Week of 12/12/2022

The Last Rant
- by David Matthews 2

This is the article that I never saw myself writing.  But it’s one that needs to be done nevertheless.

After twenty-six-plus years of doing online commentary, it’s time for me to bow out.

When I started doing commentary all those years ago, the Internet was a different place.  The majority of socio-political commentary was either through newspapers, through text articles online, or else they were on broadcast radio.  There was only one news cable channel at the time.  MSNBC and Fox News did not exist until just after I started my online weekly column. 

Back then the name of the game was to get your words out online and hopefully someone will pay attention to them.  That’s how President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky got leaked out.  It was an Internet reporter who dumpster dived and found a story that a publication had “killed” and he posted it on his website.  Then those new cable news channels picked it up and ran with it and we all know what happened after that.

Today, of course, everything is slick and streamed online in little snippet videos on TikTok and YouTube and Facebook.  You have people doing these things from their basements, or their home offices, or even from their kitchens.  And they get far more viewers in one post than this commentator has gotten in all twenty-six years.  And, not only that, they get paid.

My decision to step away from the commentary desk, though, has nothing to do with clicks or likes or adapting to the new medium.  I’ve done Internet radio and podcasts.  I’ve done YouTube videos.  I’ve even popped up on TikTok.  If it was a matter of views, I would have left a long time ago.  I’ve been doing this for over two-and-a-half decades, and I’ve been getting paid for none of it.  I haven’t been posting them to get paid, although the lack of monetization has certainly added insult to injury.  I’ve wracked my brain and pounded fingers to keys and twisted my literal skills like a stripper on a pole week after week for this long because I felt my views should be out there.

I’m certainly not the same politically jaded online sage that I was way back when.  I’ve gotten older.  Some might suggest I’ve gotten wiser but that’s debatable.  My health is not where it once was.  A recent stay at the hospital with a diagnosis of diabetes and a fear of a stroke certainly changed things for me.  I’ve also added “caregiver” to my list of responsibilities during the past decade, which have been making things more and more challenging for me.  It’s been for these reasons more than the lack likes or of money that I’ve made the decision to bow out.

I wish I could say that I’m stepping back in a world that has been made a little better than when I started all those years ago, but just the opposite has happened.  When I started this long journey, the two biggest threats to America were Islamic extremists from the outside and Christian extremists from the inside.  We declared war on the former, but we gave lip service to the latter and then watched them get power in our government through a narcissist.  We started with grumblings of civil conflict.  Now those grumblings are calling for civil war.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the threat of white Christian nationalism is prevalent in America and being championed by people wearing red hats and worshiping a false messiah who claims that he alone can “save” this country.  Shades of Germany and Italy from the last century have now eclipsed America.  We didn’t learn from the lessons of the past.  We didn’t learn from the lives lost then.  We didn’t learn from the sacrifices of our grandparents and great-grandparents.  We crossed oceans to fight fascism only to watch it get elected once, impeached twice, and now threatens to take power again.

I’ve changed over the decades since I first started this column, originally housed on America Online’s website.  I used to be a libertarian idealist.  I’ve had to temper my ideals over the years, adopting more of a practical view of libertarianism; one that is far from being completely anti-government, and sure as hell not worshiping the cult of capitalism.  Sadly, I’ve also seen those who claim to be libertarian or libertarian-leaning throw their lot with the fascists.  Their “claim” of being “anti-government” limited to any government not under their control.  Their “support” of freedom limited only to their own.

There is a lot that I had said in the past I would never do that I found myself having to do.  I once said that I would never drive a sport utility vehicle.  I found myself needed to get one simply because it was getting physically difficult for me to enter and exit a regular vehicle.  Of course I made sure it wasn’t a fuel-chugging model and it turns out the “crossover” model is now pretty much commonplace on the road.

I once said I would never vote for a Democrat, but circumstances required me to.  I once said that the only incumbent I would consciously vote for would be my mom when she was a public official.  This past election and the candidates that were running forced me to reconsider that as well.

So if there is any one piece of advice I would leave with you, it is to never say “never” to anything.  Situations and circumstances force people to change.  I’ve seen liberals turn into conservatives and libertarians turn into fascists because of events like the September 11 terrorist attack and the January 6 domestic terrorist attack.  I’ve seen tried-and-true patriots profane the country they once swore their lives to protect in order to carry out an insurrection on behalf of an orange narcissist.  So don’t say that there are things you will “never” say or do.  We all hypoctracise ourselves at some point.

There are some things that will still need to be said, so every so often there will be some special article or video made that you’ll find at this column’s website.  And you might find a few editorials or quick rants popping up on Facebook.  But for the most part, you’ll find me working on my other big production project, which is Battlerock Comics.  I started as a writer doing fiction before circumstances steered me towards socio-political commentary, and believe me when I say that the world of fiction is far better than the reality we are forced to deal with.  Maybe that’s why conservatives love to fabricate so much fiction for our past.  It always sounds a lot better than it really was.

So thank you for putting up with my ramblings and rants over the years, and, to borrow an old saying, see you in the funny papers.

Week of 12/05/2022

The 2022 Brutally Honest Awards
– by David Matthews 2

And so… another year has come and will soon be gone. 

As has been a tradition that goes back several years, it’s time for us to review the best of the best and the worst of the worst for the year in what we call the Brutally Honest Awards.

And while traditionally this has been the last article of the year before this commentator takes his month-long break, this time around will be different as there will be one final article of the year for reasons that will be explained at that time.  Those who have been following us on the Brutally Honest Rants page on Facebook will know why, but the rest of you will soon understand when the last article of the year comes out.

So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

The Biggest Winners of 2022: Big Corporate and Capitalism – I wish I could say there were other winners this year, but, really, there aren’t.  President Joe Biden didn’t win, even though he’s pulled off a few minor wins.  The Democrats didn’t win because they lost the House of Representatives in this past election.  The Trump Party didn’t win, even though they did manage to win control of the House.  The orange narcissist certainly didn’t come out the winner this year.  In truth, the only folks who have come out on top this year are the corporations and big businesses with their stinking record profits thanks to inflation.

The Biggest Losers of 2022: The American People – I know it’s difficult to comprehend, but we really haven’t fared too well this past year.  The price of everything is still an issue.  Vlad Putin is still putting the world on edge as he continues his war crimes.  A so-called “conservative” dominant Supreme Court is overturning decades of precedence and threatening every judicial decision since the 1950’s.  We have fascists in Florida running wild.  We have so-called “lone wolves” committing mass murder and physical attacks against families of political leaders.  Not only that, but our own neighbors are getting belligerent with the rest of us.  People are throwing tantrums in airports and hospitals and shopping centers.  Hell, movie stars are committing physical assaults on live television!

And the recent midterm fiasco only served to make things worse for America for 2023.  That brings us to…

The Second Biggest Losers of 2022: The Democrats – I’ll make this simple: while the Dems held off what was supposed to be a “red wave” of Trump-loving red-hat fascists in the midterms, they still failed in that they lost control of the House of Representatives.  Kiss the January 6^th Commission goodbye.  Say hello to Benghazi 2023.  Look forward to fiscal brinksmanship as the red-hats hold the federal budget and the debt ceiling hostage over and over and over again until they are allowed to gut Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.  Look forward to nonsensical impeachment hearings and endless testimony in the name of political payback.  Look forward to seeing support to Ukraine disappear.

Wait, what?  Inflation?  The price of gas?  Crime?  No, no, no.  None of that ever mattered to the red-hats.  No, they want Hunter Biden in prison for crimes they’ll make up later.  They want to drag the Attorney General and the FBI Director and Secretary of Homeland Security in endless hearings because… whatever.

And that’s on the Dems.  They didn’t fight hard enough.  They didn’t present better candidates.  They didn’t take on the negative propaganda from the red-hats and their enablers.  They didn’t have to lose the House.  But they did, and that is on them.

The Third Biggest Loser of 2022: Narcissist “Florida Guy” Donald John Trump – Yeah, I know, he should have been on the top of the “Biggest Loser” list.  Other people were certainly quick to list the narcissist as the biggest loser of them all, especially after the midterms.  He promised not only a “red wave” but a “red tsunami” that did not happen.  The Dems get to keep the Senate and lost the House by only a few seats instead of the sixty-plus predicted.  And almost all of his personal hand-picked candidates lost.  A would-be-king who is a failure as a kingmaker.

Meanwhile, he’s facing civil and possible criminal charges.  And he can’t seem to help but to make things worse for himself every time he opens his yap.  Whether or not he will be the first former president indicted will be up to others, but, if he were anyone else, he would already be in a Supermax facility for the rest of his life, not sitting in luxury and acting like he’s some dictator-in-exile.

The Fourth Biggest Loser of 2022: Twitter – So an egomaniacal billionaire decided he was going to buy Twitter because he didn’t like how they treated him and his friends.  You know, what’s a little antisemitism and a few lies and sedition among friends, right?  So he supposedly gets some money together… a few billion… and he announces his intention to buy out Twitter and take it private.

Then he plays this game about bots and fake accounts and says he’s backing away from the deal.  And then some idiot judge tells the egomaniacal billionaire that he has to go through with the purchase, which he did.

So now Twitter is in the hands of one Elon Musk.  And the moment he did that, he screwed Twitter.

Stupid move #1 was going through with the purchase.  Stupid move #2 was firing half the staff.  Stupid move #3 was telling the rest of the employees they have to go back to the office and commit to working slave hours or else they are also free to leave.  Stupid move #4 was reinstating the “blue check” verification for anyone willing to pay $8 a month… formerly $20 until Stephen King ridiculed it.  Stupid move #5 was reinstating all the people who got banned because of their hate and insurrection and outright lies.  Stupid move #6 was berating (he calls it “shaming”) advertisers for backing out or cutting back on revenue following stupid moves 2 through 5.

But, really, stupid move #0 belonged to the prior executives of Twitter for going through with the deal in the first place, and in going to the courts to force Musk to follow through instead of just taking the $1 billion and walking.  The train wreck and dumpster fire that Twitter has become now is really their fault.

The Fifth Biggest Loser of 2022: Alex Jones – You guys know that I am a huge supporter of the freedom of speech.  But there are some things that free speech doesn’t cover, and two of the big ones are slander and libel.  You can make stuff up all you want and call it fiction.  But if you spread malicious lies about others and you know you’ve lied about them, that’s either libel or slander, depending on if it’s printed or spoken.

Alex Jones has been lying about victims of mass shootings, referring to the parents and surviving children as “crisis actors”, and claiming that nobody really died.  This has led to his listeners confronting said parents and children, claiming they’re lying and demanding to see the dead bodies.  This past year, his lies were put on trial and he lost.  Hell, he didn’t even put up a fight.  He lost by default over and over again.  And now he is potentially out billions of dollars.  No amount of questionable supplement sales will pay that bill.

Sadly, it appears Jones will possibly get away with paying nothing.  Like anyone else with money, Jones knows the game of shuffling his money around to pretend to have nothing and then filing for bankruptcy.  Really the only way someone like him would learn their lesson would be prison.  But we don’t do that to people with money, do we?

The Sixth Biggest Losers of 2022: The Beltway Media And Their Pollsters – What a bunch of incompetent idiots!  Once again they churned out poll after poll that ended up being wrong!  Completely wrong!  As I’ve mentioned in an earlier article, it’s high time the beltway media all be sent home and do real journalism and it’s time for the pollsters to be shut down once and for all.  If they were weather people or if they were financial analysts, they would have been fired a long time ago.  Hell, they wouldn’t even be able to cut it as fast food workers!

The Pyrrhic Winners of 2022: Weasel Kevin McCarthy and The Trump Party (formerly the “GOP” or “Republicans”) – Yes, the Trump Party won control of the House of Representatives for 2023, but far from being the sixty-seat “red wave” they promised.  They will only hold a five-seat majority come January.  For McCarthy, it’s even worse, because he needs 218 votes to be the next Speaker of the House, and his party’s red-hat extremists have all said they will not vote for him.  Looks like the Dems may have to come to someone’s rescue.

I’ve already got the popcorn out and the beer open.  This should be entertaining.

The Biggest Supervillain(s) of 2022: The CW Network, Nexstar, and Warner Brothers Discovery – As I pointed out earlier this year, the CW Network has a superhero problem.  They love the drama, but they hate the superhero part of the drama.  They love to show the drama featuring Barry Allen, Kara Danvers, Clark Kent, Ryan Wilder, Jefferson Pierce, and Sara Lance, but they hate showing The Flash, Supergirl, Superman, Batwoman, Black Lightning, and White Canary.

Worse, now that the network has been sold to Nexstar, CW has erased pretty much all of the superhero shows that made them what they were.  Where once there was a plethora of superhero show with more in development, there are now only two, with one ending their run and the fate of the other in serious doubt.

Unfortunately they’re not the only ones in the hero-hate and gross ineptitude.  Parent company Warner Brothers, now Warner Brothers Discovery, clearly don’t know how to handle superheroes, and these are the ones that own DC Comics!  They axed the much-anticipated Batgirl movie, walked back the idea of Michael Keaton coming back as Batman instead of Ben Affleck, they don’t know how to handle “The Flash” movie, and snuck Henry Cavill back in as Superman after being berated by Dwayne Johnson but they still don’t know how to handle him.  Snyderverse in or out?  We don’t know.

And where once DC used to have a good presence in the world of LEGO, they’ve dropped all tie-ins now because the inept idiots refused to authorize licensing of their characters with LEGO.  This has forced fans to turn to third-party makers of minifigures, much to the outrage of LEGO, who only have themselves and the inept idiot execs at WBD to blame.

Speaking of DC, how many times have they rebooted their multiverse now?  How many times have they killed the Justice League and then brought them back?  How many times must we go through Batman versus Joker and Superman versus Doomsday?  How many times have they repeatedly beaten the dead horse called “Crisis on Infinite Earths”?

Seriously, guys, the eternal “Crisis on Infinite Ineptitudes” needs to come to an end.  If you need better talent, I happen to know a few guys, including yours truly.

The “Quack-A-Doodle-Doo” Award for 2022 (tie): Dr. Mehmet Oz and Hershel Walker – I don’t know what’s worse… a carpetbagging TV personality who let puppies suffer, or a carpetbagging philandering hypocrite who carries a fake badge, debates between being a werewolf or a vampire, tells younger voters they haven’t “earned the right” to vote and should leave the county, and thinks the problem of insulin costs can be solved by people just “eating right”.  I do know one of them is still in a run-off here in Georgia and, if he happens to win, this commentator will have nothing but pure unapologetic disgust for the people in this state.

And finally…

The “Coward of the Country” Award: Attorney General Merrick Garland – This is the pronouncement I made just the other week, and it’s still true now.  The man who supposedly brought down the Oklahoma City bombers is not the same man today.  Instead, we have a former judge who was denied his seat on the Supreme Court by a slack-jaw fascist from Kentucky and still behaves like a judge instead of a prosecutor.  For every day that the narcissist is out holding court at Mar a Lago with white supremacists and antisemites and whack-a-doodle egomaniacs, he thumbs his nose at the rule of law and of regular America.  For every day he does, it is yet another failure of the man who is supposed to be America’s chief prosecutor.  In doing so, he is aiding and abetting said narcissist.

If you say “no one is above the law”, then goddamn it, you have to indict the narcissist for the crimes he committed.  You have to charge him and his cohorts for the crimes they committed.  You don’t run out the clock.  You don’t fob it off to someone else.  You don’t say you can’t because he’s running for president again.  And you sure as hell don’t say you can’t because you don’t want to indict a former president.  That is your job, sir!

And let’s get brutally honest here… as far as this commentator is concerned, Mister Garland, you are the lily-livered yellow-bellied coward of the country because you have not done what needs to be done concerning “The Florida Guy”.  Instead, you’ve passed the responsibility off to a special councel only now after “The Florida Guy” announced he was running for the White House in 2024, which everyone and their elderly grandmothers with dementia knew was going to happen anyway, while still keeping the ultimate choice of indictment to yourself.

The only hope is that the prosecutor here in Georgia will have more courage than our cowardly AG and does what no one on a national level have the ovaries to do.

Well, I would say that’s it for the year, but there is one last article to go.  Enjoy these awards while you can and see you in a week.