Month: January 2024

Iowa Checks In

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If Donald Trump regains the White House this will still be a different country than the one I was born into.  That country ceased to exist after 2001.  That was when the people who ran this country decided that they had the cover to take over everything in our lives and leave us nothing but the bills.  And in 2009 when Obama entered the White House he stood over the corpse of our country and buried it once and for all.

So, whatever happens going forward we live in a different place.  But some of the people who made up the Old America are still kicking around.  You can tell when Donald Trump scores an enormous win in Iowa.  It took 37 minutes to declare Trump the winner.  With about 37% of the vote in he’s got 52% of the votes to something like 20% apiece for DeSantis and Haley.  People know who’s on their side.

So, you can see the demographic outline of the Old America by the places where Trump is doing well; places like Iowa and the Midwest and the South.  And so, we’ll recognize that the Old America is a layer submerged in the new.  It’s like a layer of pebbles that is all made of one mineral but then another mineral dissolved in water leaches into the stratum and forms a matrix around the pebbles and encases them in a sediment.  We’re still here but in new surroundings, a new reality.

The only question to ask then is what can be made of this new place.  Will the elites who drove this replacement manage to destroy us?  I suppose that’s what we’ll find out.  They’ve done a pretty thorough job of lousing up most of the things that still worked in this country.  They croaked about half of the small businesses around the cities during the pandemic they orchestrated.  They’ve ignited inflation and made life awful for the working class.  They’ve consigned the children of the middle-class to the under-class.  And they’ve sent most of the manufacturing jobs to Asia.  I won’t even bother with the forever wars because even the Millennials and Zoomers are hopping mad about those because they might be the ones to have to fight them.  So, all of this is waiting in the wings to see who gets the White House in November.

And to keep us amused until then we get to watch the spectacle of the Republican donors and the RNC spending tens of millions of dollars to try to convince voters that Nikki Haley is one of them.  Not since Hillary Clinton started speaking in tongues and tried to convince black voters that she was just a poor old cotton-picker from Arkansas have we witnessed phonier “aw-shucks, we’re just folks” play acting. Well, I know Nikki said that Hillary was her inspiration and template.  I think she’s reached her goal.  All she lacks is the cackle.

So, let’s see how these primaries go.  New Hampshire is probably going to be Haley’s high-water mark.  All the Dems will voter for her since there isn’t going to be a Democrat primary to speak of.  It’ll be fun to listen to the various talking heads try to parse this thing and give Nikki all the hopeful coverage they can until Trump reaches the finish line on Super Tuesday, March 5th.  That’s seven weeks.  Forty-nine days of listening to halfwits explaining how Nikki Haley would bury Joe Biden but Donald Trump doesn’t stand a chance.  I’m sure MSNBC, CNN and PBS will have graphs and power point presentations and even holograms to prove all this.

I hope there is plenty of entertainment value to all this.  I could use a laugh.  In fact, Old America could use a laugh.  We haven’t had one in years.

G-Block Superactinide Bling

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Since Valentine’s Day is coming up I told Camera Girl to be on the lookout for any man jewelry she could get for me made of unbihexium

Unbihexium is a hypothetical stable super heavy element with an atomic number of 126.  Now granted it’s never been detected anywhere either naturally or at CERN but a good wife should always use her shopping acumen to assist all of her husband’s purchasing goals.  So I’ve told her to be on the lookout for a star sapphire mounted in a pinky ring of unbihexium.  And I told her it wouldn’t hurt if there was a spiral galaxy at the center of the star.  Hey we all can dream right?

Unbihexium is supposed to exist at the magic number for stable super heavy elements.  Apparently some astrophysicists are theorizing that the existence of very heavy elements in second generation stars points to the existence of super heavy elements being produced in some kind of ultra-ultra super duper supernova events that would be needed to produce these elements.

I know, I know I should be talking about Iowa or Joe Biden but as you know I’m trying to put off suicide for the foreseeable future.  So, unbihexium!

 

 

Strapping In for a Long Political Season

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I was watching some footage of the pro-Palestinian rioters scaling the outer fence at the White House and thinking, “Is there a chance they might get Joe?”  But, no.  It was all Kabuki theater, of course.  Some people are screaming,” Hey, how come they didn’t arrest them like they did the January 6th protesters?”  But you don’t arrest your friends when they’re playacting.  You know, making believe that they expect the White House to throw the Israelis under the bus.  Ask the former president of Harvard how that worked out for her.  No this is a fig leaf to try and minimize the electoral penalty they expect to pay in Michigan from the Arab voters there.  Well, someone did the math and decided this was the better play.

So, tomorrow is the Iowa Caucus.  Trump will win it by twenty or more percent.  If Haley comes in second then maybe DeSantis may drop out.  I’m not sure if Ramaswamy stays in.  Maybe he wants to do New Hampshire too.  I really don’t know how all this works for him.  I think with all the Democrat and Independent crossover, Haley has a shot at winning in New Hampshire.  But New Hampshire is now just North Massachusetts.  Of course, they don’t want Trump.  Every time the idiot governor Sununu shows up on MSNBC, he yammers on about how independent their voters are.  What a load of crap.  Anywhere else in the country a New England “Republican” is a radical progressive.

But if Haley manages to squeak out a victory in New Hampshire the press will trumpet how this means she’s got a shot at the nomination.  Now that’s a crock.  I don’t even think she has a chance of winning in her home state of South Carolina.  But we’ll be hearing that drivel all the way up to February 24th when the primary occurs.  Then mercifully, the wind will collapse out of their sails and the next sideshow will be the court trials to try and put Trump in jail.  And on and on until the conventions and then the election.

Well, I really don’t have the interest to follow all of the minutia.  I’ll just look at the headlines and look for some talking head to say something really stupid that I can mock.  And there’s no end to those.  I can’t make up my mind which are more pathetic the idiots on CNN and MSNBC or the fakes at Fox News.  They’re both contemptible but somehow the fake conservatives are more contemptible.  The pundits on the Left are so obviously cretinous numbskulls that you almost feel sorry for them; being paraded in front of cameras and allowed to prove themselves morons.  Someone like Joy Reid isn’t playing with a full deck.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/01/13/joy_reid_black_folks_see_those_palestinians_and_they_see_themselves.html

She’s annoying for sure but no one is thinking, “Hey, that Joy Reid really has a point there.”  Well, no one with an IQ over 65.  So, it’s not very important to try and discredit her jabbering.

But the Fox News people are of at least functional human intelligence and yet they lie and deceive their viewers by carrying water for the likes of Joe Biden.  More and more the likes of Bret Baier strike me as the worst problem in news.  He’s the voice of the Republican establishment and the worst offender when it comes to trying to sell people on Nikki Haley as some kind of conservative.  So, Brett and his clones will probably provide the best fodder for my mockery.  I’m sure if I search round in his history, I’ll find his elevator speech for why Republicans should embrace pediatric transgender affirmation surgery.  But somehow he hasn’t volunteered to try it out himself.

As I said at New Year’s Day, I intend to try to avoid beating the same dead horses I’ve been pummeling for the last few years.  It’s not very amusing anymore but when there is something amusing or enlightening that I can think of I’ll pass it along.  Well, let’s see what shows up in Iowa.

Trixie, We Hardly Knew Ye

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Joyce Randolph, best known as Trixie Norton, the wife of Ralph Kramden’s best friend Ed Norton of the tv show “The Honeymooners” is dead at 99.

Trixie was typically straight man to either Alice Kramden or her husband Ed wasn’t a commanding acting presence on the show but she was a familiar part of many of the set-up husband/wife battle scenes.  Farewell oh, last link to the Honeymooners, a venerable part of  tv history.

Fabulous 2024

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JB – Welcome back to the PBS News Hour.  I’m your host Jiff Benetton and I’m here with New York Times columnist David Brooks-Brothers and Washington Post editor Jonathan Capon and we’re here to talk about the Biden reelection campaign strategy.  Tell me David, what do you think should be the Biden campaign’s highest priority right now.

DBB – Well Jiff, If I’m being honest, I think they should try to limit the number of new shooting wars to one per week.  Not that shooting wars are wrong or anything but it’s kind of a tradition to try and explain why we’re blowing up foreigners in some sort of detail.  I mean, it’s hard enough to explain who the Houthis are and why they’re not called Yemenis and where Yemen is on the map.  A recent survey revealed that 73% of Americans polled, identified the Houthis as inhabitants of the ice planet Hoth in Star Wars Episode 5; whereas in reality the desert home of the Houthis is more akin to Tatooine the home of the Tusken Raiders in Episode 4, or as I like to call it “the real Star Wars.”.

But all of this is happening while we’re still trying to explain why the Ukraine wants the Israelis’ money and it’s leading to confusion.  People are starting to get frustrated with all the flag icons they have to list on their profile on X.  Someone attempted to post the Yemeni flag with a slash through it and accidentally identified himself with the Cricket Liberation Front and a tragedy ensued.  As a simplifying strategy, during the next White House press conference I’d have Haitian Bette Boop say that all of these places are just different parts of Ukraine.  That would be best.

JB – Jonathan, what’s your take on the reelection situation?

JC – Jiff, I have just one word for Joe; FABULOUS!!!!  What the Biden campaign needs is fierce queer energy.  Joe needs a makeover.  A beehive blue wig, three-inch scarlet fingernails, stiletto heels and a B&D leather two piece should be enough to get this campaign moving.  They should bring in RuPaul as an image consultant and maybe give the First Lady a year-long furlough to an old age home to give the president room to explore his wild side.  I feel confident with Jolene Biden on the prowl the 2024 election will be jumping.  The campaign will become one big dance party!

JB – Dave, care to comment?

DBB – Uhhhhh, yeah.  I’m a little uncertain about Joe Biden as a drag queen candidate.  I’m not a hundred percent sure that the American public is ready for that much excitement.  In fact I’m pretty sure they want less Biden on their news feed.

JB – What are you saying David?

DBB – A recent poll found that 78% of Democratic voters wanted President Biden to make up fewer lies when he spoke to the press.  52% of Democratic voters said they were more likely to vote for Biden if he just hid out and didn’t show his face to the public until after the election.  I think that Drag Queen Biden would be unlikely to enhance his poll numbers.

JC – You know David, I always thought you were an ally but you sound just like a minion of the patriarchy spewing hate and trying to harsh the buzz that we LGBTQ people feel.  You white, straight, cis-gender males are the enemy of all that is queer and beautiful.  You should be ashamed for disparaging fabulous Jolene Biden and the White House Drag Extravaganza.

DBB – Yes, Jonathan.  …  I’m very ashamed.  In fact, I’ve gotta get out of here right now. (walks off the set).

JB – Well folks, you’ve witnessed history right here.  The patriarchy is reeling out of control and crashing to the ground.  If only there were a disco ball in this studio, we could celebrate the way we should.

JC – You go girlfriend!

JB – Right back at ya.  And that’s all we have.  From everybody at PBS, well everybody except that homophobe David, have a great tomorrow and a better yesterday.