Calling a Lie a Lie

This man is called Gerard Baker.

 









 He is editor-in-chief of one of the largest newspapers in America, the Wall Street Journal.
Here is what he has to say about whether his paper will call out compulsive liar Donald Trump when he tells one of his frequent lies:

He's serious. He thinks that it is his paper's job to just print uncritically whatever untrue, dishonest claptrap is spewed out that day by Orange Julius Caesar and expects readers to say "oh, that's what the Journal says that Trump says, now I'll go find an actual reliable source to check that against and see whether it seems like something I should believe." Because your average headline-skimmer has that kind of time to do the research, but obviously reporters and editors have better things to do with their time.

Trump's off-the-record cocktail party with reporters draws criticism

New York Times Reporter Shares Picture of Joe Scarborough at Trump’s NYE Party

Look, I get why you don't want to use the word "lie." I get that seeming to be objective is more important in the news business than getting the actual truth out there. I get that you're sniveling cowards.
And I get that the word "lie" may not be exactly accurate when it comes to Putin's hand-puppet, because I'm not entirely convinced he really understands the difference between truth and a lie. I think in his mind if there is something that he wants to be true or wishes were true, then it's true. Like I think he may possibly have thought "wouldn't it be cool if the NFL sent me a personal letter asking me to please re-schedule the debate because they were afraid I'd destroy their ratings," and that thought morphed into "the NFL sent me a letter asking me to postpone the debate."  He may not actually know that what he's saying isn't true.

I used to work with a compulsive liar. Nice enough guy, but a compulasive liar. He had no reason to lie to me, impressing me wasn't going to help his career, I was low man on the totem pole, and I wasn't an attractive woman, so their was no reason to tell me lies. But he did. Constantly. And I think that when he said that he was in a band that won a battle of the bands against the Rolling Stones in Stockton, California he actually believed it. I think he may have actually believed, at the moment he was spinning his yarn, that he once was called upon to sit in with the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Fillmore when Mitch Mitchell came down with the flu. He really seemed to believe those stories as he was telling them (and many more).

 So maybe Trump does, too. I don't know. But even if you can't bring yourself to call a lie a lie, you can still report that "President-elect Baboon Mussolini today tweeted that 3 million votes were cast illegally. This, while he may believe it, is completely false. He seems to have conjured up these three million imaginary illegal votes in order to claim that he also won the popular vote, since he actually lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by about 3 million votes. He may not even realize why he came up with this ridiculous number, since he is obviously afflicted by a serious personality disorder that may be preventing him from distinguishing his hopes and dreams from reality."

Now, granted this takes a bit more ink than just printing "Today the anthropomorphised temper tantrum with a bad combover said that 3 million votes were cast illegally. That is a lie." but if it helps you feel like you've lived up to your standards of objectivity, be my guest. But not pointing out falsehoods is just a dereliction of duty.

Surviving 2016

2016 was a Negan of a year.

For those of you who don't watch the Walking Dead, Negan is a sociopathic warlord who takes half of evreything you have, half of everything you grow, half of everything you make. And "half" is whatever Negan decides "half" is.


That's the kind of year 2016 was. Oh, you have musicians you love? Well, I'm taking Lemmy. I'm taking David Bowie. And I'm taking Prince. Oh, and what is this? You've been holding out on me! Is that a Leonard Cohen I see? Well, that Leonard Cohen is mine now. And just to teacj h you a lesson about holding out, I'm taking Ralph Stanley and Bernie Worrell too.

You enjoy a good laugh? Well, you'll have to do without Gary Schandling and Kevin Meaney. And I'm just going to go ahead and take Patton Oswalt's wife, see how that affects his ability to make people laugh.

You get the picture.

So, in good Walking Dead fashion, let us now thank 2016 for all the people it could have killed but didn't.



Sir Tom Jones


Sir Paul Mccartney



Wanda Jackson




Willie Nelson



Igyy Pop




Steve Earle



Fats Domino



Loretta Lynn




And, somehow, Keith Richards!

Good News and Bad News

The bad news is that horrible evil people like this exist.

White Supremacist Planned. . . to Murder Obama, Muslims

Like so many right-wingers, he proclaimed his intention to "take his country back."

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

December 20, 2016

 

And that they've been emboldened by having as their president-elect a man they see as, if not one of them, at least someone who is sympathetic to their evil cause in Orange Julius Caesar (tm)

The good news is, they're mostly stupid as fuck.

White Supremacist Planned to Use 'Death Ray' to Murder Obama, Muslims

Like so many right-wingers, he proclaimed his intention to "take his country back."

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

December 20, 2016

And speaking of horrible people who are stupid as fuck. . .

Texas Republican: Gay people were sent by Russia to destroy America

1^st November 2016, 8:16 PM

I guess it's an older story, but someone posted it on Facebook yesterday.

A Texas Republican activist has compared gay people to termites, claiming homosexuality was created by the Soviet Union to destroy America.
Steven Hotze of Conservative Republicans of Texas made the shocking comments at the ‘Stand 4 Truth; evangelical conference, which was held over the weekend in Houston.

Stand for Truth Conference? Now there's an ironic misnomer.

In the speech, snipped by Right Wing Watch, he warns: “The homosexual movement has really infiltrated… think of them like termites.

Nope. Not gonna do that. I believe I will continue to think of them as my friends Mark and David or my friends Cheryl and Eva, or. . . well, you know, like just people? Not insects?

… think of them like termites. “They get into the wood of the house and they eat away at the very moral fabric of the foundation of our country.

 “This is exactly what the Marxist movement was all about… If you remember, [Soviet leader] Khrushchev came and said we’re going to get your country one way or another, and the way they want to do it is to destroy the moral fabric and create moral anarchy in our country so that our people no longer live righteous lives but they’re living lives that are ungodly."

 Wow. Where to even begin? First of all, the Marxist movement was more about the workers owning the means of production and the equitable distribution of goods and services than it was about who does sex with whom.
 Secondly, what  Kruschev said  was "we will bury you," which was not a threat to destroy America, but a boast that Soviet-style Communism would outlive our system. It's like when you say about an old person "oh, he'll bury us all." You don't mean "watch out for Oldie Olsen, he's going to murder us!" You mean thjat he'll still be going strong when we're all dead and buried.

Third, the Russians had nukes. If they wanted to destroy us, they could have nuked us. Instead of somehow undermining the "moral fabric" of our country and waiting while somehow this leads to some sort of decline of. . . something. . . that would eventually. . . oh, come on! this is so stupid! Why would they possibly choose the slowest possible method of destruction? Their entire empire collapsed while they were waiting for Errol Flynn and Georgia O'Keefe to bring down capitalism by sexing same-gender partners?

Also, the Soviets rather famously were not religious people. One of the tenets of their system was atheism. Why the hell would they have thought that they could hurt us by causing us to be less "godly?'

“When you do that, you lack moral courage, because you can’t very well stand up and oppose people doing wicked things if you’re participating in the same activities.

SERIOUSLY?

Are you sure about that?

Because it's never seemed to be a problem before.

“Now you’ve got pornography… it’s legal to have pornography on the internet, but we, in some jurisdictions of the country, you can’t stand up and say that homosexuality is wrong or immoral activity, whether it’s the promotion of adultery or premarital sex, we can’t say that that’s wrong because that’s hate speech.
“But it’s perfectly legal according to allow pornography to be perpetrated upon our public, and even in our public schools to be taught and shown.”

Oy.
Okay, first of all there re exactly ZERO jurisdictions where you are not allowed to say that adultery or homosexuality or premarital sex is wrong. ZERO. Expressing your stupid shitty opinions is 100% legal in all 50 states. You'll probably get a lot of eye-rolls, maybe some snickers, and hopefully someone will confront you (verbally) but there is nowhere in America where you are not allowed to say those things.

Second. You know you have to actually seek out pornography, right? Not that it's hard to find, but you have to actually go into a liquor store and say "I'll have a copy of Giant Wangs Monthly, please," or go online and type in whatever kind of weird stuff you're into. It's not like you're going to be walking down the street and see Betty Blows Baltimore playing on a jumbotron in the town square.

Oh, and you know what actually is illegal? Showing pornography to school children. I would very much like you to name one single solitary public school in which pornography is shown and/or taught and I will go there right now and audit a couple of classes. Go ahead, name one. We'll wait.

Yeah, that's what I thought.


And this guy is even more shitty and stupid than that guy:

A Texas pastor recently prophesied that paedophilia will soon be renamed ‘happy’ and legalised.
Rick Scarborough of Vision America made the claim while preaching at Trinity Family Church in Forney, Texas.
He fumed: “What’s next? Paedophilia?
“When we called homosexuality, instead of sodomy, ‘gay,’ it changed everything because everyone wants to be gay. So let’s just change paedophilia to ‘happy’ and we’ll have all kinds of leagues of happy people and we’ll have the lobby for happy people.

Oh my God, I had no idea! The reason gay people exist is because the word gay sounds so nice! It all makes sense now! Everyone goes through some down times, times when they feel the opposite of gay. Gay as in lighthearted, carefree, don we now our gay apparel, etc. So obviously, a young fella who's feeling down and would like to feel happy could easily fall into the trap of looking up the word "happy" in a thesaurus, see that "gay" is listed as a synonym and think "oh, all I need to do to be happy is go get nailed by a dude! That will stop me from despairing of ever finding a girlfriend!"

I guess the part that I don't understand is, if that works, if changing the word works, why the holy fuck would you want to change the name of pedophilia to something positive? I just do not get these freaks at all.

2016: The Year in Television, Part IV

Best Drama:  Rectify





Sadly, this was the last season of Rectify. I still have the final episode sitting waiting in my DVR, I hate to think that once we watch that one, it's over.
If you haven't been watching it - and since it's on Sundance Channel, I assume a lot of people haven't, Rectify is the story of Daniel Holden , a man who has spent his entire adult life on death row for a crime he may or may not have committed (he honestly isn't even sure).




 



 It's about him adjusting to real life after 19 years in quasi-solitary confinement waiting for death.


 


It's about dealing with the aftermath of trauma, it's about family dynamics and the fragile bonds of marriage. It's a bit intense. And this season especially has been pretty sad. But it's beautiful.The cast is amazing. The writing is perfect, it's shot beautifully, if you don't mind how slowly it moves, it's about as close to a perfect show as you're going to see.



Best Action/Adventure/Mystery show: Orphan Black




The story of a woman who discovers that she is one of a series of clones and her investigation into the tangled web of government and corporate espionage behind the cloning experiment might sound a little silly (I was skeptical at first) but Orphan Black might just be the most compelling mystery show of all time. ( and don't say LOST. LOST was dumb)


And what makes the show even more amazing is that five of the main characters, and a few minor ones, are played by the same actress:
the Performer of the Year: Tatiana Maslany





Every character she plays has a different affect, a different accent, a different vocal timbre, different mannerisms, etc. It's easy to forget that they're all played by the same actress. Often, she has to play multiple characters in the same scene, conversing with each other, it must take ages to film each episode. If she only played Sarah Manning or Allison Hendrix, or the terrifying and hilarious Helena, she would be a front-runner for best actress, but considering she plays them all. . . wow! Amazing!



Best Comedic Actress: Kristen Schaal




Either as a live-action performer in Last Man on Earth, or the voice of precocious troublemaker Louise Belcher on Bob's Burgers, Kristen Schaal was killing it all year.

Best Comedic Actor: Rob Delaney





I've only just started watching Catastrophe on Amazon, but so far it looks like it might be the funniest show of the year. Possibly. (And I know the season I've been watching came out in 2015, but I'm watching it now, so it counts as this year. My blog, my rules.) And this is pretty much all due to the two co-stars, Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, who also produced the show and wrote all the episodes.



 In fact, Sharon Horgan would have been in the running for comedic actress of the year had it not been for Kristen Schaal.
Watch Catastrophe if you've got Amazon Prime. If not, follow Rob on Twitter. @RobDelaney


Other TV shows we've enjoyed or loved or were entertained by this year:


The Americans




Full Frontal with Samantha Bee




People of Earth




Better Call Saul





The Last Man on Earth





The Walking Dead




And I'm probably forgetting at least one.

West Virginia's Drug Problem About to be Solved!

West Virginia has a serious problem with prescription pain killers.

Drug Companies Have Been Pumping Opiates into West Virginia

Nine million oxycodone doses into a town of 392 people.

In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers, a Sunday Gazette-Mail investigation found.

So this is serious business. This is a serious public health crisis. But don't worry, Joe Manchin (alleged-D) has a plan!

JAKE TAPPER: What do you want president-elect Trump to do about this problem, sir?

SENATOR MANCHIN: We need to declare a war on illicit drugs. You talk to most addicts -- and I go to these spots and talk to the recovering addicts. we have got some places that are really having some success rates, Jake. most of them are run by reformed addicts. they got started out as a kid smoking occasional -- what we call recreational marijuana.

Seriously? Your answer to the opioid epidemic in your meth lab of a state is to crack down on marijuana? A drug that is not addictive and is impossible to overdose on?  That's your answer?

If the Walking Dead were happening for real in your state (and I have no evidence that it is not) would you decide to crack down on vampires?

Hint: these are not vampires, so probably.

Sorry, that's a terrible analogy because vampires would be really dangerous, at least as dangerous as walkers.  Also, from what I can tell, being a vampire is pretty addictive.

But I digress. So, Senator, what happens after the kids start with the recreational reefer?

from there it led into prescriptions, taking out of their parents or grandparents medicine cabinet and become a cool kid. Then it turned into where they were hooked. now heroin comes on. Now the fentanyl comes on. it's unbelievable. President Trump needs to say day one, we're not going to lose a generation. we're going to fight this and crack down on the FDA and crack down on the DEA and make sure we look at this.

Crack down on the DEA? You know the DEA is the group that combats drugs, right? I think you might need to crack down on the drug companies who produce and distribute these pills. And the pharmacies that function as cartel middlemen, you might need to crack down on them. You don't "crack down" on the agencies that are tasked with preventing drug problems. If anything, you might want to give the FDA some teeth, maybe an enforcement budget? Maybe you might want to re-direct the DEA's priorities into busting up these opiate rings instead of busting cancer patients who smoke pot to  ease their suffering?

It's good to see that Manchin has such a strong grip on the problems his state faces in these modern times.  Maybe he can do something about these gas lines and get our hostages out of Tehran too.