Sacred cows taste better.


Wednesday, February 7, 2024

At Long Last, What Will It Take?


Adam Keiper is quoted recently in the Bulwark, saying, “Between the immigration bill being DOA, the D.C. Circuit ruling on Trump's immunity, Tucker Carlson hanging out with Putin, the failed Mayorkas impeachment followed immediately by the failed Israel funding bill, and now Ronna stepping down, today feels like a perfect storm of GOP insanity.”

Except it doesn't feel like a perfect storm. It IS a perfect storm.

What I have to express this time around is how obvious all this bullshit is. Yes, people live in their insulated bubbles of misinformation, and it's impossible to penetrate those bubbles without encountering insanity on the level so intense that we all quickly unfriend and block it before it drives us insane as well.

But seriously, come on!

The Republicans had a good deal. A damned good deal! Perfect? No. But damned good. In exchange for all the border policing Republicans want, Democrats (and indeed, ALL of us) would get more aid to Ukraine, which we all desperately need. Also Israel, though less so.

And the Republicans scuttled it. Not because they objected to anything in the bill specifically, but because they wanted to deny Biden the win. They wanted to keep immigration reform as a key issue in the upcoming election.

One has to be a Trump follower in order to be that stupid.

They threw us all under the bus, just to make Biden a (very!) little bit more beatable.

What disgusts me the most is that Republicans will get away with it! The blood is SO on their hands for killing this bill. Yet they will point those bloody fingers at the Democrats and say, "They failed on immigration!"

And nobody, not one, among the right-wing masses will ever notice how red those pointing fingers are.

So I, as one cursed to see things as they actually are, have to resort to venting on this blog with a burning question: What will it take? At long last, what can finally shake Americans out of the goddamned tree of stupidity?!

Because it must happen. Yesterday. Or we're all doomed.

These past three years under Biden have been good, with one grave exception: There has been no urgency, zero, to counter the Right Wing Media Cult. None. Democrats have not only not countered it, they have yet to even try! By leaving conservatives in charge of the FCC, they are even actively encouraging it! They have allowed its expansion into Spanish-speaking talk radio unchecked. They felt the terror brought upon themselves through their own inaction on January 6th, 2021. And STILL they do nothing!

It's maddening. You want to scream, "For fuck's sake, DO something! ANYTHING!"

This is not a case where we all have to shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, that's just freedom of speech for you." No! This is a case where laws MUST be enacted forcing for-profit, ad-driven news sources to adhere to a minimum standard of truth-telling. In other words, right wing media can go on lying to people, exercising their freedom of speech to its fullest, but they cannot retain the label of "news" if they do so.

Yes, that will make the news less profitable, but GOOD! The news isn't meant to be profitable! Profitability is for the entertainment industry. And if news becomes entertainment, then it will only tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

They need to hear that Republicans are now the most anti-immigration reform party ever!

They need to hear that Trump is the antichrist! (I'm an atheist and I find that argument compelling!)

We need the Fairness Doctrine brought back.

I don't think there's ever been a moment in history where so many people have so fully committed to something so stupid. With the possible exception of Nazi Germany, and yes, the comparison is apt.

It could happen here. It mustn't happen here.

In the name of God, American Christians are in league with Trump/Satan. And no, that's not hyperbole. That's observation.

There's an old prayer apt to this situation: "Oh, Lord, deliver us from your followers!"

At long last, what will it take?!


Eric

*

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Give Palestinians A Way Out!


Well, I've finally decided to weigh in on the thorny perpetual conflict between Israel and Palestine. While I have historically sided more with Israel, I have to agree with many of my fellow Leftists that Israel has really gone too far this time. But, as is frequently the case when I feel the need to blog about something, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY is missing the main contributing factor in the conflict. There are no clean hands on either side, but there is an overriding, overlooked cause.

Religion? Yes, that's a big one, but it's not being overlooked.

Historical claim to the land? Yes, but again, that one is also frequently cited.

The primary cause being overlooked is - CLOSED BORDERS.

Yes. Closed borders. It's not sexy or obvious, but it's true. Because when people are not allowed to leave somewhere, their economic prospects are limited, and everyone in that area suffers as a result.

Say you're a young Palestinian man living in Gaza. You want a good job? Good luck. There aren't any good jobs available. You might find good paying work if you went to a different Arab country. But will any Arab countries let you in? No! Because that would make too much sense, of course. How dare people leave Palestine to get a good job with better pay which they can then wire home to help support extended family and improve the lives of everyone in the region. How dare they want to work in a country where the language is similar and their job prospects are therefore better!

Why bar the Palestinians from leaving? Primarily it's because the rest of the Arab world is scared shitless that those Palestinians will refuse to come back. They'll have built better lives for themselves, and won't want to return to the ghettos they escaped. And, most importantly, every Palestinian that leaves is considered a winning vote for Israel, and a step closer to Israel's domination of the entire region.

No, the Arab world refuses to consider any solution to the Palestinian crisis except one: Trap the Palestinians in the region and force them into having no other choice but to invade Israel.

Of course, one might as well wish for the moon. Short of nuking the entire region, Israel isn't going anywhere. But that doesn't prevent the closed door policy of the Arab world from being just as immovable.

And all Palestinians pay the price for this stupidity.

So what is a Palestinian person to do if he wants a better life? Well, according to the propaganda the Arab nations constantly pipe in, he must arm himself and attack Israel. It's the only way.

Now, as impossibly stupid as that faith-based bullshit is, it overlooks the fact that one nation that was wise enough to open its borders to give Palestinians better pay and good, permanent employment. That nation, in fact, has had a running policy of employing Palestinians to better their lives.

Yes! That nation is Israel! The ONE nation that has given Palestinians a better shot at life is the one nation the extremists keep firing make-shift missiles into!

Again, you have to have religion to be that stupid.

Not Egypt. Not Jordan. Not Lebanon, Iraq or Syria. Israel.

Now, Israel has been brutally attacked by a hopelessly impossible assault yet again. Only this time, the assault was bigger and better planned than ever before. And the retaliation to that attack has predictably been just as ruthless. In fact, it's as ruthless Israel's currently extremist government will allow. It has made the conscious decision that if Hamas militants are hiding behind innocent civilians, those civilians are forfeit. It's harsh, it's brutal, it's ethically dicey at best, and it needs to stop. Many of my friends on the Left are screaming that this amounts to ethnic cleansing, and they're not wrong.

But here's the thing: Egypt could save millions of their fellow Arabs if they just open up the damned border and allow them to park their keesters in a HUGE FUCKING UNUSED DESERT so that they won't get killed!

And will they? Even now? NO! Because they are still too irrationally terrified that any Palestinians who leave will stay gone!

In my book, watching your own people get run over by tanks, and doing nothing when you had the opportunity to help them flee, is just as bad as running them over with tanks yourselves.

Fuck! Egypt!

The borders must open! Palestinians must be allowed to flee the BOMBS, for fuck's sake! And they need to make encampments where food, water, and medicine can flow in freely. Egypt is simply, plainly, not helping by keeping the borders closed! Neither is Jordan, for that matter.

They are every bit as complicit in this admittedly horrible genocide.

Also, I must point out that Hamas is, even now, STILL firing make-shift missiles into Israel. And once again, you need religion in order to be that goddamned stupid.

That's me laying the blame. NOW hear me lay out a solution. And it's so crazy it just might work. So hear me out.

First, everyone calls for a two-state solution. And that sounds great, but it's simply unrealistic. Ask a Palestinian child where they're from, and they'll likely name a town or village way on the other side of the border, deep inside Israel. Why insist on such a foolish narrative? Because that's their faith-based bullshit, that's why! And so long as that situation remains (which is forever, by the way), Palestine can never be an independent state. No matter what non-militarization treaties are in place, a free Palestinian state today will militarize tomorrow and be invading Israel by June.

If a two-state solution were even remotely possible, it would have been done by now. But it isn't. So it hasn't.

So what do we do? Let Israel continue to occupy the territories? That hasn't worked out so well, either. Because Israel isn't really "occupying" Gaza. Oh, it's been encroaching into the West Bank for years, but Gaza, not so much. And the Palestinians living in those areas have been allowed to go pretty much unfettered, which is why the networks of tunnels and systems of smuggling in weapons have gotten so sophisticated over the years. "Occupying" a territory takes a lot of police presence, risk, and money. And Israel has limited supplies of all these.

So here's my suggestion:

Make Gaza and Palestine permanent protectorates of the United Nations. The U.N. can rule Gaza and the West Bank, administer passports, build airports, roads, infrastructure as possible and/or needed, and help distribute foreign aid. And best of all, it will help guarantee that weapons are not smuggled in. Or, if they are, that they are found and neutralized before use.

And Israel's extremist factions won't be able to use Hamas as an excuse to slaughter civilians anymore. Because they won't be the ones calling the shots.

I mean, what do we even have a United Nations for, otherwise?

It will be painful at first. Many nations will call it a boondoggle. But as Palestine prospers under this forced peace, people's lives will eventually improve. And as they do, the peace will gradually become more and more permanent.

The best way to avoid militant extremism is make sure the potential militants have full bellies and ample bank accounts.

It's the only thing that ever works.

Oh, and a note to my fellow Leftists who are being all pro-Palestinian right now: I guarantee you that you are simply planting the seeds of more future war. I simply know too much about Islam to say otherwise. If you succeed in building a Palestinian state, you will get wars, wars, and even more wars, and it will be your own, dumbass, damned, naive fault. I'm not saying that you shouldn't oppose genocide. But don't buy the narrative that the Palestinian cause is so holy and just. And don't lay all the blame on Israel, either. There's a reason Israel has been attacked, and attacked, and attacked. And it's not because Palestinians simply want to live in peace.

So knock it the fuck off with your naive bullshit.


So that's my two-pronged solution. 1) Fuck Egypt, force them to open their borders and give Palestinians a way out, then 2) give Gaza and the West Bank over to U.N. rule.

A perfect solution? Hell, no. But I dare you to come up with a better one.


Eric

*



Tuesday, December 26, 2023

BOYCOTT TWITTER/X!!!

 


Really? I haven't posted on the Sacred Cow Wursthaus since July?

Well, that partly makes sense. I haven't had much to say. I normally vent on this particular blog when I get frustrated at something obvious that nobody else is talking about. But lately, people are at least saying what needs to be said. Sometimes. Oh, the lying for-profit fake news sources like Fox News, Sinclair, and Newsmax continue to spout their poison with zero checks or balances, and that continues to be the primary cause of The Great Madness which defines this era, but at least a few people are calling out the bullshit.

Not so with X/Twitter. Not nearly enough.

Oh, John Oliver tried, branding Elon Musk on the ass to close out his 2023 HBO season. But that only scratched the surface of the social media platform Musk took over, and then ruined.

On Christmas Day (CHRISTMAS DAY, no less!), one of the biggest trending items on X was (and I'm not even making this up) "Nate Higgers." No, seriously. And that's my point. Blunt, obvious, and inexcusable racial hatred and bigotry is not only tolerated on X, it's become the new Twitter brand.

And I get the general principle of "free speech." Of course I believe in that. But we all know perfectly well what's permissible in the public sphere. The classic example is yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, but this also extends to deliberately feeding and promoting racism, hatred, and bigotry. There's freedom of speech, and then there's going way, way out of your way to be an asshole. X is the playground for the latter, and then some. Elon Musk somehow sees nothing wrong with this. 

Exhibit A: Check out this unruly piece of work. The n-word is right there in his name, plain for all  to see. And does Twitter/X do anything about it? Of course not! Because it is currently helmed by Captain "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz, which is the same as being controlled by nobody at all.

(Note: the "account suspended" header is actually from another account which was temporarily suspended. This account, sadly, dates to January of 2022, and is STILL active after all that time.)


Nor is this a one-off. A simple search for the n-word on X reveals hundreds of gruesome results. It is literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

Like this fool, again with the n-word right there, plain as day, for all to see. Nor would we even need to have such an obvious display. The chosen screen name says quite enough!



And again, this idiot has been on X since October. And Twitter has done nothing to counter it.

Bear in mind, Elon Musk is SUING Media Matters For America, saying that his major advertisers aren't coming anywhere near this stuff. Yet look how easy it is to find! It's so obvious! I found THIS after only a minute:


And the racism on X is everywhere. It's gotten so bad it's the new 4chan or 8kun. Check this out:




"But there isn't a viable alternative to Twitter!" you might complain. Not so! That used to be the case, but BlueSky is finally ready. It recently allowed its posts to become public. Threads, even though it's part of Meta, is at least a better landscape. (Mastadon seems to have lost out.) There ARE better places to be.

It's time to be there.

Seriously, let's call this shit out for what it is. Twitter has become a cesspool of racial hatred and right-wing extremism. If you're still on it, YOU NEED TO LEAVE! It's time for everyone with a conscience to abandon this platform once and for all. If you're still on Twitter/X, you are worse than being socially irresponsible.

You are no longer trending.

The grass has literally become WAY greener on the other side of the social media fence.

It's time to let the scorched-earth hellscape that used to be Twitter finally die.


Eric

*

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

SCOTUS And Affirmative Action

 

By now, lots of people have weighed in on the SCOTUS ruling which struck down affirmative action for college admissions. Harvard can now push aside qualified black applicants in favor of old money again, because those with old money have greater "merit."

But speaking of merit, why shouldn't colleges simply admit based on academic achievement? Why not render higher education completely color blind? Isn't that fair? Isn't affirmative action, which was necessary in the past, no longer necessary? Has it become outdated?

And, on the flip side of the coin, is affirmative action part of the "racism of diminished expectations" we hear conservatives complaining about so much?

I don't think this topic has been clarified quite enough. Favoritism of one race over another is a primary component of racism, and there is no denying that affirmative action is, if nothing else, favoring blacks for college admission. So why do it, then? Isn't that racism too?

The answer to this is solid, but sadly, rarely used. It all has to do with the economics of opportunity. Hard work creates opportunity, yes. But privilege also creates opportunity. Better childhood education creates opportunity. Wealth creates opportunity.

And right now, for historic reasons which have been built into the structure of our nation, much of that opportunity has been denied black people. Better jobs, better schools, and better neighborhoods have all been hoarded by whites for a very long time, and they don't want to stop doing so, even when there's plenty to go around. Efforts have been made to alleviate this, but so far, not much has succeeded. We lack the political will to tell the suburbs, "Look, it's time to let the inner city thrive the way you let it thrive back when white people lived there."

As it sits right now, whites largely have the ability to invest in their own merit, and that of their children. This, more than any other factor, helps ensure that their children have good prospects and futures. Blacks, by contrast, cannot invest in merit in quite the same way.

That's why affirmative action exists. Not to fight racism with more racism, but to offset the economics.

That's why it's fair.

Am I saying that we are overlooking merit? Judging by color of skin and not content of character? Yes! But we must remember, whites were once the beneficiaries of affirmative action, too. It was the government's policy to swindle land away from Indians and sell it to white settlers at $1.25 per acre. It was the government's policy in the South to turn a blind eye to the evils of slavery and allow white people to profit and invest in their children's education for generations, while denying blacks the same ability. It was the government's policy to grant loans to white home buyers after World War II, but not blacks. It was the government's policy to enforce economic advantage for whites in the South through segregation, and in the North, through red-lining.

And after all these favoritisms, do I as a white male have the hubris to complain? I think not!

We judge by skin color today, because we judged by skin color then. Fair's fair.

Sadly, some misguided white people don't see it that way.

And admissions merely gets one in the door. Once inside the colleges, blacks must work to achieve just like everybody else. Blacks like Barack and Michelle Obama earned their grades on the same scale as everyone else. They passed the same standards as everyone else. And they graduated with pride, just like everyone else. Just like all black students must do, and have done, since affirmative action was instituted. Affirmative action may have gotten them in, but they stayed in because they earned it!

Someday, blacks in America will achieve economic parity with whites. When that day comes, we will be able to retire affirmative action and live in the perfect meritocracy conservatives prematurely call for now. 

But if we do meritocracy too soon, we deny blacks much of the economic opportunity to invest in their own merit, and thus enact an unintentional racism which inhibits them, and keeps them under. In other words, it isn't the "soft racism of diminished expectations" that is the issue. Rather, it is the "soft racism of premature color-blindness."

Premature meritocracy is like seeing a rope which was thrown to someone down a hole. And then, right before the person reaches the top, cuts the rope saying, "Well, you're 80% there, you can handle the rest."

And this is merely admissions to college. Not 40 acres and a mule. Is stamping a form really too high a cost to begin repaying the unbelievably huge tab which is reparations?

Perhaps what has really angered white racists is that affirmative action worked. Many black people have climbed the ladder, and built better lives for themselves. We are seeing more black participation in suburbia, in the entertainment industry, in science fiction, and in all the other recreational activities that were once exclusively white. Good! That's the way it should be!

And now SCOTUS has prematurely removed one of those ladders? Well, that's a loss...

But I think they're too late to stop the positive effects. And those who succeeded will put down ladders of their own.


Eric

**

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Milwaukee Has Made A Faustian Bargain

 


Ah, Milwaukee.

I love my city. It's grown and prospered greatly over the last quarter-century in ways I couldn't have imagined. I've been looking forward to contributing to that growth in helping to make Milwaukee a hub for sci fi authors, filmmakers and artists.

But beneath the outward expansion of the city skyline and riverfront, there's been a looming financial cliff.

Our new mayor, Chevy Johnson, has been tirelessly working to avoid that cliff, and it seems he's succeeded. A deal has been worked out with Governor Evers and Republicans in Madison to grant Milwaukee a greater share of revenue sharing, along with giving it the right to raise taxes within the city and the county (finally!).

In exchange, Republicans get to expand school vouchers and charter schools.

Okay, look, I know the city has it's back to the wall. Mayor Johnson had to compromise somewhere. But this deal essentially mortgages our city's children in order to pay for the present.

Do charter schools work? Sort of. Do vouchers work? Again, sort of. The numbers are comparable, and the charter and voucher schools don't seem to be producing scores that notably outpace traditional public schools. This report from US News & World Report shows that, as late as 2019, charter/voucher schools did not show themselves to be the magic bullet that advocates said they would be. And 2019 still applies to today, since Covid disrupted everything between 2020 and 2022.

So, if charter and voucher schools aren't delivering the goods, why are Republicans continuing the big push?

The obvious reason is because it shuffles public money into the pockets of private religious schools. Why simply teach kids creationism when it can be done on the public dime?

But more importantly than that, charter schools get to pretend that they do better with the "three-and-out" trick. Students that need extra help can get booted after three weeks, usually on trumped-up disciplinary grounds. The school's overall scores improve at the expense of the kids they kick out. And what happens to those kids then? Why, they get sent to the only place left for them - the traditional public schools, which now have even more kids and fewer resources.

That was bad enough before Covid. But after Covid hit, so many more kids got left behind in the system. An entire generation has been lost because many schools would rather expel kids who are behind than educate them. 

And when some of them finally get expelled even by the public schools? What then?

The answer is all the bullshit you saw on YouTube in 2021 with the "Kia Boys." These are the kids left without a school, and without a future. They have little else to do with their time except steal cars, and wait for the system to give them their permanent jail-time-careers as inmates.

Milwaukee needed a financial boon. It got one. But it also needed at least two or three boarding schools for boys where troubled kids way behind in their education would finally get a fighting chance at life.

What they got instead, thanks to Republicans from White Suburbia, is more of the same. Because raising kids as Christians on the public dime is more important than actually educating them.

Milwaukee has avoided a fiscal cliff. Hooray. Yet it has gone over a different cliff. The educational one. We've already lost almost an entire generation of kids, no thanks to Covid and Trump's mis-management of it. Now we're about to lose another one. We're going to have to cross our fingers and hope that institutions like the Milwaukee Area Technical College system can make up the difference.

If Republicans don't want to slash funding for that, too.

What's that? They're already trying to do so?

Well, shit.


Eric

**

Monday, November 7, 2022

Preserving Democracy Is The ONLY Issue!

 


The latest polls leading up to Election Day - which is today, for most of you reading this, show that people are starting to lean Republican based on certain issues which they feel Democrats are weak on. Issues like crime, the economy, inflation, immigration, losses in our children's education due to the pandemic, and so forth.

But here's the thing, if our democracy falls, and Republicans are currently VERY blunt about wanting exactly that, all those other issues won't matter worth jack. And there's a good bet the net result for all those issues will be worse.

Take inflation, for instance. If Republicans overturn democracy, what do you think will happen to inflation? That's right, it will go through the roof! Republicans are also campaigning very bluntly on the platform of denying any more funding for the defense of Ukraine. That means prolonging the war Russia has unjustly waged upon it, which increases economic uncertainty for the rest of us. Meaning, that too will vastly increase inflation.

So much for that one.

And the economy? It absolutely floors me that so many people think that Republicans are better at the economy than Democrats are. Republicans have been the direct cause of the last two economic crises, and not ambiguously, either! Reagan was the last beneficiary of a thriving economy, and he inherited that from the last-minute desperation efforts of Jimmy Carter. How do we know? Because it takes at least three years for a president's policies to be felt. Carter invested the time. Reagan dared to take credit in February of 1981. There simply wasn't time for him to have done anything, yet people think his policies saved America from inflation once before. Bullshit!

And just what is the Republican plan for dealing with inflation and the economy this time around? Why, it's the same one it's always been: cut taxes for the ultra-rich, deregulate banks, and say a goddamned prayer!

Why would anyone assume Republicans are better at the economy based on that? Don't we remember the economy absolutely tanking under Sonny Bush? And tanking even worse under Trump?

Is your issue crime? Well, then you'll want to avoid Republicans like the plague. Because their idea of fighting crime is to increase the likelihood that jail will take a small-time criminal and turn him into a big-time criminal. Republicans keep hammering Democrats about no-cash bail, but setting bail high doesn't deter crime. It sends people to jail more frequently, and jail, as we all should know and recognize, is Criminal Training Camp.

Do we really want to increase the bail on criminals so that they can have even more time in Criminal Training Camp and be an even worse criminal after eventual release? And if someone is locked away after a minor offense in this manner, what will happen to his family who must now do without his income and financial support? Won't that father's absence make it far more likely that any children he has also become criminal?

Net result: Three times the criminality out on the street. All just to keep bail high.

I call bullshit.

Oh, and let's wonder aloud why Republicans should care about crime when they themselves are criminals? Ron Johnson, as prime example, had paperwork for alternate electors go through his very office! He's a seditionist and a traitor, which is so much worse than your common crook!

Republicans say they're tough on crime? Ask them why they nominate criminals as candidates!

And again, if our democracy falls, as Republicans openly want it to, crime in the streets will go up, not down!

Is your issue immigration? Then ask yourself: how will we be able to stem the flow of illegal immigrants when our democracy falls and the amount of immigration policing and processing goes from insufficient to none whatsoever?

The only issue which might get better after a fallen democracy would be gun rights, and that only because there would be no central government to enact any background checks at all!

So you see, preserving our democracy is the only issue. All other issues are of secondary import, because they are utterly and completely dependent upon our government surviving.

Oh, and don't forget, our own personal survival is at stake too. 


Because if our democracy falls, it's going to be a bloodbath!


Eric

*


Sunday, October 23, 2022

Ron Johnson - Beyond Merely Unacceptable



It's clear by now that Ron Johnson means to lie his ass off in order to win re-election, just as it's equally clear, based on the polls, that plenty of people are buying the lies. So, just to remind everyone what an utterly unacceptable embarrassment this oligarch has been at playing Senator, here's a recap of some of his highlights - er, I mean, lowlights.

Let's begin by recollecting how Johnson pledged that his second term would be his last. He broke that promise to run for a third term. His entire campaign was built on a lie from the onset.

But there's so much more. Remember when he first kicked his campaign off against Russ Feingold in 2010? He had radio ads which said, "They think government creates jobs. I know that private industry creates every job."

Really, Ron? Why don't you ask a soldier? Or ask a teacher? Ask a fireman, or a policeman, or that guy working on the road on your commute to work. Government does create jobs, and often does it well!

And maybe Johnson meant that ultimately all those government jobs come as a result of tax dollars, meaning that private industry creates those jobs too, but that wasn't his argument. His argument was, "government bad, private industry good." Which, as we all know (or should), that's just plain bullshit.

He backs Trump unabashedly. Yet the Jan 6 commission has proven beyond shadow of a doubt that Trump is a guilty little shit.

Trump sucks. Ron backs Trump. Therefore Ron sucks. Simple math.

And let's not forget, papers to select alternate electoral college representatives went right through his office!

His excuse? "Oh, I knew nothing about that." But that excuse is even worse, because it means he has no clue what's going on inside his own office! If he can't run his own office, what makes him think he can be a competent Senator?

Oh, and it's hard for Johnson to be the "anti-crime" candidate when those fake-elector papers prove that HE HIMSELF IS A CRIMINAL!

Remember when he actually dared to go all pro-virus, arguing against "vaccine passports," as if that weren't private industry making its own judgment about how to run its own, damned business without government interference? Remember when Republicans made that their central argument? But arguing against private industry independence wasn't enough for Johnson. Arguing in favor of making people as sick as possible wasn't enough either. He also said that he saw “no reason to be pushing vaccines on people.” He said that vaccine distribution should be limited to those most vulnerable to coronavirus, and added, “if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?"

The vaccine cares, Ron.

Remember this one he said after January 6, 2021?

On WISN Johnson said, "This didn't look like an armed insurrection to me."

Riiiiiiiiight.

“Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.” He said on a right-wing talk radio program, of course. “Had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”

You would have been concerned if antifa were protesting? You realize that antifa means "anti-fascist," right? Meaning that you just admitted that you are a fascist?

During the second debate with Mandela Barnes, Johnson hammered on his #1 issue, which is crime. "The first thing you do is support law enforcement, and unfortunately, the lieutenant governor has not done that. He has a record of wanting to defund the police – I know he doesn’t necessarily use that word, but he has a long history of being supported by people leading the effort to defund, he uses code words. Like Cori Bush said, talks about ‘reallocate over bloated police budgets.’ He said it pains him to see fully funded police budgets. That’s his views."

Let's talk about "defunding the police," for a moment, shall we? Republicans went way, way out of their way to defund Milwaukee as a whole, and have been doing so for decades. They've pulled so much cash out of Milwaukee, all the while keeping the city from being able to raise its own revenues, that it's struggled to fund schools, fire departments, and yes - police precincts. So here's Johnson, attacking Democrats for saying "defund the police," while his party actually defunds the police! When the Democrats won back the governorship in 2018, the Republicans shamelessly stripped the governorship of all but the most curory of powers - all to make absolutely sure that Milwaukee would not be able to fund itself, or (and this was the bigger thing for them) that Democrats wouldn't have any say whatsoever in removing the stupid-assed gerrymandering which allows Republicans to keep their thumbs on the scales.

So to recap, Democrats said "defund the police," without actually believing in that literally or literally doing it. While Republicans said "back the blue," while actually defunding the blue.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Nobody is paying attention, or they never would have gotten away with that one.

And let's not beat around the bush about "defund the police." It's probably the stupidest slogan ever invented. But we know what it really means (or should by now). It means we should defund police the same way our schools were defunded. It means police should be defunded in the same way public housing was defunded. It means an armed officer isn't needed for every damned traffic stop or domestic violence call.

It means policing should be re-thought, and reformed.

Back to the second debate Johnson had with Barnes. He was asked to say something nice about his opponent. Johnson, ever the "diplomat," said, "I appreciate the fact that Lt. Gov. Barnes had loving parents, school teacher, father that worked third shift. So he had a good upbringing, I guess what puzzles me with that is with that upbringing, why has he turned against America?"

The entire room booed him. Even some in his own party booed. Yeah, he's that asshole.

And all that's just scratching the surface.

The Bulwark rightly calls Johnson "RonAnon."

I'll be as non-partisan as I can possibly be in this blog post. If you happen to be an ultra right-wing conservative (and if you are, why would you be reading this?), then you are way better off with a Democrat than you are with Ron Johnson getting another term.

Hell, you're better off with ANY Democrat than you are with Johnson winning another term.

You are better off with all four members of The Squad getting the senate seat rather than Johnson getting another term.

You are better off with Karl Marx himself getting the senate seat!

In fact, you are better off getting rid of that senat seat altogether rather than giving that senate seat to Ron Johnson again.

Because it's finally time for Republicans to STOP INVESTING IN CANDIDATES WHO ARE COMPLETE MONSTERS!

If your candidate is a Roy Moore, or a Herschel Walker, or a Mehmet Oz, YOU TAKE THE LOSS AND PICK A BETTER CANDIDATE NEXT TIME!

Don't dig in on the shit candidate. Just. Fucking. Don't.

I'm not saying that Ron Johnson is as bad as those other candidates, I'm... Oh, wait, YES, I AM!

He's actually worse.

Mandela Barnes has his problems. I get it. His lying about his educational background weighs heavily with me. Some questions linger about his financial background. But he's better than Johnson could ever be.

Hell, Al Capone would be better at this point.


Eric

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