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.

Ultimate Instant Karma For Package Thief. Ouch!

The package thief in this photo is about to get a very ]
painful dose of karma, and the video has gone viral. 

The video at the bottom of this post is really a sight to behold.

The video shows a UPS driver leaving a package at a Bothell, Washington doorstep. Moments later, a car pulls up and a woman is seen in the security video running up to the house to grab the packages.

She starts to run off across the lawn to the waiting car. We all know, though, that it's wet this time of year in Washington State and the grass is sopping wet.

Inevitably, our thief slips and falls on the grass, the packages scattering.

What gives us all a sense of mean satisfaction is the woman is definitely hurt. Badly. She can't get up.  If you look closely, it appears her ankle might be broken.

Her accomplice has to come out of the car, and carry her as she howls in pain. After the guy dumps the woman in the car of course he comes back to grab the packages. Gotta complete the theft, ya know.

The boxes that were stolen contained medication. If it's pain medication, this woman will need it.

Police say they've identified the woman in the video, so I imagine an arrest is pending. Sucks to have a hurt leg in a jail cell, I bet. Normally I don't laugh at injured people, but this poor excuse for a woman fully deserves to be mocked.

Here's the video:

Guy Smashes Windows And Gets Instant Karma

Not entire sure if the video in this post is legit or fake or real, but it proves the adage that sometimes instant karma can strike sooner than you'd think.  

Judging from the comments in Polish, I think this happened in Poland. Not sure when. Some idiot decides to randomly start smashing out shop windows.

Another guy tries to stop him, but the window smasher almost beats up the the guy who tried to stop him. The guy who tries to stop the vandalism backs off and appears to be calling police on his cell phone.

The window smasher continues his handiwork, and then, decides to run away. And then.........

Watch the video:

Wild Boars Enlist Selves In War Against Terror

Wild boars like this one stampeded and killed 3 ISIS militants

I know terrorism and ISIS is not a laughing matter, given how many thousands of people these militants have killed.  

However, I can't resist a little sense of satisfaction about what happened to three ISIS fighters in Iraq recently.

The militants were hiding in some bushes, planning another ambush, when a herd of wild boars stampeded through, killing the three militants. 

The militants had executed a couple dozen people trying to flee the area, so these three militants got what they deserved.

This is an awful thing to say, but I hope their deaths by stampede was painful and terrifying.

Locals said the militants probably disturbed the notoriously short-tempered boars while they were setting up their attack.

Dumb BMW Driver Gets Instant Karma

Impatience is not a virtue, learns BMW guy  

Be patient on the roads, my friends.

Case in point is the video at the bottom of this post. It's a dash cam view in a car that begins with the driver of the dash cam view stopping to let a school bus in from a side street.

The school bus is a bit to leisurely and the guy who let him through is a bit too kind to the school bus driver, decides the guy in the BMW behind dash cam guy.

So the BMW honks, tries to pass to the right of the dash cam guy, to make the light, which has turned yellow.  Such impatience doesn't always have its rewards, as the dash cam video below shows

Instant karma!   (h/t BoingBoing)

Perfect Karma Might Strike Anti-Gay Harlem Church

Advocates are hoping for karma. This Harlem
homophobic church is up for foreclosure auction
and an organization that helps homless gay teens wants to buy it. 

There's this weird minister at this weird little church in Harlem called Atlah World Missionary Church, who is vehemently anti-gay.

And weird. Did I say weird?

The marquee in the front of the church has had messages like "Jesus Would Stone Homos," and "Obama has released the homo demons on the black man."

The church's pastor, Rev James David Manning, famously said in 2014 that Starbucks flavored its coffees with semen from "sodomites."

Yeah, did I say he was weird?

Anyway,  it appears that Manning, or whoever is running the Atlah World Missonary Church, isn't so good with finances.

The city of New York says Atlah owes debts and tax liens totalling a little over a million dollars. The church is about to be sold in a foreclosure auction, says the Huffington Post.

This is prime real estate, so I'm sure a lot of developers want to gobble this place up.

However, I'm really rooting for one of the potential bidders for this property - the Ali Forney Center.

Why? Because the Ali Forney Center would be awesome karma for this place. It's an advocacy group for homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens.

Talk about turning a derelict property to good use!

The Ali Forney Center is conducting an online fundraiser tohelp raise $200,000 so it can buy the property and turn it into housing for its young clients, says the Huffington Post. 

The $200,000 would be used to leverage other funds and help from foundations to secure the property.

If the Ali Forney Center is ultimately unsuccessful in buying the building, it will use the donations to expand its services for homeless youth elsewhere.

Carl Siciliano, the Center's founder and executive director, said converting the "church" to a building that houses homeless gay teens would "truly be a triumph of love over hatred."

The fundraising for the Ali Forney Center at what is hoped will soon be the former Atlah church is going quite well.

As of Sunday, $75,000 had been raised, reports the JoeMyGod blog. Hopes are that today, as people head to work and tell each other about the fundraiser, the donations will skyrocket even more.

(UPDATE: As of 2 p.m. EDT, the fundraising has gotten up past $100,000)

If you want to make a donation hit this link. 

If you do donate, you will help make things just that much more right in the world.

Pharma Bro Shkreli and Shadenfreude: A Match Made In Heaven (Or Hell)

Martin Shkreli under arrest today, inspiring a huge wave
 of schadenfreude. But will he get the last laugh? 

I bet it's fair to say that one of the most searched words on Google today is "Schadenfreude."

"Schadenfreude" refers to the pleasure derived from another person's misfortune, and so many people, including yours truly, have been experiencing intense schadenfreude over the arreset of Martin Shkreli.

Martin Shkreli, the "Pharma Bro" train wreck I've been obsessing about because he raised the price of life saving drugs to sky high levels to make oodles of money, was arrested on fraud charges, according to numerous media reports this morning.

He's the guy who raised the price of a medication for people with HIV and other life threatening illnesses from $13.50 to $750.00. His logic is its his job to make lots of money, and if sick and broke people suffer because of it, too bad.

He's been busy getting reading to inflate prices of other life saving drugs, too.

According to MSN:

"Prosecutors charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he'd been chief executive officer, and sued by the board.

In the case that closely tracks that suit, federal prosecutors accused Shkreli of engaging in a complicated shell game after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions. He is alleged to have made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements."

Everybody had a HUGE field day with this arrest, especially on social media, because Shkreli is such a vile creature.

Maybe this makes me a bad person, but the news about the criminal charges against Shkreli are making me a very happy man today. I'm in a good mood now. Like a lot of people.

When I Googled "schadenfreude Shkreli" this evening, I got no fewer than 6,250 matches.

Salon collected some of the best Tweets about Shkreli's arrest today, including, from @ohiotimmons3, "On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a warrant for Martin Shkreli."

@John Fuglesang Tweeted: "Wait, Martin Shkreli in jail? Are the criminals OK?"

Probably not. As long as Shkreli is around, somebody's going to get hurt.

Over at Wired, they tell us that Dean Burnett, known as @garwboy on Twitter, noted, "Government warning: National schadenfreude reserves expected to run dry by the end of the week."

I have no doubt that's true.

Many people are apparently worried about a Wu-Tang Clan album Shkreli recently bought. It's the only one in existence, and he reportedly paid $2 million for it.

Yeah, I don't know why anybody would spend $2 million for the only copy of an album from anybody, but what do I know?

If Shkreli goes to jail, I guess he now has time to enjoy the Wu-Tang album he bought from all the money he's making off the backs of ill people.

This arrest will probably slow down Shkreli's quest to totally inflate the cost of life-saving drugs for other people, but at least it's a start.

Here's how lousy Shkreli is. He told a Forbes health care summit early this month that he screwed up. Did he mean he shouldn't have raised medication prices so much?

Nope. He said he should have raised them more.

Forbes quoted Shkreli thusly: "'My shareholder expect me to make the most profit," Shkreli said, a theme he returned to again and again. 'That's the ugly, dirty truth.'

'I'm going to maximize profits,' Shkreli addes later. 'That's what people (in healthcare) are afraid to say.'"

In other words, the only responsibility of a manufacturer of a life saving medication is to maximize profits. The patients who need it? Fuck 'em. let them die as long as I can make millions.

No wonder people as disparate as Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton hate him.

My dream? That Shkreli gets a long, long inside look living among the "Lights of Dannemora."

As in the really nasty Clinton Correctional Facility in New York.

My dream probably won't come true, though. As The Guardian points out, even when there's wild excesses like those of Shkreli, the big splash of publicity over the arrest will be for naught.

Most CEOs caught with their hands on the cookie jar are not convicted. Even when they are, they get what for them is a slap on the wrist. A fine of a few million dollars, which is really peanuts, and then they can go on ripping people off.

I'm sure several more medically needed people will die to satisfiy Shkreli's greed.

Then it will, unfortunately, become his turn to feel the schadenfreude when the rest of us can't afford the medicine to keep us alive. The medicine that the likes of Shkreli prices out of our reach.

Karma Brings Great Lesson To Caitlyn Jenner Critic On Facebook

The Mark Hogancamp artwork
Facebook user Terry Coffey
used in a viral post last week.  

You've probably seen this meme all over social media:

People are criticizing those who are calling Caitlyn Jenner brave for her very public transition from the former Bruce Jenner to a glamorous looking woman on the cover of Vanity Fair.

In that criticism was people pointing to heroic U.S. soldiers and calling them the brave ones, not Caitlyn Jenner.

To me, these critics missed part of the point. There are different kinds of brave. Huge numbers of U.S. soldiers are undeniably brave, and we should be forever grateful for their service.

That should go without saying, but the current state of public discourse forces me to state that obvious fact.

At the same time, Caitlyn Jenner is brave, too, for encouraging other transgender or would-be transgender people to be themselves in spite of bigots and worse.

One of the people who cited brave U.S. soldiers as being much braver than Jenner was a person named Terry Coffey of Oregon, who pointed out the bravery of soldiers as incomparably greater than U.S. soldiers.

Coffey wanted an photo to match his Facebook post regarding this, so he found what appeared to be a photo of two World War II soldiers.

It showed one soldier carrying another wounded soldier on his back. That wounded soldier is pointing a gun, presumably returning enemy fire. These me, he said, represented bravery.

According to Huffington Post, Coffey found the uncredited image online, and put it in his post. This Facebook post went totally viral, with more than 800,000 page views.

Give that, Coffey decided it would be good to find out who took the photo, so the photographer could be credited.

The two soldiers in the image Coffey used are actually toy figurines made by artist Mark Hogancamp. 

It turns out Hogancamp was beaten almost to death in 2000 because he dressed like a woman. (Hogancamp was not transgender; he liked to cross dress.)

Coffey learned that information while looking up details of the figurines.

On Facebook, Coffey followed up with another post:

"In an ironic twist, I have discovered that the photo is part of a documentary created by a man who was beaten nearly to death outside a bar in 2000.

After spending 9 days in a coma, suffering severe brain damage and being unable to walk or talk for a year, he chose to deal with the pain of the tragic event by creating an imaginary world of characters and photos and stories, all set in WWII. His work is the subject of an upcoming documentary. 

Why was he nearly beaten to death by 5 strangers?

Because he was a cross-dresser. 

I could have chosen any one of hundreds of photos  depicting bravery, but I chose this one. Do I think it was an accident?

No, I don't. 

What happened to this man was cruel, wrong and unforgivable.

Hate helps nothing.

Love wounds no one.

and God heals all.

(and irony makes you think.)"

You know what?

I believe U.S. soldiers are brave. I believe Caitlyn Jenner is brave. And I believe Terry Coffey is brave.

Coffey's original post criticizing the idea that Jenner was brave probably appeals to conservatives who have an unyielding, unchanging view of what is right and wrong.

Coffey learned a good lesson and took it to heart. The fact that he broadcast that lesson probably raised the ire of people who can't stand the fact that an experience changed Coffey for the better. So Coffey is brave for admitting his mistake and noting that he changed his mind.

All kinds of media outlets want to interview Coffey, but he says he's politely turning down all media requests.

Which is good. Everything that needed to be said was said in his post.

Well done, Mr. Coffey!

Zero Sympathy Out There For Owner Of BMW Firefighters Damaged To Enable Them To Put Out Large, Life-Threatening Fire

Some guy in the Boston area is now figuring out what to do now that his brand new BMW is missing many of its windows and has big angry dents in its body.

The infamous BMW in front of a hydrant during
a big East Boston blaze Wednesday night.  

The guy's ego must have big, angry dents, too, judging from the reactions to this story. Few people have sympathy for him.  Serves him right, though.

I case you haven't heard, the guy parked his two day old beautiful BMW right in front of a fire hydrant the other day.  That's always the wrong thing to do.

And the BMW got his karma right away.

According to WBZ in Boston, a Toyota caught fire in an alley way, and the fire quickly spread to three buildings. The fire went to eight alarms as the buildings were engulfed.

Firefighters needed every available hydrant in the neighborhood to keep even more buildings from going up in flames, but Bozo's BMW was parked in front of the hydrant, a block from the fire, and blocking the hydrant.

Guiding a hose over the top of the car from the hydrant to the fire wouldn't work because it put too much of a kink in the hose, preventing water from getting to the fire. ("They weren't watering their tomatoes," one commenter at Gawker said about this situation)

So, firefighters smashed out the passenger windows and fed the hose through the interior of the car. They also had to move the car a bit to get the kink of the hose completely out so, they picked up the car and moved it a few feet. That's probably where the dents came from.

I'm guessing the inside of the car got wet, too, considering how leaking water from the hydrant probably fed along the hose.

WBZ quoted a friend of the car's owner who was not entirely sympathetic.  "He was mad....I wanted to cry for him. Of course, he brought that on himself," the friend said.

Yeah, I think everyone's sympathy lies much more with the three dozen or so people who lost their homes in the fire, rather than an obnoxious new BMW.

Neighbors said the owner drove the car away after the fire with the two broken windows and other damage.

As I noted, I probably won't cry myself to sleep tonight over the BMW owner's misfortune, if you can call it that. (He also got a $100 ticket for parking in front of the hydrant.)

On CBS, a commenter named IrishSailor quoted the "I wanted to cry for him quote with a dismissive snort:  friend. "Bull! If one of my friends was that stupid, I'd be laughing my arse off at him."

The Boston Globe started an editorial on the subject this way: "As if hoping to confirm every stereotype of boorish BMW owners, someone left her - or let's be realistic --his coupe parked in front of a fire hydrant in East Boston Wednesday night."

Someone commenting on the Globe editorial waxed poetic about the situation"

"It was only a misdemeanor
But they couldn't have been meaner
I needed the space
Who'd think of a blaze
They ruined my flipping Beemer"

Others offered opinions about BMW drivers in general: "The difference between a porcupine and a BMW? The porcupine has the pricks on the outside."

I noticed media outlets have not released the name of the BMW driver. I guess the public shaming would be too extreme if everybody knew who he was and how to find him.

I just hope he doesn't park in front of a hydrant again






I 

OB 

Watch A Not So Merry Prankster Get Exactly What He Deserved

Some people make prank videos these days because, I guess they're pretty good at generating clicks, and that means some revenue.

Many of the pranksters, as I've noted before are extremely stupid, not funny and risk getting people hurt.

And sometimes, they hurt themselves, and deserve it.

That's the case with the moron in the video below. He and his co-conspirator faked ATM robberies, to see how people would react.

Finally, one person, convinced it was a real robbery, punched the prankster in the nose, causing a rather grotesque injury. (Don't watch if you're eating)

I am reluctant to post the video because Lord knows I don't want to generate publicity or revenue for this idiot, but I do think it's a good warning for other would-be pranksters out there.

That warning is: You'll eventually get what you deserve, and what you get could well be unpleasant.

I have no sympathy for the guy in the video and judging from the comments on his YouTube page, nobody else does, either.

Judge for yourself and watch:

I Have No Sympathy To World's Worst Arsonist

Somebody burned down the Supps R Us convenience store in Melbourne, Australia on Boxing Day.

Watch what happens to this guy when he tries
to burn down the store  

This wouldn't normally be news of interest for people here in the United States, since nobody got hurt.

Correction: Somebody got hurt: The arsonist. Police are currently looking for a badly burned arsonist. Somehow, I can't bring myself to be particularly sympathetic to the moron.

Watch and see if you agree: