Proud moments in American History

Putting a man on the moon

Miracle on Ice

That time the leader of the free world sat in a truck and pretended to drive like a fucking three-year-old.

V - J Day

Today in Terrible Advice

Because every election year the conventional wisdom has to be that Democrats need to distance themselves from their voters and try to be more like the GOP, this op-ed appeared in today's Times:

To Win Again, Democrats Must Stop Being the Abortion Party

By THOMAS GROOMEMARCH 27, 2017

Thomas Groome, eh? Never heard of 'im. So let's just check the old Wikipedia and. . .

Thomas H. Groome is an author, academic and former priest. He is a professor in theology and religious education at Boston College.^[1]
Groome was born in County Kildare, Ireland. Groome studied at St. Patrick's, Carlow College and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1968.

Oh, well. An Irish Catholic theologian. Obviously, he's got his finger on the pulse of the American electorate.

 . . . once-solid Catholic support for Democrats has steadily eroded. This was due at least in part to the shift by many American Catholic bishops from emphasizing social issues (peace, the economy) to engaging in the culture wars (abortion, gay marriage). Along the way, many Catholics came to view the Democrats as unconditionally supporting abortion.

If you mean unconditionally supporting the rights of women to choose whether or not to have an abortion, a position shared, by the way, by a majority of American Catholics, then yes. That is an accurate view of most Democrats.

Last year’s election was a watershed in this evolution. Hillary Clinton lost the overall Catholic vote by seven points — after President Obama had won it in the previous two elections. She lost the white Catholic vote by 23 points. In heavily Catholic states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, she lost by a hair — the last by less than 1 percent. A handful more of Catholic votes per parish in those states would have won her the election.

So, to sum up, in the last 3 Presidential elections, the pro-choice candidate has won outright twice and lost once while getting 3 million more votes than her opponent. And this is due to what, exactly? Pennsylvania Catholics becoming more pro-life since 2012?
Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that a large percentage of American voters were stupid enough to believe that the guy with the solid-gold toilet spoke for the American working class while the former Secretary of State ran a child-prostitution ring out of the basement of a local family restaurant.

She lost Michigan, as you say, by a "hair." A few more catholic votes might have pushed her into the win column. So might a few more Muslim votes. Or Jewish votes. Or Scientologist votes. Or maybe she might have gotten more "urban" votes had she gone to Flint and raised holy Hell about the water there. Maybe she might have gotten more progressive votes had she gone to Standing Rock and said "Mr. President, do not allow this pipeline!" But sure, the smart move obviously would have been to take the anti-choice position, garnering a few extra votes from conservative Catholics whilst completely alienating the entire Democratic base.

Oh, hey, maybe she could've come out against marriage equality and pushed "right-to-work" laws while she was at it.

In its directive, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops make clear that American Catholics do not need to be single-issue voters. The bishops say that while Catholics may not vote for a candidate because that candidate favors abortion, they can vote for a candidate in spite of such a stance, based on the totality of his views. Yet despite that leeway, abortion continues to trigger the deepest moral concern for many traditional Catholics, including me.

Well, there's good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that there are fewer and fewer "traditional Catholics" in America these days, as more and more people leave the Catholic Church. The bad news is that the Church has accomplished this by allowing itself to become a safe haven for child molesters. But sure, go ahead and get on your high horse about abortion and "moral concerns."


Also, not to nit-pick, but generally, academics do not use the phrase "including me." They usually say "including myself," or "including this author."

Polls indicate that the nation holds mixed views about abortion. About 80 percent of Americans don’t want to criminalize it again. At the same time, at least 60 percent of Americans — and most likely a higher percentage of Catholics — oppose abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Yet despite the clear complexity of those attitudes, political discourse largely ignores the possibility of a middle ground between making all abortions legal or prohibiting them entirely. Mrs. Clinton, like most Democratic politicians, fell into this either/or trap last year.

Oh, and Trump didn't? The guy who said that there should have to be some kind of punishment for women who terminate pregnancies? The guy who promised to nominate anti-choice judges from a list given to him by the Heritage Foundation? That guy didn't fall into the "either/or trap?"

When asked about abortion in the third presidential debate, Mrs. Clinton focused on the importance of a woman’s right to choose, saying: “I strongly support Roe v. Wade.” But in making it appear as if she was viewing a wrenching moral decision only through a legal lens, she was losing many Catholic and evangelical voters.

Oh, right! Because Catholic and Evangelical voters were all gung-ho to vote for the woman that FOX and Rush have been telling them is the embodiment of evil since the 1190's. It was only her overly-legal take on Roe v Wade that lost her the Progressive Evangelical voting block!

Somehow, Ms Clinton's failure to acknowledge that aborting is a difficult decision before supporting the right of women to make that decision caused these voters to instead pull the lever for the candidate who has no concept of what a "wrenching moral decision" is and just says what the hell, let's outlaw it!

For them, her uncompromising defense of Roe was comparable to telling a group of Quakers, “I’m in favor of war,” without even mentioning preconditions.

No. No that's not similar at all. Because "I'm in favor of war" is an insane thing to say without a whole lot of context around it. Like, if one were to say "since the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor and killed Americans and have shown no signs that they plan to cease this kind of aggressive action, I have to say that I am in favor of war with Japan," that makes sense. That's something reasonable people can debate. Butj ust as a generality "I'm in favor of war," that's fucking insane.  Whereas, I'm in favor of letting women make their own decisions about their reproductive systems" really doesn't require a lot of context.

Mr. Trump, in contrast, offered a graphic description of “ripping the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day,” as if this were standard procedure. (More than 90 percent of American abortions are in the first trimester.)

Right. And if only he had acknowledged what a difficult, heart-wrenching moral decision this was, perhaps he could have carried the Catholic vote, oh wait.
I guess it's only pro-choicers who have to couch their stance in the language of heart-wrenchery and moral quandritude.

Also, does it not matter to you that she was honest and he was lying? Or is that not the kind of moral issue that conservative Catholics care about?

I think it's time we put Grandpa in a home.

I just saw this transcript of the interview that Cheeto Mussolini gave to Time Magazine and Holy Schneikes, he's worse than we thought.
Not only is he completely delusional, but he can barely string together a coherent sentence. He makes George W. Bush look articulate.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hey, Michael.

TIME: Hey Mr. President, Thank you for taking the time.

Absolutely. How have you been, OK?

Yeah, it has been a wild couple months. You keep us busy.

Yeah, it’s been good though. It’s been good.

 Good? Good? This is what you consider a good couple of months?What the hell would a bad month look like?

 So far, the flight's going prrrretty smoothly!

Do you want me to give you a quick overview [of the story]?

Yeah, it’s a cool story. I mean it’s, the concept is right. I predicted a lot of things, Michael. Some things that came to you a little bit later. But, you know, we just rolled out a list. Sweden. I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems. Huma [Abedin] and Anthony [Weiner], you know, what I tweeted about that whole deal, and then it turned out he had it, all of Hillary’s email on his thing.

Your statement on Sweden was bullshit. I don't even know what you may have said about Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, but if you think you were somehow prescient in thinking that Hillary's close associate might have received e-mails from her, well I just don't know what to tell you.

Brexit, I was totally right about that. You were over there I think, when I predicted that, right, the day before. Brussels, I said, Brussels is not Brussels. I mean many other things, the election’s rigged against Bernie Sanders. We have a lot of things.

Wait. You said "Brussels is not Brussels?" And that's something you want to be sure to get credit for? You want to make sure that everyone remembers "hey, I'm the one who said that Brussels is not Brussels! Don't forget, you heard it here first!"

But there’s other things you said that haven’t panned out. The peg for this story is the wiretapping hearing on Monday, in which [FBI Director James] Comey and [NSA Director Mike] Rogers testified about your tweets there.

Yeah well if you’d look at, in fact I’ll give you the front page story, and just today I heard, just a little while ago, that Devin Nunes had a news conference, did you hear about this, where they have a lot of information on tapping. Did you hear about that?

Yes. "They" have a lot of information on "tapping." And exactly NONE of that information is that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

Now remember this. When I said wiretapping, it was in quotes. Because a wiretapping is, you know today it is different than wire tapping. It is just a good description. But wiretapping was in quotes. What I’m talking about is surveillance. And today, [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Devin Nunes just had a news conference. Now probably got obliterated by what’s happened in London. But just had a news conference, and here it is one of those things. The other one, election, I said we are going to win, we won. And many other things. And I think this is going to be very interesting.

Okay, first of all. . .






The first two times, it was not in quotes. The third time it was because consistency is not your strong suit.

Also not a strong suit.

And, um, " here it is one of those things." That just doesn't mean a damn thing.

So you don’t feel like Comey’s testimony in any way takes away from the credibility of the tweets you put out, even with the quotes?

No, I have, look. I have articles saying it happened.

Really? Name one. In what publication did this article appear? On what day?

No, I have, look. I have articles saying it happened. But you have to take a look at what they, they just went out at a news conference. Devin Nunes had a news conference. I mean I don’t know, I was unable to see it, because I am at meetings, but they just had a news conference talking about surveillance. Now again, it is in quotes. That means surveillance and various other things.

How is it in quotes? It's a press conference. That means he was speaking, not writing. Did he do the little finger-quotes every time he used the word "surveillance?"

"Surveillance!"

Look. I predicted a lot of things that took a little of bit of time. Here, headline, for the front page of the New York Times, "Wiretapped data used in inquiry of Trump aides." That’s a headline.

Yeah, because if you tap the phones of enough Russian government officials, you're eventually going to hear Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn. You know what the headline doesn't say? That Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower!


Anyway, the interview goes on for a while and my brains are starting to leak out of my ear, so I'm going to bed. Maybe we'll look at more of this trainwreck tomorrow.

I am determined to find someone other than me who thinks this is funny.

Guess what this is:

Wait for it. . .

This is a Tome on the range where the beer and the cantaloupe lay.

People who need to sit down and shut up

1. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke

(Via: C & L) On Thursday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett ripped into Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke regarding Clarke's misplaced priorities:

On Friday, perhaps after celebrating with a few green beers, Clarke took to the official Facebook page of the Sheriff's Office to have his tantrum:
Comment from Sheriff Clarke in response to Barrett’s recent remarks about the sheriff:
“The last time Tom Barrett showed up at a crime scene he got his ass kicked by a drunk, tire-iron-wielding man who beat him within inches of his life. The milquetoast mayor trying to play cop foolishly thought he could simply talk the man who beat him senseless into backing down. Bet he won't try that again!
Timid Tom should leave policing to the professionals like me, and stick to coming up with a plan to reduce the violence, carjackings, random shootings that leave children dead, and the burglary ring currently plaguing the north side of Milwaukee.. . . Whoever told Barrett it was a good idea to come out of hiding and take shots at me gave him some bad advice. I will give Tom "Mr. Peepers" Barrett this much credit however - he would know what a crime scene looks like because Milwaukee is full of them. If you had to call for help, who would you rather see show up, me or timid Tom? Time to crawl back into your hole Tom, unless you want some more of this because I have some.”

Okay, first of all, if you're gonna swagger around like a tough guy, threatening him with another round of mockery is pretty weak sauce.
Secondly, it's pretty pathetic to complain about how crime-ridden your city is when you're the fucking sheriff!
And third, I don't think that a man who confronts an angry, tire-iron-wielding criminal can really be described as "timid."

2. Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Democrats: Don't Use Republican Playbook on Gorsuch

410

March 19, 2017 5:00 AM EDT

By

Michael R. Bloomberg

Democrats long complained about the way Republicans treated President Barack Obama. When Republicans refused to cooperate on legislation, when they threatened to shut down the government, when they stonewalled his Supreme Court nominee, Democrats lambasted them -- and justifiably so -- for dereliction of duty. Yet now that Donald Trump is in the White House, Democrats are threatening to adopt the very same tactics, concluding that they need to fight like Republicans. In other words, it’s their turn to act irresponsibly.
Of course, what goes around comes around, and the hunger for payback among Democrats is understandable. But the rule we all teach our children applies to Congress as well: Two wrongs don’t make a right

Ugh, I am so sick of this shit. I am so goddamm sick and tired of Democrats/Progressives/Liberals being told that we have to be the bigger person. It's like a parent telling the older child to just let the younger one have his way so he'll stop throwing a tantrum.

And this isn't even about the need for one party to be the grownup in the room so that some sense of decorum or maturity or whatever can somehow be restored to Washington. This is about the future of our country. This is about a Supreme Court justice that will serve for a generation, creating precedents and upholding or striking down laws that affect peoples' lives. And the only reason that this Gorsuch is even a possibility is because Republicans threw the tantrum of all tantrums and, in an unprecedented display of fucketry, refused to even consider any nominee from the last administration. Some even stuck out their lower lips and said they were happy to let the seat go unfilled for four more years should Hillary Clinton be the next President. And they got away with it in part because the Democrats felt obligated to be the bigger persons. The Democrats felt the need to be the mature adults in the room. They should have been in front of every camera and microphone they could find screaming bloody murder over this sickening display of rank partisanship, this utter disdain for 200 years of process. And the President could have and should have put Garland through as a recess appointment, or had Biden gavel in the Senate before the new members were sworn in just to vote on the nomination, but he didn't. Because he had to be the bigger man. And look where that got us.


So when a patrician little pipsqueak like Mike Bloomberg who won't personally feel the effect of any Supreme Court decision on his life, wants to tell the Democrats to be the grownups, I have just one thing to say to him:

3. Former Governor and current sack of crap Mike Huckabee

HUCKABEE: Well, it's springtime. It's time for the snowflakes to melt and accept the fact that Donald Trump is president. And if that is her message, she can be very honest and say look, we don't have to like what he proposes. We don't have to like him, but we have to accept that he is the president and we have to respect the office of the presidency.

Don't you mean it's time to pretend that the president isn't an American citizen? Or that it's time to accuse the President of being in league with terrorists? Or of being a gay-married, abortion-supporting enforcer of Sharia Law? Because you can't seriously be calling on people to "accept" the President and "respect the office" after the way you and your FOX buddies spent the last eight years.

If she would say that, then I'll believe she's trying to bring us together. If all she's going to do is raise her fist in the air and say resist, well look, it's too late to resist. That's what we do every four years. It's called an election. Donald Trump won and people need to accept it. Again, they don't have to like it.

Ah, the acceptance!

This is America. We're free to disagree. But we're not free to try to delegitimize the duly elected president of the United States.

Wow. "It's too late to resist" is probably the most terrifying thing I have ever heard a public figure say.

And as for "we are not free to delegitimize the president," I don't know what's worse. The stunning level of hypocrisy, or the utter failure to grasp how the 1st Amendment works. Either way, sit down and shut up, Gomer!

4. Unfunny comedian Tim Allen

(via: Slate)

Tim Allen Says Supporting Trump in Hollywood Is “Like ’30s Germany”

In this town, I’m not kidding, you gotta be real careful around here, you know, you can get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes. This is like ’30s Germany! I don’t know what, I don’t know what happened. If you’re not part of the group—“You know, what we believe is right … ” I go, “Well, I might have a problem with that.” I’m a comedian—I like going on both sides.

No.
 Jeezus Christ, you right-wing crybabies have no perspective.
"Ooh, I didn't get the part I was up for. This must be what it was like on the Trail of Tears!"
"My agent isn't returning my calls. Now I know what the Bataan Death March was like!"
Being a conservative in Hollywood is like 1930s Germany? Fuck you it isn't.

Who has gotten "beat up" by Hollywood liberals? I know you haven't. You haven't even had trouble finding employment. You're the "star" of yet another awful sit-com despite your one-note, two-dimensional "acting" style and utter inability to be at all funny.  You haven't been persecuted. And neither have Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Patricia Heaton, or any of the other Hollywood conservatives. When you keep getting paid huge sums of money to appear in movies and tv shows, it's pretty pathetic to whine about how tough you have it in Hollywood.
And even if you were being blackballed from showbiz, even if you did find it socially uncomfortable to express your conservative vbiews, no one is herding you poor, beleaguered right-wing actors onto train cars headed for death camps which is ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED TO PEOPLE IN 1930s GERMANY YOU GODDAMM PIECE OF SHIT!