21 Thursday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Asshole, blood money, Corona virus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, incompetence, pandemic, stimulus check
It arrived today:
We could have had nice things, like universal healthcare, universal childcare, cost free higher education, high speed rail, infrastructure that actually worked…
Thanks for nothing, asshole.
Bad combover. Check. Too long red tie. Check. Orange spray tan. Check. Tiny hands. Check. Cluelessness. Check…
12 Tuesday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Corona virus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, incompetence, jerk, pandemic, racism, snowflake, White House
Yesterday:
Remarks by President Trump in a Press Briefing on COVID-19 Testing
Issued on: May 11, 2020
Rose Garden
4:15 P.M. EDT[….]
Yeah, go ahead, please.
Q [Weijia Jiang, CBS] Thank you, Mr. President. You said many times that the U.S. is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q [Weijia Jiang, CBS] Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if, every day, Americans are still losing their lives and we’re still seeing more cases every day?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me; ask China that question, okay? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.
Yes. Behind you, please.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] Do you want to follow up?
Q [Weijia Jiang, CBS] Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically? That I should ask China?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m telling you. I’m not saying it specifically to anybody. I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that.
Q [Weijia Jiang, CBS] That’s not a nasty question. Why does it matter, when —
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Anybody else? Please, go ahead. In the back. Please.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] I have two –- I have two questions.
THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s okay. We’ll go over here.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] But you pointed to me. I have two questions, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Next. Next, please.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] But you didn’t — you called on me.
THE PRESIDENT: I did, and you didn’t respond, and now I’m calling on —
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] Sir, I just wanted to let –-
THE PRESIDENT: — the young lady in the back. Please.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] I just wanted to let me colleague finish.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay –-
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] But can I ask you a question, please?
THE PRESIDENT: — ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Q [Kaitlan Collins, CNN] But you called on me.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
END 5:16 P.M. EDT
Snowflake.
Bad combover. Check. Too long red tie. Check. Orange spray tan. Check. Tiny hands. Check. Cluelessness. Check…
04 Monday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Blue Lives Matter, bumper stickers, Corona virus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, incompetence, MAGA, pandemic
A true believer?
This morning in west central Missouri:
It’s difficult at best to keep pasting on and then removing bumper stickers to conform with the right wingnut dogma of the moment. Or, they haven’t yet heard that the police aren’t their friends anymore since it’s now perfectly okay to scream at law enforcement in close quarters during one of those “Let’s Provide Future Confirmation of Darwin and the Dunning-Kruger Effect” rallies.
20 Monday Apr 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
“You know, there’s something about this that’s like, well it’s like you’re expecting a letter that you’re just crazy to get, and you’re hanging around the front door for fear you might not hear him ring. You never realize that he always rings twice…” – Frank Chambers – The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
A comment, yesterday, on social media:
Everyone here has been paying attention for a long time. We all knew. That is cold comfort.
American exceptionalism coupled with astroturf (fake) populism has always been part of the equation in this country.
Unfortunately we’ve had grotesque and catastrophic failures in the institutions that have sometimes helped restrain these collective baser instincts as a nation. The individual moral, ethical, and human failures that got us to where we are have long since become too numerous to catalog.
We all have to understand that somewhere over four in ten people you pass on the street fervently believe he’s doing a great job. Couple that with the realization that approximately one third of this country would happily do away with another third, while the remaining would watch and do nothing – and you have a recipe for disaster.
We are so perilously close to this, if not there already.
I’ll illustrate. The conventional wisdom is now parroting the line that widespread testing is not feasible and that the economy is being severely damaged. Think about that for a minute. Translation: We don’t want to pay for it. The 1% don’t want to endanger their profit margins, nor do they want to give up over forty years of undeserved tax windfalls that they’ve been reaping from our economy and infrastructure. Socialize the risk, privatize the profits. It was the greatest parasitic grift balancing act in the history of civilization.
Mother nature doesn’t believe in trickle down economics. There’s always payback – and here we are.
The horror and the scope of the current human toll is nothing to these people. It hasn’t been a concern of theirs in the past. Why should they change? And they have a sufficient number of useful idiot teabagger acolytes to help them continue to achieve their ends.
There’s an “Operation Moron” protest scheduled for Jefferson City, Missouri sometime early this [….] week. I usually try to cover these kinds of events as a photographer. Not this time. I don’t want to be any part of a practical demonstration of Darwin.
The postman always rings twice.
A true believer – at a business establishment along U.S. 50 Highway in eastern Jackson County, Missouri.
15 Wednesday Apr 2020
Posted in Josh Hawley, social media, US Senate
Tags
Asshole, Corona virus, incompetence, Josh Hawley, missouri, pandemic, right wingnut, social media, sociopath, sycophant, Trump enabler, Twitter, U.S.Senate
This morning:
Josh Hawley @HawleyMO
Hawley: It’s ‘Vitally Important’ To Open U.S. ‘As Soon As We Possibly Can’
[….]Remaining on lockdown for year to get a vaccine ‘is just not going to work, we can’t do that, it will end up being a humanitarian crisis and nobody wants to do that.’
Fucking sociopath.
That’s “pro-life” for you – forty or more years of right wingnut fealty to billionaires isn’t enough. Their current profit margins are more important than lives.
As usual, many of the responses are priceless:
That will only happen with fast testing that is available everywhere. When will that happen? How have the Chinese prevented the debacle with testing? It is the Chinese fault, right?
Impatience to reopen will cost lives and hurt the economy. As much as we wish we could go back to normal, doing so before it’s safe will just start the cycle all over again, hurting the economy more.
Be patient.
Some people still cling to the belief that being polite to an idiot will get them somewhere.
And if we had tests, we could. We’d know who actually has the virus, including asymptomatic carriers.
It’s almost as though the Powers That Be want chaos. Sort of like that 2016 interview with Trump….
Wish we could but #GOP bungled response and made the problem worse.
Psycho
That, too.
Respectfully -will your kids go back to public school or daycare? Will your parents be out grocery shopping? Will your wife resume workouts at a local gym? Will your family go back to church and eat out on Sundays? We need credible examples on what to do.
Wine shopping online.
If we “open the U.S.” too soon, the humanitarian crisis is going to be even worse. Business will temporarily be booming, while people die in droves and end up closing down business for lack of live workers and customers.
Haven’t you been paying attention?
No. This has been another episode of short answers to simple questions.
I’ll go with the medical professionals opinion on what “as soon as we can” means.
Remember @HawleyMO: it is unwise to remove a cast before a broken bone is fully healed.
Why do you trust #TrumpPropaganda?
Why didn’t you demand action in #December, #January, #February, #March and #MostOfApril?
Why did you do nothing, Senator @HawleyMO?
Do you hate Americans?
You know what’s important? Not fucking dying. That’s important. How many have died because they couldn’t eat in a restaurant? Y’all want to believe the Dear Leader that’s your fucking problem. I suggest y’all get together for a big group hug
Why would you care if Missourians die? You only care about your corporate donors and making your #DearLeader happy by agreeing with everything he says.
So it’s a real shame Republicans squandered so much time that could have been used getting it under control, isn’t it?
You wouldn’t be in this predicament if you had removed President Bullshit from office. With competent leadership we could have mitigated this disaster back in January. Even now @realdonaldtrump hampers our efforts at containing and treating this pandemic.
You should head on in to grocery stores and bag groceries 8 hours a day to show us how safe it is to go back to normal…lead by example
He prefers wine shopping.
Perhaps you should be more concerned with your constituents instead of your big money donors.
Killing a few retirees will help save money and help make America great again！
Josh Hawley (r) [2016 file photo].
Tool.
01 Wednesday Apr 2020
Tags
Budget cuts, COVID-19, governor, incompetence, Mike Parson, missouri, pandemic, SB 509
SB 509: the moment when all hope for the future of Missouri died (May 6, 2014)
The final vote to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of SB 509. Representative Jeremy LaFaver (D) (left) – bearing witness, Representative Keith English (center) – casting the 109th vote necessary for the override, and Representative Ron Hicks (r) (right) – his escort on and off the House floor. May 6, 2014.
For a nicer office location.
This won’t be the last story on SB 509 (May 9, 2014)
….Moreover, the revenue triggers in the legislation only apply until the tax cuts are fully phased-in. After that time, under the legislature’s own estimates, there would be at least $620 million less in general revenue available each and every year, regardless of whether revenue collections are going up or down. In addition, the legislation’s annual cost would continue to grow above the legislature’s $620 million annual estimate because the income bracket adjustments in the bill for increases in the consumer price index would continue indefinitely. See Section 143.011.3. This provision alone would result in an additional $128 million in annual revenue reductions ten years after the legislation is fully phased-in, increasing each year in perpetuity….
That was then, this is now:
Governor Mike Parson @GovParsonMO
Between now and June 31st, we are estimating an over $500 million shortfall.We have had to take a hard look at our budget and make some very difficult decisions.
3:11 PM · Apr 1, 2020
Governor Mike Parson @GovParsonMO
*June 30th
4:18 PM · Apr 1, 2020
Yep. Really rich people got a big windfall in 2014. Now what?
Governor Mike Parson (r) [2018 file photo].
01 Wednesday Apr 2020
Posted in meta
Tags
Corona virus, COVID-19, governor, incompetence, meta, Mike Parson, missouri, pandemic, right wingnuts, stay at home order, trolling
“…Come on, do the right thing. Delay just means more death and suffering. Flatten the goddamned curve…”
Missouri Governor Mike Parson (r) still has not issued a “stay at home” order for the state. Because, we don’t know, “rural, something, something.”
Meta.
Yesterday morning on Show Me Progress I put up a post titled “Are you smarter than Missouri’s governor?,” highlighting the Lafayette County Commission’s “stay at home” ordinance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – as opposed to the refusal of Missouri Governor Mike Parson (r) to do the same. There has been a precipitous rise in cases in Lafayette County.
The post caused a significant traffic spike. Significant as in the largest number of daily “hits” in almost five years of operating on this platform.
With a traffic spike comes comments and trolling. Show Me Progress is set so that I must personally approve all comments before they’re posted. I see the IP address and the e-mail of the commenter, along with their typed remarks.
I try not to engage right wingnuts directly. By any definition of their thought processes and ideology, it’ a colossal waste of time. I generally delete their comments as they’re in moderation. There’s an old music adage: “You can’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” So, I tend to delete trolling comments and ignore them.
Unless it amuses me.
Yesterday morning I received the following, unedited (it went into the trash):
All the armchair warriors .. Your not in charge!
Till you are in control if your (R) or (D) sit back and be quiet.
Your time to comment comes at the polling station.
Since we don’t have all the information we must assume the decisions are best for the majority
Even if it’s not good for you..
A champion of the First Amendment, eh? And don’t start with, “wait, aren’t you censoring this person?” Don’t be an idiot. The First Amendment applies to government action. If trolls want to spew stupidity on the Internets they are perfectly free and able to start their own blog. A place where people can freely choose to read their drivel, or not.
You think they kept their opinion and counsel, not speaking out, from January 2009 to January 2017? Right…
“Even if it’s not good for you..” Seriously, someone believes that. “The needs of the 1%, outweigh the needs of the many” is quite a moral perversion.
That deference to authority figure(s) “…[s]ince we don’t have all the information…” is the ultimate laziness in the Information Age. Such laziness as a foundation for all other social behavior is so 21st century.
Grammar and incoherence aside, somebody should inform this poor person that the current governor of Missouri was not elected to that office.
This (unedited) also went into the trash:
Your article is a hit piece not news. Governor Parsons is doing a great job. In case you are not aware of this we live in a federal style of government. Therefore the local towns can issue a stay at home order when necessary. The whole state does not need to shut down. Show some respect.
Show some respect, learn to spell your governor’s name.
Something, something, Federalism backwards. Ignore actual expertise (science! math!). Ignore the problems in a pandemic (science! math!) generated by a patchwork of responses from county to county, and town to town, because, you know, people don’t ever travel from one place to the other. [That’s how a fucking pandemic works.] Ergo, tautology. Deference to authority, no matter how incompetent. Obvious ignorance of the concept of exponential growth. And willfully ignoring that rural Missouri doesn’t have the health care capacity to deal with the exponential growth of cases of COVID-19 to come.
If I’d bothered to answer this one directly it would have been: “Fuck off, you Neolithic self-righteous sociopathic prig. How’s that for the respect you deserve?”
There are hotspots across Missouri. Urban, suburban, and rural. The whole state does need to shut down. Lives are at stake.
Governor Mike Parson (r) [2018 file photo].
Well, Governor Parson (r)?
Stay Home. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Good luck to us all.
#FlattenTheCurve
Previously:
Gov. Mike Parson (r): Do the right thing (March 23, 2020)
Gov. Mike Parson (r): “What, me worry?” (March 26, 2020
Gov. Mike Parson (r): Still wringing your hands, eh? (March 28, 2020)
Are you smarter than Missouri’s governor? (March 31, 2020)
Are you smarter than Missouri’s governor? – part 2 (March 31, 2020)
31 Tuesday Mar 2020
Posted in Missouri Governor
Tags
COVID-19, governor, incompetence, Johnson County, Mike Parson, missouri, pandemic, stay at home order
Missouri Governor Mike Parson (r) has not issued a “stay at home” order for the state. Because, we don’t know, “rural, something, something.”
The Johnson County, Missouri Commission and Johnson County Community Health Services, on the other hand:
Johnson County, Missouri “Stay at Home” Order – March 31, 2020 [pdf]
Statistics from Johnson County released today indicate 24 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the county.
Tests administered: 618
Negative: 472
Positive: 24
Recovered: 1
Deaths: 0
From Pioneer Trails Regional Planning Commission:
Governor Mike Parson (r) [2018 file photo].
Well, Governor Parson (r)?
Previously:
Are you smarter than Missouri’s governor? (March 31, 2020)
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
campaign piece, CDC, Corona virus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, incompetence, missouri, misuse of public money, pandemic, postcard
This arrived in yesterday’s mail (we let the mail sit, decontaminate it, and, in this case, microwaved it):
This, friends, is a misuse of public funds for partisan political campaign purposes. That asshole doesn’t even believe the stuff on the “b” side of the card, let alone understand the science and math of a pandemic.
When this is over, there better be a whole shitload of accountability and investigative hearings. No more fake “we need to look forward” comity for these sociopaths.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in social media
Tags
Corona virus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, incompetence, pandemic, social media, stupidity, ventilators
And that, as we say in the business, is the ultimate irony.
Last night:
Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins
Trump: “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes and they’ll have two ventilators. Now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'”
8:55 PM · Mar 26, 2020
They need the ventilators because the very large and exponentially increasing number of patients with the most severe cases of COVID-19 need them to stay alive.
Fucking idiot.
Bad combover. Check. Too long red tie. Check. Orange spray tan. Check. Tiny hands. Check. Cluelessness. Check…