Hellfire (American Revelation IX, One.)

Through me is the way to the suffering city;
Through me is the everlasting pain;
Through me is the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me,
The Supreme Wisdom and Primal Love.
Nothing was made before me but eternal things
And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope - Ye Who Enter Here.'

~Sign above the gates of hell, Dante's Inferno.

...

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ~John 11:25

So, evidently yesterday Trump got raided at Mar-A-Lago by the FBI. Apparently, it's related to his theft of classified documents. That was yesterday, I found out about it when I got up...because I had to work Sunday night and slept most of the day.

LO...and I cannot fucking stress this enough...L.

Meanwhile, Republicans in general be like "You can't do that to him!" and Trump Supporters are basically threatening civil war all over social media.

I have a little experience in these matters myself and suffice it to say, as an Airman it was made clear to me exactly what would happen if I stole classified documents or any such thing, and it would absolutely not have taken the FBI 20 months to get around to raiding my shit if I'd done so.

I also...having been a conservative and lived in Northern Michigan for much of my life...have more than my share of experience with these fucking people.

With people who make up a bunch of stupid false prophecies about cities and nations being destroyed by the Wrath of their small, vengeful God and their children being the "Two Witnesses" of Revelation?

*Marks that down on Right-Wing Idiot Bingo Card helpfully provided by that English bloke.*

You know, the loudly, obnoxiously jingoistic "Patriots" who hate America, who hate everything about America, who'd cheerfully kill everyone else in America, shoot down its government, its military, trash civilization and society, strip this country all the way down to the bedrock and give it all to somebody like...Donald Trump?

*Marks that down too.*

Donald Trump, who until about ten years ago literally, in the most obnoxious way possible, represented everything these fucking people loudly said they hated about America.

America and its bustling cities, it's decadence and irreligion, its sexual immorality. I used to own (On VHS, because that's how far back I go) at least one Playboy videotape in which Donald Trump made an appearance as the ostensible host of whatever was going on. It was on the discount rack somewhere when I bought it, and I must've both had money and been bored, because I didn't (still don't) bother to buy that kind of shit otherwise.

Somehow I missed that Trump was in it, and I was like...eww. Two hot Latinas, Okay. That guy, not OK. Like...Eww.

At that time, back in the early-to-mid-1990's I associated Donald Trump with bankruptcy, divorce, occasional racism, stupid shit and casinos where everything was dirty or sticky, the food was garbage and the slot machines were tighter than an Evangelical virgin church girl.

Yes, I've been to Atlantic City, alright?

Donald Trump, that guy, who so many of the "Christians" these days try and claim is some kind of paragon of Bible-thumping moral rectitude. Donald Trump, sometime WWE wrestler.

Some of those WWE guys, I'll take it seriously when they say they're Believers, because of how they conduct themselves.

But Trump? Son of a bitch couldn't name two books of the Bible and claimed he didn't need God's forgiveness. 

Excuse me? None of this shit computes and I used to be a conservative Christian.

But I'm a tell you what does compute.

"We Are All Domestic Terrorists."

Yep, that fucking computes.

Let me tell you why.

About this time of year in 1994, I was an Air Force Security Policeman stationed at KI Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A good four hour drive from my Mom's house, and I'd come home for a couple days on a weekend leave. Sunday evening, I'm getting gas at the local Shell Station and I was in my BDU's because the plan was to go home, rack out for a few hours, then get up and go to work and I wouldn't have to take as much time to get ready. My duty day started early the next morning, as I recall.

I'm in uniform. Camo, combat boots, American flag on my shoulder, brand new Sergeant's strips, too. In the front license-plate holder on the dark blue 1980's Chevy Caprice that I was driving at the time there was a white plate that said "Someplace Special." It was a cultural thing for the 410th Bomb Wing. Anybody from the Upper Peninsula and a lot of Cold War or early 90's USAF bomb wing veterans will likely know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure I'd expect anybody else to, and that's OK. 

And I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit cocky about it all, too. 

Old Ford truck pulls up on the other side of the pump I'm using. Fat local loser (who'd been a friend of mine in high school) and his buddy (who I didn't know) get out of it. Other guy goes in the store. My old high school bro comes over and starts talking to me. This dude...who had all though the time I'd known him in the before times literally laughed about my going to church and used to call me "Sir Mix-A-Lot" because my girlfriend all through high school was a chubby nerd girl (who was way smaller than he'd gotten since) starts talking about how he's Found Jesus. (!!!!) [Note: This dude was previously known for two things, listening to rap music and smoking cigarettes and weed. I'd known from hunting with him and his cousin that neither one of them could hit shit with a rifle.] Since I'd last seen him he'd gone from wannabe Rap Guy and plus-size 90's hip-hop fashion back to the scummy side of typical dirty rural redneck, reeking of chain-smoking and motor oil...and he'd apparently quit shaving.

He tells me he's joined some militia group up by Cheboygan (the closest big town) because "The Lord wanted him to." And then he told me that I should look into doing the same because of the "New World Order" or some such bullshit, and by his, er, "reasoning" we were supposedly "on the same side."

Again, Me = In Uniform, no cover but hair military high-and-tight, shaved up, everything including the inside of my car military-grade clean and reeking of Lysol. I was trying to quit smoking (again) and trying to get the smell out of my car. Respect is earned, by every action, every day. Excellence in all that we do, yo.

And I got this fat fuck with apparently the I.Q. of pocket lint a pack each of Basics and King Edwards in the front pockets of his dirty shirt up in my face?? Oh, HELL NO!

And I'm like "Motherfucker, look at yourself. By definition we're not on the same side of anything. Look at me, dude. Look at this flag, these stripes! I just got back from Saudi Arabia. You? You look like you fell out of a Skoal can! Who the fuck you think you're talking to?" He tried to make some bullshit excuses but I kept right on him and finally just told him to get the fuck out of my face before I fucked him up. He went and put whatever amount of gas his buddy had paid for in the truck. I went in and paid for my gas and by the time I was done and getting on the road they were gone.

Never saw him again, except in the local paper. He got busted for selling weed and did some time. Through mutual friends, I heard both sides of the story. As it turns out, these kind of fucking people always think consequences for their actions is some kind of vast conspiracy.

I don't know if this dude's parents (or him, for that matter) are still alive or if any of them live in the same place, but I'll tell you what. Where they lived 30 years ago there's Trump 2020 signs still all over the damn place.

And I'd run into the same kind shit seven years later from my ex-wife, except instead of the government being out to get her it was demons and witches out to stop the Chosen Ones from being born. The fact that she'd ran our finances into the ground and tried to wreck every other relationship in my life...and then gone psycho religious nut when I'd (predictably) left could not be reached for comment. 

About the only difference is I know my ex isn't a Q-nut or a Trump Supporter. She buys into all the rest of the conspiracy theories and then some, by the way.

I'm warning you now. Expect that if Trump is indicted, let alone arrested or locked up, that he will absolutely Find The Lord(TM) and appoint himself These Fucking People's Preacher-In-Chief.

And this, too, is a thing you need to know.

You think the conspiracy theories and the Q-Anon shit is/was bad? There is absolutely no more "Morally Flexible" do-whatever-you-want-and-feel-justified-about-it belief system in the world than this New Apostolic Reformation Prosperity Gospel crap that's resurfaced as a thing lately and apparently even overran CPAC.

These are the people who live lives that'd make a troop of horny Bonobos feel ashamed. And they don't care if you know, just don't point it out or they'll get mad. But Jesus loves and forgives them (and not you) and that makes everything they do Okay.

This is absolutely two streams of things I was hoping like hell wouldn't come together, but here we are.

You think Republican rationalizing is bad, immature and puerile now, on a normal day? Or that Republicans normally are piece of shit criminals and grifters? Wait until these motherfuckers get them some Holy Ghost, and you ain't seen nothing yet. Remember "I know the way to Jesus, now send me $20" is these people's starting point.

They'll do a bunch of nasty shit, claim God is going to supernaturally destroy this, that and the other thing when it doesn't go their way...and when that doesn't happen they'll get muscles the size of Samson moving them goalposts, and when nothing happens after the third or fourth...or thirty-fourth...time they've tried to call down Revelation on your ass or the world in general for not doing what they want...and nothing happens...they'll start trying to bullshit the Universe into giving it to them.

And what they want is hellfire. They don't care if it consumes them, too. They just don't. Every last person I've ever seen get into this shit turns self-destructive sooner or later. As long as the Blood God eats you first, that's all that matters.

And that was before far-right politics entered the equation. Their religion was all about them and their selfish desires even before that. They follow Trump because they think he IS them, or at least, their wildest imaginings about themselves, personified.

Or they will until he goes down. When he does, they'll hope he brings about the End Times somehow.

And when that doesn't work, they'll start trying to bring it all about their own damn selves. Their goal is that they get to go to heaven and watch you get eaten by the Things From Beyond. Heaven isn't Heaven if other people get to go. America isn't America if somebody says "Mubarak Ramadan!" to them in Walmart.

And when push comes to shove, no, they don't give a damn about Jesus...because in the end they will convince themselves that they are Heavenly Beings.

Oh, you thought it was a Cult before? 

The Cthulhu cultists Lovecraft came up with have nothing on these idiots. I'm not joking.

This is Christianity, as redesigned by the people who brought you the Aliens franchise and Warhammer 40K, with some real bad drugs thrown in. But unlike gaming or science fiction writers, these people really believe in their own stuff. 

Or at least, in the dopamine rush that it gives them, and Trump Jr. says that makes it all real, right?

And they will try to weaponize ALL this crap to make sure that the Rich Old White Man doesn't face consequences. When he does anyway, they'll say Trump didn't Believe In It Hard Enough and go get themselves another one.

And then they'll try and repeat this cycle of crazy contradictory bullshit again and again, because they think each time they pull the lever, they'll get a different result.

If that's the definition of insanity, well, I really don't know how else to describe this shit.

If you want a better country, you're going to have to be a better citizen, and we're likely going to have to fight for it, too.

Слава Україна!

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Bleeding Kansas, Again. (Also, WTF, Republicans?)

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

I saw this the other night. And it pissed me off. Michigan GOP governor candidate Tudor Dixon saying she'll "Keep Drag Queens out of schools." Bitch, what?

Ain't no Drag Queens in no schools. This is not a thing that's happening. Drag Queens are grown-ass, usually straight men who dress up like women. That'd be against the dress code in most schools.

Of course, this dumb bitch is using "Drag Queens" as shorthand for Gender-nonconforming and LGBT people in general, and transgender kids in particular, because she's nothing but another two-bit bigot. 

As if somebody who's known mostly for posting dumb shit on Instagram, softcore Vampire Porn or Zombie Apocalypse videos can just drink some Potion Of Conservative Assholery and instantly turn into Rush Limbaugh. (No, I'm not even going to give Trump's own simpering grade-school antics consideration here.)

Why? Because I guess even if she sucks at it, she has to at least try. Without bigotry, without discrimination, the entire modern Republican "Thing" falls apart into a maelstrom of competing factions and everybody sees manipulating the bigoted MAGA yokels as the tiger they can ride in their victory parade.

Besides, if you really want to Conservative Asshole the right way and "Own The Libs" you want to be on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, not some stupid Playboy video shit. Rush might've sucked gigantic festering necrotic donkey balls, but at least he still did shit in an identifiably conservative way even when it didn't necessarily benefit him. And yes, it cost him when he tried to be a TV sportscaster.

I frankly detest people who want to talk like they're some kind of bigoted 1960's Union dock workers or something, but then claim all the modern shit, too...especially when they get into politics, or if things stop going their way. Tudor wants to talk about "Drag Queens" but if people who talked like the old Republicans I knew did about somebody like her, to her face...she'd be demanding all the "Woke" shit for her own defense, trust me.

And I thought the same thing about seeing a picture of Caitlyn Jenner at Trump's Radical Islamic golf tournament. You do not want to know what my people would have said about her back in the day. My dudes might've been willing to mind their own business or keep their piece about certain things. But there were, shall we say, limits.

And they'd say what they said whether it necessarily was to their advantage or not. Yes, a lot of these people were bigoted assholes, but they were neither two-faced, nor nanny-state eliminationist about dealing with that which was different.

As long as "different" didn't make a point of bothering them, they didn't bother it. The jokes told around beer, cigars, and whiskey might be the kind you can't really tell anymore, but we didn't try and rub people's noses in it or try to make a scene.

And a lot of us eventually rolled with things and evolved, because life.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's how it was.

But, see, I was taught "Live and let live" even if I didn't like somebody.

Maybe it's just me, and I know I'm a lot more old-school than most of these people, whose beliefs move with the latest fanaticism, or the wind on a clear day and then they want to evangelize the world into their (newfound) point of view...but I think people have a right to do what they need to do without any of these fucking people bothering them about it.

And yes, that absolutely includes LGBT kids, or parents for that matter.

And again, yes, I say that as somebody who told plenty of jokes about gay stuff back in the day.

But there was limits, and they was enforced.

These motherfuckers in the modern Republican Party don't have the sense to blow off steam out of sight or keep their bigotry behind closed doors. Hell, they act like they should be able to act out in public and get a prize for it. 

They likewise don't really seem to give a shit that all the bigotry and craziness and outrage-addiction will eventually eat them like it's a hungry tiger and they're the sheep that couldn't get away fast enough, because eventually everybody does something to offend the mob. 

Why? Mostly because the mob nowadays doesn't wait for something to annoy them, it is actively out there 24/7 looking for something to be offended by, and an excuse to be mad about it in the most performative way possible. And who needs the back deck or the smoking room when you have the internet?

And yes, that's exactly what these fucking people are, nothing but a goddamned mob. 

More to the point, like I said they want to act out publicly, rather than privately, and think they should get some kind of medal for it.

Cracker Barrell evidently joined, ya know, every other major restaurant chain out there in offering "Impossible" brand plant-based sausages and shit. 

Hey, I don't much care for the stuff (I think a lot of this plant based stuff tastes like eating a paper bag) but if somebody else likes it...or has to or wants to eat it, it doesn't matter to me. I might laugh about it later, but I'm not going to mock some Vegan person to their face about their life choices or get mad that my favorite source of grease and cholesterol is providing a service to somebody else.

Ya know, Capitalism? Freedom?

The company sees the chance to make a few extra bucks by expanding their customer base by offering different stuff. What's wrong with that?

Evidently a bunch of rednecks and shit got all mad about it, because mob behavior and they have to have something to be mad about. And they can't enjoy a good (??????) meal [Fuck, it hurt to even think that] if the place doesn't serve only food that nobody but them likes. Cracker Barrell isn't Cracker Barrell if some tofu-eating Vegan might eat there someday, or some shit. Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. Bigotry and excluding others are, quite honestly, the only thing most of these idiots seem to actually like doing.

Seriously, y'all, fuck this silly bullshit. I've never eaten at a Cracker Barrell in my life and I'm not about to start.

And it gets worse, because of course it does. After last week's debacle over the PACT Act and the resulting public backlash to Republicans blocking it and then celebrating on the Senate floor, the Senate voted on it again and it passed this time.

Except some of these fucking people, like Rand Paul, voted against it again, claiming the PACT Act in particular and government spending in general will "wreck the economy." 

Seriously, I'm not going to, but I'll bet you money that if I look through Rand Paul's social media feeds there's a post somewhere touting the economic benefits of producing a whole bunch more F-35 Lighting II jets that only work maybe half the time.

But ya know, if the pilots, ground crew, maintainers and assorted support personnel were exposed to carcinogens via burn pits or some other shit while deployed? 

Republicans be like "fuck them. The economy damn it" blah blah blah. I've got news for you, Rand. Your war machine ain't going to work without the people that run it. Republicans hate the military. They love the defense contractors who give them money. It's really that damned simple.

And I have to say that I find it interesting that when all these international alliances and weapons are used for their intended purpose...that is, defending the global order and protecting the less-powerful from the ruthless...I find it interesting that that's the cutoff point where a lot of these Republicans say they don't want to play anymore. 

Sweet Jesus, can you imagine Reagan or George H.W. Bush if, say, things would have been less peaceful at the time, and Ukraine had ripped down the Hammer And Sickle and told the Russians to go fuck themselves while either of them was in office? 

Especially Bush after the fall of the Berlin Wall when...yes...we were looking for something to use all that big green and haze-gray firepower on while we still had it at the ready, simply to prove that there'd been a need for it all this time? The response would've been right out of all those Cold War novels and it would've been on like Donkey Kong...because Freedom, and at the time that was more than just an empty slogan to these people.

True enough, I think both parts of that are a big part of why Desert Storm happened, but it amply proved the damned point. Sweet Jesus, if the Ukrainians are fucking the Russians up this bad with a few HIMARS systems and flood of more basic weapons we've given them...any conflict where it's us against the Russians would make Desert Storm look like slow motion, leave a big smoking crater where the Red Army used to be, and leave the Russians wondering what the fuck even happened. 

The difference between the citizen-soldiers of a free nation and their courage and values, and the subservient conscripts of Putinist Neo-Communist totalitarianism in their obedience to Power could not be any more plain than the battlefields of Ukraine have made it.

And back in the day Uncle Sam would've kicked their ass, used the Red Banner for toilet paper and put Lenin's taxidermed ass in the wax museum at Knott's Berry Farm (Look that place up, its history and who started it, I fuckin' dare you.) and triple-dog-dared anybody to do anything about it...judging from the performance of Putin's New Soviet Men, anyway, we'd have probably gotten away with it.

Bomb 'em until they glow and use they asses for runway lights, as some of the older ex-SAC guys used to say.

That's the conservative attitude as I remember it. What the fuck happened? Now, Republicans pick the losing side, the side that lost the Cold War, with malice aforethought, and ally with them gleefully simply because they hate the rest of us?

Fuck That.

'Cause right now there's entire previous generations of Republicans (and not a few older-school Democrats) looking down at Josh Hawley from Capitalist Valhalla like "What's wrong with you, you interior-decorator-looking motherfucker??" 

Although I could see people like LBJ, Nixon, or for that matter Reagan using less...politically correct...euphemisms. I'm sorry, but these guys...particularly Reagan...cultivated a certain image that stuck in the minds of people like me. And it was Ayn Rand's attempt at Capitalist Chic, or the whole Marlboro Man cowboy thing, it sure as all fuck wasn't Josh Hawley's pathetic run away from his own goddamned mob. 

Fist in the air my fucking ass. Yeah, pencil-neck power. Fuck you, man.

Thing I don't get about Hawley...other than the fact that he has Putin's dick up his ass...in this matter is that neither Finland nor Sweden joining NATO is going to cost us much of anything, and both bring advanced, robust military forces with their own...damned near everything they need already, and already networked with NATO to cover what they don't have...to the table, straight up. 

In point of fact the Finns are set to buy a shitload of F-35's (Even though, since they already use the earlier version of the Hornet, Super Hornets would probably serve them better and the force would be on line a whole hell of a lot faster. But, whatever) and were actively planning to expand their Navy before this whole thing with Ukraine even started.

But of course, it's not really about any of that, is it??

You'd think, whether on issues of bodily sovereignty, family planning, sexuality, what people eat, or even the things they've said for so long are so fundamental like one's right to defend themselves or their own country or to make alliances in the world and have a stronger defense or foreign policy, that Republicans would mind their own damned business on the former...or as they so often did in the past, simply leave such things up to the individual (Which was exactly the point of Roe Vs. Wade.) 

We used to be all about supporting the latter. People have to have the right to make their own choices, even if you don't like those choices. That's what freedom even is.

And yesterday, Kansas voters broke their foot off in the GOP's ass, and this is the first time We The People have really had much of a chance to weigh in on the whole abortion rights issue.

Kansas, of all places, Wow. I'm a lifelong student of history. Shit starts in Bleeding Kansas, yo. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory...

I guess not all Republicans have forgotten what freedom means, or that words have meaning.

Or that somebody's biology or gender or sex shouldn't put them in chains.

But current Republicans don't give a shit about any of that. 

They're more interested in a collective right to boss other people around and bully them, or to discriminate, or simply to hurt or kill people. And all the evidence suggests they wouldn't even be very good at it, certainly not against anybody who's going to fight back.

Modern Republicans are used to conducting themselves like strutting, jackbooted goons while the media and much of the political class equivocates on their behalf, as if they have some kind of valid societal role to be assholes. Like, it's the old stupid "just ignore the bullies and they'll go away" shit.

No, the way you make that shit stop is punch somebody right in the mouth. Repeat this until you understand it.

Well, come November, We The People have another chance to remind these sons of bitches what usually happens to people like that. Democrats had best get used to the idea of using the big stick, because ain't nothing else going to make this shit go away. 

Let's get after it. The Republican Party seems to be trying to commit mass political suicide, but we ain't got time to wait around for them to succeed. What replaces them might be worse.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of this bullshit, and I don't want it to get worse.

And yes, I say that as a former Republican myself.

We were what we were...but given what they've become, goddamn, I miss those assholes. Modern Republicans combine the worst traits of far-left and totalitarian Right in the service of one thing only; Cruelty. 

It was so much better when cruelty wasn't the point. You want to make these people find something else to do with themselves, you have to step up, whup they ass, and make them think it might be in their best interest to find a new hobby.

But you have to do it. You want a better world, you have to be a better citizen.

You have to be the citizen-legislator or the citizen-soldier or simply the dedicated citizen and tell Power and Authority what they can go do with themselves.

You.

Get after it.

Слава Україна!

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Death Cult Burn Pits

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

This week, Republicans blocked the PACT Act in the Senate after previously supporting it, and then they celebrated afterwards.

This would have provided funding to support veterans suffering from the effects of exposure to toxic burn pits.

People are pissed off, and of course, the fact that a famous, widely-respected comedian is one of the main supporters of the lobbying effort that led to the PACT Act in the first place can only help in the long run. Something will get done, this is personal to a lot of people, including me.

I'm a United States Air Force Security Forces veteran, I *Was* deployed and exposed to this kind of shit, but not nearly with as serious of effects as some of my bros who served longer, got sent to places like Afghanistan and Iraq and dealt with it for longer and had much more prolonged exposure.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

There's an awful lot of veterans that I know who are pretty pissed off about this mess, including plenty of Republican ones. It'll certainly be enough to flip quite a few votes. Add that to the expanding list of things people are legitimately pissed off about right now, and yes, Republicans could be looking at serious losses in November.

I mean, fuck.

The House just passed an assault weapons ban, effectively reinstating the one from the 1990's that expired in the early aughts...if it gets by the Senate and Biden signs it, that is.

It won't do much about the weapons already in circulation, but it might stop the bleeding for awhile, until the arms manufacturers figure out all the loopholes just like they did back then, and so on.

But it's a start...if it passes the Senate.

Here's the thing, though.

As to the core problem, none of this stuff matters worth a damn.

It's a cult. This has to be addressed.

I mean, seriously, what the fuck has Donald Trump or Matt Gaetz done for anybody other than themselves? And this is a problem that goes way back, a buddy of mine from my old job...an old Black Vietnam Veteran who served eight years in the Marine Corps said the same thing about Gerald Ford "What the fuck did Gerald Ford ever do for anybody but Gerald Ford?" 

And Ford...or Reagan...or, hell, old Tricky Dick Nixon was a hell of a lot less openly malevolent than current Republicans are.

There's a reason all these old shits could stand there on the Senate floor and fist-bump and laugh it up after they'd blocked a bipartisan bill that had massive popularity and support...purely as retaliation for the Democrats (and some Republicans) passing a measure to combat inflation and price-gouging.

(Which really amounts to "Democrats took away the stick Republicans had been beating them with." That's all, and they mad.)

Their voter base simply doesn't care. 

The massively non-veteran-majority, completely oblivious MAGA-Republican base could absolutely give a shit. And, egged on by foreign trolls and Russian bots, they've already bent and pounded and refashioned what is a massive defeat...for some of their loved ones too...into a victory for themselves. 

It's a fucking Death Cult.

They simply claimed that (nonexistent) unrelated spending had been added to the bill. In fact it had not. This lie has been addressed and countered by people and groups as diverse as Adam Kinzinger, Jon Stewart, the fucking VFW (Hardly a bastion of Democratic Wokeness) and VoteVets.

And here's the thing.

It will continue until we, as a people, stop tolerating this garbage. Stop fist-bumping and laughing it up with murderous assholes, cut them off, ostracize them, stop fucking them, etc.

And more to the point, you want to know what we can do to start stripping all this crap away?

Stop putting up with the people who want to paper everything from their ignorance to shitty legislative decisions over with some Jesus and Blah Blah Blah and then we'll make some real progress. Send people to therapists instead of a fucking church camp. Somebody starts talking about Jesus? 

Walk away.

I spent most of my life as a Christian, this MAGA-Patriot-Christian Crap ain't what I was taught. I'd love for someone to do a follow-up and see how many of these couples Mike Pence is talking about are divorced now because things got better for two weeks after that bullshit program...and then got worse. Yes, I've been to this rodeo.

And that's how it fucking ends up, every goddamned time.

How do these assholes justify supporting authoritarians like Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin...despite increasingly horrific murderous bullshit on the part of the latter?

They start talking about Jesus and generally jerking off with themselves, because apparently Communist Dictator Vladimir Putin pretends to love him some Jesus, or something.

And it very rapidly spirals out into rabid Creationism and conspiracy theories, because once you've believed one impossible thing, why not more? It's like fucking drugs for some people.

And ironically it was Commies like Putin who, themselves, called religion the Opiate of the Masses. Now they exploit it, same as Republicans do. And they'll keep at it until the masses that follow them are reduced to cannibalism and dancing around a fire shouting "Unga Bunga."

But the "Conservatives" ended up with all those people's money, so it worked out (for them.) On a certain level they don't really care if they have to live out the rest of their lives in a bunker somewhere and can't spend it. They "Won" and they don't really care what they won. 

See how this works, really?

We really need to stop putting up with this shit. Nothing is going to improve much until we do.

And it can ever and always get worse. These fucking people would happily burn down civilization and call it an offering to their shitty, selfish version of God.

Which they've really just made in their own image.

Start here

Here

And Here

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For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

75% Goddamn It. (Soylent Red, Three.)

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson

...

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (“In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.") ~HP Lovecraft

I saw this the other day.

According to a Politico poll, 75% of Republicans are opposed to interracial marriage, In 2022. 75% What the fuck?

Racism has basically eaten the Republican Party as it once existed, like some kind of evil elder god rising from a watery grave because the stars aligned just right. 

These fucking people seem to think they're going to die if they can't discriminate against somebody...hell, anybody. Because they're absolutely terrified that if they don't, by way of showing their "Power" somebody will turn it around and discriminate against them, treat them the same way they've treated everybody else basically forever.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

And fuck Lee Atwater and fuck Nixon and his Southern Strategy and every other son of a bitch who let these people in the door of the Republican Party, and fuck Reagan for letting the religious nuts in and sanctifying the whole goddamned mess.

For the record, some of the most devoutly Christian people I've ever met in my life were...interracial couples. Often it was their shared faith that brought them together in the first place.

But of course it was never really about that.

Abraham Lincoln fucking wept.

Something suggests he ain't the only one, though.

Tou Thao, one of the cops who stood by while Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd over the course of eight minutes, was sentenced yesterday.

As some kind of a plea for leniency he gave a 22 minute speech in which he sermonized that LGBT people should be killed...I mean, what the actual goddamned fucking fuck?

What does that have to do with anything?

Other than illustrating exactly why this motherfucker should've never been a cop or had power over even so much as what's on a sandwich, like, ever.

Dude, you stood by for eight minutes while one of your bros literally sadistically murdered somebody, who gives a damn what you think? According to the Word, you're the one who's going to hell, not the gay people. You could have stopped a murder and saved a man's life. You literally didn't.

A simple "Dude, what the fuck?" from a peer would have likely backed Chauvin off and saved George Floyd's life and he'd still be alive, be known to the world as little more than an arrest statistic and the plaintiff in some kind of lawsuit and Derek Chauvin would likely have only faced the union having to do some fancy footwork so he could keep his job and he might've got fired anyway but at least he, and you for that matter, wouldn't be in prison. But no, your useless ass stood by and did fuck all to stop a literal crime being committed right in front of you. And that really is these fucking people's ideal of a Christian society.

"Let's see who we can get away with killing."

Thou Shalt Not Kill was unavailable for comment.

A modern "Christian Society" would have to be diverse, multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial as fuck...and a society by definition based on love. If it was going to work, that is. If it was according to the Word, that is.

Somehow it never is. Thus, it will never be. It cannot exist...because the privileged people who talk this shit could give a fuck about Jesus or His Word.

Tou Thao could have...should have...been that guy. He's a Hmong immigrant.

But it was never about that, and the only way to get in the door with people like Emerald Robinson and Josh Hawley is to embrace their vicious hate. 

If you fuckers don't know right from wrong, don't quote the fucking Word. It's that simple.

Oh, right, it was never about any of that anyway.

It was never about America.

It was never about Christianity.

It was never about conservatism.

And it sure as a motherfucker wasn't about Jesus.

It was always about fooling the feeble-minded and trying to get more money and power.

Never mind that with These Fucking People in charge, the money wouldn't be worth anything before long, and sooner, rather than later the only power they're each going to have is over a scruffy band of broke-ass bandits, fighting with the band of the same, next door, over food supplies and potable water with AK-47's and technical trucks.

Or with sticks and stones.

But that's Okay by the Republicans, so long as they get rape little girls while denying them any health care or recourse, and practice nothing but wanton cruelty and slaughter while shouting Allah Akbar "Jesus Loves You" so they can feel good about themselves while they murder people.

As long as they get some kind of material gain out of it. 

If you think these fuckers wouldn't murder people for a dented, rusting $0.67 can of Spaghetti or a dirty, moldy piece of cheese pulled out of a garbage can...or for strips of human flesh grilled on an old truck radiator...you have another thing coming. 

It doesn't matter the amount or the scale of anything, it's the cruelty that's the fucking point.

Repeat this until you understand it.

In a civilized society these sons of bitches would be nothing but street hoods, in and out of jail and not allowed anywhere near power or profits...or weapons.

But here we have a former US President hosting a Saudi golf tournament...and defending Saudi Arabia from his fellow Americans...because money and it strokes his authoritarian priapism. And the rabidly anti-Islamic far-right not only says nothing, but where the Saudis...or even Daesh or the Taliban...are concerned it mysteriously doesn't exist anymore.

But some Iranian woman protests for equal rights, and that's a fucking problem?

Why? Because it might give the American ones the idea that they should not put up with your bullshit??

No wonder these motherfuckers all love a petty nihilist given power, like Vladimir Putin. Even Trump doesn't really seem to cut the mustard anymore. 

They're actively trying to find worse. I'm beginning to think I understand why God rained fire on Sodom and Gamorrah. Could you even find ten decent Republicans?

And they're looking for worse than this? 

Or to be worse than this?

Fuuuuck.

And it will rise up. Soon. Be prepared for this.

Be prepared to defend yourself, it will come to that.

Fuck you, Republicans.

Two

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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Evil Elder Gods Nationalism (Soylent Red, Two.)

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

I saw this a couple days ago. At a TPUSA event there were literal Nazis, White Supremacists, out front protesting and talking up a bunch of dumb shit, like saying that "White people kicked Black people's asses in the Rhodesian Bush War."

Bullshit.

Metrically, Provably, Bullshit.

It's provable that this is bullshit simply by looking at a current map and seeing that Zimbabwe is on it, and Rhodesia is not. The only way it could be more obvious bullshit is if it'd actually fallen out of a bull's ass. The ZANU-PF Black Nationalist guerillas won, and the Rhodesian Security Forces lost. A negotiated settlement and reversion to British rule under Margaret Thatcher's Tories to stabilize things before new elections was the best deal they were going to get and they knew it.

Being only one out of the many rather than the rulers beats the shit out of, you know, Death.

Yes, you can argue all day that the Black forces suffered higher casualties (In point of fact the casualty ratio was nearly ten to one.) That's not even close to the point of any war, especially an insurgency. The objective is not to destroy the enemy, so much as it is to break the will to fight. That goes double for an insurgent war like the Rhodesian Bush War In fact, by the end of it, it wasn't an insurgent war anymore. The racists had done so badly at counterinsurgency, at winning hearts and minds, that Both sides had heavy artillery, tanks and shit.

And the Rhodesian security forces would have been outnumbered two-to-one. Against a conventional invasion using Soviet doctrine and likely backed by Mozambique, especially when your own forces are built for highly mobile counterinsurgency rather than massed mechanized combat. That's bad odds even if the other side is using old Soviet cast-off T-34's vs. your own Polish-produced, South African-provided T-55's.

More to the point, though there was a core of professional White soldiers, and some elite units like the Rhodesian SAS and the Selous Scouts were all-white and they had American and other foreign white volunteers (many of whom were anti-Communist, Christian and racist extremists.) the majority of the active-duty Rhodesian Army always consisted of Black soldiers and that only changed in favor of the Blacks...especially by the end of the war.

Change was going to come, anyway, even if they successfully resisted.

It's hard to look a man in the face and tell them they can't have a say in how their country is run when they're both in the majority of the population and bearing a salad bar on their chest full of military decorations and the scars from earning them.

More to the point, despite initial alignment with the East Bloc (and Zimbabwean alignment with China that continues today) Beneath a thin veneer of socialism, Robert Mugabe governed basically as a standard conservative though he of course extended full economic and political rights and freedoms to Black people. I know Zimbabwean people...Zimbabwe is devoutly, massively, overwhelmingly Christian.

None of that matters to These Fucking People, none of it ever really did.

Change came, a lot of the Whites left because they didn't like having to compete on an even playing field with everybody else, they weren't 100% In Charge with a gold-plated certificate from God anymore, and nothing else mattered.

And that's exactly what These Fucking People are afraid of here, even though change has long since come and simply become the new goddamned normal a long time ago, "Conservatives" have only in the last few years caught on to this because they often live in an increasingly radicalized echo chamber, and have done so for a generation.

If you don't think these motherfuckers would try and break off a piece of America for their own shitty little Banana Republic that's beholden to China and Russia and fucking Saudi Arabia, you have another thing coming.

Change is visible to them, now, even in rural areas like where my Mom lives. And that's the real problem. So, suddenly, they want to try to Make It 1953 Again. Fuck all that. Nobody else but you wants to go back, motherfuckers.

And they're starting to figure out that people are a lot less likely to cater to them, now that they bet everything on "Fuck you, I've Got Mine." Relative Status doesn't help anything when you're an old person and you're starving to death and on the street because politicians cut or took away your Social Security which was all you had for retirement because Republican Ayn Rand economics meant you had no pension.

Again, my Mom has a 401(K) and a pension and all that. She still can't make it without Social Security.

Feeling proud because you supported the rich person getting that stupendous mansion at everybody else's expense won't keep you fed or housed. You might get a brief feeling of power out of the idea that "The Black People will get it worse!" But that doesn't do you any good...and chances are they're doing what they have to, to survive, while also fighting for your rights, too.

People should fucking know by now not to expect decency or gratitude from Republicans.

And again, it's worth noting in case any Christians, Libertarians or Reaganite Republicans happen to read this that Ayn Rand was a Russian Jewish Atheist who was on Social Security when she died of lung cancer. It's all bullshit, and even she knew it in the end.

This new "Christian Nationalist" angle is pure bullshit. The Confederacy was Christian Nationalist, the KKK was Christian Nationalist, Rhodesia was Christian Nationalist, Apartheid South Africa was Christian Nationalist, somehow it's never actually about Christ or the Nation. Somehow it's always about packaging racism, right-wing politics and Whiteness as religion in the hope that they'll get away with something more than they would have otherwise. 

You know who some of the most passionately Christian people I've met in my life were? Interracial couples...because very often it's shared faith that brought them together in the first place. I literally owe some of these people my life and the fact that I have any sense of spirituality at all, in the face of all this stupidity in recent years.

It's not about Christ. It never was.

It is, ever and always, about dividing people and these motherfuckers seeing what they can get out of it.

And even more than that, it's about avoiding accountability for Donald Trump, because they all bought into the bullshit and lies. Thus, it's about avoiding accountability and responsibility for themselves.

You think this son of a bitch, this traitorous terrorist, were he still alive and still an American citizen, wouldn't have voted for Donald Trump twice and be arguing for even worse than him today?? 

Some of these fucking people were enough of racist assholes that they were considered edge cases and shitcanned from officer training and prestigious military units and forced into lesser ones in an explicitly racist white state. Why? Because at least some people recognized exactly what kind of war they were fighting and that increased brutality and use of chemical weapons against the enemy would probably make things worse.

But again, for These Fucking People, battlefield valor or even "Defending Western Civilization" aren't really the point. They simply want to abuse and kill people under color of authority.

And when they can't do it to the rest of us, they'll use and abuse the fuck out of their own people. They'll be more than happy to eat their own, as long as there's a pecking order of who will be eaten first.

It's a cult, and while their stated goal seems to be making things so bad that [their version of] Jesus has to show up and save them...I quite wonder if there aren't darker powers at work here. Would these insane assholes even know the difference between Cthulhu and Jesus?

They sure enough don't seem to know the difference between Jesus and Donald Trump...or Vladimir Putin. I wouldn't put Evil Elder Gods Nationalism past these fucking people.

There seem to be few enough darker powers they won't buddy up to, if they think it'll hurt the liberals and people they don't like.

So where the fuck do you think that leaves you or me, people who are just trying to survive without these idiots being up our ass about it?

Vote these motherfuckers out...all of them...kick their Nazi Storm-Trumpers to the curb and then be prepared to defend yourself, because it will come to that.

They won't have it any other way, and they're already telling us this.

One

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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (“In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.") ~HP Lovecraft