Category: politics

President Joe Biden wasn’t on the job a full day before Republicans on Facebook were screaming that he was a job killer. Said jobs were being murdered in their crib by Biden pulling the plug on the Keystone XL pipeline. 

This is great news! People are back to squabbling over actual policy and using something resembling facts to do so.

Whatever side you fall on, the fact is, some number of jobs will never materialize if the pipeline doesn’t. The KeyStone XL pipeline was going to create jobs for those who fabricated and laid the pipes, for those who maintained the pipes, for the refineries down in the gulf, and even those who had to come in and clean up hundreds of miles of Montana wilderness and apply Dawn dish-washing liquid to wolves and grizzly bears after the first rupture.

Arguing over policy is far preferable than people making excuses for a lunatic in the White House who in the span of one week tried to threaten the state of Georgia into manufacturing votes, called his super-Christian Vice President a “pussy” for not shredding the Constitution, and then inciting a mob that, among other things, tried to have that VP murdered. 

Wow. What a wild and whacky time it was two weeks ago.

Granted, there are still people posting ridiculous things about Trump, portraying him as a victim, a patriot, and, most laughably, a Christian. I call this one “The lion, the bitch, and the big bird.” 

But let’s leave it to someone else to deprogram the hardcore cultists.

We’re here to talk about Joe Biden killing jobs. Not Trump trying to kill Democracy. Or, for that matter, Trump’s incompetence in handling COVID-19 (happy anniversary, America) killing, you know, 400,000 actual people. After all, the Trump version of the Republican party doesn’t care about actual adult humans. Once you’re out of the womb, you’re on your own. And if you have the gall to have diabetes, or a weak heart, or, god forbid, be an old person in a nursing home — well, sorry Charlie, it’s just your time to die. 

Anyway. Jobs. Here’s a chart!

Here’s another chart for folks who think the stock market is the economy and claim with a straight face that their retirement accounts didn’t grow every year for the previous 10 years.

Here’s the interactive version of the unemployment chart if you want to play with it.

Did unemployment drop under Trump’s first three years? Why, yes. Yes, it did. That’s fabulous news. But as with almost everything in his life Trump inherited this from super socialist Barack Hussein Obama. Unemployment had been dropping for six continuous years.

And as with most of the other stuff he inherited, he squandered it. See that huge spike there? Yes, that’s COVID-related. And while Trump did not cause COVID, his complete refusal to have any sort of cohesive federal response not only led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, but to the loss of millions of jobs.

Would another president — any of other president of any party — have done a better job? Who knows?! But yes. Absolutely yes. 

COVID would have led to a spike in unemployment regardless of president. But had we done what New Zealand had done — a full on lockdown for six weeks and adults wearing masks instead of whining like three-year-olds — we could perhaps be getting back to something approaching normal.

And any other president would have at least shown some humility when jobs temporarily started to come back last summer. But of course, folks had to brag — actually BRAG — that this was the best employment growth ever. Firstly, it was a lie (shocker). Secondly, even if it were true, so what? This is the equivalent of me swiping all of the money out of your savings account, waiting two weeks, then giving you a $100 back and bragging that you haven’t seen this sort of income growth in your entire life. 

Now, I fully expect that folks can run off and get their own charts and talk about the types of jobs being created and lost, about balancing environmental concerns with human concerns. But again, we’re arguing politics, rather than “Should we torch democracy and anoint Donald Trump as our God King to own the libs?!” And the focus is on Biden, an unremarkably average politician, as opposed to someone who fancied himself the second coming of Stalin until it turned out it took more than watching TV, tweeting, and playing golf.

That almost feels like progress. Boring, stupid, almost pointless, American politics.

Until Trump’s impeachment trial starts up.

So Donald Trump is now suggesting that actual audio tape of him talking about grabbing women by the cooter could be fake. This even after he previously admitted that it was his voice on the tape and that he did, indeed, say those things.

Sure, previous Liar in Chief Bill Clinton tried to weasel himself out of a corner by arguing over the legal definition of “is.” (And I wouldn’t put much past either of the Clintons when backed into a corner. Those two are like badgers.) Those were different times, though. Hell, we didn’t know that we were supposed to believe all women, all the time. Apparently, Hillary didn’t either. She especially didn’t believe the ones who accused Bill of nonconsensual attacks and rape.

But in this case there is actual audio proof AND a confession from the man himself.

Continue reading “Donald Trump is the father of us all” →

This morning, I voted. Are you proud of me? Would you like to give me a sticker, kiss me, buy me a beer, buy my book?

Before you get too excited, let me tell you why I voted. I voted because, when I showed up at the polling place, it wasn’t wholesale chaos. I voted because there wasn’t a line. I voted because this year, at this particular time, at this particular polling place, the poll workers weren’t being the incompetent, disenfranchising, Democratic party hacks I’ve come to expect from certain districts in Brooklyn.

Stop right there. Don’t lecture me about these patriotic volunteers doing their civic duty. In New York, they’re paid to be there. In fact, they’re paid even more if they bother to get trained. (Yeah, training, last I checked, was optional.)

Obviously, I’m a horrible citizen because I even considered not voting. Then again, I live in one of those districts in New York that go Democrat, oh, 110% of the time. Indeed, I’d bet if NO ONE showed up at the polls, the Democrats would still do pretty good. Yes, I know there are precincts in other states that are just as reliably Republican. I’m sure there are districts in, say, Texas where a vote for a Democrat is akin to french-kissing Satan. This is the state of our nation.

So why do I vote? I guess mostly so that I retain the right to bitch about the outcomes for the next two to four years. If you don’t vote, you resign that right. How did I vote? It doesn’t matter. Andrew Cuomo sounds like Al Pacino and Carl Paladino is running because he’s sad about his dead son. Cuomo is the sort of political hack who thinks he is owed elective office and Paladino is batshit insane. Oh, and Cuomo was going to win big anyway. As far as the issue of term limits? Why does it matter what we vote on that when King Mike and his minions can simply overturn the will of the people when it suits them?

If I’d had my wits about me, I would have written in candidates for every office, but I was drawing blanks.

But yeah, I voted. Perhaps you should vote, too. Perhaps you shouldn’t. If you don’t know who the candidates are, if you don’t know what the issues are, if you have to ask someone else how to vote? Stay home. I don’t know where we got this idea that everyone needs to vote — even people who haven’t been paying attention or know the first thing about government. That’s not to say you can’t figure out the basics in the next few hours and then get to the polling place. But if you don’t know, don’t go.

You don’t need an “I Voted” sticker that bad and you can just lie to Facebook if you want a virtual button.

Did you keep your kids home from school yesterday as a protest against Barack Obama’s speech? Good going. You could have let your kid go to school where he or she would have found out that the Super Coolest President of the U.S. Ever is about as stimulating as day-old decaf. You could have exposed your kid to the reality of a grown-up in a suit blathering on about staying in school and being good and trying to be cool by mentioning Facebook.*

But no, you just made the president as cool as an M-Rated video game. You really showed him!

*(Of course, you could also have sent your kid to school, telling Little Johnny that though you disagree with the president, he IS the president and, in a Democracy, we give even our opponents a chance to make the case. But that’s just deranged commie talk on my part.)

Before Congress passes one more bill this year, the following should be signed into law:

No bill shall be voted into law without every member of Congress having read said bill.

And, yes, it’s that simple. I’m sure there will be those who claim I’m oversimplifying very complex matters, to which there is only one valid response: bullshit.

Continue reading “One Bill to Rule Them All” →