Showing posts with label cruelty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cruelty. Show all posts

Friday, July 13, 2018

Britain's humiliation, America's shame

This is what Donald Trump does when he is a guest of what was our closest ally. When he is a guest of Theresa May. Timed for when he is there.

Adolf Hitler would have inflicted no less than the humiliation this walking, talking, bloviating turd with a bad haircut just visited upon the British prime minister. If politics is life and death -- and often it is in this world -- May surely will die of embarrassment, and this indignity at the American president's tiny, tiny hands is upon all the United Kingdom by extension.
 

Trump Baby
It is shameful, and that shame is upon all the United States as well. We have become a shameful country -- through our fault, through our fault, through our most grievous fault. For the time being . . . for a little while still . . . we are one people as Americans, and it is we who elected this despicable son of a bitch.

This sad, troubled land is riven by many things in this unfortunate age. But for now, the most deadly serious divide in the United States is this: On which side do we stand? 

With this evil man, this existential threat to the very idea of America, or against this plague upon decency and the rule of law?

"Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?"



FROM THE article in today's edition of The Sun:
Theresa May’s new soft Brexit blueprint would “kill” any future trade deal with the United States, Donald Trump warns today.

Mounting an extraordinary attack on the PM’s exit negotiation, the President also reveals she has ignored his advice on how to toughen up the troubled talks.

Instead he believes Mrs May has gone “the opposite way”, and he thinks the results have been “very unfortunate”.

His fiercest criticism came over the centrepiece of the PM’s new Brexit plan — which was unveiled in full yesterday.

It would stick to a common ­rulebook with Brussels on goods and agricultural produce in a bid to keep customs borders open with the EU.
https://imgur.com/gallery/p4NryqrBut Mr Trump told The Sun: “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.

“If they do that, then their trade deal with the US will probably not be made.”

Mr Trump made the bombshell intervention during a world exclusive interview with The Sun — the only British media outlet he spoke to before his arrival in the UK for his first visit as President.

It will pour nitroglycerine on the already raging Tory Brexiteer revolt against the PM.

And in more remarks that will set off alarm bells in No10, Mr Trump also said Mrs May’s nemesis Boris Johnson — who resigned over the soft Brexit blueprint on ­Monday — would “make a great Prime Minister.”

A big US-UK trade deal, long promised by Mr Trump, is cherished by Leave campaigners as Brexit’s biggest prize.

But the President said Mrs May’s plan “will definitely affect trade with the United States, unfortunately in a negative way”.

He explained: “We have enough difficulty with the European Union.

“We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.

“No, if they do that I would say that that would probably end a major trade relationship with the United States.”

Questioned on Boris’s comments at a private dinner two weeks ago that Mr Trump “would go in bloody hard” if he was negotiating Brexit, the President swiftly replied: “He is right.”

He added: “I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me.

“She wanted to go a different route.

“I would actually say that she probably went the opposite way. And that is fine.

“She should negotiate the best way she knows how. But it is too bad what is going on.”

IF I WERE Queen Elizabeth . . .  and the U.K. is exceedingly lucky I am not . . .  I would serve Donald Trump some of Minny's chocolate pie for tea. After he had eaten the whole thing, I would inform him that I thought it complimented pee tapes quite well.

Then I would inform him that NO FOREIGN LEADER treats any prime minister of mine, Tory or Labour, as he has treated Theresa May, and to get his vulgar, orange arse out of my goddamned castle.

Being 92 and royal has its privileges.

God save the queen.

Friday, May 05, 2017

Tempting the whirlwind in Jesusland?


Good, white, Jesus-lovin' people in Louisiana -- which clearly loves dead Confederates much more than live children and poor people -- are quick to tell you this is a Christian nation.

They'll tell you how the gays and the liberals and the politically correct are ruining this nation. They'd be quick to tell you how nothing's more important than family.

And then they'll go out and vote for the scoundrels who -- when they're not picking their pockets after yelling "Look! Welfare Cadillac! Baby mama with an EBT card! -- will construct budgets that savage the poor and the sick as they deconstruct civil society and the infrastructure of self-government bit by bit by bit. Year after year after year.


Louisiana State Capitol
This, because it's in the Bible (somewhere in the back) that the good, white, Jesus-lovin' people of Louisiana are absolutely entitled to another new pickup truck or another goddamned bass boat, but under no circumstances are obligated to pay one more penny in taxes. No matter what.

Our schools are crumbling. No new taxes.

Our roads are worse. No new taxes.

Our state universities have been savaged by budget cuts, people are laughing at us . . . and you don't want to know what people are wading through in the basement of LSU's library.

Does any of that affect football?
No, not at LSU -- that's self-supporting.


No new taxes.

Our social services and our health-care system have been cut to the bone. Actually, we had to remove a leg and a few fingers as well. If we cut any more, lots of people will die -- especially the disabled.  Blame Obamacare! No new taxes.

THE LATEST chapter of The State That Cut Off Its Nose Because It Already Cut the Budget for Soap and That Smelly Stuff That Goes Under Its Arms is told in the pages of today's edition of The Advocate in Baton Rouge:
The Louisiana House has agreed to a nearly $29 billion spending plan that has full funding for TOPS scholarships in the coming year but doesn't fund the state agencies that oversee health and social services to the levels that leaders say is needed to pay for critical programs.

House Bill 1 now heads to the Senate, where it will likely be changed in the coming weeks as lawmakers work to reach an agreement on the budget that begins July 1.

(snip)
Huey P. Long's grave, state capitol
During the course of the debate, House Democrats had pushed back on areas that affect health care, prisons and social services, including foster care, but there was little movement.

"It's a transparent attempt to cut the budget deeply and hide those facts by telling the Division of Administration to do the dirty work," said House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans.

After the Appropriations Committee had advanced its spending plan earlier in the week, leaders in Gov. John Bel Edwards decried the proposal as "draconian," "gruesome" and "a nonstarter."

Edwards, himself, said Thursday after the entire House approved the budget in a mostly party-line 63-40 vote that he was looking forward to working with the Senate to craft a more bipartisan proposal. He said the House Republican-backed measure is "flawed" one that "would send us tumbling backwards."

"We can't move Louisiana forward if we're standing still," Edwards said. "Their budget guts health care, children’s services and veteran services to levels that endanger the health and welfare of the people of Louisiana. When politicians craft policies without the input of the experts in a field, you know you’re getting a bad deal, and that’s how this budget was drafted."
Edwards had originally recommended a budget that boosted the Department of Health by an additional $235 million to fund optional and behavioral programs. Part of that money originally meant for LDH was then shifted to fund the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, a scholarship program for Louisiana high schoolers who attend college in state.
TOPS was funded at about 70 percent in the current year's budget.

Edwards, a Democrat, had listed TOPS as his No. 1 priority for funding if the Legislature agreed to tax proposals that would generate more revenue.

Edwards administration has argued that the funding levels offered in the House budget proposal would threaten the state's compliance with federal orders regarding behavioral health services and cut the number of psychiatric beds; eliminate jobs that deal with child welfare; and lead to furloughs for some prison inmates.

"This impacts people's lives," said Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin. "This is life or death."
HOW DOES one describe this budget, this approach to governance in a state whose day job appears to be protecting old statues of dead traitors and slavers, and whose hobby seems to be steamrolling the disabled, the sick and the poor? Many of whom, by the way, happen to be the descendants of those slaves victimized by the memorialized dead traitors.

How's this for a start?

Despicable. Wicked. Depraved. Blasphemous. A budget from the bowels of hell in a state bucking to become hell on earth.

"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written."


I think that covers it.

Do you remember what various fundamentalists -- notably TV preacher John Hagee -- and others said about Katrina being punishment from God, because New Orleans?

Assume for a moment that's how God rolls -- that He's still in the business of Large-Scale Smiting. Assume also that Jesus, who is God, meant every word He said about "blessed are the poor," "suffer not the little children" and "whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Assume the Lord was making a point central to His plan of salvation -- and the nature of good and evil -- when He related the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

FINALLY, let us assume that the Savior of the World, the Creator of the Universe, wasn't shitting people in Matthew 25:31-46:

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Gov. Huey P. Long

FOR THE SAKE of argument, what if we're accountable not only for what we do individually, but also the governments and societies we craft through our individual actions, activism and votes? What if those political entities, states and nations also are subject to divine scrutiny and divine judgment?

Louisianians -- particularly the white, conservative ones -- are fond of telling the world how God-fearing they are. One can assume a great many of them are quite well-pleased with the Republican-imposed budget bill now headed to the Senate. Because taxes, big gummint and leeches sucking at the taxpayers' teat.

How do they square the circle of loving what Jesus clearly hates? How do they so embrace the laundry list of ways to torture the poor, the halt and the sick (while devoting the savings from that to benefiting the rich and middle class) -- quite literally all those things that holy scripture devotes so much space telling us Jesus so hated.

God-fearing? I'm not so sure the South -- Louisiana -- is even Christ-haunted anymore.

And what if the crazy preachers and doomsayers are right about "acts of God" really being acts of God's wrath?

According to that model, New Orleans got drowned and 1,577 Louisianians killed because of gays, trannies and titty bars. What the hell do you think God will do to the Gret Stet because of this? Or, for that matter, this?

Lord, have mercy . . . because my home state surely has none.

At least quit telling us it's raining


Rep. Don Bacon
Congressman, Nebraska 2nd District
Reichstag
Washington, Greater Trumpian Reich

Dear Rep. Bacon:

Your vote is as despicable as your claims are Orwellian. In addition, voting on a measure such as this without a Congressional Budget Office analysis and score is absolutely irresponsible and reckless.

In other words, since you seem incapable of *not* pissing down our legs, at least quit telling us it's raining policy blessings from heaven.

Sincerely,

A Voter Who's More
Sentient Than You Think

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

And we have a winner. . . .

The 2012 Chickenshits of the Year award goes to management at the Kansas City Star, because that's what they are.

Think I'm being harsh?

Yeah? Then read this from KC Confidential:
Check out this startling tale involving a pair of Kansas City Star reporters reportedly presented with a proposition – a variation on Sophie’s Choice – that only one position remained for the two of their jobs.

“They brought in two reporters – Karen Dillon and Dawn Bormann – and told them that one of them had to go,” says a staffer. “And that they had to decide which one would stay and they had until next week to figure it out. Sort of like ‘The Hunger Games.’ That’s the scuttlebutt anyway.”

There’s more.

“Karen Dillon has seniority, so she has the option of taking it or not taking it,” says the source. “And if she does, Dawn gets laid off. Dawn’s a great person but I think Karen will vote in favor of herself because she’s got teenage kids at home.”

This just in: Bormann is o-u-t.
CAN YOU believe it? I knew that you could.

Just like I knew you'd come around to my way of thinking.

Amid the universal hand-wringing by newspaper-management types about how the difficult economy, a disintegrating business model and everybody's favorite bogeyman -- the Internet, of course -- is killing the industry, I'd like to propose another primary reason for Your Local Daily's impending doom. That would be that most American newspapers (and I don't think this is an overbroad generalization) are run by dolts, chickenshits and a-holes.

Difficult economies, disintegrating business models and the Internet can be coped with and overcome with a little thought, creativity and effort. Dolts, chickenshits and a-holes atop the organizational chart rarely can be.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Dear a-hole: You've just been owned


Here's one guy in La Crosse, Wis., who's going to think twice about writing a local TV morning-show anchor to tell her how fat she is.

Unfortunately, the jerk probably still won't hesitate to belittle others who don't have a television station at their disposal. Still, Jennifer Livingston of WKBT rocks.

And so does her outraged husband, Channel 8 evening news anchor Mike Thompson.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The campaign against epic a-holes


While gay and lesbian activists were busy politicizing bullying and telling America that stopping some bullying is more crucial than stopping the other 85 percent (or whatever) of bullying, this was playing itself out in Trenton, Mich.

Watch the video. Contemplate the sick, sick spectacle of the Neighbors From the Bowels of Hell ridiculing and harassing a dying 7-year-old girl, all because of a neighborhood feud. Consider going so far as to fill your yard with tombstones.

Picture hauling a fake coffin past the dying girl's house. In a pickup painted as a ghoulish hearse.

Imagine posting a picture of the dying child's dead mother in the arms of the Grim Reaper on your
Facebook page. Which also features a picture of little Kathleen Edward's head replacing the skull in a skull and crossbones.

People all across the Detroit area, and all around the world, are outraged. They've been holding candlelight rallies at the girl's house.

And the tormentors, Scott and Jennifer Petkov, now are national pariahs.


FOR SOME REASON, the Petkovs now say they're sorry. Very, very sorry.




AS FAR as I know, the swift end to those bullies' reign of terror was not the work of the National Coalition to Stop the Torment of Dying Children. It was the work of "You don't do that to children. Period. Much less dying ones."

It was the work of "How dare you treat people that way?"

It was the work of "You're a couple of cruel scumbags, and now we're going to kick your miserable asses."

IT WAS the work of common human decency.
Remember that?

If we want to stop bullying -- if we want to prevent tormented kids from killing themselves and all manner of societal awfulness -- maybe what we need is just a single campaign . . . a single advocacy group. Call it the Campaign for Common Decency.

Because,
face it, common decency needs all the help it can get these days.