Tag: Charles P. Pierce

It’s flat crazy out there

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
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.

Interbike 2018: Relax

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
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.

Speaking of heat …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
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.”

 

Sausage party

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
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.

‘Cabal, intrigue and corruption’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
He's not president yet.
He’s not president yet.

Charles P. Pierce engages an Airbnb in The Neighborhood of Make-Believe from which he discusses one way in which we might yet be spared the dubious gold-plated presidency of Donald of Orange.

It’s not entirely unbelievable. While Der Trumpenführer may have powerful friends in Russia (Делайте Америку великой ещё раз!), he has made more than a few comparably powerful enemies right here at home. And given that the the swamp has its own long-established and deeply held notions about governance and personal enrichment, it would not astonish me to see the Electoral College hand the whole sordid mess over to the Congress and say: “Here, you deal with it. We’re off to the pub for a stiff drink or six.”

The House would then pick a president and the Senate a vice president, and then the fun would really begin.

Charlie cites Federalist 68, which says, among other things, that the Electoral College was intended to avoid just the sort of mess in which the Republic finds itself.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?

Brother Pierce continues: “We are a month away from inaugurating a manifestly unqualified and ethically unfit man as president of the United States, a man who has lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes, who already is reneging on almost every promise he made while campaigning, who steadfastly refuses to be transparent about who holds the note on his finances and who is on his way to raising conflicts of interest to stratospheric levels, and who now may very well be the willing bobo for a foreign dictator.”

He also says that the matter “is the most stark challenge to a free people that has arisen in my lifetime,” and I agree. Whether we’re up to meeting it is another matter altogether.