Randy Rainbow Has Some Advice For Clorox Virus Fighters

A bit of a scary screenshot from Randy Rainbow's latest
Time for a Clorox treatment! 

After Donald Trump's ill fated appearance Thursday in which he "sarcastically," so he said, suggested using household cleaners in our bodies to kill the coronavirus, people have of course reacted with an appropriate mix of horror and derision.  

However, as usual, Randy Rainbow has the last word on this subject with a new video dropped perfectly timed this morning - a nice Saturday treat.

This time, he's channeling Julie Andrews with this (very much NOT) medical advice

One of the things I love about this latest video is how cheerful it is, with such a grim topic. I know, I'm a bit weird, I know.

So sit back with Dr. Rainbow and enjoy "Spoonful Of Clorox"

Randy Rainbow Takes On The Coronavirus

Randy Rainbow is giving us a bit of gallows humor
with "The Coronavirus Lament."

Leave to Randy Rainbow to give us a bit of comic relief for the coronavirus nightmare.

Over the weekend, Rainbow dropped a new video called "The Coronavirus Lament."

It's based on "Adelaide's Lament," by Frank Loesser, which is from the 1950 Tony-winning musical "Guys and Dolls."

I've been a nervous wreck during this crisis, so I definitely need a laugh. You do, too.

Nation Getting More And More Stupid

No Corona beer has nothing to do with a virus

There have always been a lot of stupid people around.  Frankly, I'm not especially smart, but there seems to be a big, intensifying competition out there about how extreme stupidity can get.

I don't want to be a part of that competiton.  However, I can gawk at it, because there's tons of examples out there.

I'll start with a relatively mild one, and then let it go downhill from there. You are going to be rolling your eyes and shaking your head, guaranteed.

CORONA BEER CAUSES COVID-19?

Then there was the poll that suggested 38 percent of Americans would never drink a Corona beer because it's similarly named to the Coronavirus.  As if you could get the illness from anything with the word "corona" in it.

By that logic, I guess you could get the illness by going outside on a sunny day.  After all, the sun has a cornona, right?

To my relief, this 38 percent number in the poll could easily be misleading because the poll was poorly worded.

According to HuffPost, the questions and some of the answers went like this:

Question: "Is Corona related to the coronavirus?"  Disconcertingly, 16 percent of beer drinkers were "confused" at this.  Hopefully, the respondents were drunk when they were asked.  Everybody is confused when they're drunk.

Question: "In light of the coronavirus, do you plan to stop drinking Corona?"  Four percent of people who say they usually drink Corona beer would stop because of this. Dummies.

Question: "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances now?"  This was the magic question that got all the publicity. Thirty-eight of beer drinking Americans said they would not.  I'm just hoping and praying most of those who said they would not simply don't like Corona beer and wouldn't drink it even if the coronavirus wasn't a thing.

Or, as HuffPost notes, people might stop drinking Corona because it reminds them of something unpleasant they'd rather not think about, or that drinking a Corona in front of friends or in public would set them up to be the butt of a joke.

So, my bad for not thinking through the logic, or lack thereof, in the way the poll question was worded.

That doesn't mean there's a lot of stupid people out there.  It gets worse. Keep reading.

IT'S THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT

Some of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters have noted that so far, early in this coronavirus epidemic, the majority of cases have been reported in states and cities run by Democrats.

There could be lots of reasons for that.  Bad luck? More widespread testing in those districts? More people in these areas that have traveled to countries that have been particularly hard hit? All plausible explanations. Who knows, right?

Well, the MAGA crowd sure knows what's going on, apparently.   According to Raw Story, here are some of the reasons why the coronavirus has hit places like Washington State and California, both blue states.

I don't want to provide links to these people's Twitter accounts because I don't want to reward them, here's a sampling:

Some moron named Bob Berger tweeted, "Have you noticed all new cass of the coronavirus are in Democrat states Wash. Or. Cal. I'll (sic) RI. do you think the dems are dumb enough to get sick to make Trump look bad just saying."

Yes, because people always want to come down with a potentially deadly illness to own the MAGAs.

 They get worse:  "Prediction: Democrat run cities in the US will start announcing many sick people with coronavirus "symptoms" to crash the Mkts to hurt Trump. It's sad that this is where we are as a country but it's the truth. Democrats know the only chance to beat Trump is a mkt crash."

I'll repeat the above refrain: Destroy their own 401ks to own the MAGA's? Really?

A couple more before my headache gets too extreme: "Notice how the virus is located in Democrat states? Are the Dems purposely contaminating these people? It's a fair question."  So Democrats are into committing genocide?

The answer is apparently yes according to the most stupid MAGAs.  Like this tweet: "Democrat run Blue States will infect the poor with the virus in State Run Hospitals to exploit their deaths against Trump, because, well, it's the Democrats."

This almost, but not quite, makes me wish these ignorant tweeters would come down with the virus. But that would be mean.

GARTH BROOKS AND NOT THAT SANDERS

Garth Brooks wearing a Sanders football jersey.  It references
Barry Sanders, not the Bernie Sanders. But people are too stupid
to understand that, apparently

So this happened to country music legend Garth Brooks last week:

He was in Detroit and part of the plan was to honor Barry Sanders, one of most notable running backs and Detroit Lions NFL players on record.

Brooks wore a #20 Sanders football jersey at his show, and shared a photo of him wearing it on Instagram.

I get it that not every Garth Brooks fan knows who Barry Sanders is.  But it was clearly a football jersey, right?

Nope. Some now erstwhile Garth Brooks fans exploded in anger. The football jersey Brooks wore said "Sanders" so these ignoramuses just automatically assumed Brooks was campaigning for presidential candidate and Democratic-Socialist Bernie Sanders.

As Snopes reported, one person wrote: "I had no idea you wer a big freaking liberal socialist! I've listened to your songs for the last time!" Another wrote, "If this is for Bernie Sanders, I'm done with you. I thought you wer a true American that loves our country."

You wouldn't believe how many similar declarations there were out on social media over the past few days.

As far as anybody can tell, Garth Brooks has in actuality not given any kind of opinion on who he favors for president. Other than perhaps Barry Sanders, who tweeted, "Hey @garthbrooks, want to be my VP? #Number20For2020."

Brooks tweeted back, "I would run any race with you."  At least the country music star is keeping a good sense of humor about this whole thing.

TIN HAT TIME!

I'll leave you with this, um, creative theory from an actual U.S. Congress candidate Joanne Wright who apparently approvingly retweeted the following now-deleted missive:

 OK, my headache just got much worse. Time to shut this post down for today.

Social Media Disinformation Really Good At Putting Us On Road To Authoritarianism

So many ways Trump and the GOP are using social media to
create an authoritarian/oligarchial regime for the United States

Last fall, journalist McKay Coppins of The Atlantic, decided to try a little experiment.

He created a Facebook page, not for himself, but for an alter ego. He picked a forgettable name, and posted a profile photo that obscured his face.  He clicked "Like" on the official pages of Donald Trump and his re-election campaign.

Almost immediately the Facebook algorithms prompted him to follow Ann Coulter, Fox and fan pages with titles like "In Trump We Trust." He dutifully followed these groups.

Coppins also wrote, "I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers." 

The Facebook feed that Coppins' alter ego established created a new reality of sorts. Coppins watched live, on TV, the impeachment hearings, but on the Facebook page, edited video made the same televised testimony look like an exoneration of Trump.

Pro-Trump propaganda filled the Facebook feed, "Democrats are doing Putin's bidding," "The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing." and so on.

The resulting Atlantic article by Coppins had this startling paragraph:

"I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I'd assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. I wasn't that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself - about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else - felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach."

If a seasoned, savvy journalist like Coppins felt disoriented, imagine how everybody else feels against this social media onslaught.   His article opens a window on how easy social media, especially bad actors like Facebook, can much more easily allow us to slide into authoritarianism.  Ifyou think it can't happen here, think again.

To an extent, it's already happened, and the apparatus is set up to take us down the road to this evil transition.

Coppins' Atlantic article, "The Billion Dollar Disinformation Campaign To Re-Elect The President," is a long read, but something you should read, scary as it is.

This Facebook full-court press by the Trumpsters is a way of using a megaphone to drown out real truth, or as Coppins puts it, "jamming the signals, sowing confusion." Coppins said scholars call all this "censorship through noise."

Pretty much all political campaigns have their share of spin, half-truths, dog whistles and such.

Trump and his campaign take this to a whole, extremely scary new level.

A important part of this strategy is to first discredit the news media, you know, all the good, but imperfect journalists of the world who actually try to expose the truth, the real truth about everything.   Trump operatives have gone through the social media accounts belonging to hundreds of political journalists, compiling all their posts into dossiers.

Definitely sounds Putinesque, doesn't it?

When a particular news story the Trumps don't like is written by a particular journalist, they and their surrogates flood Facebook and other places with any past social media post the journalist wrote that could be spun as problematic or worse.

This isn't to combat a supposed or real liberal slant in the news media. This effort is to destroy mainstream media altogether.

We're not just talking about the tedious talking heads and columnists at national outfits like the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and others.

They're after your local newscaster and newspaper. Coppins writes that the Trump campaign will train a "swarm of surrogates  to undermine local TV stations and newspapers. Polls have long fouond that Americans across the political spectrum trust local news more than the national media. If the campaign has its way, that trust will be eroded by November."

Meanwhile, these operatives are creating innocuous looking "news" sites like the Arizona Monitor or The Kalamazoo Times that look like traditional local publications, right down to community notices and school news and events schedules. Only very knowledgeable people, taking a close look at these "newspapers" will find no bylines and no addresses for local offices. And these "newspapers" will have plenty of sophisticated propaganda that sort of looks like news.

The Coppins article goes on about these details, and again, you really should read every word.

For Trump and his fascists minions, it's all about destroying all the the institutions that have held our democracy together for more than two centuries. They really do want to get rid of all the ideals about what makes America America.

That's why Trump is also seemingly pardoning every crooked person he can find, while at the same time punishing good citiziens and patriots.

He and his Republican toadies want to destroy the fact the United States, for all its faults, has been a beacon of freedom for the world.

This is particularly dangerous now as we seem to be at the begining of the Corornavirus pandemic. It's not officially a pandemic, but it's getting worse by the minute.  The whole world needs accurate and timely information to stay healthy, weather the economic crisis this will could bring on, and squash out rumors that could lead to civil unrest.

A lot of the citizenry of this nation seem like they think Trump and the Republicans are boffo for doing lying and trying to establish some sort of weird oligarchy.   They want to punish "the right people," i.e. anyone who is nonwhite and even remotely  liberal.

Sounds great to them.  Just wait until this new autocracy turns their powerand anger on them, for whatever reason.

Trump's Border Wall Is Easy To Climb Over, But Of Course

Screenshot from a video showing people easily climbing up and
over Trump's vaunted  Border Wall

There's a viral video out from earlier this year of a couple guys from Mexico easily scaling and hopping over Trump's border wall.

As we all know, he's been harping on this border wall since he announced his candidacy for president.

He said he'd build an inpenetrable wall to keep those horrible Mexicans out and Mexico would pay for it, and we'd all live in his white supremacists nirvana in which we wouldn't have to see all those icky brown and black and people of color types.

Or something like that.

Trump's a showman, of course. You know, Barnum and Bailey.  He's cult followers swallow everything he says hook, line and sinker, but nothing he does is rooted in reality.

Like the product of most shysters, the finished product isn't as spectacular as advertised.  Predictably, we're learning that it's easy as pie to climb over the wall and crawl under it.  And little more than a puff of wind can bring it down.

Remember how Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall? I haven't heard that talking point in awhile. Seems the people who run Mexico aren't stupid, and they'll just let Trump dig his own hole with that one. Plus, I imagine Mexicans don't want to be involved with anything this flimsy and worthless.

Early reviews are not good at all.

Prototypes of this wall have popped up in the media.

Mother Jones, and a lot of other media outlets, quoted Trump a few months ago saying the following:

"That's why, he said, he'd hired a team of 20 'world-class mountain climbers' to test the various wall prototypes. 'Some of them were champions. And we gave them different prototypes of walls, ad this was one that was hardest to climb. And we've all seen the pictures of young people climbing walls with drugs on their back - a lot of drugs. I mean, they're unbelievable climbers.This wall can't be climbed This is very, very hard.'""

The first hint that the wall was pretty lame was the viral videos that went out showing people climbing right over the damn wall. For instance, there's this one. Below the video in this post, I'll get into more. It gets worse, as you might imagine.

Almost looks like I could handle going over the wall and I'm an out of shape middle aged guy, so there's that:



People who aren't in terrific shape might need help getting over the wall. A ladder might help. Would a ladder help people get over this supposedly inpenetrabe barrier?

Well, of course!

As Raw Story and numerous other media outlets tell us, a cheap $5.00 ladder will get you over this barrier. Plus, this inexpensive ladders made of rebar  kind of blends in with the wall, so you don't easily see it.

Here's reporting from the Independent:

"The rebar ladders began appearing in large numbers once construction of a replacement wall in El Paso was finished last May. According to Border Patrol, illegal crossings have increased ever since.

'We're starting to see a lot of evading activity,' said Agent Ramiro Cordero. 'We're starting to see criminal organizations working hand-to-hand on either side to avoid detetion. More and more we are seeing failure to yields - they are utilizing ladders to go over the fence and diversionary tactics."

Still can't get past the wall even with that cheap $5 ladder? Well, we'll let either Mother Nature or the Border Patrol itself open up passageways for you.

Last month, wind gusts of just 37 mph pushed over a section of the wall in California.  To be fair, the concrete footing holding it up hadn't set yet, but still.

Also, it turns out the Border Patrol will let you right in, if you try to cross at the right time of year. In the late summer in the Desert Southwest, where the wall is, monsoon season comes annually.  This weather pattern causes short-lived but intense thunderstorms that cause flash flooding. Each local flash flood lasts no more than a few hours. At most.

According to the Washington Post and other news outlets, debris from the flash floods would stack up against the wall, eventually knocking sections of it over.  So gates in the lower portions of the wall need to be raised at the onset of monsoon season so that the debris can pass through, leaving the wall undamaged.

It's too big an area to monitor, so these gates are unmanned and are left open through the monsoon season.  Since the flash floods last only a fraction of the time, people can just march right on through those raised gates, as long as it's not raining enough to cause a flash flood. Which is basically most of the time in late summer.

I dunno. Maybe Trump would have been better off if he just planted a big row of cactus along the border or something.

Televangelist Didn't Think This Scammy Money Beg Through

Rich scammer Paula White wants you to not pay your electric bills, and
instead give that money to her.  

Paula White, one of the most prominent scamevantelists televangelists recently had a money beg that I'm sure she didn't quite think through.

According to Alternet.org quoting Mother Jones, White, leader of her Florida-based (of course!) Supernatural Ministry School (Yes! That's the name!) said her followers could secure God's favor by sending her church as much money as possible.

That includes not bothering to pay their electric bills and send money earmarked for the utilities to her instead.  

She especially urged her followers who pay their monthly electric bills to Florida Power and Light (FPL, as it's known in the Sunshine State) to give it to her church instead. Why? Because if they don't, they're treating the utility better than they treat God, reports Alternet.org.

"Instead of writing (that check) to the house of God as I'm instructed to, then what I'm saying spiritually is, 'FPL, I hae now established a spiritual law that put ou first,' White explained to her flock. 'So, FPL, save my family, FPL, deliver my drug addicted son. FPL, kill this cancer that doctors say is in my body.'"

There is a lot of things to unpack here. First of all, I'm unaware of Florida Power and Light ever promising to eradicate drug addiction or cure cancer. I checked their press releases and didn't find any of those claims.

Like most utilities in America, all FPL promises is they'll keep providing electrical service to your house as long as you pay your monthly bill. It's pretty simple, really.

I'm also going to put my often-used Captain Obvious hat on here. A lot of White's followers keep up with her by watching TV or listening to her online.  That becomes a lot more difficult for people whose electricity is cut off because they didn't pay their bills.

White is one of the leading scammers in a very scammy "faith" called the "Prosperity Gospel."

According to Dictionary.com, Prosperity Gospel is "a modern version or according to some, perversion of the gospel according to which the full blessings of God available to those who approach Him in faith and obedience include wealth, health and power."

The more blunt and obvious definition of this is, Prosperity Gospel is a scam in which charismatic shysters tell you to give them boatloads of cash and if you do, God will shower you with money, tacky swag and an ugly McMansion somewhere in suburban Birmingham, Alabama,  Or something like that.

Yes, yes, I know that's a perversion of real Christianity. But people fall for it. There's a sucker born every minute.  Including Donald Trump, who's probably in on the scam, since he's in on a lot of scams. I say this because Trump has declared Paula White one of his spiritual advisors.

As Mother Jones points out, both Trump and White are "twice-divorced, with a history of marital infidelities and bankruptcy, but possessing remarkable TV savvy."

Paula White is a piece of work, anyway, as I'm sure you've gathered. You have to hand it to her, she does hustle to make some good income from the gullible.

As Christian Post reported nearly four years ago, White began selling "Resurrection Seeds" that would give you eternal life for the low, low price of $1,144.

But wait! There's more!

Back in 2019, White demanded that her followers give her their January salary, reports Newsweek.  I imagine that most of her gullible followers aren't rich.  That's why they follow the "Prosperity Gospel."  They're sick of being poor and out of desperation they see this as their ticket.

It does seem White is getting very rich off her scams. She's been the subject of two Congressional investigations into her doings, but so far, there's been no action.

Of course, everything and everybody Trump touches dies, so we'll see what her future brings. While her most ardent followers sit in the dark and wait, having not paid their electric bill.

Everybody Is Flushing Trump's Toilet Talk Down The Um, Toilet

I'm going to go against my better judgement here and talk about toilets.

Donald Trump made the same mistake when he discussed this plumbing feature last week.  It's old news now, but worth revisiting.

To wit, he said as Vox and just about everybody else reported:

"'People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water,' Trump said, complaining that water flow in other fixtures has slowed to a trickle. 'You can't wash your hands practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet, and the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands, you end up using the same amount of water.'"

Let's set aside for a moment that you'd think the president has bigger things to worry about than low-flow toilets.  I guess he's against regulations that make toilets use less water.  Maybe he poops a lot more than you and me.  Some people call him a shithead, so there's that.

Although early models of low flow toilets did seem problematic to us non-shitheads, as far as I'm concerned they fixed the problem.

So if I, and I presume most people need just one flush per poop, what is Trump pooping that requires 15 flushes to go away?  I really don't want to think about it, but still.

As usual, Twitter came to the rescue with this crisis.

One of my favorite tweets in response to all this was the following:

Susan Stone @SusanStone12

Replying to @chrislhayes

To be fair to the POTUS, it's hard to get the whole Constitution and Bill of Rights down in one flush.

 Referencing Trump's recent mysterious Saturday trip to the Walter Reed Medical Center: 

Anthony Chergosky@achergosky

Replying to @atrupar

Now we know why he went to Walter Reed

Maybe some corruption is involved? 

Eric Ranschau @eranschau

Replying to @chrislhayes

Christ… Was he trying to flush his tax returns?

And finally, here's a good diagnosis: 

The Artful Roger. Diamond of many Facets.@Rojodi

Replying to @chrislhayes

Wow! Proof he's full of sh*t!

Randy Rainbow Alert: Yet Another One, As Naturally We Get A Trump/Kim Summit Edition

Randy Rainbow is at it again, this time skewering Donald Trump
and the recent summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Randy Rainbow keeps cranking them out, and I dutifully post them in this here blog thingy.

I'm a fan boy, deal with it.

This time the tune is "He's In Love (And We're All Going To Die.)" This cheerful tune is a parody of the song from South Pacific, "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy."

At the start of this video, like all Randy Rainbow videos, it starts with a "news" interview. This time Randy introduces President Donald Trump as "the castoff from Bachelor Hanoi." This, of course focuses on the star-crossed recent summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

I won't give away anything else, but one is full of zingers, as usual. And as always, this video is a delight.

Watch:

President Trump Just Proposed An Original, Awesome Idea For The Fourth Of July

President Trump proposes making the Fourth of July
all about him because of course. 

How's this for an idea to celebrate our nation's birth.

On July 4, have a nice, big parade, with bands, floats and cheering crowds. Throw in a great afternoon of picnicking and partying, then top it all off with a big fireworks display.

Nobody thought of this great idea until our fearless leader, President Donald Trump announced the idea today. 

Well, OK, there have been juuuusst vaguely similiar events on the Fourth of July for many years.

Such as what happens on July 4 every year: A nice, big parade, with bands, floats and cheering crowds. Throw in a great afternoon of picknicking and partying, then top it all off with a big fireworks display.

But Trump announced the idea today. So it's new! And his idea has an added bonus: "An address, by your favorite president, me!"

Of course, if Trump isn't your favorite president, I guess you're not invited.

Never mind that Washington DC has been home to a Fourth of July celebration for decades at least. Now, it's going to be all about Trump. Because everything has to be all about Trump. I mean this blog post is all about Trump. See?

Trump's Fourth of July idea seems to have garnered a few skeptical responses on Twitter and elsewhere.

Most of the comments are along the lines of, you idiot, we do that kind of thing every year.

U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-CA wrote on Twitter:

"If this goes well, I think we should follow it with a big party in Times Square the night before New Year's Day."

Wow! All these great ideas emerging! What will they think of next?

Scary Alabama Racist Newspaper Editorial Takes Us Back To The Jim Crow Days

Goodie Sutton, my nominee for the most racist newspaper
editor in the United States. 

UPDATE: Saturday, 2/23/19

So, a little karma happened with this story.

Under pressure, this racist loser has resigned. He's still not sorry for the editorial, but I love the deliciousness of this update.

The new publisher, owner and editor of the Democrat-Reporter is a woman named Elecia Dexter.

Oh, Dexter happens to be a black African-American woman.

Dexter says her understanding is that Sutton is actually still the owner of the paper. But regardless, this is definitely an improvement. It couldn't get any worse.

As for Sutton, he says he now has time to, as he says "drink beer and chase women."

Good luck with that, bubba.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Racism is, of course, always bad.

There are different degrees of it, or at least different degrees of what is said out loud by racists.

A small town newspaper editor in Alabama, though, has gone full throated racist, and his words are jaw-droppingly horrifying. The editorial's headline: "Klan Needs To Ride Again"

This piece of, um, literature was recently published by a creep named Goodloe Sutton, who is the publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama.

As the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser reports, Sutton is unrepentant and stands by his editorial.

Sutton begins with the source of his ire: "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama."

Um, OK, if you say so.  Then this all turns very dark, very quickly. He blames the "socialist-communist ideology" for all this, and then pretty much applauds the KKK who once "rode through the night to frighten some evil doer. Sometimes they had to kill one or two of them but so what."

Sutton then dreams of the day in which the Klan heads north to "raid the gated communities. They call them compounds now."

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown went over to Linden to interview him about the editorial. During the interview, Sutton said, "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all be better off."

Brown asked what Sutton meant by that. He suggested lynching.

It gets even more off the rails. Here's another excerpt from the Montgomery Advertiser article:

"'We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,' Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position. 

'....It's not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communist we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?' Sutton asked."

Apparently, it's anybody who disagrees with him. And, to state the obvious, yes he is calling for the lynching of Americans.

Sutton goes on to say that the Klan is not racist and violent, hilariously comparing it to the NAACP.

As an aside, Sutton's newspaper used to be good. In the 1990s, the Democrat-Reporter got national acclaim for reporting on a corrupt sheriff in the area.

However, the Democrat-Reporter gained a reputation for racism and ugliness well before Sutton's recent editorial.  In recent years, readers were treated to headlines like "Homosexuals take black spotlight" and "Slavery was a good lesson for Jews."

I've been complaining that the boorish Trump administration has given racists, bigots, misogynists and the like "permission" to blurt out their awfulness in public rather than keep in hidden.

Sometimes I've been told I've been overstating the Trump influence on the worst of American society. I counter that this editorial bolsters my case. I have always thought there are people as odious as Sutton out there.   However, it seemed that they had largely gone silent, or crawled back into the woodwork.

They're back out. But maybe Trump has done us a favor. Through example, he has encouraged these lowlifes to come back out into the sunshine. Now we know they're there, and I hope we can deal with them more easily.

Point at them at object and perhaps, just maybe, they'll think twice about hurting other people. You can only hope.

Randy Rainbow Update: This Week He's Channeling Madonna In "Border Lies"

In his latest video, Randy Rainbow channels Madonna with
his new song "Border Lies."

One of my most favorite Madonna tunes is "Borderline."

But I have to say Randy Rainbow, in his latest video that was dropped today, has improved upon the song greatly with his new version, called "Border Lies."

It was inevitable that Rainbow would take on the so-called national emergency Trump declared over the border.

He didn't get his money for his stupid wall, and his predictable tantrum took the form of declaring a fake emergency for his border wall, or fence or whatever.

You have to admit, Trump gave Rainbow a nice assist with his sing-song speech about how his "emergency" will wend its way through the courst. "I love this song," Rainbow gushingly stage whispers to his journalistic colleagues in the video.

Then the performance of "Border Lies" gets underway.

Sample lyric:

"Border lies
Great for distracting from Russian ties 
More insulting than your skin tone 
Talkin' 'bout border lies."

The video has everything, even a Nancy Pelosi style clap back.

My only quibble is I don't think Randy Rainbow can pull off a 1980s style hairdo as well as Madonna could back in the day, but oh, well.

Here's the video, so enjoy!

A New Take On Old "El Paso." With Politics And Comedy!

Marty Robbins had a huge hit in 1959 with the song "El Paso."

You know the tune ...."Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl...."

As we know, Donald Trump visited El Paso this week to tout his silly border wall, falsely claiming that El Paso was a violent mess before they put up fence along the Mexican border there.

Which gave Stephen Colbert the chance to update the song a little bit. Colbert's version starts, "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I saw a speech by a man Putin adores."

Yeah, it goes on from there. Have a listen and a look:

News In Review: Bad Lip Reading Of Trump's State Of The Union

Let's do another Bad Lip Reading to keep this month's absurdity going.

OK, I admit I just featured the "Bad Lip Reading" YouTube videos during the Super Bowl earlier this month, but I can't resist the same YouTube channel's take on Donald Trumps State of the Union address.

In this absurd lip reading world, we learn Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence don't get along (no surprise there).

We also learn how much animosity Bernie Sanders feels toward Trump. In the bad lip reading, Sanders tells a colleague, "I want to roast all of his fingers."

And that famous Pelosi clap back was actually approval when Trump told the Halls of Congress: "I like a pizza party very much."

Here's the rest of the craziness for your deep winter entertainment:

Randy Rainbow's Newest Video Has Him Channeling How "Chicago" Relates To Trump

Randy Rainbow dropped his latest video today. Enjoy
this version of "Cell Block Tango."

As always, when Randy Rainbow comes up with a new parody video, I have to note the occasion, which is what I'm doing today.

This might be his best one yet, which is saying something. It's a version of "Cell Block Tango" from "Chicago."

Rainbow's version is "The Donald Trump Cell Block Tango."   You should probably see and hear the Chicago "Cell Block Tango" for reference first, then go on to Randy Rainbow's take.

Unlike a list of men the women in Chicago's "Cell Block Tango" knocked off, Rainbow gives us a who's who of Trump sycophants who are now in trouble, or soon to be in trouble. It's a long list and it's a wonder Rainbow managed to edit things down for his video.

Rainbow knows the Trump list is long, so he has a subtitle to his video "Part One, Probably."

Rainbow does get his digs in, like when he notes Roger Stone was "indicted on multiple counts, including lying, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lacking basic fashion sense."

You'll have to see and hear the rest. Some of the visuals in the video are priceless.

Here ya go!

Hurting The Wrong People? Trumpsters Don't Want To Be Collateral Damage

A percentage (not all) of Trump supporters seem to like him because his
presidency his hurting (nonwhite) people they don't like
and that makes these supports happy.

A quote from a New York Times article last week from a woman who has been affected by the government shutdown has hit a lot of nerves, including my own.

The Florida Panhandle is pretty conservative. Trump territory. The Times interviewed a woman named Crystal Minton, a secretary at a local federal prison.

She's not happy about the pain caused by the government shutdown, as she is going without a paycheck for the duration. 

This is what she told the Times, regarding Trump: "I voted for him and he's the one who's doing this....I thought he was going to do good things. He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

Got that?

I can't paint all Trump voters with the same brush. Not all are racist. Not all are hurtful. But this quote sums up why I'm disgusted by a fair number of Trump supporters.

A lot of them think the whole point of his presidency is to hurt people. Trump's not good at many things, but he's good at hurting people, or at least trying to. Notice how Minton regards hurting people as "good things."

Of course, the people Minton thinks Trump ought to be hurting are not white people like her. Nope,

Or as Vox puts it:

"Making America great again, in her mind, involves inflicting pain....This is what makes Trumpism work. This is the dark heart of our political movement. Even people who are tremendously vulnerable themselves, like Crystal Minton, support Trump because of his capacity to inflict pain on others they detest."

Perhaps Adam Serwer, writing in The Atlantic, put it even more succinctly, describing Trumpsters' belief that their and America's birthright is straight, white Christian men:

"(Trumps) only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those would steal their birthright. The president's ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he  makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them."

Trump is a grifter, and he'll never hesitate to hurt anyone if it's expedient to him. Still, I have a feeling that Minton, the woman who said Trump is hurting "the wrong people" will ultimately stick by the president.

For now at least, the white, straight, cruel folks feel emboldened. Rep. Steven King of Iowa touts white supremacy and pretty much gets away with it, even with a backlash against him.

YouTube is now full of videos showing people being unabashedly racist toward blacks who have the gall to walk into their own apartment building, have a barbecue, go swimming at the neighborhood pool, park their car, or show up for work.

True. there's a backlash against the racist idiots in these videos, but still, they persist.

It's unclear whether the hate wing of the Trump crowd will go away, or get worse, or just be the unfortunately background noise of American life and politics.

I do believe this old cliche is true: "Hate destroys the vessel that carries it."

Those who embrace the hateful aspects of Trump do so at their own peril. There will be karma.  Maybe that karma has already started.

Bad 1958 TV Program Has Oddly Familar Trump Bad Guy

A character in a 1958 show "Trackdown" was named Walter Trump,
who was a con man trying to steal all the wealth from an Old West
town. The script has eerie similarities to the life of Donald
Trump, who some think is a con man. 

Some TV script writer in the 1950s seemed to be able to channel to 2018 when he wrote  an episode of a forgotten television show called "Trackdown."

The western ran on CBS from 1957 to 1959. An episode of "Trackdown" called "The End Of The World" aired on May 9, 1958.  It features a villain named Walter Trump. Video of this show is at the bottom of this post.

I'll let Quartz give you a thumbnail of the episode's story:

"Trump is a con man - we're talking about the show - who comes to ranger Gilman's town to warn people that the end of the world is nigh, and offering his services to prevent it. And how will 1958 TV con man Trump stop the end of the world? By building a wall, of course!"

The Trump in "Trackdown" also has a familiar cadence in his speech: "I am the only one....Trust me I can build a wall around your homes that nothing -nothing! will penetrate."

Townspeople in the show fell for the con hook, line and sinker.  The town judge tells Ranger Gilman "Trump sure is having his way."

The TV Trump also threatens to sue Texas Ranger Sheriff Hoby Gilman for daring to call Trump out on his con.

Despite most of the town falling for Trump's scam, Ranger Gilman eventually manages to arrest the 1958 TV Trump for what Gilman says is "grand theft, fraud - I think a jury would find it stealing."

I won't give away the ending. I don't like being a spoiler. You can watch the show.

No word yet if there will continue to be eerie parallels between the 1958 Trump and the current presidential version.

Here's the episode:

Montana Senator Sets Us Straight On Government Shutdown

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) explains why everybody in
Washington, especially his colleagues, need to grow up, open
the government and deal with border security like adults

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana is a pretty common sense sort of guy

He has to be, given he's s Democrat from the red state of Montana.  Voters in Big Sky Country usually don't do well with people dishing bullcrap. Tester knows that.

Donald Trump really tried hard to get him unseated by his Republican challenger during the November, 2018 election, but it didn't work. Tester won re-election.

You might find clues as to why Tester won re-election from the video, below.

He explains in less than six minutes to his Senate colleagues why the Senate must lead, re-open the government and end this shutdown which has gone on for more than three weeks.

Tester is all for border security, but would like everybody to act like adults for a change and figure
out how best to accomplish that goal.

Here's his video, which is beginning to turn viral on social media. Totally worth the watch:

Why Do Some Trumpsters Hate Ocasio-Cortez Dancing?

Two images sure to upset a few people in the Trump crowd: Left image
is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a college dance video. Right image is'newly
seated Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez dancing outside her
congressional office door this week.

Conservatives tend to really hate newly seated member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

She's pretty darn liberal, so I can see why the Trump crowd wouldn't like her.  However, some of them had better come up with a better reason to oppose her than the following: It turns out, Ocasio-Cortez sometimes likes to dance.

It started this week when some nitwit on social media named AnonymousQ called Ocasio-Cortez a nitwit. Here's the quote from AnonymousQ, since deleted. "Here is America's favorite commie know it all acting like a clueless nitwit she is...High School video of 'Sandy' Ocasio-Cortez"

There was a link to a video showing her in a music video when she was in college, not high school, dancing on a roof with other people. She looks like she was having fun.

To their credit, most normal conservatives didn't give a damn whether Ocasio-Cortez likes to dance or not. But the Trumpy troll wing of the conservative movement pretty much though her dancing was as bad as if she was strangling babies.

To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez, didn't give a damn what people thought of her dancing. She did a brief jig outside her Congressional office door and also said,  "It is not normal for elected officials to have a reputation for dancing well, and I'm happy to be one."  

To the credit of most of the general public, most people either ignored this fake controversy or thought it was fun that Ocasio-Cortez was in that silly dance video.

I'm not quite sure why Ocasio-Cortez has been targeted as the Top Villian by some of the Trump crowd. True, she's a Democrat-Socialist, so that would understandably rile up the right wing.

But she's a freshman congresswoman, just now getting her feet wet in politics. She doesn't yield much power at all, at least not yet, so she's not much of a threat to conservatives.

I think there's two basic things going on.  I wish I remember who it was on Twitter who said that when a female politician is very serious, she is "unlikeable." When a female politician is outgoing and friendly, she's too frivolous to be taken seriously.

Male politiians don't seem to have this problem as much.

An even bigger issue is the the mood of many of the Trump supporters. They always seem angry to me. I don't know why. Up until this week, Trump and the Republicans controlled the Executive and Legislative branch. They're getting tons of federal judges appointed by Trump.

However, Trump and his supporters seem so negative. He's always insulting people. At rallies, his supporters keep yelling "Lock her up!" or scream at the "fake news media." The most rabid Trump fans are always snarling, always volcanic. It must be exhausting to be that angry all the time.

They never seem to have fun. Or experience joy. And they seem to resent anyone who is joyful.

Yeah, there are a lot of problems in this world, but can the Trump crowd not see any sunshine? Is their worldview always so dark? Why?

Maybe that's the real problem they're having with Ocasio-Cortez. I think she takes her politics seriously. But she also knows how to have fun. Some of the people in Trump world can't stand that exuberance.

As Trump himself might tweet: Sad!

SNL's Pete Davidson Apologies For Cruel, Awful Joke With Target's Cooperation

Congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw, left, accepts an apology from
Pete Davidson,  who made an inappropriate joke about Crenshaw's
war injury. The apology on SNL last Saturday is one road map
to counter President Trump's negativity and divisiveness. 

More than a week ago, comedian Pete Davidson on "Saturday Night Live" told a really stupid, bad cruel joke.

It was just before the midterm elections, and Davidson was riffing out jokes about several Republican political candidates when he got to Dan Crenshaw, who was running for Congress from a Texas district.

SNL showed a photo of Crenshaw, a former military guy who wears an eye patch because of a war injury and said. "You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate for Texas and not a hit man in a porno movie."

I, along with many, many other people thought that went too far. Joking about Crenshaw's political positions is totally fair game. This was just cruel and unnecessary.

The bad joke caused a bit of a firestorm. On November 6, just three days after the SNL "joke" Crenshaw won the election and is now a Congressman-elect.

This whole incident could have been another salvo in the political hate wars that seem to be gripping all of us in the USA.

But then, as you might have seen or read on the news, SNL invited Crenshaw onto the show the following week - last Saturday. Yes, this was PR, to atone for such a bad, unfunny joke. But it was the best way possible to fix this mess. The video is at the bottom of this post.

Davidson, in his pink hoodie and bleached white hair, apologized in the "Weekend Update" segment.

He said: "In what must be a huge shock for people who know me, I made a poor choice last week. "I made a joke about Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw on behalf of myself and the show. I apologize... I mean this from the bottom of my heart, it was a poor choice of words. The man is a war hero and he deserves all the respect in the world. 

"If any good came of this, maybe it was for one day, the left and the right finally came to agree on something: That I'm a dick."

With that, Crenshaw appeared on the set and said, "Ya think?" and then sat down next to Davidson.

Then there were some more jokes, including Crenshaw having his cell phone go off, with the ring tone being an Ariana Grande song. Grande and Davidson had been engaged, but the whole thing was called off.  "Do you know her?" Crenshaw asked "innocently."

Zing!

The nice thing about this is it turned into a good moment of unity in a time when we're tearing each other apart.

Crenshaw said: "I want us to get away from this culture where we demand an apology every time someone misspeaks."

Crenshaw went on: "There's a lot of lessons to learn here. Not just that the left and right can still are on some things. But also, this: Americans can forgive one another."

The congressman-elect then went on - this was Veteran's Day weekend - to remind people of the sacrifices of our veterans. He also went out of his way to honor the people "we lost on 9/11, heroes like Pete's father.

Davidson's dad was a firefighter who lost his life in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

This whole thing was great because, as an opinion piece on CNN noted, "rather than trying to one up each other or score political points with their respective audiences, they made a sincere attempt to connect in a respectful and playful manner."

I have to say, our divisiveness is to a great extent Donald Trump's fault. Whenever things go badly for him - and he's such a fuck up that that happens frequently - he starts blaming groups and people, designating enemies and making up conspiracy theories out of nothing, just to cause hate.

Who knows which side will win? Will it be the hate and blame and lies from Trump and his minions and his ardent supporters? Or will we once again learn to deal with our differences.

There are other glimmers of hope. There was an extremely close race for U.S. Senate in Arizona. Republican Martha McSally seemed to be ahead at first, but as ballots continued to be counted, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema got ahead as more votes were counted.

Trump and his GOP minions started claiming fraud and crime in the vote counting, just to undermine faith in the electoral process and try to advance the Republican, no matter what.

But when it became clear that Sinema squeaked out a victor, McSally gave an incredibly gracious concession message, with the help of her goofy dog.

Sure, McSally didn't want to look like a jerk, so that if she runs for office again, people won't bring that up. But the concession was sincere, and far different from Trump's continued attempts to yell about voter fraud against Republicans with absolutely no evidence to back him up.

Trump continues as of today to spout off about fictional voter fraud. Yes, all election officials need to be monitored so that there's no funny business. Yes, voter fraud, though very rare, needs to be squelched.

But more important is our faith in elections, our faith in each other. We're going to have to deal with Donald Trump for the forseeable future. But Davidson, Crenshaw and McSally do give us a model on how to deal with Trump's dark, anti-democratic, ignorant mentality.

Here's the Davidson/Crenshaw video. Between the jokes, it's actually a little inspiring: