Monthly Archives: February 2021

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Friday Night Pilot Lights

It’s easy to have empathy for the people of Texas during this historic deep freeze, but it’s no less difficult to wonder if perhaps this isn’t, from a governmental standpoint (and who elects the officials in Texas but its people?), a righteous comeuppance.

By standing alone and scoffing at regulations while standing behind that insipid call to arms—”Don’t Mess With Texas”—the Lone Star State was just begging Lord Baby Jesus to illuminate the folly of human arrogance blended with ignorance.

And so here we are. The Lone Star State is in a deep freeze with no power and even less leadership. Hook ’em.

Porcine Provacateur Perishes

Rush Limbaugh, smoker and Oxy addict, dies from lung cancer at age 70. Good riddance.

Limbaugh can rightly be hailed as the patriarch of Trumpism. The architect of White Supremacy meets White Victimhood. His radio show, which launched in June of 1990, laid the template for Fox News and right-wing AM radio and later Donald Trump himself.

Unabashedly bigoted and misogynistic, Limbaugh plumbed a vein of fearful and angry (and often under-educated) white Americans who felt threatened that the Reagan Era was under assault. You want to know where party over country began? Wherever Rush appeared on your A.M. dial.

I’ll never forget the time Limbaugh appeared on Letterman. He was both charming and ultra-conservatively mean, and Dave played the role of genial host, gently ribbing him. Finally, Limbaugh went off on a white power soliloquy and when he finally came to a stop, Dave waited a beat. Then Dave asked, “Do you ever wonder if you’re just full of hot gas?”

Tatis A Lot Of Money

The San Diego Padres ain’t no dummies. They see a brilliant future in 22 year-old shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., and so locked him up with a 14-year, $340 million contract. That seems like a lot of money now—it is, averaging out to $24 million annually—but 10 years from now it may seem like a steal (at which time the team will probably renegotiate).

There’s no more up-and-coming squad in baseball than the Padres. And Tatis is the cornerstone of it all. Look out for the Air Friars!

Texas Turtle Trauma

For all the mercenary malevolence of its elected officials such as Gov. Abbott, Senator Ted Cruz and our former Dept. of Energy head Rick Perry (a former Texas gov. and a Trump appointee), there are plenty of decent people in Texas. Let’s begin with the volunteers who are rescuing thousands of sea turtles near Padre Island who without their aid would have frozen to death.

When sea turtles’ temps drop to a certain level, they literally cannot move. They are in danger of drowning. Rescuers have literally been picking them up and bringing them to an indoor shelter to heat up, saving the lives of many.

Ted Fled

Other than the fact that he’s unlikeable, without integrity and possessed of no courage, I don’t understand what people have against Senator Ted Cruz. So what if millions of Texans are without power and many will literally freeze to death; Cruz has a family, including an “ugly wife”, to think of and when a few business class seats open up on a flight from Houston to Cancun, who is he not to book them?

Acropolis Wow

There’s snow in Athens and Arabia, too. Climate change. It’s here. Were you waiting for it to send you a Change of Address card? This is what it looks like.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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Look, Pa, It’s A Metaphor!

Ah, the sweet smell of karma…

James And The Giant Peach Basket

The Phoenix Suns were 6-0 on a 7-game home stand and led the Brooklyn Nets, playing without Kevin Durant or James Harden, by 20-plus in the third quarter. They’d already put up 75 first-half points.

You know what comes next.

James Harden got involved. The three-time NBA scoring leader finished with 38 points, leading the Nets to an epic 128-124 comeback win in the Valley. The Nets scored the game’s final 10 points and outscored Phoenix 74-49 in the latter half. Even though Sun guard Chris Paul was incredible in the fourth quarter, burying three after three (and finishing with 29), it felt inevitable most of the way that BROOKLYN would overcome.

Nets at Lakers, Thursday. This is the Finals that ESPN is dreaming of.

Texas Two-Face

So Texas wanted energy independence. It got it. Now in the face of the worst winter cold snap in decades, millions of Texans are freezing (many to death) because of massive power outage. The state’s Republican pols, from the governor on down are blaming false scapegoats such as the “Green New Deal” (it has never been voted on) or frozen wind turbines (which, on the best of days, would supply less than 12% of the state’s power).

This is 21st-century Republicanism at its finest: be the cause of your own demise while blaming a Democrat-preferred option that isn’t even part of the situation.

and this…

and this…

Sorry, I’m Not Home Right Now, I’m Walking Into Spider Webs, But Leave A Message And I’ll Call You Baaaaack

and then there’s advanced arts…

Don’t Think Of It As Another Deluge Of Snow; Think Of It As Another Heaping Of White Supremacy

If MTV’s “Real World” Confessional had a political filter, here’s a fine template.

Here’s Lindsey Graham appearing on Hannity and saying OUT LOUD what most of us have known for years: without the racists and the zombie-like evangelicals (that’s a Venn diagram that largely overlaps, granted), the Republican party as currently constituted would never have enough votes to overtake the Dems.

Translation: They may be Deplorables, but they’re ours. So we must continue to court them.

Apparently it never occurs to Graham or Mitch or others that if the GOP could simply embrace conservatively fiscal ideals while also being inclusive to all colors, sexual orientations and creeds that they might actually have something. Nah. Let’s just continue to play the “good people on both sides” card.

..and this from Lindsey Graham:

Coffee Cake (or Lasagna) Where I Live, But Same

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

White Powder > White Power

Some good yuks being had on the Twitters at the expense of Republican hypocrisy in the name of this coast-to-coast bitter cold snap.

and…

and…

and…

Finals Preview?

The top teams in the Eastern and Western conference, respectively, met last night. However, neither of them has LeBron or Zion or even KD, so the contest was relatively ignored.

Philadelphia and Utah, however, came out ready to ball: it was 42-35, Sixers, after one quarter. Worth noting: the top player on either team, Joel Embiid, missed the game.

However, teammate Ben Simmons scored a career-high 42. It was not enough, though, as Jazz reserve Jordan Clarkson put up 40 and Utah won, 134-123.

The Jazz, who began the season 4-4, have won 19 of 20 with starters named Royce O’Neal and Joe Ingles. One of these days the national media will discover them.

Of course, if this does turn out to be the NBA Finals, it would be the least-watched edition in years.

Kinzinger’s Kin’s Zinger

Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) was one of the ten Republicans who went off script and voted to convict Donald Trump in the House stage of the impeachment trial last month. Many members of his family were not pleased with the six-term Congressman.

Kinzinger’s cousin from Ohio (or QAnon Crazytown), Karen Otto, authored the note in the name of 11 fellow family members and spent $7 to send it via certified mail. The letter begins, “Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God! You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!”

Here is the correspondence in full.

Kinzinger is an intrepid but lonesome soul in the GOP. Here is what he said, which is absolutely accurate but also potential career suicide if he remains in the GOP:

“For the last four and a half years, the only spokesman for the Republican Party has been Donald Trump. It’s time to present an alternative narrative and fight for the soul of the party.”

So, yes, under Trump it’s no longer a political party. It’s a cult.

Cat-Atonic

I Like To Think Of This As Josh Hawley’s Political Career

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

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by John Walters

We The Sheeple

Yea 56, Nay 44. You lose, Yay.

As a good friend texted after the Senate failed to reach a 2/3 vote on Donald Trump’s (second) impeachment, “Sat nite, celebrating the groundwork-laying victory today for the Fascist Party takeover in 2024. We had a good run: 200 years that were good, five decades or so that were kind of crappy…Rotten Tomatoes will give us a 63, plus/minus 5.”

As another person wrote, “Dems get impeached for an erections, R’s for an insurrection.” And neither found guilty via the 2/3 Senate rule.

For those keeping score, in the past five years Donald Trump twice failed to win the majority vote in a presidential election and twice had more Senators vote to impeach him than to acquit him. And through all of that he still won the presidency once, was not impeached by the Senate, and nearly stuck around for a second term.

We’re not a democracy. We’re a Republic with Fascist training wheels.

You really must listen to both Chappelle and Maher here. Maher’s point is dead-on, something many of us have personally witnessed (he should’ve followed Chappelle’s lead, though, and excised the lame jokes; give it to us straight, Bill). How do you persuade people who believe in virgin births and a man rising from the dead that some of their other faith-based view points are illogical?

Rest assured that if the Rs ever regain control of the House or Senate or even the White House they’ll do their best to deny voting rights to those who oppose them while praising the military and police up and down. It’s their only shot going forward and they know it.

Me, I’ve got to return to Googling, “Zillow New Zealand.”

Takin’ It To The Streets

At Daytona, thunderstorms created a five-hour delay. There was a metal-bender before the deluge and then another, fiery one on the final lap. When the debris cleared, long-timer Michael McDowell emerged without scath (scathe?) to take the checkered flag. The driver who should be sponsored by M&Ms won his FIRST NASCAR race in his 358th start, the second-longest drought (Michael Waltrip, 401) in stock-car racing annals.

Not Daytona, but last week’s deadly 100-vehicle pileup in Fort Worth, Texas. Though, really, what’s the difference?

The race ended after midnight, more than nine hours after the green flag came out. So, yes, you could have covered the distance faster in your Honda Civic.

Sleetless In Seattle

Much of the USA, from Seattle to Texas to the eastern seaboard, is getting walloped by snow storms this President’s Day weekend. We found it funny that the governor of Texas has petitioned the White House for federal funding; wasn’t Texas looking to secede just a few days ago?

https://twitter.com/AlexMcDaniel/status/1361023403529019397?s=20

Truth In Signage

Traveling Man

LeBron James did this last night, in a nationally televised game, with impunity. I’m not talking about the Nuggets failing to defend him. I’m talking about the zebras failing to whistle him for traveling.

And if this isn’t traveling, then why does the rule even exist?

Not the first time I’ve made this argument. Won’t be the last. It’s the little things going uncalled that are the first stages of an empire in decline, be it the USA or the NBA.

Addendum

I like this passage from Pete Wehner in today’s NY Times Op-Ed section. I’ve longed believed that, much like a preacher or even a God, all of Donald Trump’s “power” is purely ephemeral. As soon as enough people, particularly those of import, defy him, his power will vanish. All it would’ve taken is 11 more Republicans with a spine. But they were too afraid.

So why did Republicans, with seven honorable exceptions — Senators Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy, Richard Burr and Ben Sasse — profess their loyalty to a sociopath who has been exiled to Mar-a-Lago? Why do they continue to defend a man who lost the popular vote by more than seven million votes, whose recklessness after the election cost Republicans control of the Senate, and who is causing a flight from the Republican Party?

There are different, sometimes overlapping explanations. For some, it’s a matter of cynical ambition. They want to win over the loyalty of Trump supporters, who comprise a huge part of the base of the Republican Party. For others, it’s recognizing that standing up to Mr. Trump might make life quite unpleasant and even dangerous for them, exposing them to hazards that range from primary challenges to physical attack. And for still others, it’s driven by such antipathy toward the left that they will not do anything Democrats ask them to do, even if doing so is the right thing to do. These Republicans would much rather “own the libs” than side with them against a corrupt, corrosive former president.

There’s also the natural human reluctance to take a stand that puts you in conflict with your own political tribe, your colleagues, your friends. And there’s this: Over the course of the Trump presidency a lot of Republicans repeatedly — sometimes daily — quarantined their conscience in order to justify to others, and to themselves, their support for an unscrupulous man.

Can I put all of this on one T-shirt?

Addendum No. 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQrhM7pOjk

This, by Dave Chappelle, completely held me in its spell for all 18-plus minutes. He’s the George Carlin of our time. Incredible.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Whoomp! There It Is

Let’s give some credit to Tag Team, whose Geico ad “Scoop! There It Is” is the happiest thing on television right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDAg3VkZPg8

And let’s also throw out some props to Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney Fani Willis, whose office has opened an investigation (and potentially a can of whoop-ass) into then-president Trump’s alleged actions regarding election fraud involving Georgia election officials in December and January (we say “alleged” to behave like a journalist, but y’all heard the phone call).

As one pundit on The 11th Hour said last night about the impeachment trial, President Trump isn’t so much on trial as the Republicans in the Senate are. Why? Because the impeachment case is open-and-shut. That more than 2/3 of the GOP will not vote to convict is probably a foregone conclusion, and thus that stain will forever be on them. They’ll have announced who and what they are going forward: The party of power at the expense of democracy and the U.S. Constitution (this is their chance to rescue themselves, and they will most likely not).

But what Willis is doing—and she’s only doing it because every Georgia law enforcement agency with greater jurisdiction than hers are potential witnesses in this case, as Trump directly appealed to them—may lead to a possible criminal trial. With jail time. That Trump no longer has any power to absolve himself from.

Again, however, it will come down to a jury. Will you be able to get 12 Georgians to convict Donald Trump? Good luck with that, D.A. Willis but as rock-solid as your case is, Whatchootalkinbout!?!

Steph’in Up

(Keep your eyes on Juan Toscano-Anderson, the man who made the assist)

We are spoiled by the continued brilliance of Stephen Curry, who followed up last Saturday night’s 57-point game with a 40-point outing last night in which 75% of his points came off threes (you do the math). There’s no one more automatic from behind the arc, there’s never been anyone more prolific from beyond the arc, than he.

Curry leads the NBA this season in 3’s made (131) and 3’s per game (5.0). No other player has even drained 100 yet. In the last nine seasons Curry (6x) and James Harden (3) are the only two players to lead the NBA in threes.

Haley’s Comment

In an interview with Tim Alberta of Politico, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley excused her erstwhile boss’ incitement of the insurrection by comparing his “belief” that the election was stolen with colorblindness. Really.

Haley also backtracked on her support of Trump’s actions on January 6th, saying, “We shouldn’t have followed him.” By the end of his profile on the South Carolina politician, Alberta made a blunt assessment of the forked-tongue woman:

Feb Foreigners

Before we get to March Madness, let’s take a moment to recognize all the blue bloods who will not be getting A) No. 1 seeds, B) high seeds and/or C) even a berth in next month’s NCAA tournament.

The top 10 winningest all-time NCAA hoops programs are, in order from top to bottom: Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Temple, Syracuse, UCLA, Notre Dame, St. John’s and Indiana.

Currently not a single one of those schools is ranked in the Top 25 and many of them will not be playing in the NCAA tournament—even though 68 teams will be invited to Indianapolis next month.

Here are the Top 10 ranked teams right now: Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan, Ohio State, Villanova, Illinois, Texas Tech, Houston, Virginia and Missouri. From a personal standpoint, I don’t understand how four Catholic schools can be rated in the Top 25 and the Irish are not one of them. Not saying this Irish team deserves to be… not even close. Only that with the school’s prominence, it should always be in at least the top 3 hoops schools among Catholic universities, no?

(Wow, wasn’t that elitist of me.)

K.O.

In which sometimes news anchor/sometimes sports anchor Keith Olbermann pens an Op-Ed in The New York Times titled “Is This The End Of Obsessively Hating Donald Trump?”