the end, it should be noted that the core problem was not Trump's dumb, amoral wannabe-fascism, but rather the same old greedy corporate zombie-capitalist bullshit that's been an increasing threat for going on 50 years. Trump is simply the end result, the public face of a party full of amoral, corrupt sons of bitches and the decline of education and public participation in the United States.

Happy now, Bern It All Down progressives?!

If you want this to stop, if you want a better country, you have to be better citizens. We have to vote these sons of bitches out in November.

All of them.

Vote like your life depends on it, because it probably does.

We can't afford "I don't feel like it today" or protest votes or being mad because Joe got the nomination and not Bernie. If you want to stay alive, vote Democrat.

Because Republicans won't even bother with the usual crocodile tears anymore, before they start trying to figure out how to profit from your death.