Chicago Blackhawks Pride Night and the Coming Night of the Long Guns

"It's important to show Hockey's for everyone..."  Defenseman Connor Murphy was asked about the Blackhawks decision concerning NHL Pride Night 

 

The NHL came up with a Pride Night and like all major leagues it's kind of plastered onto the sport as a way to sell tickets and merchandise.

Major League Baseball has had a Memorial Day and Mother's Day branding for years.  This mainly been a cynical cash grab via the sale of pink bats, caps, wristbands, and other gear and camo-festooned baseball equipment.

Unfortunately, the Chicago Blackhawks fumbled their Pride Night and it didn't go unnoticed by fans who attended specifically for "Pride Night".  The Hawks scrapped plans to have players wear the Pride sweaters during pre-game skate around citing concern for their Russian players - and their families still in Russia.

In case you were unaware Putin's Russia, when not committing war crimes in Ukraine, has draconian Anti-Homosexuality laws which it's violent state apparatus is more than willing to enforce.  So, the NHL decided to offer teams the ability to opt out entirely as well as allowing Russian born players to decline to wear any Pride gear.

But, the NHL and Blackhawks ham-handed Pride Night foibles took a back page to the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.  And the violent eliminationist rhetoric which the Right feels absolutely free and comfortable in expressing in the aftermath.

Republicans criminals and Rightwing terrorists over-the-top Kill Them All tweets were so bad even Elon Musk's Twitter had to respond by suspending accounts and taking down tweets from elected Republicans like the Leader of the Republican Party Major Traitor Greene.

Tucker Carlson and other lesser rightwing provocateurs are preparing Normie Society for upcoming Republican Concentration Camp proposals; i.e. the systematic rounding up members of the LGBTQ community and shipping them to camps for "re-education" or "de-lousing".

As we can recall from Umberto Eco's seminal work Ur-Fascism, Trans people are cast as both too powerful and yet too weak, and Republicans have all coalesced around the demonization of the Trans community, including busting out the Bush Era Terrorists! smear. 

Get ready.  Because it's been pointed out that if you ever theorized what you would have done when the Nazis were in power in Germany you'll soon have a real world scenario.  It's coming...  On-line rightwing provaceuters are stoking and prepping their followers to commit mass murder.  Combined with the rapid rush to criminalize Trans people specifically and the entirety of Queer culture, expect the melding of State Power and Rightwing Paramilitary fanaticism, to result in a Night of the Long Guns, as conservatives Make America Great Again by murdering people.

Update:

I speculated that Hale, a former student at The Covenant School, was subjected to molestation.  And via Crooks & Liars, comes the revelation that during the 2007-2012 timeframe a church elder John Perry an ardent friend of Mike Huckabee was molesting at least one 11 year old.

Remember this when those on-line tough guys declare if any man dressing up like a woman goes into their girls' bathroom they will kill them.  It's all false bravado and covering-up the fact that we know whose molesting children and its' not Trans persons but Church Men, but conservatives and QAnon psychos never seem to be able to find those sexual abusers.

Hurt people... hurt people... And that's, most likely, why we haven't seen a scintilla of Hale's so-called Manifesto, it probably implicates multiple people at the Church.

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 35: Dirty John Catanzara threatens "blood in the streets".

In the annals of the Chicago Police, there have been a few supremely dirty cops; but few of them have been as outspoken as Dirty John Catanzara.

Best known, nationally, as the defender of the Insurrection of January 6th, Catanzara blazed such a path of criminality he was forced to resign as a Police Officer.  But, Dirty John did not resign as the head of Chicago FOP Lodge 7, and as the leader of Union lodge Catanzara has pledged support for Paul Vallas for Mayor of Chicago.  And despite his criminal activities as an Officer and his penchant for supporting rightwing terrorism, Dirty John won another term as the head of the FOP Lodge a few weeks back.

So, Dirty John Catanzara probably felt empowered when he declared, in a Trumpian turn of phrase, that if Brandon Johnson wins election on April 4th, "we're going to see an exodus, like we've never seen before."

This is so much bullshit, Catanzara's FOP members aren't going to follow him out of their jobs.  But, Dirty John has a history of blowing smoke and threatening duly elected Mayors with outsized threats of Cops Quiet Quitting.  It's always made me laugh when rightwing Cops grumble about "quiet quitting" or bemoan 'Nobody wants to work anymore', when Police Officers invented this shit with the Blue Flu and habits of hiding out while on duty, sometimes in plain sight.

Paul Vallas has denounced Dirty John Catanzara's blood in the streets rhetoric because he's already secured Catanzara's support.  Meanwhile, Vallas is also spinning a bunch of bullshit about retirees and those Officer who've quit the Chicago Police of rejoining the Force;

“I know for a fact that there are hundreds of officers who will return if there's new leadership,” Vallas said during a WGN-TV debate last week. “The bottom line is, fill the vacancies, and invite those who have retired and those who have transferred to return and, under new leadership, they will.

First off if you're taking you Pension via Article V of the Illinois Pension Code you can't just come back.  And if someone who quit is going to reapply to work in Chicago I expect they have all sorts of red flags.  Brandon Johnson pointed out this is just so much poppy-cock.

Vallas is currently leading and has a good shot of winning election, he's playing the game of telling white liberals one thing and Republicans the opposite (as he did by publicly denouncing Catanzara even though hammering Johnson and Lightfoot before him as soft on crime and mean to the Police is his entire campaign strategy) as he has probably rightly concluded, no big story about his duality will make an impact in this last week before the election.

Shall Not Be Infringed 6: Equality at last! Gunman who blew away 6 humans in a Christian school in Tennessee was a Woman!

This is so Absurd.

America is so broken that mass shootings need to have a dramatic twist or turn in order to receive any kind of extended coverage.  In this latest mass shooting, three 9 year olds, as well a substitute teacher, a long term custodian, and the head of the school were shot to pieces at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.

But, in the shocking twist the shooter is Transgender! Dun-dun-duuuuuun! So this will be an easy dismissal by the rightwing gun pyschos who continue to hold America hostage to an idea that More Guns is the Answer.  It isn't.  More Guns leads to More Gun Violence.  Period.  It's the Guns.

But, in a darkly humorous turn on the Transgender issue. Audrey Hale was born female and was transitioning to male before deciding to become a murderer.  Rightwingers anti-Trans effort doesn't focus on female-to-male transition but, the more frightening man pretending to be a women to sneak into girls bathrooms lie.  Hale apparently left a manifesto.  And Hale called a friend right before their damage.  Audrey Hale went to that School.  Were they molested?  Were they subjected to gay conversion therapy?  Was this their revenge?  

Oh no it's not guns!  It's mental health!  Oh and anyway Gun Control doesn't work!  We need armed Veterans roaming the halls!  Children need bulletproof backpacks.  We need a single entry/exit point to keep gunmen gunpersons out of the school.

But, so many others have pointed out the absolute absurdity of the American Gun Epidemic.  This isn't freedom, the idea that in order to be free, schools need to have one hardened entry point, have roaming guards armed with rifles wandering the halls, that every parent needs a sidearm in their Moron Labe gigantic SUVs to pick up little Connor or Madison.

Like all things conservatives propound, 'Liberty & Freedom' when spoken of by a right-winger is the antithesis of the concepts.  But, gun nuts and Republicans don't give a shit.  "We're not going to fix it," - Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett.

We're

Not

Going

To

Fix

It

The reflexive defense of guns and rampant gun proliferation gives power and money to the NRA and the Republican Party.  No matter what they will not go against the spread of guns and ever increasing gun deaths and injuries every year.  9 year olds just need to be sacrificed, from time to time, on the Holey Altar of the 2nd Amendment.

But, at this point Republicans don't even have to try and come up with reasons and rationales for the continued mass proliferations of guns across the Nation.  They simply have to repeat their well-worn slogans and lies;  Hitler took Jews guns!  Chicago! Chicago! Chicago!  Scotus Rulings! AR-15 Lapel Pins! And US House Legislation to declare the AR-15 the Official Gun of America.

In an absolute despicable turn I could see Rightwingers and Republicans passing legislation to make it illegal for the LGBTQ community to own firearms under the auspices of declaring Trans a mental health condition.  Remember that just 3 weeks ago, Tennessee moved at Warp Speed to ban Drag to save and protect the Children!  There is no situation in America which Republicans can not use to make the material lives of Americans worse.  And that is the goal of the Republican Party; to destroy and impoverish the American people.

Let's Go Brandon (Johnson) for Chicago Mayor

Chicago's Next Mayor?

“Sometimes you have Caesar Augustus, sometimes you have Tiberius or Caligula,” During a March 18th Mayoral debate, Paul Vallas compared former Chicago Mayors to Roman Emperors.  I know Rahm was bad but I don't believe Emmanuel every made his horse into a City Alderman. 

The February 28th Chicago Mayor election ended with Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson as the top two voters getters setting up the run-off on April 4th.

So, the Lori Lightfoot era is over.  One of the key benchmarks for equality in the United States was not when President Barack Obama, an generational talent and highly qualified candidate, was elected President, it's when the black or female equivalent of George W. Bush (a career fuckup and incompetent) was elected.  Thus, Lori's 2018 election showed how far we've come...

But, Lori Lightfoot was a political neophyte or more correctly Lori showed a complete lack of political skills and instincts.  Upon becoming Mayor, Lightfoot immediately picked a fight with the Chicago Teacher's Union and alienated the only force in Chicago which was predisposed to side with her.

Lori then tried to sidle up to the Chicago Police, an effort doomed to fail from the start, since they hated her and nothing she could do could change that initiation opinion.  Police Officers throughout Chicago and the Cook collar counties called her "Beetlejuice", and since Police are still overwhelmingly white, male, and Reactionary it was a category error for Mayor Lightfoot to believe she could make inroads with the Police.

But, Lori's lackluster 3rd place finish leads to a run-off between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson.  To Lori's discredit and further highlighting her lack political skills, she's pouting and not yet endorsed Brandon Johnson.  So as the April 4th draws near Vallas appears to be favored. 

Vallas is from the South Side and is the type of white boomer Chicago "liberal" favored by the populace, but Vallas has also already secured the endorsement of long-time Secretary of State Jesse White, a not inconsequential endorsement as Jesse White is still a revered elderly black Illinois statesman.  Vallas is also running ads with President Bill Clinton praising his work in the 1990's Chicago school, so his strategy seems to be to target the elderly black voter.  However, Vallas is an infamous Charter School proponent having foisted those monstrosities upon Philadelphia and New Orleans.  But, more concerning was the "Pension holiday" when Vallas stopped contributions to Chicago teachers pensions and under the auspices of Mayor Richard M. Daley, and then the "defending your life" style attack on teachers and administrators from so-called underperforming schools were fired and had to reinterview to get their jobs back. 

Now, back in the 1990's one could possibly forgive those who believed in Charter Schools promise just like you could forgive/understand those who believed 401k's were a viable alternative to Pensions and defined benefits.  But, Vallas systematic attacks on Public Education was a forerunner of the current Vulture Capitalist and rapacious Republican attacks.  Vallas tenure as a school system Administrator has  

However, for the April 4th election Vallas' strategy is simple: Paint Brandon Johnson as a High Taxes, Defund the Police Radical and rely on the support of rich Chicago white people, and the older black community to whom he trots out the aforementioned Jesse White and connection to Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, Brandon Johnson has Toni Preckwinkle in his corner but, he's going to need to gather up all the votes which went to Lori, as well as Chuy Garcia, who has endorsed B. Johnson, and the venerable gas station attendant Willie Wilson.

Johnson has proposed a pretty audacious plan for increasing taxes on the sale of multi-million dollar real estate sales to help fund shelters for the unhoused as well as a raft of police reforms; canceling the city’s contract with the dysfunctional and problematic ShotSpotter gunshot detection company; ending no-knock warrants; and reopening public mental health clinics.

Brandon Johnson would seem to be a real progressive and Paul Vallas would seem to be a Eric Adams clone.  We'll see which way Chicago goes on April 4th...

Wisconsin may have Spotted Cow but Illinois has the Weed

Not made with Cannabis

And Wisconsinites love it!

Wisconsin residents purchased more than $121 million worth of marijuana from legal retailers in neighboring Illinois in 2022, contributing about $36 million in tax revenue to the state, according to a legislative analysis requested by a top Wisconsin senator.

Ha-ha-ha!  For years, Wisconsin has benefited from Illinois residents driving up for the fishing and spending long summers and large amounts of dollars in the State.

Wisconsin residents, however, have a love/hate or perhaps a hate/hate relationship with Illinois people including the nicknames "FISHTAB" (A Fucking Illinois Shit Head Towing a Boat) and "FIBs" (Fucking Illinois Bastards) and Wisconsin State Patrol is famous for always ticketing drivers from Illinois and infamously in the 1980's Chicago-land high schoolers used to drink in Wisconsin and drive drunk to get back home to the Chicago suburbs.  Drunk driving suburbanites became so bad, it lead to the creation of MADD and the passage of The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, [23 U.S.C. § 158], changing the drinking age to 21 across the USA.

My favorite Cannabis shop is Sunnyside on the US 39/90 corridor right on the border.  I've passed it many a time and it always makes me smirk as it's prominent display right across the border and right next to the highway is some primo trolling.  The weed flight has gotten so bad I understand Governor Tony Evers is pushing for medical marijuana to be fast tracked as Wisconsin considers legalization.

Major Traitor Greene declares War on Mexico

"Chief Ortiz are you aware that there was an explosive device found by border patrol agents on January 17th in an area called No Man's Land..." Major Traitor Greene breathlessly claims an IED was found by Border Patrol Agents, however, like her brain, it was nothing more than a baseball sized ball of sand...

When informed the information at this point was "confidential" Greene continued on with her lies, "I understand Chief Ortiz but I'm not going to be confidential... And as a matter fact, I've cosponsored legislation to declare war on the cartels because they are definitely declaring war on us."   

Watch out world, American Republicans are at it again. Telling lies to start a war.  Besides blaming President Biden for everyone of their failures and Traitor Trump's deregulation fails with Train derailments and Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Republicans in the US House have decided its time for a new war.  Target: Mexico

Now I'm guessing Greene's Warmongering with Mexico is based on the Sicaro Movies.  If you remember Trump and his administration used the plot line of prayer rugs found by Border Patrol in their arguments to BULID THE WALL.

It's possible Greene also remembers the US declaring the Drug Cartels "A Clear and Present Danger" in the Jack Ryan Tom Clancy universe.

Of course, there is no chance Major Traitor Greene knows anything about Black Jack Pershing or Pancho Villa.

So... what's next?  Clearly, we are in the Era of Unleashed Republican Agitprop.  Republicans everywhere all at once have decided to propagate lies, falsehoods, and all manner of rumors because as Steve Bannon observed you flood the zone with shit until the American people can no longer tell right from wrong, truth from lies, or fascism from freedom. Republicans can then swoop in with their Campaign of Vileness to remake America into a NeoConfederate Nation built on bigotry, bondage, and perpetual wage slavery

"I will never leave that woman.
I will always take care of her."

This and Greene herself would be nothing more than a grotesque joke if it wasn't the fact that she's banging Squeaker Kevin McCarthy and using her sexual wiles (such as they are) to gain influence and position.  And Greene is not alone in pushing for warfare with Mexico, Dan Crenshaw is the co-sponsor for Greene's let's party like it's 1848 and a bevy of other Republicans are agitating for an Invasion.

Step Inside Walk this Way You and Me Babe Hey Hey! Def Leppard's Drummer attacked in Florida but not by Florida Man

"And over here... the guy who plays the sloppy drums?" Thomas Smothers asks Keith Moon about his drumming technique in 1967, during the infamous exploding drum kit My Generation spot.

I guess the synchronicity theory came to pass in the last couple days vis-a-vis Drummers.  I watched the 2021 Netflix documentary Count Me In, which was great film on drummers but, it was bittersweet to see the late great Taylor Hawkins and Charlie Watts who passed away on the day Netflix released it.  Keith Moon is also prominently discussed. 

A teenaged Ohio Man attacked Rick Allen, the famous one-armed drummer of Def Leppard rushing from behind a pillar and knocking Allen down.  The 19 year old Max E. Hartley bum-rushed Allen while the drummer smoked outside the Fort Lauderdale Four Seasons hotel.  After knocking the disabled drummer down, Hartley knocked a woman over, who rushed to Allen's defense, dragged her around by the hair and then ran around trying to smash car windows until tackled by hotel employees.

Ohio is rapidly trying to catch up to Florida, Texas, and Indiana as most Fascist States in America.  Hartley was in Florida for Spring Break... 

In another bad day for drummers, Jim Gordon a session musician died having spent half his life in prison after killing his mother.  Gordon apparently played with big 1960's and 70's performers before apparently suffering worse and worse schizophrenia resulting in his murder of his mother in 1983, claiming voices told him to do it.

I Wanna Know what Woke is!

I want you to show me!
I wanna feel what woke is
I know you can show me - Woke Foreigner 

"Everything now has become politicized, every single thing, and it sucks,” Bethany S. Mandel renowned Grandma Killer once said in 2020.  Like all rightwingers, Bethany Mandel pretends to be oppressed so she can engage in oppression.

Pics or it Didn't Happen Should have a caveat
Pics from a rightwinger can be considered fake 

So, I first stumbled upon Bethany S. Mandel in the same place everyone stumbles upon a toxic vile lying crypto-fascist, the pits of Twitter

Mandel became popular as one of the early, 'I'm not masking my children and I'm not taking any precautions and I'm not going to give a shit about the people my heinous inconsiderate vile actions hurt.'

But, like Chaya Raichik from Libs of TikTok, Mandel didn't stop there but decided she got grotesque perverse pleasure in her new found toxic Twitter fame and influence.  

Enter the modern rightwing game of inventing terms, like CRT or Woke, which conservatives bandy about amongst each other as a form of signaling and shorthand.  But, when Bethany S. Mandel was simply asked to define woke by Brianhna Joy Gray, she became so flustered and flummoxed she couldn't even stammer out a one sentence definition and then pouted on air this was going to go viral boo-hoo-hoo. 

Bethany Mandel was on the show promoting her book Stolen Youth, a typical rightwing screed filled with the latest agitprop (Leftist Indoctrination! Woke Revolutionaries!) designed to keep conservatives in a frothing fury and keep them funneling money to rightwing grifters like Bethany.  Now, there are two possible reasons Bethany Mandel couldn't give a definition of Woke despite supposedly writing an entire book about it and a specific chapter describing "Wokeism".  One reason is "Woke" is the just latest euphemism rightwingers and Republicans have invented when they mean N-word Lover.  A second reason is Mandel would have spouted some gibberish, so chock full of deeply incestuous rightwing terminally on-line terms as to be wholly unintelligible to the Normies.

It's probably a combination of the two, as rightwingers delight in seizing some term and then running the demonization playbook.  It's what they did with "Liberal" in the Rush Limpballs era, it's what Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'Souza did with politically correct in the 1990's, it's what rising rightwing stars do with CRT as they strive to keep the White Working Class in a perpetual state of Fear & Anger.

Nevertheless, it does illustrate that a large portion of rightwing effort (DeSantis destroying education in Florida, Charlie Kirk's Turning Point org, Christopher Rufo convincing white moms everywhere that CRT is a thing, Moms demand Liberty) is directed at corrupting and polluting the minds of the American youth with fascist filth.

So, we will continue to see conservatives decrying Woke Banks and the Woke Military and woke this and woke that... and it will mean what it has always meant to the right; we no longer live in a Country with clearly delineated color barriers enforced by the State and we have a lot of uppity people who do not know their place and rightwingers are eager and willing to use violence to put things back.

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 34: Suicide by Cop

 Do you know who understands Guns are metaphysical danger and a unique contributor to suicide in this Nation?  Police Unions.

Guns Save Lives?

MAP (Metropolitan Alliance of Police) Rap Sheet magazine 2023 Volume 1 has an article Protective Factors Against Suicide.  Here's a picture of the final step it recommends for its members (i.e. Cops), "firearm safe storage is critical to reducing officer suicide rates.  Studies have demonstrated that in the general population the mere presence of a firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of completed suicide." 

Understand the NRA and gun nuts have successfully divorced rational thinking about guns with the actual real world impact.  Suicide using a firearm kills 25,000 Americans a year and almost every time someone uses a gun to kill themselves they succeed.

But, gun nuts, Republicans, and Firearms Manufacturing shills like to ignore this as not "real" gun deaths because they are "suicides".  Pliant Corporate Media have gone along with this disingenuous framing separating suicides by firearms from the yearly gun violence death and mayhem and grouping it in with suicide in general as opposed to properly counting this as part of the gun culture of America.

"Gun violence,” Mark Bryant founder of Gun Violence Archive correctly notes, is still accurate when describing the damage bullets do to bodies — and families, and communities. “If you don’t think shooting yourself is gun violence, you need to take a strong hard look at the results of it,” he said. “And I’m not just talking about the splatter on the walls. I’m talking about the wives and the mothers and the children that experience the aftereffects of it. And there’s nothing not violent about that.”

But, suicide is lumped or dumped into the National Mental Health crisis which Republicans mention at every mass shooting and then studiously avoid doing anything about when the news cycle moves onto the latest Elon Musk Twitter Files dump.

GO WOKE GO BROKE Silicon Valley Bank demonstrates Republicans love lies and hate America

"They were one of the most woke banks" -- James Comer on SVB Bank, I am surprised Comer did not blame Silicon Valley Bank's collapse on Hunter Biden's Cock and Laptop.

One of the persistent myths surrounding the Republican Party is they are the party of Law & Order.  Nothing is more ridiculous.  Republicans work tirelessly to undo laws and sow disorder into every system possible.  Republicans believe their lies about the Constitution only existing to restrain government and do everything they can to unshackle Business to engage in criminality and gross negligence.  Back the Blue and Thin Blue Line regalia are just rhetorical cudgels the right spouts to bash the left.  Just as they did with railroad safety, the Trump Maladministration specifically rolled back bank regulation and rules to constrain risky bank behavior.

After the W(orst POTUS Ever) Administration exploded the US Economy with the 2007 Republican Great Recession, conservatives took every opportunity to blame President Carter and fair housing laws enacted in the 1970's.  Republicans and Rightwing strategists know in this era of Rightwing drones being spoon-feed non-stop propaganda, it is easy for the Daily Caller, Breitbart, Faux News and Republicans to push the clever soundbite headline "GO WOKE, GO BROKE" and then rely on the relentless repetition and the ever churning news cycle to derail any detailed reporting of the true causes of collapse.

SVB failed because the Trump Regime rolled back financial rules constraining bad bank behavior.  After regulations are lessened or removed that's when Vulture Capitalists swoop in and Peter Thiel did it again, 

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund withdrew millions from Silicon Valley Bankas of Thursday morning as the bank descended into chaos, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

So, as we keep seeing over and over again, lax regulation coupled with unscrupulous Republican criminals leads to Billions of dollars being swindled.  With Silicon Valley Bank, Republican's sleazy criminal behavior merged with Crypto Currency Scammers.  SVB was heavily invested in Bitcoin, and as we know 2022 was the year of the Vulture Capitalists pumping-and-dumping Cyprotcurrency.  BitCON another cryptos are also giant energy sucks but, such facts don't matter to the rightwing crowd which has received from multiple sources the Truth that SVB was the most WOKE, most LEFTIST Bank, in the history of Banking.

Looks like TN Governor Bill Lee and Michael Knowles need to be "eradicated" (Pedophiles get the Rope)

Tennessee Republicans
hung this banner up in
Nashville to thank Lee

It's different for Republican
boys who dress as girls

First off, I want to be clear I'm not calling for violence.  No no! I'm just saying Michael Knowles and Bill Lee need to "eradicated". 

Next, The Day of the Rope is from The Turner Diaries the proto-bible of Rightwing White Supremacists and is referenced every time conservative domestic terrorists gather including during the January 6th Insurrection.

Also, while everyone is having fun showing the rank hypocrisy and shameless lying here, there is no amount of hypocrisy which will dissuade rightwingers from their plans to enshrine fundamentalist religious bigotry and zealotry into secular law and then to use those laws to oppress, harass, and kill non-conformist, weird, and LGBTQ persons. 

Republicans and Rightwingers have figured out a group whom they can paint as evil child abusers (i.e. the catch-all Groomers accusation) in their never-ending quest to turn the United States into a Taliban-inspired White Evangelical State built upon slavery and intolerance.

Rightwingers ability to remain shameless and intolerant will outlast the universe itself.  And Republicans can remain disingenuous far longer than you can remain outraged or engaged.

Dear Michael Knowles, Please Self-Eradicate

When confronted with pictures of himself dressed in women's clothing, Bill Lee who was touting his new and the Republican State Legislatures newest inhumane bill designed to empower conservatives to use the awesome power of the State to eradicate the LGBTQ community, petulantly lashed out, 

“What a ridiculous question that is. Conflating something like that to sexualized entertainment in front of children, which is a very serious question.”

Always remember though, that what Republicans say and what Republicans do are never the same thing.  You can never trust their declarations and must always understand Republicans learned through years of badgering the Corporate Media that what they say will be taken as what they are doing.  And the goal is to a recreation of Jim Crow/Confederate Style Nation with clearly bifurcated class and racial segregation and Republicans and Rightwingers will cheerfully eradicate thousands of Trans persons to accomplish this. 

When Knowles is King
you'll be 1st against the wall

And lest you think I'm being overly dramatic or hyperbolic, outright Nazis feel empowered to assemble and declare they will murder the LGBTQ community.  As Republicans continue to pass these bad faith anti-LGBTQ laws and push the hatred of the community understand if given power every single conservative and every single elected Republican will support the mass arrest and execution of Trans persons. 

                                                                         

Every.

Single.

 

One.

Rightwingers are absolutely yearning, hoping, begging to be given the go ahead by elected Republicans to begin mass murder domestic terrorism campaigns.  Listen to them taunt 'Keep working on defunding the Police so we can go to work...'  As always happens Paramilitary and far right groups yearn to replace Law Enforcement with themselves, ideologically pure and rigid Reactionaries, and begin the murder campaigns.  and all conservatives have to do is declare this group or that group "pedophiles & groomers" so that their circle of enemies can expand, and the death camps can grow and every single elected Republican will unequivocally support them.

When was Baseball's Golden Age?

It's almost Baseball season (no preseason doesn't count) and don't give me that nostalgia of Pitchers & Catchers reporting as being the start of the season, that's just a throwback to the earlier times when ball players had jobs and didn't work out in the off-season.

In the Star Trek: DS9 universe Capitan Benjamin Sisko loves baseball and his favorite player is a Japanese born shortstop "Buck Bokai", who breaks Joe DiMaggio's immortal 57 game hitting streak, in 2026, but by the 2040's baseball's steep decline in popularity leads to the sports demise.

Nowadays with the massive amounts of money floating around Baseball and the valuation of the Yankees $6 Billion and the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Cubs at $4 Billion it seems far-fetched to imagine baseball disappearing in 20 years.  But, back when DS9 was on the air, baseball still hadn't recovered from the destructive 1994 strike and the 1998 Home Run chase by Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire was still a few years off, it seemed possible baseball might end.

So, in the DS9 universe the baseball of the 21st century was the Golden Era as it encompassed the actual Earth with the Planetary League replacing the Major Leagues but, when was Baseball Golden Age here in the semi-real world?

Tangentially, one of the ideas that baseball trainers and managers believed back in the day was for ballplayers not to lift weights because it will make them "muscle-bound".  Well, despite the now universal belief that weight-lifting is the best thing you can do for your body I sincerely hope teams and players are re-evaluating the idea that getting jacked is an unqualified benefit for ball players.

Last season, White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito decided to become the latest Chicago player to bulk up and he pitched terribly, now new Cubs player from Japan Seiya Suzuki decided he needed more muscle to make it through the grueling MLB season, but his added muscle mass appears to have led to an oblique strain which is apparently serious enough to keep him out of the World Baseball Classic and the foreseeable future for the 2023 Season.

After some consideration I decided a 25 year era bracketed by the bench mark years of 1947 (Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier) to 1972 (Roberto Clemente's untimely death) as a good representation of the best of baseball.

Anything prior to World War 1 can almost be considered a different game and even all the way up to the 1927 Yankees with Murderer's Row can be considered the Stone Age.  The interwar years showcase the greatness of Baseball as a game heard on Radio but, can't really be called a Golden Age due to segregation, training, and equipment.

So, in considering 1947-1972, we get a lot of all-time greats; Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Bob Gibson, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Carl Yastrzemski to name just the greatest.  You also have the great westward expansion as the Giants and Dodgers move to California, plus Kansas City gets the A's then the Royals, and the Senators keep getting eliminated first as the Minnesota Twins, then as the Rangers asTexas gets a couple teams.  So, Baseball had become a nationwide sport. 

It's also before the horrible round multi-use stadiums of the 1970's, or the home run happy Steroid Era, and the Moneyball stupidity of maximizing every at-bat leading to the bore-a-thon 3 True Outcome Era and 3-4 hour games.

And no a strikeout is not the same as any other out, and no the shift isn't bad for baseball, and no walks are not just as good as hits, and no home runs are not the most exciting thing in sports.

Baseball has finally recognized this and adopted a raft of changes for the 2023 season but, is it too late to arrest the current perception of baseball being a boring game? 

Play Ball...

Republicans love Workers, especially when Republicans can work you to death

"You're a nice guy and I'm sure that you are a salt of the earth guy but since you asked, What I am supposed to do, go back to work at 67? No, you're not supposed to retire when you're 55. You sound to me like you are totally capable of still working. You got no business retiring at 55 IF you can't afford to retire. The American Dream is retire at 65. People are retiring now at 50 and 55 and so forth when they are still capable of working. According to the tables at 55, you've got 22 years left..."  Back in 2008, as Republicans were building up their racist tirades against President Obama, Racist Limbaugh laid out the pure hatred Republicans have for the American Dream and people retiring instead of working until they die.

Elitest scumbag Ted Cruz, who routinely spits on hard-working baristas, has been the most vocal voice in his nasal pitch proclaiming the Republican Party is now the party of the working man.

And Cruz is right.  The Republican Party does want you to work, from the time you are born right up until the time you die.  No prospect of retirement.  No relaxation.  No education.  No free time.  No union protections.  No, American Dream.  Because what Republicans want you to do is work from cradle too the grave.  

Senator Mike Lee, the descendant of a mass murdering Mormon War Criminal, explicitly ran on a platform of putting children too work saying federal "child labor laws are truly stupid" and of course on destroying social security, "It will be my objective, to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it."

And having elected scumbag liar Sarah Suckabee Slanders as the Governor of Arkansas, Republicans have begun their slow and steady march to destroy child labor laws.  Governor SS Sanders signed into law the "Youth Hiring Act of 2023", removing protections for children under 16 being put to work without receiving clearance from the Arkansas Dept of Labor.  The underbelly of this law is immigrant children are going to be put to work instead of being able to receive any kind of education.  The hopes of the Republican Party is to create a permanent underclass of revolving immigrant children who come to the United States, with minimal education, don't get a chance to be educated here and then work themselves to death in a perpetual kind of second-class status sans protections from laws and Government. 

So, even while Republicans work via multiple avenues to ensure Americans work from 10-65 and then die, Republicans realize they have to pretend to be in favor of workers and still have to play up an imaginary Horatio Alger backstory for themselves so that the White Working Class continues to support them as "regular" guys.

For a long, long time Republicans have been allowed to get away with declaring they are something when their actions conclusively demonstrate they are not.  Thus, Republicans have had a 40 year run of proclaiming themselves to be staunch constitutionalists, die-hard patriots, and proponents of law & order when in reality Republicans denigrate and violate the Constitution at every opportunity, Republicans are traitors who have worked for decades to subvert and destroy the United States, and Republicans are rapists and criminals who treat laws as unenforceable guidelines.

Thus, Donald John Traitor Trump can claim to have received a small loan of $1,000,000 in the 1970's.

Elon Muscovite can claim to have come from modest beginnings with a family emerald mine worked by slaves.

Oklahoma stumblebum Markwayne Mullins, supreme anti-Union punk, claimed during a Senate hearing where he tried to burnish his Tough Guy credentials, that he "started with nothing, ab-so-lute-ly nothing, in fact I started below nothing".  Besides lying about what UPS drivers make, Mullin's father gave him his plumbing business.

A key thing to remember about the Republicans is they don't believe the vast majority of the American people or immigrants should ever "retire".  Certainly, Rich and moneyed types (Elon Musk...) can retire whenever they please.  But, the Republican Plan is and always has been to Work. You. To. Death.  This is why Republican hate Medicare.  This is why Republicans have tried in the past to eliminate Social Security and are still trying to eliminate Social Security today.  Republicans don't believe in a social safety net, no they believe in the dignity of work and the "freedom" for you to work from childhood right up until you die.  Preferably not on the job site.

January 6th will be America's Second Independence Day

"We mustn't judge too harshly Will... It was his first time." - Hannibal Lecter

Many things required cleaning up after the January 6th Insurrection; from the broken glass in the Rotunda, to the shit-smeared walls throughout the hallways and offices, to the shattered trust in the peaceful transition of power in the World's foremost Democracy.

But, nothing required more work than for Republicans & Rightwingers to white-wash the video footage and images the American people saw that day with their own eyes.

January 6th was an Inflection Point.  The Republican Party had been steadily descending towards Authoritarianism and the denial of democracy and the repudiation of the Democratic Republic for decades with accelerating features from 2001-2021, but after the initial shock of that day wore off, Republicans fully embraced full-blown Fascism.

A Kill/Capture team of rightwing domestic
terrorists uses the confusion to enter the Capitol
in order to execute Democratic Congress members

 There is no coming back from this for Republicans.  They have decided to Rule or Ruin.  But, to that end they still need to do Revisionist History and catapult the propaganda about January 6th, as they steadily erode confidence in the United States of America and set about conducting their next attempt to Overthrow the Government and replace it with a NeoConfederate style of governance dominated by fundamentalist white supremacy and predicated on the propositions of oppression, intolerance, and adulation of the rich.

To that end; Squeaker Kevin McCarthy gave video surveillance footage to Chief Propagandist Tucker Carlson to do what he does; craft a web of lies and convince conservatives the true villains of January 6th were not that raucous mob of criminals who, it should never be forgotten, did successfully delay the certification of the 2020 election but, those who investigated the crimes and underlying motivations of the Trump White House and Republicans and Rightwing provocateurs who set the events in motion.

Remember except for a few strokes of luck and some individually brave actions, there would have been numerous dead Democratic Congressmen and Senators in the Capitol on that day.  And make no mistake that was the plan by the Trump White House. 

But, while several Republican Senators have tepidly pushed back against Carlson's Revisionist History right now, the arc of history is set.  Arch Traitors in the GOP will never stop pushing lies around the attempted TrumPutsch and Auto-Golpe De'Estado planned and executed by the Trump White House and multiple members of the Republican Party inside and out the Federal Government.  Thus, Republicans & Rightwingers must and will completely support the Spirit of January 6th and the Lies of a Rigged and Stolen 2020 Election while castigating a few individuals as bad apples.  

By the end of the decade Republicans will have convinced themselves and their mob of domestic terrorists that Jan6th stands with July 4th as the Days of Independence. 

The Last of Us sports record book changes

Watching The Last of Us, it struck me that 20 years of sports records never occurred in the TV Universe.  Here is what came to mind;

Since the start date is September 2003, first and foremost the Curse of the Bambino is never broken and the Boston Red Sox never again win a World Series.  Of course, The Black Sox and Billy Goat curses for the Chicago White Sox and Cubs are also never broken.

Barry Bonds never eclipses Hank Aaron's home run record.

Tom Brady never becomes the Quarterback GOAT as his only Super Bowl victory is in 2001.

Don't kick it to Hester...
Don't kick it to Hester...
Don't kick it to Hester...
Kicks it to Hester
And there he goes!

Devin Hester never changes punt and kickoff returns in the NFL forever nor embarrasses Tony Dungy in the 2006 Superbowl

Lebron James never plays a single NBA game. (His NBA debut was a month after the outbreak).

Serena and Venus Williams never become to of the greatest Women's Tennis Players of all time.

No one ever knows the names of Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps in Olympic history.

The 2004-05 NHL lockout never happens.  Alex Ovechkin drafted #1 overall in 2004, never plays in the NHL, nor complies 814 goals and counting as he looks to surpass Wayne Gretzky.

The Rock never makes a transition from WWE to billion dollar Movie stardom.

Tiger Woods never rebounds from his 2003 slump and we never learn about his self-destructive philandering.

Of course, thousands of other compelling matches and illustrious careers never occur and no one ever knows about them.