Week of 06/26/2017

"Almost Winning" - Matt Wuerker for Politico

The Failure Party of Pelosi
– by David Matthews 2

“Almost Winning,” says one editorial cartoon. 

“So much almost winning!”

A few months ago I told you, the online community, that the Democratic Party needed to die.  It has become nothing more than the co-dependent enabling group for the GOP, taking power only when the GOP goes too far, and holding power only until the GOP get their act together.

But, of course, you don’t listen.  You don’t want to listen.  You refuse to accept the truth about what the Democratic Party has become, because then you would have to agree with what I’ve been saying needs to be done.

Instead, you sit there in your state of delusion and denial like so many of the redneck porch trolls here in the south that firmly believe that “The South will rise again”… along with Elvis and Jesus.  You want to believe in your delusion that you just need “one more win” to put thing back on track.  You just need to “try harder” and “raise more money”.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is 0-for-4 in special elections.  Failure after failure after failure after humiliating failure.

Here in Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff was forced into a run-off election to fill the Sixth Congressional District seat that was vacated when Tom Price became Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Even though he won more than any of the other candidates, he had to then compete against career politician Karen Handel.  If that name sounds familiar, it should because she’s the one that almost drove the Susan G. Koman Group into bankruptcy over her perverse hatred of Planned Parenthood.

The Dems hoped that Ossoff would win outright, but he failed to meet the fifty-percent-plus-one threshold that the good ol’ boys in politics set up to prevent third parties from winning.  That meant that the political advantage would go to the career politician that couldn’t even get half of his votes the first time around.  And I’m not kidding about that.  If Ossoff could not win it outright, then the GOP would put everything they had into that second-place candidate, whomever that person was, and the good ol’ boys firmly believed that person would win.

And when it was over with… the good ol’ boys were right.  Ossoff lost in the run-off, and the career politician that hates Planned Parenthood will be sitting in the congressional seat once held by Nutty Newt Gingrich, the career hypocrite and former House Speaker who is now a Fox News media personality.

Ossoff’s loss was the biggest kick in the nuts for the Dems, presuming they still had testicles.  He raised millions, much from private individuals, and ran a campaign that was, for the most part, positive and talked about what he could do help the district.  He didn’t even go negative until the last few weeks of the campaign.

Career politician Handel, on the other hand, was negative even before trying to go positive.  This is really nothing new, because she went negative after Ossoff even in the first election.

But here’s the twist, and this is why the Democrats really lost in the run-off…

Career politician Karen Handel did not campaign against Jon Ossoff in the run-off election.

She campaigned against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The GOP, with all of their dark money from K-street and C-street lobbying groups at their disposal, dumped millions into ads that declared Ossoff to be nothing more than a political sock-puppet to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California.  Nothing that he would say or promise would matter according to those dark-money ads.  He would just vote for anything that Pelosi wanted.

And the tactic worked.  Southerners hate Nancy Pelosi.  They hate Pelosi with the same kind of venom that they once had for Barack Obama.  Even worse, they hate her because they can’t do anything to hurt Pelosi.  She keeps on getting elected and re-elected in her own district by her own voters and the goobers here in Georgia can’t do anything about it.  But they can vote against anyone that they think she’d be connected to.  So they didn’t vote for career politician Handel or vote against Ossoff.  They voted against Nancy Pelosi.

By the way, that didn’t just happen here.  Every Democrat that ran in the last four special elections have failed.  Every single one lost because the GOP campaigned against the Congresswoman from California instead of the actual opponent on the ticket and they have won.  Win after win after win after ego-blowing win.

Is it sinking in yet, Democrats?  Have you finally grasped what is happening?

Let’s get brutally honest here… Your default leader, the inept and incompetent Nancy Pelosi of California, is killing your own party!  The GOP and their dark money have thoroughly brainwashed the masses to believe that she is evil incarnate.  She is political poison.

There are some people have woken up to this truth, and they have urged that she step down from her cushy career position so the Democrats will have a chance to win back some seats in the 2018 mid-term joke, or at least not lose any more to the GOP and their dark money propaganda.

Of course Pelosi doesn’t want to go anywhere.  This is, after all, “her” party, and she rules “her” party with an iron fist.  That’s why the Democratic Party doesn’t have any balls anymore.  They have ovaries.  Nancy Pelosi’s ovaries.  And the GOP and Donald Trump and the dark money influences in K-Street and C-Street are making it quite clear that any candidate with a “D” next to their name is nothing more than a dutiful child from Nancy Pelosi’s political ovaries.

The Democratic Party that used to be dominant in America died a long time ago.  The so-called “Party of Jefferson” has long since died.  In its place is a zombie political party.  This is now the Failure Party of Nancy Pelosi.  And it will remain so for every single day that Nancy Pelosi is still there to ruin things for them.

In every professional sporting team, if the leadership of that team is inept and incompetent and so toxic that it causes the team to lose every game, then that coach or that manager is fired.  An inept company manager or president that causes a business to fail is forced out.

Hell, even in politics, when a politician becomes that toxic that they become a detriment to their own party, they are urged to resign.  And I can think of no better example of this than in the previous inhabitant of that Sixth Congressional District seat in Georgia, Nutty Newt Gingrich!

Despite winning control of the House of Representatives in 1994 and being elected Speaker of the House, Gingrich found himself in the same situation as Pelosi is right now.  His name became so caustic that the Democrats – back when they were a real party – were able to paint him as a petulant child that shut down the government because he felt he wasn’t being “respected”.  And it worked, because the GOP nearly lost control of the House in the 1998 mid-terms.  Rather than risk losing any more seats, or, worse, lose the upcoming 2000 Fiasco, Gingrich stepped down as Speaker and resigned from Congress completely.

Does Nancy Pelosi think herself more important than her own party?  Does she think that she’s somehow better than Gingrich?  Gingrich rallied his base just like Pelosi did.  He also raised oodles of money for his party like Pelosi did.  There is no excuse whatsoever that she or her supporters can use that would somehow differentiate her from the political hypocrite from Georgia other than she has ovaries instead of balls.

This is why the Democratic Party has become the Failure Party of Pelosi.  Because the inept career politician from the liberal Republic of California is putting her ego and her cushy career over the party in general, and in doing so, she is enabling the GOP and Donald Trump to win again and again and again and again.

And I would otherwise not give a damn about the Democrats except for the fact that their failure is enabling the continued abusive actions from the GOP.  That translates into legislation and presidential executive orders.  This is affecting myself and affecting everyone not only in America but also the world.  All of those marches, all of those demonstrations, they’re all being wasted because you cannot translate them into election wins.  And that is emboldening the GOP and their abusive fascistic sadism.  Your continued failure is feeding Donald Trump’s ego.  Even Trump is boasting that Pelosi is helping him and his friends.  They sure as hell want her right where she is! 

Is any of this getting through your thick skulls?

I know from personal experience that “almost winning” is not the same as winning.  You can lie to yourself all you want about how you “came close” or that you made the GOP “work for it”, but when you have a zero-sum political system, there is no “second place” that you can rest your laurels on.  You either win or you lose.  And the Failure Party of Pelosi has been nothing but an abysmal failure over and over and over and over.

You want that to change?  Get rid of Nancy Pelosi.  Get rid of the poison that is killing your party and damaging the United States of America.  It is that simple.

Week of 06/19/2017

If The Media Were Serious About A War With Trump...
– by David Matthews 2

This is not a good time to be a reporter.

Once upon a time there used to be a modicum of respect for the journalist.  They had a job to do and a story to cover, and they were supposed to cover it with an unbiased eye, no matter what that story was.  It was their job to expose the truth.  Or so the story goes.

And, yeah, being a reporter isn’t easy in other nations.  Third world dictators and terrorists have journalists killed simply for asking a question.  But this is America we’re talking about!  Freedom of the press; one of the first five freedoms in the First Amendment!  We may not like the coverage, but we don’t mess with the media, because we’re supposed to be better than that!

But now we aren’t better than that.  Now we are acting like a third-world junta.  That goes all the way to the top, and to the man with the fake Jersey tan and the fake coiffed hair and the narcissistic personality disorder that would make Narcissus humble who is now the President of the United States.

President Donald Trump probably doesn’t “hate” the media, per se.  I’m sure that he’d say that he has “enormous support” for them, “the highest, without a doubt, more than anyone else, bigly.”  But I’m also sure that he doesn’t often like what they have to say about him, especially when what he says is either false or an over-exaggeration or simply bad.  When they’re kissing his ass, he loves them.  But when they’re exposing him to be an ass, then they’re “the enemy”.

And it’s not like the media has given a pass to any of his predecessors, despite the con and neo-con lies.  The media covered Obama’s failure to help the American people, his inability to get anything meaningful passed in a GOP-ruled Congress, and continually brought up the so-called “Birther” conspiracy as if it was something that would actually remove him from office.  It played no favorites with George W. Bush for his nearly eight years of fearmongering for warmongering.  And do you really think that the media gave Bill Clinton a pass during his eight years in office?  From Whitewater to “Travelgate” to Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton was stained with more scandals than Ms. Lewinsky’s blue dress.

So what makes Trump think that he should deserve anything different from the same media that created him?  Because he won the election?  Big deal!  Over forty men have done that before him!  There’s nothing special about that.

Nevertheless, Trump’s election and subsequent inauguration has made it open season on reporters.  He’s shut out access to the media for certain public events, and condemned them on camera and especially through is Twitter account.  Trump’s favorite condemnation of any media that does not kiss his oversized ass is “fake news”.  Anything bad about him is “fake news”.  The truth is “fake news”.  His White House Press Secretary is an abusive hack that seems to treat the media like a bad teacher to a room full of kindergarteners.  The loudest complaint made about him when he’s characterized on Saturday Night Live is not the accuracy of the portrayal, or the exaggerated abuse, but the fact that he’s being parodied by a woman!

And it’s not just the White House being openly hostile towards the media.  A recently-elected member of Congress pled guilty to physically assaulting a reporter just the day before his election for the supposed “crime” of asking a question.  That’s hostile!  That’s just a bullet away from being third-world-junta hostile!  The United States Senate, under the regime of the slack-jawed turtle-dick Mitch “The Bitch” McConnell, imposed new restrictions on the media filming interviews in the hallways of Congress.  You know, the building we all paid for with our taxes.

Bully much, Bitch?

So my thought isn’t why the GOP is doing this, because we all know why they are.  They’re simply letting their natural fascism be exposed like a drunk celebutant with no panties.  No shame, no morals, and no stopping them from flashing it for the world to see.

What surprises me is that the media is playing this like a straight-man in a slapstick comedy.  They’re eagerly tripping on the banana peel, getting slapped upside the head with the ladder and the wooden plank, and getting pie in the face like it was simply another day that ends in “Y”. 

I can understand why they’re keeping cool about it.  They’re playing the victims because it exposes the GOP as the clear villains in this country.  They have a job to do and if the GOP are not letting them do it, then they can’t be accused of being complicit in the Cult of Trump or coming up short in challenging them.  Hey, they tried.  It’s the GOP that are behaving like the third-world junta thugs that they are.

But that still made me wonder what the media would do if they took Trump’s war with them seriously.  What if they showed Trump what a real media bias was like?

Well, first of all, you’d find a lot of Washington reporters out of work, because there would be almost no reporters in the White House and Congress as long as the GOP and Trump are there.  Sure there would be “some reporters” there.  Fox News, NewsMax, Breitbart, InfoWars, Christian News Broadcasting... all the propaganda mills would be there, but they’d be the only ones.

Hack Sean Spicer wouldn’t have to be hostile to the reporters in the White House briefing room, because there wouldn’t be enough people for him to have a daily briefing.  Hell, they’ve already been talking about doing away with it, as if that was a punishment.  A true “media war” would make that idea real.  And, really, I think it’s long overdue.

They’d still be talking about Trump’s Twitter-Twit postings, but that would really be all they’d be talking about with him.  There would be no press conferences.  No public events covered.  No rally coverage.  No sound-bytes.  No Easter Egg Roll coverage.  No Christmas Tree lighting ceremonies.  No exclusive interviews outside of those propaganda mills that kiss his ass.  Trump would have to start a war, or have a 9/11-style terrorist attack, or have the economy completely fail before a truly hostile media would give him any kind of air-time.

And it wouldn’t just be Trump that the media would truly freeze out if they were serious about a “media war”.  Trump’s surrogates would also have a problem getting attention.  And I’m not just talking about the flakey ones like Kellyanne Conaway.  Pretty much anyone that would represent the White House or the GOP-controlled Congress would be barred from the discussion panels outside of those propaganda mills.  No “White House spokesperson”, no representative to cover what the White House thinks of a certain story, especially when it’s a subject that affects Trump.  Even the conservative columnists like Pat Buchannan and George Will would be shut out.  The Sunday Morning news shows would be pretty one-sided without those White House surrogates and defenders.

Oh, and if you cons and neo-cons and Trumpets think that the media is “unfair” to Trump now, you would be sickened by what the media would be like if they really gave as good as they have been getting from you cultists!  Let’s start with continual references to Trump’s presidency as being illegitimate.  Let’s have them use actual references to regimes and juntas in their news stories, not just in the editorial section or in Internet columns like my own.  And to top it off, let’s throw in discussions about how to quickly remove Trump and company from Washington as part of their regular news stories, not just in their editorials. 

If you think the media is biased now, then you haven’t seen what bias is really like.

Look at how the media handles things like strip clubs and the Libertarian Party.  The former is treated like evil incarnate, and the latter is treated like they cannot win no matter what.  And, again, we’re talking about normal news stories, not editorials.  So you cons and neo-cons and Trumpets really have no reason to bitch about how your cult leader is being “treated” yet.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the members of the media have been showing a remarkable amount of control when it comes to the abusive treatment they’re getting at the hands of Trump and the GOP, and we should be grateful for that.  There is much that a truly abusive media can do to cause damage, and we’ve been witness to that now more than at any other time in at least the past fifty years.

No, we should be more than just grateful.  We should be ashamed.  We should be ashamed at how we treat a vital part of the First Amendment.  We’re supposed to be better than this!  This is the United States of America we are talking about, not the One State of Trump, Incorporated!

We’ve seen what happens when the media is bullied into being nothing more than a propaganda mill for despots and thugs.  If we want to really be true to our continual promise that we wouldn’t “let that happen here”, then we have to make sure that the means are there to warn and inform us.  That’s the true role of journalism.  That’s what separates the legitimate media from being another propaganda mill.  That’s why freedom of the press is one of the key protections in the First Amendment.  And if we can’t see that, if we can’t respect the legitimate media even when we don’t like what they are doing, then we have no right calling ourselves “Americans”.