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.

Without Excuse (Part Three.)

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: ~Romans 1:20

My workplace started shutting down yesterday afternoon. I got the call right about 24 hours ago from the time I started typing this. I went in early, at 9:00 P.M. last night, and as of 5:06 A.M. this morning I'm off from work for two weeks, with pay, because of Coronavirus. I'm stocked up on all the stuff I need, and in point of fact I shouldn't have to go anywhere until Friday...because that's payday.

A lot of the credit for this is due to the governor of my state, Gretchen Whitmer, and to the tribal council of the tribe I work for actually being ahead of the curve and prepared for once.

And all things considered, I've not seen so much as a single damn reason in this whole mess, for either bigotry against Chinese people, or for misogyny, but then I'm not a conservative anymore either. Given how little of anything else even from their own supposed value system that conservatives bother to preach, let alone observe, these days...I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that bigotry and hate and misogyny are all that modern conservatism has left itself to stand on.

But it's worse than that, it really is. Given the opportunity to publicly stand up for other stuff, like all the values they used to espouse, let alone their claimed preference for getting results...Conservatives have almost universally declined such in favor of bigotry and generalized meanness. The only two things they appear to care about are shouting "FUCK YOU!" at literally everybody else and following it up with "Give me money."

I spent most of my life as a conservative and I can't support that. Not only that, but this whole "Fuck you, pay me" ethos of modern Republicanism turns me off to such a degree that I'm ashamed I ever was a Republican, or a Christian, or a conservative...and they've made any number of other things that I am or once was into things that it grates on my nerves whenever somebody brings it up.

Why?

Because instead of calling out bigotry when they see it...like I was taught to do as a kid way back when I was in Christian schools and being raised up in a moderately conservative family...Very Serious People like Erick Erickson respond by shouting "YES!!!" like 1980's teenagers when they see a post about people making racist comments right to a person's face would not have gone over well.

I am here to tell you that if I would have said something that's being said by White House Officials today, way back 35 or 40 years ago when I was learning this stuff I'd have got at least one ass whuppin. If I'd have said it at school I sure would have, my Mom would have got a call, a note would have been sent home and I'd get my butt beat as soon as my Dad got home, at least. I'd probably have got my moth washed out with soap, too. Oh, and in 1980, in the Baptist school I was attending at the time...we had a Chinese student and a Korean student, they were my friends...and in the case of the Chinese kid, my neighbor. That kid and his dad would sometimes go fishing with me and my Dad, or we'd all go to the gun range...and his mom worked with my mom at the church school.

He lived around the corner, next to some other friends of ours...the back end of his family's mobile home faced the side of ours and his yard was a place I could go. The people on the corner had this big gray Giant Schnauzer named Schnapps that our little group would give Milkbones to try to get him to stop barking when he was outside and we were playing in the big grassy space between my parents mobile home and the back ends of all the ones on the next street. Eventually, we figured out something that did work. Throw the ball....then throw it again, and again...

During the yearly Christmas thing at the church one year, he read some Bible verses...naturally from Luke, chapter 2, in Chinese. I remember, because I was one of the kids who followed up by reading them in English.

These are simple things, but they're things I remember. Half-forgotten like much of that early Christian education, but like that education these are things that serve as an anchor to my soul. It's stuff like this...and specific lessons and sayings from the people who taught me this stuff...that tell me not to be a crowd-follower in this day and age, and that first put it in my head that things like racism and misogyny were wrong.

It's funny how rarely one ever hears Christians preach about right and wrong these days...and telling what they do talk about if they do it.

It's a simple thing, yes, but let me teach you something that the Baptists taught me.

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children
Of the world

Jesus died for all the children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus died for all the children
Of the world.

Jesus rose for all the children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus rose for all the children
Of the world

It's really as simple as that...and you don't actually have to have the same foundation in Christianity that I do, to not be a total dickbag about this stuff. There's a million different ways to not be an asshole.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it, just what all these shitty people who call themselves "Christians" really expect would happen if Jesus came back and saw their rampant mistreatment of others?

I suspect some people are going to be very surprised where they end up in the afterlife.

If we want to have a better world, yes, we have to be better people. In fact, I'd argue that this is exactly what God expects of us.

Without Excuse (Part Two.)

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: ~Romans 1:20

Sunday and yesterday, Republicans were urging...in some cases demanding...that other people go out into the streets despite the virus because something something Gazpacho own the libs har de har har. Fuck these motherfuckers.

I'm just gonna say this one more time, for the slow people in the back and/or those who are just now catching on to what goddamned awful people all too many modern Republicans are...welcome to the party, pal.

If you think these fucking people believe in God, or at least, God as conventionally understood by most of the rest of us, you have another thing coming.

See, these fucking people think (at best) that God is just as much of an asshole as they are. At worst, He's just a con that they use to get Man's approval for their criminality, scams and shitty agendas.

Some of us figured out this shit years ago. And yes, they are just plain terrible fucking people...either actively in the case of people like David A. Clarke or Mitch McConnell, or passively in the case of their enablers like Cory Gardner or Susan Collins. I mean, seriously, if you're such a coward that you're afraid of people like them...or like Trump for that matter...for fuck's sake, don't go into politics, stay off social media, and be careful leaving the house.

Listen, speaking as somebody who was a moderate conservative Republican for two thirds of his life, I'm here to tell you that I really don't know where this "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" mentality that these fucking people suddenly have is coming from.

As with so many things, this is simply not what I was taught, not just about politics...but about life.

The only thing I really can say about that is that I think they know they've been exposed, they know the gig is up and they're trying to get while the getting is good and take as many people with them as they can, simply out of pure spite.

See, Republicans don't give a fuck about you, or me. Hell, they really don't even give a fuck about other Republicans, if you think about it.

Of course, there are those who are simply cruel, or sociopaths, or who for various reasons worship the idea of the Apocalypse...and I'm here to tell you that damned few of the actual Apocalypse worshipers really are the End Times Prophecy Movement Christians or the Rapture flunkies.

Far more of them are the misogynist assholes who want civilization to collapse because they think women will have to have sex with them then, or the Zombie Apocalypse nerds, or various and assorted gun nuts who think there's something good about going out in a blaze of glory.

A lot of these people, though, are the apathetic basically secular nominal-conservatives who are just frustrated by society in general and think somebody needs to chlorinate the gene pool. There's a lot more of this last group than you might think...or at least there used to be. It's those people who see Coronavirus as some kind of a chance for their spiteful dreams to come true. Of course yes, some of those people are racists or whatever. I'd go so far, however, as to say that most are not. You have to care, if you want to hate. A lot of these people simply don't believe in much of anything...except that they should be able to do what they want. Oh, and fuck you for telling them they can't. They don't actually care about the reason, they just want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, and they're utterly oblivious to the fact that sometimes, not everybody has the power to be that way. In fact, they simply don't see that...mostly because they don't really see other people. It's not that they don't see them as people...it's that they don't see them at all.

As the common internet observation goes "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."

Tucker Carlson is, fundamentally worried that Coronavirus might cause him to have to pay more in taxes or do something to support people he maybe doesn't like.

Most of the rest of us are worried about the possibility of millions of deaths, or at least have the sense to worry about our own.

I mean, does any of this crap really matter if you're dead?

And that, right there, is the part that I really don't understand. While it can certainly be argued that a lot of this mess can be traced to a generational, sublimated fear of death among Baby Boomers, far too many "Conservatives" are simply acting like they think it will never happen to them, that they will never die, that things will never change. Somehow, they think, Donald Trump will live forever and always be the President.

Bitch, I'm here to tell you, things, they're gonna change. Not just that, conservatives, but your own behavior (especially in light of this crisis) is going to guarantee it.

When the people who most consistently and loudly espouse the ideas of God and religiosity and who most enthusiastically preach political and social Conservatism AS Christianity...as if they are one and the same...are the same people who first and most flagrantly act as if it's all crap and we're all damned anyway and who cares so long as you have comfort and power and wealth in this life...I don't know why they are or ever would be surprised that people are believing in other faiths or even trying to find meaning in other things altogether.

All a better line of bullshit gets you is caught lying at a later date. If you want to have a better nation or a better world, you have to be better citizens, and yes, better people.