Posts Tagged ‘Charles P. Pierce’

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Let us spray

March 31, 2023

What a card.

However will The Mighty Mega NewsHose 9000® pass the time between now and Tuesday, when ’Is Lardship is to journey from Mar-a-Lago to Manhattan to face some long-overdue music?

By jawing frantically with “people familiar with the matter who, like many in Trump’s orbit, spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly share details of private discussions,” as The Washington Post puts it in a piece about how various minions, knaves, and varlets got caught with their pantaloons around their cankles when the indictment was announced.

A shorter item in The New York Times credits “people familiar with his thinking,” which must be a horrific state of consciousness to inhabit, even for traitors, seditionists, and whores.

The anonymous source is the cost of doing business in this shabby neighborhood, where everyone with even a soupçon of inside info is on the lookout for the cops, stoolies, and other potholes on the road to Advancement.

Musn’t abandon this lame candidate for the glue factory in midstream, no sir. Not until a more viable hoss comes clip-clopping along. We see many horse’s asses but very few complete horses.

Meanwhile, the invaluable Charles P. Pierce reminds us that the real game may be afoot in Georgia, where the charges are liable to carry a tad more weight than an indictment alleging someone was cooking the books in New York.

Writes Brother Pierce:

And, even if the former president* were to win in New York, so what? [Fulton County DA Fani] Willis’ charges are far more serious than [Manhattan DA Alvin] Bragg’s are. In Atlanta, the former president* may be indicted for crimes against the republic, for offenses against the idea of popular democracy. That is also Jack Smith’s brief for the DOJ, an investigation that looms like a giant Dust Bowl cloud behind these state prosecutions. Time has come today, in the immortal words of the Chambers Brothers. There are things to … realize.

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Posted in Deep political thought, Journalism, Spectacles | 13 Comments »

Something might be gaining on you

September 11, 2021

It’s been a long, long road.

While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and the dying. — Erich Maria Remarque, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

I didn’t have much to say on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and a decade further on down the road I feel even less inclined to hold forth on the topic. A bunch of people got dead, maimed, or insane; another bunch got rich, famous, and powerful; and the rest of us went shopping.

Did we learn anything from the attacks and what Charlie Pierce calls “our blind, feral response?” Doubtful. We check the rear view every 10 years or so, but that’s just reflexive, like glancing at a TV as you pass.

Anything good on? Nahhhhhhh. Same ol’, same ol’. Hey, who wants to go to the mall?

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Posted in Arts & letters, Deep political thought, FreeDumb®, Just mumbling along, Music that doesn't suck, War | 16 Comments »

From here to eternity

September 4, 2020

Green now, sure, but the gold is just around the corner.

Don’t let the green leaves fool you. It’s September out there. Sixty degrees at 8 a.m. in Albuquerque, and Old Man Gloom goes up in smoke at 9 p.m. tonight in Fanta Se.

Speaking of burns, approximately nobody, save the Volk wearing their MAGA hats a couple-three sizes too small, was surprised by Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece in The Atlantic describing Adolf Twitler’s thoughts on the “losers” and “suckers” who died for their country instead of blackjacking it in some dark alley and going through its pockets.

Charlie Pierce has some thoughts of his own regarding the Good Soldiers who continued to work for the craven sonofabitch, knowing full well that this is how he sees them and theirs.

They took an oath to defend the Constitution, not to hold their tongues until they could get a book deal as a reckless vandal takes the Republic down, brick by brick. Of all the people whom history will account as being complicit in the attempted demolition of constitutional government, I rank them ahead even of the invertebrate Republicans in the United States Senate.

Sixty days until we get a chance to start rebuilding the Republic. It seems like an eternity.

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Chickenshittery, Deep political thought, Small hat sizes | 13 Comments »

Preview of coming attractions

November 13, 2019

The impeachment inquiry has gone public, but I plan to resist the temptation to follow it extensively here, like a starveling coyote trailing a garbage truck.

My reasoning is that we’ll all read, watch, and hear a lot more than we care to elsewhere. Charlie Pierce is on the case, and I urge anyone who wants the bird’s-eye lowdown on this caper, whatever that means, to become a card-carrying member of his Shebeen.

Also, I imagine that we’re all mostly on the same page here — that the White House has become the Shite House, and that it’s turds all the way down. So I plan to preach to the choir only when I have some fresh take on the revelations.

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Posted in Bloggus interruptus | 25 Comments »

‘NBC will not be able to predict the winner. …’

June 27, 2019

Eternal vigilance, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

After the briefest of discussions …

“You wanna watch the debate?”

“Nah. You?”

“Nah.”

… we decided against encouraging further silliness from NBC and the Democratic National Committee.

Finding some way to watch would have been a pain in the ass — we don’t have cable, and can’t get much of anything over the air without a rooftop antenna — and then there would have been the actual watching, which, ick.

Charlie Pierce found Tim Ryan full of the bafflegab, Elizabeth Warren on her game, Beto O’Rourke so light of weight that he “spent the evening looking as though he had to be tied down to keep from floating out the door,” and Julián Castro “the one Texan who knew what he was talking about.”

Kevin Drum found Beto “talking in platitudes,” Castro “clear and well-briefed,” Warren “OK for now,” and John Delaney “very annoying.” He also found the general unwillingness to discuss climate change an indication that the candidates “were afraid of saying something that will be interpreted as asking people to make an actual sacrifice.”

Mother Times and the WaPo (that would be a great band name, no?) are awash in the usual morning-after hooey about “divisions among Democrats,” and who “won” and who “lost,” if that’s your idea of a good time.

Meanwhile, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) remains on the alert. He remains convinced that the Revolution will not be televised.

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Posted in Agitprop, Deep political thought, Smashing the State | 17 Comments »

Prime time is on trails, not TV

February 6, 2019

The February wind was making the clouds skate around all over the sky yesterday.

The State of the Union (El Rancho Pendejo Edition) is as follows:

Herself is now working 10 hours a day, four days a week, so as to have a three-day weekend each and every week.

I am working not quite so much, my career having developed a slow leak at the potholed intersection of Bicycle and Journalism.

Trail time: When the bike is leaning up against the rock I’m probably not going to fall off of it.

I have a cartoon to draw for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, and a review to finish for Adventure Cyclist, and beyond that it’s anybody’s guess. Terra incognita. Here be dragons. All hope abandon, ye who scribble here.

Speaking of hope abandoned, I can’t wait to see the ratings for last night’s comedy special from Capitol Hill. Knowing that Charlie Pierce would be on the case, we gave it a miss, reasoning that if we want to watch a loon pretending to be president we can always dredge up some old “SNL” footage of Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford.

Instead we caught up on “Crashing,” the Pete Holmes thing on HBO. It’s only so-so — Marc Maron and Bill Burr are more my style, when ol’ Freckles isn’t raving about ball sports — but you get to see some funny cameos by twisted comics like Dave Attell and Jeff Ross.

Beforehand I engaged in wheel sport, taking a quick out-and-back spin on the Voodoo Nakisi, which has been neglected while I review the Jamis Aurora Elite. My mad trail skillz have atrophied, and I was dabbing on sections a fat 4-year-old could handle on a balance bike, but it sure beat working. It beat not working too.

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Posted in Adventure Cyclist, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News | 12 Comments »

It’s flat crazy out there

November 5, 2018

Michael “McGet” McGettigan, director and owner of Trophy Bikes in Philly, doesn’t want any pesky punctures to prevent people from pedaling to the polls. | Photo courtesy Michael McGettigan, Trophy Bikes

Record-setting early and absentee voting numbers indicate “a great deal of enthusiasm and interest” among New Mexican voters in this midterm election, says one Duke City pollster.

This reflects what I heard from a poll worker when I threw the bums out the other day. Is it good news? Bad news? We’ll find out tomorrow evening, or Wednesday, depending on how close a thing it is.

Both parties were turning them out, but the Donks have the numbers in the early going, and New Mexico has a lot more registered Donks than Elefinks. You can get down in the Land of Enchantment’s political weeds over at Joe Monahan’s place.

Herself has been working the phones and going door to door, and she reports mostly positive interactions with The People, many of whom seem energized by the antics of Il Douche.

Charlie Pierce, meanwhile, is in Kansas, which he considers a bellwether for whether the ruthless avarice and ignorance that helped steer The Republic up to the hubs into a quagmire of orange sewage has overstayed its welcome.

All will be made known after the polls close tomorrow. Well, maybe not all. But we’ll certainly have a better idea of whether we’re still spinning our wheels or have decided to get out and push.

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Posted in Agitprop, Deep political thought | 14 Comments »

Interbike 2018: Relax

September 21, 2018

Just a little pinprick.

The latest iteration of the Gathering of the Tribes is in the rear-view mirror.

Was it a success? I have no idea. We’ll have to wait for the numbers, which may prove elusive.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

One astute observer who is not me does not recall seeing any attendance figures from last year’s Interbike, the Last Roundup in Sin City, and thus who knows? Just as in real life, we may have to judge based on anecdotal evidence instead of cold, hard facts.

Speaking of anecdotal evidence, real life, and cold, hard facts, both Charlie Pierce and Kevin Drum are goggle-eyed at the latest plot twist in “The Adventures of Brett Kavanaugh, Boy Wonder.”

If this were real real life instead of a cheapjack “Justice League” porno knockoff, Kavanaugh’s nomination would be as dead as John Holmes. But the Senate is all Jokers and no Batmen.

Meanwhile, a tip of the Rivendell cycling cap to Darren Sherkat, who was the first and only commenter to publicly recognize the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” which I was using for headlines on this year’s Interbike posts. Hope you enjoyed ’em.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

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Posted in Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, Bidness, Bike stuff, Interbike | 21 Comments »

Speaking of heat …

July 27, 2018

Pat Oliphant knew the devil when he saw him at the crossroads.

… my favorite go-to pundits, Charlie Pierce and Kevin Drum, both wonder if we’re finally at the crossroads, where the devil does his pickin’ and grinnin’ and invites you to dance along to his smokin’ licks.

Notes Kevin:

“I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s reminded by this of the years-long drip-drip-drip of Watergate revelations. I was only barely old back then enough to really follow along, so it looks like now I get a second chance in full adulthood. But I’m not sure that helps: so much shit is going down that I still have a hard time keeping up. What’s going to happen next week?”

Chazbo, as usual, has the more colorful take:

“I have no faith at all that enough people will do what needs to be done about this compromised and dangerous man. My first reaction to this news was that it would get folded into some nonsense that pops on the Friday news cycle — a barely coherent rage-tweet, or something stupid from the House of Representatives. But this is the yes-or-no moment. If CNN is right, and if Cohen is telling the truth, then, in the immortal words of J. Fred Buzhardt, that’s the ballgame.”

 

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Posted in Deep political thought | 9 Comments »

Sausage party

December 2, 2017

More shit soufflé? Of course we accept food stamps. Ha! Just kidding!

When you send whores to church, you should not be surprised to find them turning tricks in the pews.

Charlie Pierce says this more eloquently, and at greater length. The incomprehensible and unread tax bill that cleared the Senate in the wee hours this morning was larded with “conservative fetish objects” and the process “shot through with a contempt for democracy,” because of course they were.

And after this infernal hound comes howling out of the conference committee, and King Donald the Short-fingered gives it his blessing, and it begins devouring everyone who chose his or her parents poorly, and the MAGApies find that their health bennies don’t cover Tegaderm for the ouchy rug burns on their knees and elbows, to say nothing of that famous “burning, itching sensation,” well, you may be certain of one thing:

They will blame the black guy and the woman, not The Turtle and the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver.

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Posted in Agitprop, Deep political thought | 9 Comments »

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