Thursday, January 23, 2020

Bad Ads -- E*Trade


Don't get mad, Get E*Trade.









So, this is the premise of this ad. There are people out there who have hoarded so much wealth that they've run out of legitimate ways to spend it and are purchasing yachts for their dogs. And we aren't supposed get mad. We're supposed to believe that, like the regular guy in the ad, we can, on a waiter's salary. invest so smartly in the stock market that we too can become fabulously wealthy so that way everyone's happy! Right? I mean, as an hourly wage-earner, there's really no reason you shouldn't be able to save up a little nest egg and then invest all of it in the Wall Street casino and then probably your stocks will double in value, then double again and again until your meager pitiful little life savings becomes a vast fortune. Because that's how it works, right?
Are you poor? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Are you struggling to make ends meet? Well, whose fault is that? Yours, of course, because youi aren't doing what the smart dog-yacht-owning people are doing and increasing your wealth exponentially with on-line investing. What are you stupid or something? All you have to do is go on line, put in all the extra money you have lying around, pick a stock that is going top be the next Google or the next Amazon or whatever and bingo bango you're rich!

It reminds me of the old Steve Martin bit about how you can be a millionaire and never pay taxes. First - get a million dollars.




Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Fun with Headlines


All headlines via Yahoo News.


U.S.

Kentucky miners block coal train over missed paychecks


Image result for trump + coal jobs
Look, I said the big beautiful clean coal jobs were coming back. I didn't say the paychecks were!



World

World War III Won't Start Over Iran, But It Could Start Thanks To North Korea

yeah. . . I'm sure this guy


Image result for kim jong un

is going to bring about the third world war. Let me know when he's done invading Poland.




World

The Reason Why China Refuses to Use Nuclear Weapons First in a War

Um, because they're not insane monsters? Is this really a mystery to someone?




World

The Trump administration is warning allies to stay away from Huawei — but not everyone's listening


Wow, hard to imagine why our allies aren't heeding the advice of Dumbfuck McAderall!



Politics

Trump reportedly authorized the Soleimani strike 7 months ago, throwing a wrench through his argument that there was an 'imminent threat'




Breaking News: Trump lies all the time about everything!




Politics

Pelosi warns McConnell, Senate Republicans they will 'pay a price' if they engage in 'cover-up'

Yeahhhh, no they won't. There is never a price to pay if you're a Republican. They've all been ignoring subpoenas and deciding they don't feel like testifying and there have been zero consequences for any of them.




U.S.

Arkansas governor defends decision to accept new refugees




Jesus Christ! Did you ever think we'd get to a point where public officials would have to explain why they are behaving like decent human beings?




Politics

House Democrats launch probe into Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy




Oooohhhh, a probe! That'll show him! I mean, this despicable policy has only been in effect for how many months now? You Dems sure you want to take such drastic action already?


World

How the Army Is Training European Militias to Stop a Russian Invasion

Washington is hoping that armed and trained civilians could spot and help stop a Russian invasion before it seized territory.


Oh my God, they think Red Dawn was a documentary!


U.S.

U.S. Navy: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Budget (and More Boats)

Whaaaaaaat??? A branch of the military thinks it needs a bigger budget? What's next, NFL receivers who think they aren't getting thrown to often enough?



World

Andrew isn't the only prince with ties to a sex offender: Prince Charles once supported a bishop convicted of molesting more than a dozen young men


Yeah, pretty sure every member of every royal family has ties to at least one sex offender.



U.S.

I flew Spirit Airlines and had a nightmarish 34-hour delay with terrible customer service, and I'll never use the airline again



Yeah, that's not news. Someone having a positive experience with Spirit Airlines would be news.


Politics

They Donated to Trump’s Inauguration. Now These Big Donors Are Funding His 2020 Competition



Gee, it's almost as if rich assholes like to bribe politicians from both parties. Weird, that.





Monday, January 13, 2020

Conservatives are never funny


Exhibit G or H or Z or whatever, Joey Weatherford. These are his attempts at humor from last week.



War crime

Okay, so first of all, I have no idea whether AOC and/or Ilhan Omar said that Trump is a monster for targeting cultural sites or that targeting cultural sites is a war crime. But it's true. There's no joke here, because either they didn't say that which gives you no basis for a joke, or they did say a thing that is one hundred percent true and correct which isn't funny. It is absolutely a war crime to target cultural sites and to do so would be monstrous. Cultural sites are places where a lot of people tend to be. Civilian people. Innocent people. Families with children. Attacking these sites would be the moral equivalent of the Iranians firing missiles into Disneyland.


Then there's the "punch line." AOC says "I didn't even know there were 52 Irans." The only way this would be remotely funny is if she had said something similar to this at some point. But since she has not, there is no humor in this. It's just like saying "wouldn't it be funny if this person we don't like said something really stupid?" And that's not a joke.



Uranium



This just doesn't even make sense. I don't have the slightest clue what the joke is even supposed to be here.







Keep driving



Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House of Representatives. She is not the mayor of San Francisco or the governor of California. "Cleaning" her district does not fall within her bailiwick.

re-elected

So. . . I guess this is based on the assumption that everyone hates the popular two-term President Barack Obama? Like THAT would be the reason people wouldn't vote for Biden? Not his support for the illegal invasion of Iraq, not the bankruptcy bill, not his stated desire to keep locking people up for marijuana because he thinks it's a "gateway drug," but because he might appoint Barack Obama to the Supreme Court? The man who left office with a 60 percent approval rating?


Awaken sleeping giant

Sleeping giant?
When has this giant slept?
Let's see, we invaded Afghanistan, Iran's neighbor to the East. Then we invaded Iraq, their neighbor to the West.Then we got involved in the bloodbath in Syria, just to the Northwest of Iran, all the while with the neo-cons and PNAC lunatics rattling sabres at Iran, designating them part of the "axis of evil."
Then we assassinate an Iranian general who was a national hero to the people of Iran. So Iran retaliates by firing some missiles into unoccupied military bases in Iraq, a country we are continuing to occupy illegally. And Joey Weatherford's take on this is "oh, now you've done it! We were just sitting here being totally cool, not meaning you any harm, but now you went and started something!" What a fucking moron.

Do your job


The feds will step in?
The feds will step in?
What does that mean? Does this genius think that the federal government can just take over a state if they don't think it's being run properly? Does he think the federal government works like Michigan and can just remove the governor from power and replace him with an "emergency manager?"

If Gavin Newsom is doing a poor job as governor (and he may or may not be, I don't know) they have these things in California called "elections," and the people of the state can vote to replace him. I remember the last time California had a governor that people weren't happy with. His name was Gray Davis. And Darrell Issa got a recall election to remove Davis, hoping that he would be able to buy the governorship. As it happened, the people of California decided that they had so enjoyed it the last time that a washed-up movie actor had been governor that they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger governor. So if Newsom is really that bad at his job, just be a little patient, and someone will put Jon Voigt in charge.

But the feds are NOT going to "step in." You'd think that, given how passionately right-wing idiots feel about states' rights, they'd be the last people who would want to see the "feds" "step in." It's almost as if they don't actually have any principles or really believe in anything other than gaining and holding on to power.

Also, since when are threats funny?



Wednesday, January 8, 2020

World's most horrible lawyers





Oregon woman sues Mormon church for $10 million for revealing husband's child sex abuse







Wait, that can't be right. That has to be a poorly-written headline, right? The opposite of that must be true. Right?


SALEM, Ore. – An Oregon woman is suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for $9.54 million after her husband's confession to church leaders led to his arrest, conviction and imprisonment on child sexual abuse charges. 
So. . . the husband is innocent, then, right? Church leaders misunderstood what he was saying and he got falsely convicted, right? Because otherwise, there's no way that this guy's wife. . . I mean. . . right?



The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Circuit Court, involves a Turner, Oregon, man convicted of abuse after he confessed to clergy that he had repeated sexual contact with a minor. 
The man's confession was meant to be confidential, said the family's attorney Bill Brandt. He said local clergy's actions "totally violated church policy." "It's been devastating on the family," Brandt said. "They lost a husband and a father."

NO!

No GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY


Yeah, they lost a husband and a father. That's what happens when your husband or father is a vile, loathsome sex criminal. That's what's SUPPOSED to happen. Finally, one of these church people does the right thing when they find out about a child molestor and you assholes are suing him? God, could there be a more disgusting lawyer?

Oh, there could?


Donna Rotunno was getting into her Audi after work at Chicago’s landmark Marquette Building one night last May when her secretary sent a text. A man in New York wanted to talk to her about “a personal matter and something big.” He was a lawyer and, he said, a personal friend of Harvey Weinstein’s: The disgraced movie mogul needed “a trial lawyer and quarterback,” Rotonno later recalled, for the upcoming rape trial that could put the producer in jail for the rest of his life for the alleged sexual assaults of two women.
“I wasn’t surprised to get the phone call,” Rotunno told me in a conversation last fall. “I do these kinds of cases.”


So. . . you're a monster?

 She was talking about defending men accused of sexual assault and rape. Rotunno has made such work enough of a specialty that, in the wake of #MeToo, Chicago magazine put her on its cover as “the anti-Gloria Allred.” Rotunno, who is 44, has embraced the role. In conversation she presents as Fox News–brand tough with the requisite disdain for “political correctness.“



"political correctness" like thinking rape is bad and rapists should go to prison? That's the kind of "political correctness" for which you have suich disdain?



Co-counsel Arthur Aidala put it to me this way: “She’s either going to walk out a queen, or walk out with an unhappy client.”


A queen? She's going to walk out "a QUEEN?" For fuck sake! Win or lose, she's going to walk out of that courtroom a pariah.And rightly so. The only reason she already isn't is because no one had heard of her before. Now that she's in the papers, everyone will know what a foul, rancid soulless ghoul she is. Never again will she be welcome in polite society. Nor should she be. Although she'll probably get a slot on FOX News.

Rotunno published a Newsweek op-ed that argued that the media and activists had destroyed Weinstein’s chance for a fair trial. Sounding alarms familiar to #MeToo skeptics, she painted Weinstein as the victim of a “one-sided media rampage,”


Yeah, why won't anyone take up the serial rapist's side?


. . . then spiraled into an argument about male safety writ large, extrapolating his case—and his dozens of accusers—into a threat to brothers, sons, and fathers the nation over. “There is nothing preventing you from being next,” she wrote. “Long before you stand before a judge, the claims of a few can upend your life and destroy your reputation.”


Oh my GOD!
The claims of "a few?"
First of all, ONE should be enough.
But there have been over EIGHTY women who have accused Weinstein of sex crimes. EIGHTY!

You want your brither, your son, your father to be "safe" from accusations of rape? Teach them how to not be rapists. It's honestly not that hard. Many many men, probably the majority of men, go their entire lives without committing even one rape, let alone eighty.


“The pendulum is swinging so far in the overly sensitive direction that men can’t really be men, and women can’t really be women,”



Danielle Brooks No GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY



Jesus Christ! I mean, unless you think that being a rapist is part and parcel of being a man, I don't even understand what you're saying. And can women "not really be women" if they aren't being subjected to unwanted sexual advances?


And the pendulum has swung too far? Like we used to let every man with any semblance of power abuse any women he wanted too, now there are sometimes some consequences dor some of the sex criminals. Too Far!



“I feel that women may rue the day that all of this started when no one asks them out on a date, and no one holds the door open for them, and no one tells them that they look nice.”

oh my god omg GIF by Good Girls

What the HELL?

Are you seriously going to stand there and say that women are going to regret trying to change society so that they don't get raped so much because now no one wis going to tell them they look pretty? Is that seriously what you're going with?
Like you think women are actually going to be saying "well, I'm glad that sexual predator is locked up where he can't hurt anyone anymore, but now no one holds the door for me, so I don't know if it was really worth it?" Is that actually a thing that you thought you should say out loud? Honestly?

 “If women want equal rights and equal pay and equal opportunity, then you have to also take equal responsibility,” she said of her scrutiny of rape accusers.

what the hell community GIF


Equal responsibility?
EQUAL RESPONSIBILITY?!?!?!?

You're honestly going to sit there and say the rape victim needs to take equal responsibility with the rapist?
What the Hell is wrong with you?



Okay, everybody. This:

Image result for donna rotunno


is Donna Rotunno.

If you see this face 

Image result for donna rotunno

anywhere - on the street, in a restaurant, scuttling through the sewers in search of a mate - throw a drink in her face. Or scream obscenities at her. Or whatever, use your imagination. Get creative with it. Just be sure that this sickening vermin never again enjoys a pleasant or peaceful day in human society.

And the same goes for that Oregon lady and her disgusting lawyer William Brandt, who is apparently one of these people:


Get 'em both, just to be sure.