And I am Officially Not Going to Run In the 4x400 Meter Relay Race At the Paris Olympics (Plus More QAnon-Grade Bullshit)

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) on Monday said he would not consider serving as Vice President Harris’s running mate...

Like anyone had any intention at all of asking that treacherous fuckwad to be Harris's running mate.

Unfortunately, I've become aware that there are anacephanics out there who believe that the attempted assassination of the FOFF was a Democratic plot. Which is just evidence of severe retardation on their part.

Think it through. There would have an open convention and the leading candidate to step in would have been Nikki Haley. Haley would have probably wiped the floor with Biden and, given his disasterous debate performance, stepping aside to let Harris run would have looked a lot less noble than it appears to be now. The COFF is probably the most beatable person who was on the GOP's primary stage, other than maybe Vivek Ramaswamy.

Of course, they might have nominated Ol' Shrimp Boots, a man so repulsive that he makes Ted Cruz look human.

So it is a stupid conspiracy thory and the fact that it is the COFF's dain-bramaged sons pushing it only goes to illustrate that point.

Just What This Race Needs: Another Old White Guy

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) is considering reregistering as a Democrat and running for the party’s presidential nomination after President Joe Biden announced he would end his reelection campaign on Sunday.

Or this:

Sen. Joe Manchin of Virginia, who briefly sparked fears among Democrats that he could re-register as a Democrat and challenge Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination, has ruled out running.

Manchin is a threat to Harris? Get fucking real, pundits. First off, when the issue is that the first guy chosen was too old, replacing him with a guy a few years younger does not solve the problem.

Second, Manchin is a fucking tool. Doe he think anyone has forgotten his outright treachery to the rest of the caucus in the Senate, that by using the rules, he elevated himself to being nearly a king of the body? If he needed a clue as to how that plays out, he only need look at what that level of perfidity has done to his good buddy Sinema's career, who retired rather than be primaried out of existence.

All those in favor of Joe Manchin as the party's nominee, applaud.

*Crickets*

Joe Liberman is Dead, and So Is His Party

The No Labels group said Thursday it will not field a presidential candidate in November after strategists for the bipartisan organization failed to attract a high-profile centrist willing to seize on the widespread dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

“No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House,” Nancy Jacobson, the group’s CEO, said in a statement sent out to allies. “No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”

Sure, they say that they were trying to mind a middle way. But the truth of the matter was that No Labels was a project funded by billionaires with the goal of sucking enough votes away from President Biden to restore the Russian Asset to power.

Little Baby Bobby Kennedy, a/k/a Trump-Lite (half the coherency, none of the criminality, all of the racism) is still trying to do the same.

Manchin Either Sees the Light or Feels the Heat

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced on Friday that he is not running for president, saying he didn’t want to be a “spoiler.”

“I will not be seeking a third-party run,” he said in a speech at West Virginia University. “I will not be involved in a presidential run. I will be involved in making sure that we secure a president that has the knowledge and has the passion and has the ability to bring this country together.”

Meanwhile, the Original Traitor Joe is continuing his efforts to throw the election to the TOFF, because he hates America:

“No Labels is currently speaking with several exceptional leaders about serving on the presidential Unity ticket. We are continuing to make great progress on our ballot access efforts and will announce in the coming weeks whether we will offer our line to a Unity ticket,” said the co-chairs of No Labels, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, former head of the NAACP Benjamin Chavis, Jr., and former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.

"No Labels" should be labeled "Trump Sock Puppets". Just like Jill Stein and those other assholes in 2016.

I'm Not That Smart

But I have been telling people in my social circle for the last two years that the 2024 election would be The Old Incumbent President versus the Old Heavily Indicted Former President. I've said as much here.

The question is whether or not the Two Traitor Joes will try to throw a monkeywrench into things in order to elevate the TOFF. Both of those self-inflated jerkoffs are almost as old as the other two guys in the race.

Most Americans say that they did not want a repeat of the 2020 contest. But so what? Republicans have drunk the Kool-aid from the poisoned chalice of Dolt-45. Democrats know that history is that if someone posts a serious challenge to a sitting incumbent, the incumbent goes on to lose. So unless President Biden was going to step down, it was game on. And he might have stepped down if the Toff had done the right thing and retired to his gilded bathroom. But he wasn't going to turn away from another opportunity to beat the Putinite Asset.

The outcome of the NH primary should give a rational Republican something to worry about. Six in ten Republicans said they'd vote for Commandante Bone Spurs. That's not enough to do anything for him other than to give him a second defeat (and a third loss of the popular vote). If it goes that way, then the Democrats will also retain the Senate and retake the House.

What will also happen is that El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago will try to get his light-in-the-loafers to cause trouble, which will give more employment to Federal prison guards.

If You Really Believe That, Sen. Manchin, Then Sit Down and Shut the Fuck Up

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, days removed from announcing he won’t seek reelection, said Wednesday that if the nation’s voters give former President Donald Trump another term in the White House, “he will destroy democracy in America.”

Manchin, whose home state voters overwhelmingly backed Trump in the last two presidential elections, made the comment on a press call with West Virginia-based reporters amid speculation that Manchin himself might be weighing a third-party run for president.

The moderate West Virginia Democrat said Wednesday that he would never want to be a “spoiler” who contributed to getting any other candidate elected. But he said he would do what he had to in order to save the country.

“If they said, ‘You’re the only person to do it,’ I’ll do whatever I can to save this nation,” he said.

"They", being the same imaginary people who tell shit to the TOFF. Everyone with even a smidgen of polticial sense knows that if Traitor Joe runs for president, he will act as a sppoler and the TOFF stands a greater chance of getting in.

Traitor Joe is a consummate self-inflated narcissist if he even thinks there is a chance that he's the only one who can defeat the TOFF. That he would even utter such a thing betrays his mindset.

A vote for Manchin is a vote for Trump.

Traitor Joe Makes His First Move to Bring Dictatorship to America Plus Even More MAGA Terrorism

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Thursday that he won’t seek reelection in 2024, giving Republicans a prime opportunity to pick up a seat in the heavily GOP state.

Some Democratic officials are also concerned that Manchin’s announcement frees him to pursue a third-party presidential bid that could ultimately undermine President Joe Biden’s reelection. The 76-year-old Manchin has raised the possibility of a presidential bid in the past, and he made direct reference to national ambitions in the retirement video he posted on social media Thursday.

“What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said.

First off, he knows that the chances of him retaining his seat in 2024 are slim.

Second, one has to ask what adding a third old geezer to the mix brings to the contest. Americans are already less than happy that the choice now is between an 80 year-old incumbent and a 77 year-old insurrectionist.

But Third, and most important, any serious third party move by Manchin will be heavily funded by right-wing businessmen who have the clear-eyed agenda of returning the TOFF to power. They are nothing but the descendants of the business class that were trying to overthrow the government in the 1930s. Manchin will play the same role of Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000: Sucking enough votes from the incumbent candidate so the challenger wins.

Manchin is either seriously narcissistic to believe that he has anything resembling a chance of winning the presidency or he is fully aware that he would be nothing more than a sock puppet of the TOFF. So there is probably some cabinet-level job he has his eye on, because Manchin does nothing that doesn't benefit him or his family.

Meanwhile, MAGA terrorists are working to undermine elections.

Authorities were hunting Thursday for whoever sent suspicious letters — including some containing fentanyl — to elections offices in at least five states this week, delaying the counting of ballots in some local races in the latest instance of threats faced by election workers around the country.
...
Pierce County Auditor Linda Farmer released images of the envelope and letter her office received. The letter contained a warning about the vulnerability of “ballot drops” and read: “End elections now. Stop giving power to the right that they don’t have. We are in charge now and there is no more need for them.”

Ballot drop boxes and early voting are bugaboos of the Right; the TOFF has ranted and railed about them for years. The letters were likely clumsy attempts to deflect suspicion from those who most likely did it.

No Shock About This

Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas's bestie, is funding the "No Labels" Trump sock-puppet party.

A vote for "No Labels" is a vote for Trump.

Just as a vote for Ralph Nader was a vote for Chimpy.

It cannot be stated any plainer.

How Big of a Self-Important Asshole Do You Have to Be in Order to Do This?

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin all but delivered a death blow to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion domestic initiative, throwing his party’s agenda into jeopardy, infuriating the White House and leaving angry colleagues desperate to salvage what’s left of a top priority.

The West Virginia senator’s announcement that he could not support the bill, delivered on “Fox News Sunday” after only a cursory heads-up to the president’s staff, potentially derails not only Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” but sparks fresh questions over passing voting rights legislation and potentially other significant bills that would require his vote in the 50-50 Senate.

Let's recap: Manchin went on the other party's propaganda television network to shiv the leader of his own party in the back.

Politics is a game of "I'll do unto you like you did unto me." Manchin may find out that, as time goes on, he'll be on the receiving end of a whole lotta doin'.

I'm dusting off a tag that I formerly used for another back-stabbing Democrat and applying it to this one.

ETA: Traitor Joe is claiming, now, that he sank the bill because Biden's staff was mean to him. Poor widdle snowflake got his feewings hurt. How does anyone with such a thin skin survive in politics? Oh, right, see, El Supremo Disgusto de Queens/Mar-a-Lago.

Here's an Idea, Republicans; Infrastructure Week Ed.

If you think that the recently-passed infrastructure bill is a boondoggle and is full of unnecessary spending, then contact your state representatives and your governor to tell them to refuse any Federal dollars as a result of the bill.

I'll not hold my breath.

Because hypocrisy is a basic tenent of Republicans and conservatives, especially in the South. You clowns cavail and wail about the amount of money the Federal government spends, but you line up to the trough to take it all down. It's a well-known fact that most of the states that take the most Federal money per capita are run by Republicans.

Joe Manchin's home state is #2. You'll have to wait a long time to see the good small-government Republicans in West Virginia turn away Federal money.

Tab-Clearing

The speculation will be rampant on who is to blame for the outcome in the Virginia gubernatorial race. My take is as follows:

1. Terry McAuliffe.  He was running to be governor again.  He didn't make the case that he was better than another GOP political neophyte.
2. Joe Biden.  He's not exactly gotten people excited and he's not delivered on his big plans.
3. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema.  For their personal reasons, which border on megalomania, they've been happy to help sink Biden's agenda.  With friends like the Gang of Two, who needs enemies?  During a war, both of them would be on the Bayonet the Enemy Wounded detail, because nobody would trust them with a loaded firearm.
4. Good old Lee Atwater Southern Strategy racism.  The whole crap about critical race theory is just that.  Critical race theory isn't being taught in elementary or high schools, but that doesn't stop Republicans from doing a Willie Horton on the Democrats.  
5. The economy.  There's often not much a sitting president can do about that, but that's the way it goes.

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I'm not paying much attention to the arguments today in NYSRPA v. Bruen. The fact of the matter is that most states are now "shall issue", with more and more not requiring permits, and the fear of blood running in the streets that has been bruited about since Florida began the modern concealed-carry movement 30+ years ago has not happened. It won't be that big of a stretch to require that the handful of states still operating on "may issue" or "no issue" change.

But I expect that the Supremes will issue an order saying that the named plaintiffs will get their permits and then have some mealy-mouthed dicta about how it applies to the rest of us. Splitting the baby is what they do.

Besides that, if the justices take a hard-right turn on this issue, they will give lots of oxygen to the argument that they really are partisan hacks and that they need to be curbed. Expect that they're well aware of that risk.

The Court is going to do what it can to preserve their own power. Which is probably why the Texan abortion law will be struck down. The Supreme Court has had the final say over the law for over 200 years, they aren't going to let some pissants in Texas change that, regardless of how much they might like the underlying subject of the law.
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For all the ink, both virtual and real, being spilled on the climate summit, my belief is that humanity has missed that bus. The Chinese and the Russians have been having hissy fits because other countries aren't being nice to them, so skipping the climate summit was a case of "so there, nyaahh". China thinks that they can pollute more because reasons.

Here's the thing: They live on the same planet that we do. China's not going to be immune from the effects of climate change because Chairman Xi issues some sort of directive on it, or bans discussion of it. Mother Nature will not be denied or be ignored. The world has been lackadaisical, to say the least, at addressing climate change. This is not a new problem by any stretch of the imagination.

But the nations of the world have ignored it. Some of it has been a race to the bottom, as nobody wants to be the first one to have to spend the money to transform their economies away from emitting carbon and methane emissions while nobody else does. Some of it has been wishful thinking (see Trump; Donald) in that those people think that if they can pretend it's not happening, then it won't happen.

In the 1980s, corrcective action would have been painful, sure, but compared to where we are now, it would have been relatively easy. Now it won't be. If we're going to mitigate the effects of climate change, then brisk and radical action is necessary on a global scale.

But it's not going to happen.

Here is my prediction: For as long as humanity exists, those generations who were in power between 1980 and 2030 will be reviled. Conservatives and capitalists, in particular, will be blamed for being those who did what they could to ensure that nobody did anything meaningful to avoid the catastrophe. The planet will warm, the biosphere is being decimated and whether or not we as a species can survive is arguable.

We are well and truly screwed. If you have small children or grandchildren, you can comfort yourselves when you go to sleep with the knowledge that their lives are going to be far shittier and harder than ours have been. Because we could have done something and we didn't.

Sleep tight.

Let's Tell the Truth: Manchin is not a "Moderate"

He is somewhere between a conservative and a megalomaniac.

What goes around, comes around. After next year's elections, nobody in the Senate will give a fuck about Manchin. And there will be over forty senators who may make it their business to ensure that what Manchin wants, he doesn't get.

Inheriting Several Billion Dollars Doesn't Make One Immune from Idiocy

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for education secretary told lawmakers at her confirmation hearing that guns might have a place in schools due to the threat from grizzly bears.

I'm not going to do any research, but I'd be very much surprised if the number of incidents of grizzly bears attacking schools over the last decade is somewhere between 0 and √-2.

Unlike a few other nominees, DeVos also pledged unthinking allegiance to His Fraudulency: "I will support what the president-elect does."

DeVos and Trump are a bit interesting on one regard. DeVos's family has poured $200+ million into the GOP. Apparently, they've concluded that buying politicians doesn't work, so they're just going to run things directly, since they've already paid for it.

Also note that she had Traitor Joe introduce her. So there's yet another washed-up tool who's apparently quietly angling to get onto the Grifter's payroll.

Is Trump Hiring "Helicopter" Harold?

Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. is emerging as a possible contender for transportation secretary, or another Cabinet post, in Donald Trump’s budding administration.

Harold Ford, in case you've forgotten, is a political whore who moved from Tennessee to New York City after being curb-stomped by Bob Corker in the `06 Senate race.

Once Helicopter Harold got to New York, he flip-flopped on damn near every position that he ever held. He was about as ethically-challenged as his soon-to-be boss, "forgetting" to file all sorts of financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest forms when he was in Congress. After he moved to NY, he got into being a bankster. He dreamed of running again, but he gave it up in `10 when he realized that he'd be crushed as easily as a rotten melon.

The only reason for Trump to hire Helicopter Harold would be because Joe Lieberman is otherwise engaged.

Traitor Joe, Now Whoring for the Libyans

He said that he wasn't going to become a lobbyist, but now he is one.

This has been in the works for the last few months, it seems.

The folks at Balloon Juice are probably accurate when they say that calling former politicians such as Lieberman "whores" and "pimps" is pretty defamatory to hard-working people in the sex trade. But I'm at a loss for better adjectives. Feel free to make your suggestions in the comments section.

Anyway, the D.C. revolving door spins ever on.

(H/T)

Those Who Love Our Freedoms and Liberties, Stand Ready!

Stand ready, for the Constitution may need you to speak out to preserve it.

Assuming that the Obama Administration gets the concurrence of the Congress and then attacks Syria to show that "we had to do something, dammit", I think it is a reasonable bet that there will be an answer from the Syrian regime.

That "answer" may take the form of a terrorist attack or two.

Which means we have to be ready to push back, hard, against the "give up more of your liberties and we'll keep you safe, ya sure, you betcha" crowd of people like Rep. Peter King (R, IRE) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Fainting Couch).

And we should be grateful that former Sen. Joe Lieberman is now off clubbing baby seals, or whatever he's doing to keep himself amused.

Who is Going to Pay for It? The Jackhole of Newtown, CT, Part Three

(Parts one and two)

There are calls from the usual crowd* to "ban assault rifles". My question to them is: "Who will pay for it?"

When the 18th Amendment was ratified and enforced by the Volstead Act, existing stocks of alcohol in the possession of individuals and private clubs were not affected by the ban. The reason for that was simple: The takings clause of the 5th Amendment requires that if the government takes something from you that you had legally obtained, the government has to pay for it.

I don't know how many guns would be covered by such a ban, but the chances are that the number is easily in excess of ten million firearms. The vast majority of such weapons have a retail price of over a thousand dollars, though some cost much less and some cost several times more.

Those weapons will have to be paid for by the government at a fair market price, not a "gimme yer guns and get outta here" price of zero.

The magazines will also have to be purchased. When you add in the number of magazines for handguns that can hold more than ten rounds, you're probably looking at a hundred and fifty million or more magazines, most of which cost between $10 and $50.

Over ten billion to buy back the guns, over two billion to buy back the magazines, and probably a lot more than that at the end of the day. For a national buy-back program will have to be administered and that will add in more cost.

If Mayor "No Big Gulp Sodas For You" Bloomberg wanted to liquidate his personal fortune, he could probably fund the program. Here is a prediction: That'll never happen.
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* Sen. Lieberman, who has less than two weeks left in his senatorial career, has been one of those. Lieberman has a long track record of backing every proposal to limit the freedoms of Americans to do anything from surf the internet to be free from indefinite detention without trial. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Lieberman has never met a right or liberty that he is not in favor of restricting.

Occupied America

So it seems that the military will be allowed to arrest an American citizen on American soil, say "he or she is a terrorist" and that's all it takes: They can hold that person without trial forever. No trial, no judicial review, fuck the Sixth Amendment.

So what's next? Are they going to eviscerate the First Amendment while they are at it? Why the fuck not; just send in the Army, arrest the protestors, declare that they are terrorists and throw them into a concentration camp.

Didn't those chowderheads in the Senate take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution? Can we now impeach all of those who voted for this craptastic provision?

Every senator who voted for this provision is a traitor. These are the senators (a "nay" vote was for obliterating the Sixth Amendment):

Alexander (R-TN), Ayotte (R-NH), Barrasso (R-WY), Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR), Brown (R-MA), Burr (R-NC), Casey (D-PA), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Conrad (D-ND), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Hagan (D-NC), Hatch (R-UT), Heller (R-NV), Hoeven (R-ND), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Inouye (D-HI), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Johnson (R-WI), Kohl (D-WI), Kyl (R-AZ), Landrieu (D-LA), Lee (R-UT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (ID-CT), Lugar (R-IN), Manchin (D-WV), McCain (R-AZ), McCaskill (D-MO), McConnell (R-KY), Moran (R-KS), Nelson (D-NE), Portman (R-OH), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Rubio (R-FL), Sessions (R-AL), Shaheen (D-NH), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), Stabenow (D-MI), Thune (R-SD), Toomey (R-PA), Vitter (R-LA), Whitehouse (D-RI), and Wicker (R-MS).

I'm not surprised that most of the votes for this provision were Republicans, they're pretty much a pro-police state bunch. If you're one of their constituents, you might want to drop them a line, anyway, but I urge you to really hammer the living shit (metaphorically speaking) out of the goddamn Democrats who think that authorizing the military to detain American citizens without the protections of the Constitution (which we fought for to both get and to protect) is just peachy.*

230 years ago, we fought a war over shit like this. We fought a war against an occupying force that claimed the right to lock up anyone it wanted for as long as it wanted without judicial review. The Bill of Rights was deemed to be so important that, without an agreement to pass it and offer it to the several states, the Constitution itself would not have been ratified.

This is how our freedom in this country dies. Not by invasion, but by gutless weasels in our Congresses who give it away. Shame on all of them. May boils break out on their butts. May beets grow in their intestines. May they all go insane from syphilis, for they are nothing but cowardly whores.**

Finally, I should give a shout-out to those two Republicans who were loyal enough to this country to fight this tyrannical provision and stand against their own party. They are: Kirk (R-IL) and Paul (R-KY).
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* I didn't bold "Traitor Joe" Lieberman, for he's nothing more than either a Republican who is too stupid to sit where he belongs or a Trojan horse.
** I take part of that back, as referring to sitting United States senators as "whores" is probably deeply offensive to working whores.

Brainwashing the Senate

Apparently, that's what the Army has been attempting to do in order to generate support for the Afghan War.

In the cases of McCain and Traitor Joe, the Army didn't need to use very much detergent.

(H/T)

Going Dark in Egypt

The government is attempting to shut Egypt off from the Internet, as well as disabling text/SMS services.

You might recall that that is the capability that Traitor Joe wants our government to have.