I read my latest edition of the Atlantic Monthly just about cover to cover in fascinated horror at the threat to freedom and our republic posed by the traitors and cowards that run today's Republicon Party. You should too, because the January 6 2021 violent insurrection continues today in slow motion, in DC and across the states, and is an even bigger and growing threat to the land of the free. Only this time it's not on the steps of our Capital, it's on the steps to your ballot box. Yes you should, that is IF you consider yourself to be a patriot who wants there to be a free world to keep on rockin' in!

After my reading I mailed my copy to the Badger State's Assembly Speaker Robin Vos with the following note:

"Speaker Vos,

I read this edition just about cover to cover and reflected on it as a citizen of Wisconsin and the American Republic. I also reflected on it as a son and grandson, with regard to the legacy passed down to us and as a father and grandfather, with respect to the legacy we will pass down. I hope that you will consider doing the same.

Sean Cranley"

I'm skeptical that he can look beyond himself, his cancerous cohort and their lust for power at the cost of all America is supposed to stand for. But it's worth a try.

Of course the cover article: January 6 Was Practice - Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun is required reading. But the Editor's Note A Party , and Nation, in Crisis? I've never read that all the way through. I did this time.

What the GOP does to it's Dissenters is about a Freshman Michigan congressman with integrity. Need I say more?

The Great (Fake) Child-Sex-Trafficking Epidemic article can't possible tie into the Trumpublicons right? WRONG!

When the Myth of Voter Fraud Comes for You. What the GOPsters need scapegoats and enemies to fuel the resentment and outrage? Say it ain't so!

What Happened to American Conservatism?

Are We Doomed?

Beware Prophesies of Civil War.

The Kleptocrats Next Door

All, ALL link back to Trump and the cowards and traitors that are the officials in his putrid political machine. Get yourself a copy or don't say I didn't warn you!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/

Is America a Racist Country?

I never heard the term Critical Race Theory until about a month ago, when I became aware of the indoctrinated Cult of Con members whining about it on the anti-social media. So I decided to find out what manner of propaganda the Rightwing Rubes were being fed now.

Turns out it's really just a term for the study of institutional racism in the United States, a thing we ALL learned a little about in grade school (Civil War, Jim Crow). But also a subject the great depth of which I've learned much more about in recent years (the GI Bill, redlining, neighborhood covenants, etc.). Institutional racism in this country is undeniable, no matter what you call it and if that truth offends your lily-white sensibilities then suck it snowflake.

So is America a racist country? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding YES! But that doesn't make us exceptional, it makes us unexceptional, just like most all the other countries on the planet. Is there an exception? I can't think of one.

Look at what every single colonial power did to the indigenous peoples of their colonies. Look at what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, what the Chinese are doing to the Uighurs, the Burmese to the Rohingya, the Turks to the Kurds and the Armenians, the Sunni to the Shia or vice versa in the Muslim world. War on Drugs & Incarceration Nation anyone? I could go on and on around the globe and back through history.

The fact is that among human societies everywhere, the dominant group with the power will marginalize any group within it's grasp. So, if it makes you feel any better, the shame of racism shouldn't be assigned to your country, it belongs to your species.

What DOES make America exceptional? It was founded not as a nation state (based on race), but as a notion state (based on ideas). And striving for that notion that all men are created equal makes America perhaps the best chance for achieving a diverse society within an inclusive and functioning representative democracy that is the human race's best hope for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Or we can continue to wallow in our exclusive racial/religious/you-name-it identities, continue to practice marginalization and destroy our Republic. It's up to you America.

Trump Leader of the Free World? Don't Make Me Cry!

Astonishingly, in the last week or so I have heard several commentators refer to Trump as "Leader of the Free World". This would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. But there is no leader of the free world anymore and there hasn't been one since Obama walked out of the White House and the America First Trumpladyte slithered in.

To be sure, George W. Bush did great harm to our standing in the eyes of our fellow democratic allies, but it was still redeemable and that's what they saw hopefully in president Obama's steady hand on the tiller. But now that the American People have shown that they're ignorant enough to elect an ignoramus like Trump once, they know that we're just foolish enough to do it again and even if Biden wins this election, the specter of another selfish Republicon winning will be in the forefront of their thoughts for a generation when it comes to establishing any long-term commitments to the international order in cooperation with the U.S.

And who has stepped into the breach and is playing Trump, Pompeo and the rest of the betrayers of our hard won leadership in the post WWII world? China. It's China that is shaping the international order of the 21st century, not the United States of America. And what is China's primary goal in these efforts? To make the world not only safe for dictators like Xi Jinping, but to make the case that one party dictatorship's like China's are better models of government than democracies like ours and those of our allies.

So don't be foolish enough to think of Trump as the leader of the free world. In fact, if we're collectively naive enough to let him foul the White House for another four years, not only will we never lead the free world again, we won't even be in it!

Please read this very informative article by the great foreign affairs writer Anne Applebaum:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/trump-who-withdrawal-china/616475/

Vos' Legislative Dictatorship

 

Robin Vos has betrayed our Republics, that of Wisconsin and of the United States of America and he must go. In 2011, he and his so-called Republican co-conspirators imposed a legislative dictatorship on the people of Wisconsin for a decade. Through grotesque gerrymandering, Vos has destroyed representative democracy in the Badgered State, inflicting one-party rule Vlad Lenin would have been proud of, that need not heed the will of We the People.

In both 2012 and 2018, the GOP retained a strong grip on both the state legislature and our congressional delegation despite losing the overall vote to Democrats. It’s estimated that in this tightly split purple state, Democrats would need to get at least 57% of our votes to have even a small chance of winning control. Gavel in and out Vos knows this and therefore, feels no need to act for our welfare or be responsive to the will of the electorate.

Founder John Adams said that the representative assembly “should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large”. If the founders had meant for the people to have a say in their representation only every ten years, they would have prescribed that elections be held only once a decade. Through his self-serving and power worshiping authoritarian actions, Vos has broken faith with the people of Wisconsin and the very foundation of our state, our country and our democracy and should be relegated to the trash bin of history. Vote Joel Jacobsen November 3rd!

Echoes of the Election of 1876?

I accept the reality of coincidence, but not of omens. And that's good because I just finished reading the historical novel 1876 by Gore Vidal. It was kind of a slog as the author spent the bulk of the book setting the real social, socialite and political landscape in our centennial year, at the dawn of the gilded age in New York and Washington DC through the daily activities of the fictional protagonists.

I'm glad I finished though, because unbeknownst to me the book culminated in the presidential "election" of 1876, where the totally power hungry and corrupt Grant Administration and his (already no longer Lincoln's) Republicon Party used deceit, falsified returns from swing states and dueling sets of electors to throw the outcome into Congress.

NY Gov. Samuel Tilden won both the popular vote and the electoral college and was the rightful winner. But Republicons in several states submitted alternate returns and then sent alternate sets of electors for the electoral college. An extra-constitutional commission including members of Congress and the Supreme court ultimately handed power to the loser of the election, OH Gov. Rutherfraud B. Hayes.

Totally not an omen, couldn't happen today as we still have two parties with honest actors, integrity, respect for our democratic norms and traditions and strongly committed to our Republic, majority rule and the peaceful transfer of civil power that has been the hallmark of our democracy since George Washington willing stepped down. Yeah, just a coincidence!

Open Letter to the Moronisphere

 

To all you morons out there running around willy nilly, putting yourselves and others at risk in the middle of a global pandemic and crying for getting things back to normal and re-opening the economy, Ain't Gonna Happen! Because you can't do it without us and we're not playin'.

For an economy to grow you need everyone participating to the extent of their abilities. There's a ton of us here, watching your antics, shaking our heads in disgust at your foolhardy selfishness and doing our best to keep ourselves and our circles safe, by limiting potential exposure to the virus and you idiots to extent possible and practical. We're not living in fear, we just refuse to be stupid and selfish.

And you know what? We're keeping our powder dry. We're not going out and spending our money at bars and restaurants or travel or vacations, etc. and we're not going to as long as you chuckleheads keep this nonsense going. Furthermore, the more you morons keep fueling the surge in cases, the more people will see the wisdom of our ways and folly of yours and join us in our prudence, further lowering participation in the economy and extending the downturn.

Here in the once great Republic of Wisconsin, we've become the nation's premier virus breeding zone thanks to you cretins and your so-called "leaders. The Badgered State is now ruled by a Gerrymandered Republicon Legislative Dictatorship that needn't and doesn't give two shits about the will of the people or even our very lives. The Gavel-In-Gavel-Out Authoritarians have taken zero action in the months of this pandemic to stem the tied of spread. They have stymied any prudent actions by the reasonable Governor  and the Department of Health Services to protect the people of the Badgered State, not by taking action themselves, which they could do, but by using their weaselly lawyers & Robed Judicial Hactivists on their Extreme Court. And these sniveling little cowards, afraid to be seen doing the right thing, have been encouraging you idiots to run out and save their economy, while they are in hiding!

But you don't have to keep playing stupid for this futile and deadly losing cause. This pandemic and the economic disaster it's ushered in with the help of the Trumpublicons will not end until there is a vaccine that is effective and administered widely enough to bring the spread under control. The economy will not recover until then and there is no reason for there to be tens of thousands of excess deaths in the meantime because of your antics. Because, like I said, you can't do it without us and we ain't playin'!

Black Lives Matter - Not about your Ancestors, but the Here & Now!

I keep seeing the "I/my ancestors didn't own any slaves and you can’t fix history" argument in response to Black Lives Matter, so I feel like I have to say something because I find it to be a completely bogus and disingenuous line of reasoning.

First of all, while history is important for sure BLM is about what’s happening and keeps happening right now. This sort of “reasoning” also seeks to ignore many of the reasons for the problem of racial injustice we still face today and to falsely absolve people of their responsibility to be part of the solution. It's really not just about what you or I or our families did or didn't do. That's a self-centered perspective.

It IS about what OUR government legally sanctioned in the past, what's still tolerated now and the ongoing problems that persists today because of that history and because of current on-going conditions.

The end of slavery was in 1865, 155 years ago and was followed by the LEGAL Jim Crow era of disenfranchisement, segregation and lynching that sort of, but not really, ended in the 1960s with the civil rights and voting rights act, which was just gutted by the so-called conservative Judicial Hacktivists on the U.S. Extreme Court.

Racism is still alive and well in the brains of too many Americans and the effects of that and 400 years of oppression still strongly impact the lives of every black American alive today through the wealth gap, the achievement/opportunity gap and in the fact that they have to repeatedly have "The Talk" with their children, especially their boys about how to be very careful in public to avoid being abused or killed by police. Which just keeps happening anyway. It's an outrage!

One metric I heard several years ago and which is probably worse now after the great Recession and Covid 19, both of which disproportionately impacted minorities, is the net worth of American women. The average net worth of a white woman is over $40K. For Hispanic women, it's $1 and for black women it's ZERO. That's no accident, that is the result of government policy, OUR government. Through red lining, black were relegated to certain neighborhoods, largely in old parts of inner cities. Because they could not get home equity loans, they had great difficulty upgrading and maintaining their houses, which fell into disrepair and lost value. Covenants went with houses forbidding white owners to sell to blacks. How's that for Freedom? You couldn't sell the house You OWNED to who you wanted to and they couldn’t buy it! Blacks were excluded from social Security when it first came out.

A lot of black soldiers served overseas to defeat fascism in WWII (only to see it rise today at home). And did they get the benefits of the GI Bill? NOPE! While their white fellow veterans got the benefits to go to college and buy houses in suburbs, building inter-generational wealth and the middle class, black Vets weren't eligible. So instead of building equity and taking upwardly mobile jobs, they paid rent to build landlord wealth and took low skill dead end jobs.

One could literally go on and on with examples like this. History isn't past, we live with it every day. The gist is that our government and our society did these things, the adverse effects are on-going and as citizens of a Republic (so far) we are ALL responsible for resolving these injustices. So whatever your ancestors did or didn’t do, you don’t need to feel guilty or absolved. It wouldn’t do a bit of good anyway. What you should do that WILL do good is to stop making excuses, know the history, see the current conditions that have resulted with clear eyes and take responsibility as a citizen of our republic and demand the change that’s need once and for all, so that we can stop this endless cycle of inequality and injustice.

My Dear White Friends

Rosewood Massacre

My dear white friends, yes violence and destruction are egregious, counter-productive and wasteful crimes, no matter who perpetrates them. But if you don't understand why they happen, not just here, not just now, but across the world and throughout history, then you need to get a better grasp on human nature.

And if you think that you would behave differently under the same circumstances with the tables turned, then you need to stop patting yourself on the back and get a better grip on reality.

Furthermore, if you believe that these events are the result of the characteristics of a particular group of humans and not the result of the conditions that they have been subjected to by other humans for 400 years and counting, then you're being extremely foolhardy and exhibiting the flawed "reasoning" of racial prejudice. Then you're part of problem, sowing the very seeds from which this destruction springs.

Tulsa Massacre

Republicons Have Sold Out Our Republic

It’s said that suburbs are named after what they destroy. Today’s Republican Party is rushing toward holding that “distinction” too. This degeneration is no longer about political opinions or ideologies, it’s about values.  The GOP has lost its mind, sold its soul and exposed its depraved values. Their actions and inactions demonstrate that they value only one thing, money/power, flip sides of the same coin and they have thwarted representative democracy, our very Republic, in their morbid quest.

Here in the Badgered State we have laws, written and voted on in secret by far away corporations, and imposed on you by Vos and Fitzgerald without attribution. They’ve passed numerous laws taking away local control. Gross gerrymandering makes majority vote rule meaningless, the Republicans still control the legislature. They suppress voters, betraying the very foundation of our Republic. And they got the judicial hacktivist stacked extreme court to place the economy above our pandemic threatened lives, ruling absurdly that our constitution prohibits our government from protecting its citizens, its first and foremost function. That’s what kangaroos do. They even lame-duck limited the power of our governor when they objected to the choice We the People made.

At the federal level, the GOP has backed every un-American, authoritarian play of a cult figure who embodies the seven deadly sins and exhibits zero counter-balancing virtuous values. Their tax cut for the rich proved they don’t care about debt or deficits. Law & order? Please, he’s surrounded himself with felons, corrupticons and pedophiles and if you’re the president’s pal your pardoned.

The final evidence of this party’s degeneration to golden calf idolatry is their insistence on sacrificing our children on the altar of their moneygod. It’s not about education, it’s about daycare and pandemic prone parents being pressed back into service for fun, profit and Trump’s re-election, the prospect of which represents the final republican nail in the coffin of our republic. I never believed they were really pro-life, but this is proof positive and it begs the question, “Republicans, have you no decency!”

Pandemicized America's Healthcare Bankruptcy

America has the most unaffordable healthcare in the world. It is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in America, affecting over 500,000 families per year.

In the middle of this pandemic Americans are losing their jobs and therefore, their healthcare and getting sick on top of that atrocity. That isn't happening in Non-Shithole Countries. Here in the Badgered State, our so called representatives refused to take the medicaid expansion, costing the state millions and denying Wisconsinites healthcare. So much for "fiscal conservatism" and "pro-life". That didn't happen in Non-Shithole States.

Meanwhile, the Trumpladyte is trying to kill Obamacare, a move that would kick another 20 million American off their healthcare in the middle of a pandemic. USDA Grade A Choice @$$oul.

Decent countries care about their people and provide affordable healthcare to All. You want me to honor the flag? Be THAT Country!

The Looming Homelessness Pandemic

America, where your right to defend your home is enshrined, but your right to have one is not.

We were in a housing crisis Before the Pandemic. 11% of black renters are evicted every year in America, where on average there are 3.6 million eviction cases per year. Now we face the worst economy since the great depression and the moratorium on evictions is about to expire with no meaningful help in sight.

Many millions will soon face evictions in the midst of a sky rocketing pandemic. With not being able pay their existing rent and saddled with an eviction record, the prospect of finding new housing is dim at best for many of these people. Homelessness will surge and you can't social distance in a shelter, which will help the virus to surge, adding to our collective misery.

A decent country would value it's citizen's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness enough to actually fight a pandemic as well as recognize and work towards Everyone's right to decent, affordable and non-segregated shelter from the storm. You want me to Honor the Flag? BE THAT COUNTRY!

When Trump's Shit Hit the Fan

I have a plan for when trump's shit hit the fan

Like a suspension of liberty or an attack on Iran

I'll go to my bank, all my cash I'll demand

Then I'll stop buying anything doing without which I can

And in this effort, I hope you will join me

They don't care if you march, but they worship the economy

It's money and power that they bow down before

But if we use ours together we can help freedom endure!

Do We Need an Australian Immigrant Ban?

Do we need an Australian Immigrant Ban?

Yesterday an Aussie white supremacist pig committed the worst act terrorism in New Zealand's history, killing 49 Muslims who gathered to pray! And who is the immigrant who has done the most damage our democracy here in America? Rupert the Murdoch, another Australian Immigrant!

Mere coincidence? Well yeah. It's really just a segway.

The Murdoch didn't use a gun, he used his wealth as a weapon against Our Republic. He bought his U.S. Citizenship for $100,000 from the Reagan administration. Who turned around and eliminated the broadcasting fairness doctrine, which allowed Rupert the Murdoch to start the GOPropaganda cable network FuxSnooze.

And look at the pathetic state our country now. Swaths of the populace are hateful and ignorant enough to think that the racist dork, Trumplestiltskin is the solution to their problems, when in fact of their ills stem from the obscene democracy killing wealth of billionaires like Five-Deferments-Donny and Rupert-the Murdoch, warping our values, our economy and our representation. And it all started with Ronny, Rupert and the FuxSnooze Ooze of propaganda, and boy do they fucking Snooze!

Wake the Fux up America, your Dream is becoming a Nightmare!

Impeach THE National Emergency!

Enough is Enough!

The response of the Democratic controlled House of Representatives to Donald Trump Declaring a Fake National Emergency should be to immediately move to begin impeachment proceedings for his misuse of presidential authority!

Impeachment proceedings should be started TODAY, the same day that Trump commits this new atrocity on our Republic. If the Democrats don't use the authority handed to them by the American People last fall in the face of this outrage, they are not doing their jobs and they don't deserve to keep them!

I have been of the opinion that we needed to wait until Robert Mueller finished his job and issued his report. I Was WRONG! Besides, we may never see Mueller's report.

Please read the article linked here by Yoni Appelbaum in the latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly - Impeach Donald Trump.

The author lays out a rock solid case for why the constitutional solution the founders gave us needs to be enacted NOW! It's a long, deliberative process, which is why it needs to begin right away. In short, starting the impeachment process will do three things:

1) Set up congressional committees and investigations into all of the suspicious activities that surround Trump and his circle with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, hold public hearings and bring disinfecting sunlight  to the Trumpian realm.

2) Force Trump and all his inner circle to lawyer up and focus their full attention on defending themselves and their actions and away from their disgusting, un-American agenda. Remember when the Fellowship of the Ring attacked Mordor drawing Sauron's full attention away from his goal of finding the one ring? Yeah, Like That!

3) Grab the news agenda away from Trump the Twit and his ability to thumb-twist the news cycle craft the narrative and deflect attention to suit his self-serving needs.

Declaring a National Emergency to raid funds appropriated by Congress for other purpose to build a monument to himself, based on a stupid campaign promise, that Mexico was supposed to pay for, Not Us, is BRIDGE TOO FAR!

Our Republic Cannot allow him to get away with this! Please read the article and then take what action seems best to you!

NYT Insider Resistance Op Ed Stupid on Many Levels

Okay, I appreciate the insider corroboration of all the Bat Craze Shittiness that is the Trump presidency. But this anonymous NYT Op Ed thing is STUPID on so many levels!

A) Why would you alert the Toddler Trump that there are "Adults in the room" foiling his impulsiveness? His narcissistic paranoia will now result in the purging of all said adults who've been putting the brakes on his crazy train!

B) Why would you think that invoking the 25th amendment would cause a constitutional crisis? The 25th Amendment IS The Constitution!

C) You know what IS a Constitutional Crisis? Subordinates not carrying out the president's orders!

D) Trumpy's already nutty nutty two shoes! Do you really want to send him flipping completely over the edge with the nuke football in reach! Seriously what do you thing the Trumpladyte cares about more himself or the planet?

E) All you so called principled people who have resigned or are staying on to pad his room have totally abdicated your responsibility to tell congress and the American people the whole truth about what's going on in OUR house and why you chose to quietly resign or chose to stay and secretly defy executive authority so that we could Constitutionally Impeach his @$$ouliness!

Oh and by the way, fuck your so called "bright spots" of "effective deregulation, historic tax reform and a more robust military", none of us riffraff out here get any benefit from the repetition of all that Elitist Enriching Cult of Con Fucking Nonsense!

Peasantly yours,

CorpSerf SOC-IMNFD1-ONURFD2 

Trumpski Treasonovich is WWWalker on Stupidity Steriods!

How much an idiot does one have to be to buy the Trumpladyte's HELLSINKY "Was/Wasn't" bullshit in context of the public/private hours he spent licking Putin Poisonov's balls?

IS there a more bald faced LIE in the history of American Presidents?

I don't even know what to say anymore and it doesn't even matter because the diarrhea never ceases and there's nothing to be done about!

Bushyboy was fucking awful, but the awful stupid shit oozed out every few days or so. We're down to every few hours now!

I blame, in part, Wrong Way Walker and the Badgered State Corrupticons. They came up with this Blitzkrieg assault on decency and democracy. Do so much damage so fast that the public and the opposition start reacting to one atrocity and before that gets rolling, there's another one and another one and . . . then they don't even know what to . . . wait a minute . . . what happened exactly? 

http://burlingtonareaprogressives.blogspot.com/2013/10/blitzgesetz-lightning-law.html 

Am I giving the Trumpladyte too much credit? Probably, after all he IS a Fucking Moron! Not there's anything wrong with that!

FUCKING REPUBLICON TRAITORS TO THE REPUBLIC!

Pall gets More Family Time - We get LESS!

My Wife was just forced to full time at work because of Pall Ryand and the rest of his @$$oul pals and their incessant attack on our healthcare. So she lost her day off. The day off that she used to help her Mother, that she could have used to help my Mother, the day she might have taken care of a future grandchild, the day she did things for our Family and for herself. This is a concrete and highly negative impact to our family from Pall and the "Family Value$ Folk$"! And we're just one among Millions.

Why was she FORCED to do this? To put me on her employer's healthcare plan. Because in Republicon America we must be shackled to our master's plans for our health and retirement, if it's offered at all. The extra money will be slightly nice, but as a social worker, my Wife doesn't make that much anyway, because working to help people is not a valued endeavor in America, so it's definitely not worth the loss of family time, especially because it will eat into my work time, which is most of our income. This is already adding stress to our lives, and her having to pay this price for my healthcare is naturally raising marital tensions. But hey "Family Value$"!

Obamacare (ACA) has been a good option for us. Two of my children and I went on Obamacare (ACA) in 2013 when my former employer eliminated health insurance. Obamacare was cheaper and better anyway and I was able to continue working there, which was my preference, rather than changing jobs just for insurance.

Now I've been able to be self-employed for 2.5 years because of Obamacare, but apparently that type of enterprise isn't of sufficient value to the GOPsters for them to come up with a a viable solution to healthcare in this country. On the contrary, these racists have been hell bent on destroying this healthcare option for millions of Americans that was first implemented by MA. Gov. Mitt Romney and was hatched by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Never mind that, the Black, Indo-Kenyan, Secret Muslim did it and so it must be eliminated despite the collateral damage to millions of Americans.

So we can't be secure in the idea that Obamacare will be there for me next year (even though just as many people signed up this year as last despite the Trumpadyte's efforts). Hence my wife having to sacrifice her time for my physical health and our financial well being while the opportunity existed.

So while Pall Ryand will be spending MORE time with his Family, WE will be spending LESS with ours. Thank you very fucking much you piece of Crap!

Now go cash in on your many @$$oul connections Pall, while we continue to struggle and adjust and hope we can keep our heads above water long enough to get to retirement age in the coming decade or so. Think of all the $300 bottles of wine in your future now! At least you won't be around to fuck that up too, you Debt Piling, Wealth Worshiping Idolator!

Mark Twain was Right About Social Media

Mark Twain is reputed to have said; "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Ironically it was not Mr. Clemens, but someone named Charles Haddon Spurgeon. That made it no less true then and all the more salient today with the Twits and the FaceFooks. 

According to an MIT study of Twitter, falsehoods travel at light speed (up to 100,000) shares, while the truth slinks along on the solar wind (1,000).

I'm not on Twitter thankfully, so I can't comment on the propensity for propaganda on that platform, but I would be astounded if it's worse than the FaceFooks. And since all my snowflake friends in the Cult of Con have unfriended me to avoid confrontations with facts, I don't see much of what constitutes FaceFook "news" over on that side of the aisle anymore. But if it's anything like that which is passed around by my liberal friends (and I know from past experience that it's worse) then we are a nation divided less by the truth and more by lies. For example, I'm seeing many of my liberal cohort on the FaceFooks poo-pooing Russian meddling because HILLARY! DNC! a "logic" that fails to recognize that two things can be true simultaneously, but salves the need for self-reinforcement. But hey they're in "good" company with FuxSnooze, Five Deferments Donny and the Trumpladyte horde!

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 67% of Americans get news from social media, with FaceFook by far accounting for the lion's share. One cannot successfully run a Republic on falsehoods and still promote the general welfare, so We the People are in deep trouble. If we don't wake up and get some media savvy we're screwed!

So here are some good rules of thumb:

• Use lots of critical thinking and healthy skepticism when consuming news;
• Use multiple sources on important subject matters, skewed to serious journalists from entities that employ journalistic standards;
• If it's from a partisan source, it's almost certainly not the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth;
• TV is a good source for news about the weather;
• If it sounds too weird to be true be very skeptical;
• If it's on social media be very very skeptical;
• Newsferyoos.com is NOT a credible source of information!
• And for Cripe Sakes double check the veracity of information to avoid spreading crap around the interwebs and polluting the "brains" of your fellow Americans. It's your patriotic duty!

Way to go @$$ouls!

My wife Jackie is being forced against her will into the decision to work full time. By her employer, me, finances? Nope, by the @$$ouls who own and operate the Republicon Party and the complete uncertainty that they've created in the healthcare market place. So Jackie is probably going to have to give up her Friday's off so that she can add me to her employer's plan at an affordable rate.

 The "good" news is that her mother passed away last year, so they won't be giving up t...heir time together when they ran took care of errands, appointments, shopping and a nice lunch. The bad news is that she and I will have less time and flexibility to help my aging parents and take care of our own chores. The worse news is we have no idea how our two younger 20-something kids will be getting achievable access to healthcare.

 For 7 years the GOPsters have been sabotaging and vowing to repeal and replace the ACA/Obamacare, which allowed us to affordably continue to insure our family when my former employer dropped coverage in 2013 and I then became a self-employed business owner in 2015. I suppose I could give up my business and my freedom and go crawling to an employer to get health insurance, is that what the Republicons want?

 For 7 years they never bothered to come up with a viable replacement, just a piece of crap slap to the poor and elderly and taxcut blowjob for the rich. The Dems wanted to label it Trumpcare, but that's not fair, he has absolutely no idea what's in it and doesn't care. It's really the prick Pall Ryand's mean little wishlist that has now failed because there are a handful of Republicans who actually give a shit about the people they're supposed to represent.

 So now they're just going to try and repeal and not replace Obamacare and send us back to the pre-ACA era with the corporate death panels, the pre-existing conditions, the crappy plans that you find out don't do what's needed precisely when you need it and the spiraling premiums. And so my dear wife will spend an extra day every week against her will, sitting at a computer in an attempt to keep a little safety net beneath us in case one of us gets sick or injured. Nice job @$$ouls!

 Now you're going to have to come up with some other way pay off your sponsors and step on the necks of the poor. But you have succeeded in one sense, repealing Obamacare is estimated to kick 18 million Americans off of health insurance. I know that's 6 million short of your goal, but I'm confident you'll come up with a way. Hey, another Great Republicon Recession would do the trick!

 You @$$ouls are the greatest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for our family. Eat shit and die.

 Peasantly Yours,
CorpSerf ID# IMNFD1-ONURFD2

Question for Conservatives

My question for "conservatives":

We are fast approaching, if not past, the point where all but the most determined deniers must recognize, in the face of the increasingly recurrent, widespread and severe weather events, that we've changed the climate already and we're in for much more in terms of both frequency and amplitude. Look around the country, the world or simply step outside today and experience first hand.

You're 'leaders" have been lying to you about these Most Important Facts for years. If they are willing to lie to you about the health of the very planet that your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etcetera and all other species will have to live on (while claiming to be "Pro-Life") what won't they lie to you about? What haven't they been lying to you about? Why are they lying to you? And finally, why are you still willingly listening to their lies?