Some people voted for this shit. I sure hope they like the taste.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son? And what did you hear, my darling young one? I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’ Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’ Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’ Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’ Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
“Will you look at the man? He’s a Freudian delight; he crawls with clues!”
Maj. Whiskey Tango “Foxtrot” Sterno was said to be “crawling out of his skin” as the Warfighter in Chief prepared to address the brass hats he has ordered to assemble like so many raw recruits, reminding us not only of “The Caine Mutiny” but also “Lost Weekend.”
OK, so it’s The Daily Beast riffing on a piece from the Daily Mail. Not exactly the Word of God. But I’ll take good news wherever I can find it, especially on a Monday.
Speaking of good news, the clock is ticking to the first shutdown of the federal government in nearly seven years. This has been the goal of the Repuglicunts for as long as I can remember, which hardly makes it breaking news. But this time, who knows? It could stay shut down this time, and the generals and admirals would all have to travel back to their assignments via private transpo ho ho ho ho ho.
There will always be money to blow shit up, government or no government. But I wouldn’t want to be hanging by my nutsack waiting on a Social Security check.
“HQ says there’s a woke art exhibit at the Smithsonian. Cover me … I’m going in.”
“Tin soldiers and dipshits coming.”
Thus spake Charles P. Pierce about the governors of Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia sending National Guardspersons to “help police” the crime-ridden hellhole that is* Washington, D.C., which escalates the performative bullshit to DUMBCON 3.
Charlie further notes that Philip Bump, late of The Bezos Post, has assembled an interactive map “illustrating all the places in Ohio, West Virginia, and South Carolina that are actually more crime-ridden than Washington,” yet somehow muddle along with nothing heavier than the local coppers.
Parody throws its arthritic paws in the air and says, “Chieu hoi! I give.”
On the first day of July, the month named for Julius Caesar, the Senate bent to its dictator’s will and approved his giant, ugly-ass, abortion of a bill.
Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina— who will not seek re-election after Orange Julius Caesar threatened to find someone to primary him — were the only Repugs to vote nay. All others assumed that fabled position.
Prince MAGAbelly had to cast the deciding vote, and now this huge, loathsome turd must float back to the House for resolution of the changes made in its version. A vote there could come as early as tomorrow.
Might there be a few hurdles involved? Hear ye, hear ye, from Ye Oulde New Yorke Times!
The changes senators made to a version of the bill the House passed in May have raised the cost of the package while also teeing up deeper cuts that would lead to more Americans losing health insurance coverage. That alienated both poles of the party — fiscal hawks concerned about soaring deficits and mainstream Republicans wary of shredding the social safety net — complicating its path in the Senate and threatening its prospects in the House.
It would add at least $3.3 trillion to the already-bulging national debt over a decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Sunday — a cost that far exceeds the $2.4 trillion price of the version passed in the House. And it would result in $1.1 trillion in health care cuts, nearly $1 trillion of them to Medicaid, causing 11.8 million more Americans to become uninsured by 2034, the same office found.
Hurdles, you say? It is the hee, and also haw. The majority in the House makes the Senate look … well, senatorial by comparison. The Senate is up to its saggy tits in senile old hoors, to be sure, but the House is the political equivalent of a Bizarro World Alice’s Restaurant, where you can get anything you want, including Alice, her husband, Ray, Fasha the dog, the entire complement of the Group W bench, and maybe Officer Obie too, all rolling around in a half-ton of garbage, if that’s what blows your skirt up.
So poor people will starve, get sick, and die, rich people will get richer and write letters to their senators complaining about how they have to step over the stiffs on their way to the squash court, and Elon Spunk will start a new political party in a frantic attempt to … save us from ourselves? Nope. To put himself back in the news cycle as anything other than a bad joke, despised even by the people who bought his cars.
Better debug that exploding Starship stat, bruh. I hear OJC wants to claw back your subsidies and deport you to Mars, and for sure he’ll make you drive your own paddy wagon.
Scanning The New York Times today I recalled the words of the late, great George Carlin of Manhattan: “Here’s another pack of jagoffs who ought to be strangled in front of their children.”
First up for a vigorous and final throttling: Whoever coined the abominable “polyworking,” which sounds vaguely sexy, like “polyamory,” but actually describes the need for more than one job to cover the payments on the used Ford Focus in which one sleeps between shifts in the barrel(s).
Erin Hatton, a sociology prof at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies the labor market, told the NYT that the practice can be “a way to take back ownership of work and one’s career in a meaningful way, pushing back against the sense that you are identified by one job, one employer.”
But Hatton conceded that not being identified “by one job, one employer,” is … not always optional.
“There is an element of gloss to it that minimizes the hardship and economic need that forces them to cobble together a variety of subpar jobs,” she said.
Will this be on the final exam? Doesn’t matter, I’ll be working that day, and all of the others, too.
Next: Come on down, Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree!
Matt told the NYT — in a story about people who have to finance their groceries — ““If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you’re on a tight budget and you have several of these loans out at one time, it can be very easy to get over your skis here.”
“Over your skis?” You need a short-term loan to buy your Hot Pockets and you’re over the skis you don’t have? I mean, shit, dude, read the room. The room that looks a lot like a Ford Focus without a (duh) rooftop ski rack.
And as George reminds us: “Try to pay attention to the language we’ve all agreed on.” It probably won’t help you understand the kids on TikTok, but at least you’ll be able to read your job(s) application(s) and the fine print on that buy-now-pay-later deal.
Mad Blog Media 