(Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)
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First World Problems
(Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Author: admin
(Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)
As The Hill reports, “The Taliban are reportedly requiring a strict dress code for government workers in Afghanistan, including wearing a beard, amid multiple other restrictions that echo scenes from their previous rule in the 1990s. Members of the Taliban vice and virtue ministry reportedly stood and patrolled outside government ministries on Monday, ordering male employees without traditional turbans and beards to return home, according to multiple reports. … The dress code is the latest in a series of restrictions aimed at enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”
From Reuters, “The Taliban have told airlines in Afghanistan that women cannot board domestic or international flights without a male chaperone, two sources told Reuters on Sunday. The move comes after the Taliban backtracked on their previous commitment to open high schools to girls, a u-turn that shocked many Afghans and drew condemnation from humanitarian agencies and foreign governments.”
According to the UN News, “Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are institutionalizing large scale and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls, independent UN human rights experts warned on Monday. The group of around three dozen Human Rights Council-appointed experts highlighted a ‘wave of measures’ such as barring women from returning to their jobs, requiring a male relative to accompany them in public spaces, prohibiting women from using public transport on their own, as well as imposing a strict dress code on women and girls.”
Finally, the BBC reports, “BBC TV programming has been taken off air in Afghanistan, after the Taliban ordered local channels not to broadcast content from international partners. Calling it a ‘worrying development’, the BBC said it would affect more than six million viewers of Persian, Pashto and Uzbek language service programmes.”
As it turns out, America’s adventurism in Afghanistan was a completely colossal waste of blood and treasure. After 20 years, the Taliban returns, and they are slowly reverting Afghanistan to the fourteenth century. Sad.
According to an excellent article in the Intelligencer, “This week brought us evidence that QAnon thought has spread further than we knew: into the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the very highest levels of the Republican Party. It is increasingly difficult to separate the movement’s demented beliefs from the ideology of the already democracy-averse GOP, its traces evident in legislation, media appearances, and leaked private communications. … The signs of the Republican slide toward full epistemic crack-up are all around us. One can see it everywhere lately, not only in the ‘why do you want to hurt children?’–type questions hurled by Republican senators at Jackson, but also in the revanchist anti-LGBTQ laws being introduced in Texas and Florida and in fearful talk of teachers’ grooming’ children on Fox News. The ginned-up moral panic, centered around the child-exploitation themes that helped give life to QAnon, is now a regular part of Republican political rhetoric. … If you had any lingering pretensions that our political elites know better than the average QAnon-pilled zombie, it’s past time to let them go. The people in charge of the Republican Party are mostly old and poorly informed operators who believe some of the most asinine theories to emerge from social-media bilge. Granting them some measure of savviness — saying that this is red meat for the Republican base, or that it keeps the checks from right-wing billionaires coming in — is to offer too much credit. More than that, it risks absolving them through some nod toward political practicalities when, mostly, this is all pretty evil and disturbing.”
I will go one step further and say QAnon is America’s new religion, which means America is doomed, natch. Do not think for one second that QAnon is any longer fringe. With RepubliKKKlans’ recent full embrace, it is as mainstream as apple pie, just like Christianity. I will not belabor the point because the article did such an exceptional job of describing the evolving problem; suffice it to say, stupid America was made for QAnon, and QAnon was made for stupid America. So get ready when RepubliKKKlans take over the government, and QAnon becomes the new American religion imposed on the rest of us. As I have long said, America has reached the critical mass of stupidity, and the stupid will kill us all and the country.
And then we have dumbass Democrats, who may be rightly aghast and confused about the spread and persistence of QAnon. But the time for being shocked is over. It is no longer a matter of asking how people can believe such incomprehensible stupidity; now it is a matter of how many people in power will use QAnon beliefs to gain more power and destroy America. Democrats need to take the QAnon menace seriously and head-on. Yet, I fear dumbass Democrats will do what they always do: Ignore things, expecting (hoping) voters will eventually figure it out. Americans rarely “figure” things out. Ugh! Oh, well. Welcome to stupid America!
From CNN, “A top Russian general gave some of the most detailed public remarks to date on Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine, claiming on Friday that the ‘first stage’ of Russia’s military plan is now complete, with their primary focus now centered on eastern Ukraine. ‘In general, the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed,’ Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, said in a Friday briefing. ‘The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, allowing us, I emphasize again, to focus the main efforts on achieving the main goal – the liberation of Donbas.’”
The words of Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy would be comical if not for the tragic seriousness of Russia’s invasion and the ensuing war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in the name of chief war criminal Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin — Vladi for short. Nonetheless, if Russia claims round one is complete, then Ukraine is the clear winner. Let’s hope round two is a repeat of round one. Slava Ukraini!
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Two More American Traitors
Only in America are these two allowed to call for the overthrow of the duly elected President, Joseph R. Biden. Only in America can a traitor sit on the highest court in the land to “dispense” justice in a manner that destroys the nation’s integrity. Only in America! Welcome to stupid America. Traitors everywhere, and no one cares. Eh!
From msn.com, “The House Jan. 6 committee has tried to recruit high-profile journalists to write its report about the attack on the Capitol, hoping to build a narrative thriller that compels audiences and is a departure from government reports of yore. Committee members and staffers are seeking to compile dramatic videos, texts and emails in a digital format that is easy to understand — and easy to share on social media. And they want to put together blockbuster televised hearings that the public actually tunes into, according to people with knowledge of the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. Their challenge: Making the public care deeply — and read hundreds of pages more — about an event that happened more than a year ago, and that many Americans feel they already understand.”
I have to commend the committee members; they understand the uphill battle, and they are on the right track to solving the American apathy problem. Lord knows if there is one thing most Americans lack is a basic sense of civic duty. Furthermore, Americans are morons. They have no attention span; they lack critical thinking skills; they don’t read much (Twitter and Facebook don’t count); they prefer entertainment to enlightenment. So, how does the committee overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles? Easy: Make the House Jan. 6 committee findings into a mini-series! They could probably tell their story in three two-hour T.V./streaming episodes. The only way most Americans learn history and absorb information is by watching some quasi-historical melodrama. The magic formula is relatively straightforward — good vs. evil, hero vs. villain, white-hat vs. black-hat. And movies have been a tried-and-true format of storytelling for a century, so take a page from screenwriters, movie studios, and America’s favorite (trusted) actors: Make the report into a movie! I recommend the action-thriller genre with a splash of horror and Greek tragedy — that sums up the state of America aptly. Welcome to stupid America! The “entertain me country.”
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DeVega Is My Id
DeVega writes in Salon, “In all, this [qoute not provided here] is a damning indictment of the current state of American democracy and political culture. Donald Trump’s regime and his coup cabal attempted to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election, his followers launched a violent lethal assault on the Capitol and the Republican-fascists’ Jim Crow attacks on multiracial democracy are escalating. The United States faces the possibility of a low-level civil war or sustained right-wing insurgency. Yet the American people must be ‘entertained’ with a spectacle in order to care.”
He continues, in part, “As sociologist Neil Postman famously warned in the title of his best-known work, the American people have ‘amused themselves to death’ through a culture of anti-intellectualism, and the superficial, immediate gratification of mass media. Collective narcissism is a major public health problem. So many people, because of loneliness, alienation, social atomization and a culture of hyper-individualism and self-centeredness, feel no sense of linked fate with other human beings outside their families and immediate social circles. … Education is the best way, and perhaps only way, to create responsible, informed citizens who have the capacity and willingness to participate in a healthy democracy.”
And he ends, in part, “I asked a friend who teaches at a small regional college if [students’ aversion to thinking] resonated with her experiences in the classroom. She told me her students often complain that she makes them think ‘too much’ during class about current events, which ‘hurts their brains.’ Unfortunately, these are not isolated examples. Most people in America do not want to think about the crisis of democracy and what they can do to stop it. Even more troubling and dangerous, many Americans are attracted to fascism and other anti-human philosophies and behavior precisely because they are so desperate for a life of meaning in a world that can often feel devoid of it.”
Needless to say, these few paragraphs reinforce the entire thesis around which I created this blog. But I like to incorporate DeVega’s thoughts because he is a reasoned and well-researched writer; I’m the writer full of rage and contempt. America is just too stupid to survive, and no one cares. I say it almost daily! Welcome to stupid America! It never gets old.
Categories
Evil Cheats Death — Again!
Reporting the tragic news from CNN, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was discharged from a Washington, DC, hospital Friday morning a week after he was admitted for what a court spokesperson described as an infection.” I’m sure Ginni was ready and willing to ghostwrite his opinions if it came to that.
America is too stupid to survive! America is dying by a thousand cuts from texts, QAnon, and its stupidity. I’m sorry to say it, but the 40 percent of the country comprising RepubliKKKlans, MAGA morons, evil evangelicals, and QAnon kooks who want to destroy America’s democracy are winning! Howard Stern was right; they are winning. And dumbass Democrats are sitting by and watching.
The revelation of text messages exchanged between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows is the focus of my ire. As the HuffPost summarizes, “Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent nearly two dozen text messages urging former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to aggressively move to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to copies of the missives obtained Thursday by The Washington Post and CBS News. … In the messages, Ginni Thomas repeatedly pressed Meadows to reverse the 2020 election results, touting conspiracy theories about voter fraud and right-wing falsehoods about Biden and his family members. … Trump had aggressively moved to block the release of many of the presidential records sought by the House select committee. The Supreme Court in January, however, turned down a request to do so, which immediately gave the panel access to hundreds of pages of documents related to the Jan. 6 attack. Justice Thomas was the lone member of the court to say he disagreed with that move [emphasis added].”
I will get right to the point. SCOTUS is corrupt! QAnon and the Big Lie have finally corrupted the last pillar of America’s democracy. Do not believe anything you hear about the ability of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas to separate their personal and professional lives. It is a f***ing lie! These two are peas in a pod professionally and personally. You can mix, match, and parse their personal and professional beliefs in any number of combinations among and betwixt them and you will not have lost any meaning and fidelity of the whole. Ginni could have authored Clarence’s legal opinions, and Ginni’s text could have been written by Clarance, and no one would know the difference. Moreover, there is no way SCOTUS can undo the corruption of Clarence failing to recuse himself from a case involving the release of the aforementioned texts. It is inconceivable that he was unaware of a conflict of interest. As I have written before: SCOTUS has no ethics. They prove it daily. So, why do I focus on SCOTUS so much, given the behavior of a wife of a justice? Because with SCOTUS being fatally corrupted, then America is on life support. There is a reason why the current approval rating of SCOTUS is the lowest on record. People have lost faith. They have lost faith in all three branches of government, so there is nothing left to support the country.
So, congratulations to all the RepubliKKKlans, MAGA morons, evil evangelicals, and QAnon kooks. They have spent years trying to corrupt American institutions to the point that weakens the nation, and they have finally succeeded. This was a long time coming, and these text messages show the extent and the level to which the rot has reached every part of the country — right through to SCOTUS. Of course, the sad end could not have been made possible, in part, without a complicit and apathetic dumbass Democratic Party, topped off with an abjectly stupid citizenry who just doesn’t care. This country has become consumed by QAnon and pure unadulterated idiocracy. The 40 percent is just stupid enough to kill us all. Fan-f***ing-tastic! Oh, well. Welcome to stupid America! Too stupid to survive!
Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings! Wow! Admittedly, I did not watch any day in its entirety. In fact, I only watched Ted Cruz on his first day of questioning and snippets of others, including Josh Haley, Tom Cotton, Linsey “Grindr” Graham (love her), Marsha Blackburn, and Corey Booker, via the MSM. Honestly, I had no interest in watching the hearings because I already knew what RepubliKKKlans would do, and from what I saw, heard, and read, they did not disappoint. RepubliKKKlans have no interest in meaningfully vetting Jackson; it was always meant to be a show for RepubliKKKlans and questioning Independents (and QAnon kooks). And I have to say that their antics worked as they typically do. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how they always bring the secret sauce to these hearings, but they do. If I were to stand back as an objective moron — aka an Independent voter — then I might be inclined to clutch the pearls! OMG! I might actually convince myself that Biden nominated a pedophile-loving, child porn-distributing, CRT-indoctrinating, racist-baby-hating, soft-on-crime, atheist judge to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, who cannot define what a woman is and obviously hates the police; she will be so progressive in her rulings that the end of America is sure to follow.
I might also be inclined to think QAnon could be right. Add to that the white grievance dripping from the lips of RepubliKKKlan questioning. Christ and holy-f***ing-sh*t, if I were an average Independent voter casually paying attention, which mirrors the vast majority of America, then I might have second thoughts about Jackon’s qualifications based on the loudest screaming voices breaking through on MSM! Remember, these hearings are SCOTUS-related, so only RepubliKKKlans care what’s happening with any intensity. The rest of America is basically like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Jackson who? The King of Pop?
Astonishingly, RepubliKKKlans keep getting away with all this B.S. It’s all theater, and it f***ing works. Even I have to pause and think about what’s going on with the questioning because I get sucked into their train of thought. But I can snap out of the RepubliKKKlan Jedi mind tricks; I fear what others are thinking who cannot see through these RepubliKKKlan tactics. I have no doubt the average voter who is only half listening thinks Jackson is all the things I listed above. I have no doubt. RepubliKKKlans always win the messaging game. Always! So what is the counter to RepubliKKKlans’ lies, innuendos, and grandstanding? Dick Durbin admonished RepubliKKKlans for procedural infractions and Corey Booker, who was nearly in tears while questioning Jackson. Un-f***ing-believable. This is why people will always view Democrats as weak because they prove it every f***ing time with every passing moment. This is the problem with dumbass Democrats: They don’t understand what sticks in voters’ minds. Is it a bunch of fire-breathing RepubliKKKlans who artfully cast aspersions and drum up fear or Democrats weeping over Jackson’s accomplishments? You tell me what people are most impacted by and will remember. F***! We are so f***ing screwed! Welcome to stupid America!
P.S. I predict Jackson will not get a single RepubliKKKlan vote when confirmed. No RepubliKKKlan is willing to put their neck out for a Black woman knowing they are on the cusp of winning back Congress. It’s the culture war, stupid!