Senatus Populusque Americanus

The latest depth of corruption and depravity is the deliberate vandalism of the US Postal Service. The Cheeto Demon isn't even pretending to hide his motives, openly acknowledging that he's doing it to undermine attempts to vote against him.

The GOP's paper-thin rationale is that the Post Office isn't making money. It's an argument that would reek in the nostrils of anyone who still possessed a sense of smell. For starters, the Post Office actually was making money until the Republican-run government during the reign of George II decided that it needed to fully fund retirement for hypothetical workers who haven't even been born yet.

More fundamentally, the Post Office isn't supposed to make money. It's a government service. Taxpayers pay money and they get a service in return. Literally nobody has ever griped that the Pentagon loses $750 billion a year. We pay for defense. We get defended. We can easily argue that it costs too much, but it doesn't make any sense to slam it for not being profitable. It isn't supposed to be.

But maybe we're looking at it the wrong way. Our sacred founding fathers looked to ancient Rome for inspiration when framing our system of government. Beginning in the republic and obviously continuing in the imperial period, Roman politicians were never shy about amassing great personal wealth by using the legions to loot non-Roman lands and enslave non-Roman people.

Our government has never been shy about using our military to safeguard and even advance private financial interests abroad. But we've never used our Army and Navy to do an old school Roman invasion, conquering with military might and then stealing everything that isn't nailed down and slaughtering or enslaving everyone who resists.

Maybe we should revive this proud tradition. Seems like other countries might have stuff we could take from them. Slavery's technically illegal in US territory, so I guess we'd just have to set up massive systems of privatized prisons for the local population.

It couldn't make our international reputation much worse than it already is.

Image credit: detail of Trajan's Column, from Wikimedia Commons

Feeling 7up

Something recently reminded me of this scene from Repo Man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=d9k09WPpNeo

I was getting all excited about the Incompetent Dictator giving sworn testimony in the Russia investigation, because I predict a zero percent chance of him going through even a short interview without saying something false, which would of course be perjury.

And then I realized that it wouldn't be. Perjury requires willful falsehood, saying something you know isn't true. Watching the monster for a couple of years now, I'm fairly convinced (at least in part from having known people like him in my own life) that he honestly thinks that because he says something that automatically makes it true. I'm guessing his lawyers would have little trouble producing expert medical testimony to Trump's mental state in that regard.

In the past this would have been a poor defense. It might have gotten him out of being impeached or convicted for perjury, but it would require proving in open court (or the floor of the Senate) that the President of the United States is so completely divorced from reality that words like "truth" and "lies" are completely meaningless to him. Almost better to go ahead and take the fall for perjury!

But now? Can't nothing bring this thing any shame. And it's hard to imagine it hurting him in the eyes of his supporters. I suspect many of them have no better grip on reality than he does.

So when the President says "I wasn't singing, dude," his brain is so broken that he thinks his denial actually means that he was not in fact singing. And then the choir of Alex Joneses (using whatever platforms remain to them) chime in with "Why are you lying about Trump? Fake news!"

The only way the rest of us can retain the sanity we have left is to just keep saying "I'm standing right next to you and you're fucking singing. Cut it out."

Some pig!

Happy (I guess) New Year

A moment of silence in memory of Charles Manson

Just kidding. Fuck that fucking guy.

A long time ago, when "social media" was BBS systems and a tiny corner of the internet called Usenet, I noticed that some Muslims who posted on Usenet groups made a practice of following Mohammed's name with PBUH. I looked into it and discovered that it was an abbreviation for "peace be upon him." They wrote it every time his name got mentioned, sort of like the Saturday Night Live skit where every time someone mentioned dear, departed Mr. Loopner, everyone had to say "God rest his soul."
 

There's something to be said for the utterance of a catchphrase any time a particular person is mentioned. But the phrase should denote the proper level of respect. Praiseworthy people should be praised. On the other hand, vile, subhuman scumbags should have their own ceremonial acknowledgements.

For example, rather than writing "Charles Manson Fuck That Fucking Guy," we can shorten it to "Charles Manson FTFG."

It has so many possible uses in our day and age.

Some liberals are coming the the defense of Al Franken FTFG, asserting that during the USO tour his victim wore revealing clothing and engaged in inappropriate touching onstage. It's a sickening case of "she was asking for it" argued by people who should know better.

Or perhaps the whole mess is more Russian bullshit. Use conservative sock puppets to stir up a stink, and then use liberal sock puppets to throw the whole thing into chaos.

#VladimirPutinFTFG

Tellin' it like it was

John Kelly's recent remark about how "failure to compromise" caused the Civil War actually gave me a really good idea about how to deal with the controversial Confederate monuments issue.

On the one hand we have "social justice warriors" who want to tear down the statues of Robert E. Lee and his ilk. On the other hand we have proud Southerners who want to preserve their cultural heritage. So by all means let’s compromise.

Most of these statues were put up in the 20th century as a reactionary response to attempts by black people to be treated like human beings. This history is clearly reflected in the plaques and inscriptions on the pedestals, which typically contain some sentiment about “the defense of the honor of the white race” or words to that effect.

The compromise is simple. The statues stay where they are. The plaques/inscriptions are removed and replaced with plaques that say "Traitor to His Country."

There. Now the statues accurately reflect the history they're supposed to commemorate.

Problem solved.

I shot the tariff

Trump announces that he’s looking into the extent of his authority to unilaterally impose import tariffs via executive order.

Skilled as he is at tweeting, apparently his search engine skills aren’t quite so sharp.

If your search skills surpass his, you can do a quick check on “Smoot Hawley tariff” and see what you get.