Syria: Shock And Awe Redux

We were all ready to do a post on Vice President and modern day Puritan, Mike Pence, when BOOM…American CEO/Dictator decided to create a distraction to the investigations into Russians meddling on his behalf during the 2016 elections and bomb Syria. Officially, Trump proclaimed that he saw the images of children who were gassed by Syrian leader, Bashar Al-Assad, and at the urging of ‘heartbroken’ daughter Ivanka, had to do something. But of course, that sympathy doesn’t extend to letting Syrian women and children enter the United States as refugees. What’s more, he contacted the Russians before hand to tell them of his plans. The Syrian military knew about the attacks as well. By most accounts, the attacks did little damage to Syria and raises more questions that it answers. What’s interesting is that some Democrats, like Chuck Schumer, supported Trump’s move and Hillary Clinton suggested taking action a few hours before Trump did. But this certainly seems like a classic ‘wagging the dog’ moment.

But the most appalling development of this affair was the nauseating obsequiousness of the main stream corporate media as they fawned and practically had orgasms in praising Trump’s action. It reminded us of the ‘shock and awe’ bombing of Baghdad at the beginning of that clusterf*ck known as the Iraq War. We expected moderate GOP hawks such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham to be giddy about the bombings. But media pundits like Fareed Zakaria said Trump “Donald Trump became the President of the United States”. Brian Williams took the prize for the biggest ass kisser. We lost all respect for Williams way back in 2005 when he suggested that the government could pay journalists to promote a certain viewpoint. (Can you say unethical, boys and girls.) Then there was his admission that he made up some stories about the Iraq War back in 2015. Williams repugnantly called the bombings in Syria “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments”. Good grief guys…get a room already. Why is Williams even on the air any more? He should be putting his talents to work where they belong: selling used cars.

But it worked, like it always does for Republicans. They create distractions and their buddies in the corporate media compliantly shift their focus and forget about previous criminal activities. Talk about short term attention spans. We’re having serious doubts now that anything will come of these investigations into Trump’s connection with Russia.

So basically, for future reference, in the coming years of the Trump administration; if things are going badly, just expect a bombing in a country in the Middle East and the media will lighten up and all will conveniently be forgotten.

Corporate media 'journalists' Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria dutifully kiss the ass of American CEO/Dictator over his beautifully presidential bombings in Syria.
Corporate media ‘journalists’ Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria dutifully kiss the ass of American CEO/Dictator over his beautifully presidential bombings in Syria.

Republican Crimes Against Nature

While the Republican Health Care Plan failure, Trump’s Russia connections and a multitude of other daily flak from Trump’s bumbling acolytes like Devin Nunes, Sean Spicer and Jared Kushner have taken center stage, the Republican’s war on the environment has commenced in the background and it doesn’t look good for nature, science and the general well being of every living thing on this planet.

Trump approved going ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline despite protests from native Americans and environmentalists citing that it will only exacerbate climate change. But of course, new EPA administrator and lawyer (non-scientist), Scott Pruitt, despite overwhelming scientific consensus by climate scientists and experts, says that climate change isn’t real. Basically, Pruitt is just a lackey for the fossil fuel industry and will anything to deceive the public about climate change. Therefore, the Keystone XL pipeline can commence and oil barons like Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, can reap the benefits.

Unfortunately, the environment and humans will suffer the horrible consequences. It turns out that the December oil spill of 530,000 gallons in North Dakota (the biggest in that state’s history) was three times larger than previously reported. This brings to light a couple of things. One, the oil spill barely got coverage from the corporate media because that would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. And two, the oil industry lied about the size of the spill because reporting the real size would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. Get the picture. The only thing that matters is business and profit. If there’s an oil leak, learn to love the taste of oil in your drinking water.

To illustrate how inept and corrupt the corporate media is about reporting anything bad about the oil industry, take a look at this website which reports oil and gas pipeline incidents from 2010 to the present. 3,300 incidents! That’s a hell of a lot of incidents! So why haven’t we the citizens heard about them in the news media?

The Republican’s war on science is nothing new. Read the books Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney and Crimes Against Nature by Robert Kennedy Jr., both released during the Bush Administration, and you’ll see that the GOP has repeatedly put short term profit of the coal, gas and oil industries (major contributors to the GOP coffers) above long term consequences for the environment. To illustrate this, CEO/Dictator Trump signed an executive order last week which rolls back more of Clean Power Plan Obama’s regulations and enabling the oil, gas and coal industries to pollute to their hearts content. According to the GOP’s spiel, they’re getting rid of job killing regulations. Big deal, so we can have jobs that kill people in the long run? Besides that the promise of jobs coming back is another con. According the article linked above, “rolling back the Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations won’t restore jobs”. So Trump and his Republican cohorts are once again conning the American public. But this con will have nasty repercussions for all of us, in the form of more pollution, risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals and gases and creating an unhealthy environment for humans and other species.

EPA director Scott Pruitt and Secretary of State and oil baron, Rex Tillerson, announce that the Keystone Pipeline will be constructed and that climate change and oil leaks don't exist despite obvious evidence that they do.
EPA director Scott Pruitt and Secretary of State/Oil Baron, Rex Tillerson, perform their patented gaslighting trick on the citizens of planet Earth by denying the existence of climate change, oil leaks and anything else which may disrupt their agenda of profiting off the environment at any and all cost.

Trump: Modern Day Golden Calf

It’s April Fools Day, so what better way to celebrate it then by poking fun at the biggest fool in America and all the fools who support and enable him.

The more the Trump administration falters, the more his enablers come to the forefront and not only lie their asses to the public, but also to themselves. We’ve mentioned again and again in our posts, it’s absolutely astounding that anybody bought Trump’s shit during the campaign season, but here it is April 2017 and he’s president of the most powerful country on Earth. This isn’t an elaborate April Fools Day prank; this is, extremely unfortunately,…REALITY.

But the biggest joke is on the christians who voted for this selfish, greedy, egotistical, materialistic bigoted megalomaniac, who isn’t like Jesus at all. As a matter of fact, he’s the polar opposite. How can christians justify and enable this man, who claims to be for the common person, but yet pursues policies which will leave them impoverished, sick and broken while making his rich, plutocrat brethren even richer? Like we said a couple posts ago, if you make under 100k a year and you vote Republican, you are voting against your own self interests and you are a sucker and a fool. Or to put it in biblical terms, you are worshiping a modern day golden calf and that calf’s name is Donald Trump.

Donald Trump - Modern Day Golden Calf
The biblical story of the golden calf has resurrected itself in the form of American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump.

 

What A Bunch Of Suckers

With the recent failure of the Republican Healthcare Plan or the American Health Care Act or Ryancare or Trumpcare, you would think that more of the people who voted for Trump would be realizing that he isn’t what he claimed to be. Although Trump’s approval numbers are abysmal, he’s still popular with most of his base. We’ve noted before that he is the master bait and switcher and that a few Trumpeters have come to the conclusion, albeit way too slowly, that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), while certainly not perfect or ideal, is actually a good thing and a good first step to what this country really needs: single payer health care.

So it brings us back to our continual bewilderment which we’ve talked about ad infinitum before: how the hell such an obvious con artist like Trump won the election. Why would anyone who made under 100k a year vote for a man who obviously supports the rich and wealthy and has proven it so far in his administration? He has loaded his cabinet with billionaire plutocrats and people whose only interest is in the well being of corporations, their stockholders and their own investment portfolios. His failed healthcare plan gave tax relief to the richest Americans. He’s admitted that his proposed tax plan would favor the wealthy. He’s also just signed a bill which repeals protection for workers from wage theft from unscrupulous employers, proving that in any given conflict, he will side with the rich executives and not the middle class and poor workers. But this isn’t just characteristic of Trump, the whole Republican party has been relentlessly cruel to the poor.  But yet the workers of this country continue deluding themselves that they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires and worship the selfish, egotistical, greedy, ultra- materialistic, ultra-competitive assholes who populate the GOP.

So what do you call people who make less than 100k a year and yet vote for Republicans: Suckers!

What do you call people who make less than 100k a year and vote Republican: Suckers!
Many Trump and Republican supporters must face the ugly truth: they’re a bunch of suckers.

Rewind: Journalism’s Manly Man

Here’s the last entry in our brief retrospective of journalism’s clown prince and go-to Donald Trump interviewer and ass kisser, Tucker Carlson. His latest hard hitting question of Donald Trump: “What do you do at the end of the day? What do you read? What do you watch?” Wow! What gutsy journalism! The funny thing is that Trump answered that he loves to read but doesn’t read much any more. And the books Trump recommends everybody reads? Why they’re about Donald Trump, of course.

But we’d like to remind everyone of one of Carlson’s more stunningly stupid comments way back in 2007. On his MSNBC show, Carlson stated that then presidential candidate Barack Obama, “seemed like kind of a wuss.” This coming from a man who regularly wore a bow tie and dressed like Steve Urkel until about 2006. Yes America; Tucker Carlson is not only journalism’s clown prince, but he’s also journalism’s manly man. For a partial list of Obama’s accomplishment’s see this post. One noteworthy item on the list: he eliminated the world’s #1 terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Not bad for a ‘wuss’, eh Carlson.

This photo-toon is from our July 19, 2007 issue.

MSNBC talk show host and manly man, Tucker Carlson, recently stated that Barack Obama "seems like kind of a wuss." This from the man, who until recently dressed like Steve Urkel.
MSNBC talk show host and manly man tough guy, Tucker Carlson, recently stated that Barack Obama “seems like kind of a wuss.” This from the man, who until recently dressed like Steve Urkel.

Rewind: Journalism’s Clown Prince

One unfortunate consequence of Donald Trump becoming CEO/Dictator of America, is that the conservative ‘journalists’ are scurrying out from the sewer drains to fill up slots in the corporate news media in the Republican’s divide and conquer strategy of establishing dominance in all aspects of the media spectrum. So who does Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network call on to take Megyn Kelly’s slot (she’s spreading conservative ideology over at NBC now)? Why none other than that former bow tie wearing, smart ass, frat boy, Tucker Carlson.

We thought that Carlson was going to be banished to the Daily Caller hinterlands thanks to the Obama administration. But noooooooo. He’s been drinking the Trump kool-aid and lo and behold, he’s suddenly back at Fox News as the chief ball tickler for Donald Trump. When they need a ‘tough looking’ interview that’s really just a firm kiss to Trump’s ass, they call on journalism’s clown prince. Jack Shafer has a decent analysis of this so called journalist and how to make sure he fails again. And who can forget Jon Stewart’s epic slam of Carlson on Crossfire back in 2004.

This photo-toon is from our May 16, 2006 issue.

Conservative talk show host and clown prince of journalism, Tucker Carlson, ditched his nerdy looking bow tie and started wearing attire that more closely reflects his journalistic skills.
Conservative talk show host, Tucker Carlson, ditched his nerdy looking bow tie and started wearing attire that more closely reflects his journalistic skills.

GOP’s Compassionate Christian Healthcare Plan

The Republicans have released their healthcare plan that will replace the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) and surprise, surprise, it sucks. There’s plenty to hate about this plan called the American Health Care Act(AHCA or Trumpcare); so much so that the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, American Nurses Association and AARP (among numerous others) have all come out against it. John Oliver did a brilliant and humorous analysis on the plan Sunday night.

So where millions obtained affordable healthcare under Obamacare, it is estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that 24 million will lose access under Trumpcare and would have devastating consequences for the old and poor. Not only that, the wealthiest Americans would get enormous tax benefits from the plan. We’re wondering what Jesus would say about the Republican’s compassionate christian effort to deny basic healthcare services to the poor, sick and elderly.

Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, applauds the new Republican healthcare plan, which will compassionately make getting basic medical services more difficult for the poor and elderly while giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, applauds the new Republican healthcare plan, which will compassionately make getting basic medical services more difficult for the poor and elderly while giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

Perjurious Sessions

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is certainly living up to his low expectations that we set for him. It has just been revealed that the new Attorney General lied under oath about communications with the Russians during the 2016 election. Sessions said that he didn’t but new reports confirm that he did talk with Russian the ambassador. Of course, in true Republican fashion, he blamed the people who asked the questions not his own impeccable self. But he did recuse himself from any inquiry into any interference from Russia during the 2016 election.

Of course, America’s new CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump defended his attorney general saying he did nothing wrong. Trump has also started practicing another typical GOP canard; blaming the previous Democratic president. The incompetent Bush Administration took delight in blaming all their mistakes on Bill Clinton. Now, Trump is doing the same to Obama. He’s even gone as far as accusing Obama of wiretapping him during the election, without proof of course. We almost wish Obama did wiretap Trump and an investigation would commence. Then at least we’d hear about the conversations Trump and his lackeys may have had with the Russians.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, receives instructions from his boss, CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, that his perjury about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 election at his confirmation hearings was actually all Barack Obama's fault.
Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, receives instructions from his boss, CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, that his perjury about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 election at his confirmation hearings was actually all Barack Obama’s fault.

Arizona’s Gestapo Tactics

An alarming bill was approved late last week by the Arizona Senate that shows that the fascist tendencies of today’s Republican party run from the national level all the way down to the local levels of governments. SB1142 is a bill that would almost make it a crime to protest. It states that if any damage happened during the protest, all the protesters would be held accountable and their assets seized. The wording even goes as far as saying that the organizers of the protest, even if they physically weren’t present could be arrested, charged for racketeering and their assets taken. The Young Turks had a nice analysis about it. Needless to say, this ruined our weekend.

Fortunately, there was enough of a national outcry that the Arizona Speaker of the House, J.D. Mesnard killed the bill…for now. We’ve lived here long enough that we have no doubt that the fascist Republicans in this state will try to resurrect this bill in the future when it’s politically convenient.

But there have been a flourishing of anti-protests bills by Republicans in 18 states. This gets us thinking. The Republicans have a Nazi advising Trump and Steve Bannon has made it no secret that he wants to dismantle the government. Since his blueprint for ‘success’ seems to involve Nazi Germany as a model, could a Reichstag fire type event come in the near future?

What’s scary for us here in Arizona are the words of John Kavanagh. He’s the state senator from Fountain Hills, which for you non-Arizonans, is an exclusive, hoidy-toidy community where the well-to-do congratulate each other on how great they are and look down their noses on people who don’t live there. Donald Trump gave a stump speech there. Kavanagh, a former police officer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has said controversial things before. But about SB1142 he said “You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder. A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists, but this stuff is all planned. Wouldn’t you rather stop a riot before it starts? Do you really want to wait until people are injuring each other, throwing Molotov cocktails, picking up barricades and smashing them through businesses in downtown Phoenix?’’ So basically if you even think of doing any kind of a protest, the police could say that you’re an ideologue or provocateur and can just assume that the protest could become violent and bam!…you’re going to jail. Wow! Thoughtcrime!  Heinrich Himmler of the Gestapo would be proud.

Arizona state senator, John Kavanagh, does his best Gestapo officer impersonation as a peaceful protester has the audacity to practice her right to lawful assembly as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Arizona state senator, John Kavanagh, does his best Gestapo officer impersonation as a peaceful protester has the audacity to practice her right to lawful assembly as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

GOP’s Environmental Plunder Agency

While America’s CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump, provides insipid daily distractions, the Republicans are in the process of wrecking the government of the United States. One of the worst cabinet appointments Trump has been Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has it’s beginning back in 1970 thanks to Republican Richard Nixon, of all people. It’s purpose is to regulate corporate America and protect the people of the United States from unscrupulous pollution by mining, gas, oil, chemical and other industries that endanger life by dumping pollutants into the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. It’s a good thing!

But Scott Pruitt, like so many others in the GOP, is firmly in the back pocket of the gas, oil and coal industries. His selection as head of the EPA is like putting foxes in charge of the hen house. The reason why the Senate hurriedly and narrowly confirmed him is that email have surfaced which prove how much of a lackey Pruitt is for the dirty energy industries.

Pruitt is like an old-timey Snidely Whiplash robber baron type who will change the meaning of the EPA’s acronym into the Environmental Plunder Agency. Yes, we have no doubt that Pruitt and his Republican corporate lackey buddies in congress will be trying to convince Americans very soon that mercury and sulfuric acid in your drinking water is good for you.

New head of the EPA and gas, oil and coal industry lackey, Scott Pruitt, declares that the agency's acronym now stands for the Environmental Plunder Agency and that mercury and sulfuric acid in your drinking water is good for you.
New head of the EPA and gas, oil and coal industry lackey, Scott Pruitt, declares that the agency’s acronym now stands for the Environmental Plunder Agency and that mercury and sulfuric acid in your drinking water is good for you.