July 22, 2022

That Bannon verdict came in so quickly...

...you'd think Josh Hawley was hand delivering it himself.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night.

July 20, 2022

The Republican nominee for US Senate in Maryland appears to be functionally illiterate. Not joking.

His name is Chris Chaffee. He also ran for US Senate in 2016 and 2018 (placing twice both times in the Republican primary) and for Congress against Steny Hoyer in 2014 (where he was the Republican candidate in the General).

He doesn't even have a campaign website. He does, however, have a Facebook page, a Twitter page (with a grand total of 189 followers to date), and Ric Flair's hairstylist from 1987.

Despite a lack of any sort of visibility or publicity, he has so far managed to capture 41,567 votes (with additional mail in votes to be counted), nearly twice as many as his closest competitor.

And if you go to his social media pages, his positions are...well, one might charitably describe as "interesting."

Remember the famous joke from The Simpsons showing a cut-away of a newspaper article about Grandpa Abe Simpson titled "Old Man Yells At Cloud?"?



Well, that literally is him. Not even joking. He hates those clouds. There's something in those clouds.







He also thinks that the First Trump Impeachment was brought on by an unnamed "Foreign Country":



And--not surprisingly--he has a lot to say about the 2020 elections and the January 6th insurrection:







Now, barring a massive scandal or unspeakable turn of events, should incumbent US Senator Jeff Van Hollen wipe the floor with Chaffee come November? Absolutely.

But will thousands of Maryland Republicans still vote for Chaffee despite the fact he's a conspiracy theorist who struggles to put a comprehensible sentence into written form? Sadly, also yes.

And it's just another example of a fringe joke candidate gaining full acceptance in today's Trumpist Republican Party. In 2020, the Republican nominee for Senate in the Delaware general election was Lauren Witzke, an open and avowed White Supremacist. She lost her election, but somehow still got over 37% of the electorate to vote for her. Not an inconsequential number.

And Maryland's Republican Party, after having its most successful 8 years in recent history with Governor Larry Hogan--a moderate who openly disavowed Trump--shows that it has no interest in building on that success. Their gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox is an anti-vaxer who has spoken at Q-Anon sponsored conferences. Their attorney general candidate Michael Peroutka is a neo-Confederate. And now we have Chris "What's in the Clouds" Chaffee as their candidate for US Senate.

God help us. Our fringe candidates are no longer on the fringes.

June 14, 2022

Well, that was demoralizing: A lunchtime anecdote.

Decided to get something for lunch at the Chinese place down the street. Figured I would go early to avoid the crowds given the ongoing health situation.

I get to the place around 11:45 and predictably it's almost completely empty. Just me, the waitstaff and two other customers sitting at a table.

I take a seat sufficiently spaced from the two other customers; however, because there's no one else in the restaurant, I can still hear their discussions rather clearly.

It's two men. They look most likely to be in their 70s, and they're dressed as if they had just been out on the golf course. (For all I know, maybe they had.)

And before my eggroll is even brought out, I can already surmise that they're talking politics. And unfortunately, I can't say any of it is good politics, either.

My back is turned to them, so I don't know who is saying what. They do seem to be in agreement with one another, though. It's not a debate of any sort.

And while I can't say I heard them word for word, I can hear various snippets here and there. And all of it underscores a rather sobering truth that's been plaguing us for at least six years, if not longer.

And that truth is that there are plenty of Americans who will just repeat whatever crazy disinformation they've heard without questioning it for a nanosecond if it reinforces their beliefs.

"Did you know that Adam Schiff's niece is married to George Soros' son?"

"Trump offered Nancy Pelosi 20,000 National Guard troops the day before January 6th but she refused them."

And there were a couple of other wonderful nuggets of "Did you know..." information that Old Golf Dude 1 conveyed to Old Golf Dude 2--or visa versa--that I heard as well.

What's so tragic is that it literally takes less a minute to debunk both of those stories. It's so incredibly easy.

I'm presuming this is the one about Schiff and Soros:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/oct/11/viral-image/no-george-soross-son-isnt-married-adam-schiffs-sis/

And here's the one about the supposed 20,000 National Guard troops offered by Trump:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/13/sean-hannity/no-evidence-pelosi-rejected-trumps-authorization-2/

But we have people in this country who will refuse to listen to any sort of fact checking. And if you do bring up fact checking, they'll just claim it's biased and summarily dismiss it.

What they will do, however, is to continue to repeat these lies, even after they know it's all lies. And why? Because they don't want to rock their own precious little world.

Now, this was just two septuagenarian golfing buddies talking in a nearly-deserted Chinese restaurant. Given the demographics of my particular area, I think it wouldn't be too hard to cancel them out.

But nonetheless, that we have people in 2022 who still casually act as conduits of disinformation, who repeat lies at will without any effort to determine their veracity, is extremely sobering and depressing.

After the 2016 election, the amount of viral disinformation being spread all came to light front and center. If there was ever a time for people who were susceptible to these things to reconsider, we've had six years to do that.

But far too many of them haven't done anything in terms of logic, discernment and investigation of the things they hear. Nothing.

If I were someone of a different personality, I would have walked right up to the golfing buddies and read them the riot act, show them how they were wrong and how stupid it was for them just to bullshit-in, bullshit-out without so much as a second thought.

I'm not that type of person though.

On my way out of the restaurant as I passed them, I did mutter--and not inaudibly, either--"You guys are full of shit."

I don't know if they heard me. And even if they did, I don't know if it would have made any difference at all.

My fortune cookie for lunch read, "Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth."

And yet, six years post Trump, I see very little growth from the people who need it most.

May 18, 2022

Serious question: Was former DUer Catherina some sort of Russian disinfo op?

Normally, I don't give much thought about long gone DUers, but I was searching Twitter and I came upon an old--and yet very familiar--Twitter handle: @Catherina_News

@Catherina_News was the Twitter handle for an individual who posted here at DU between 2008 and 2015 under the name Catherina. During that time period she posted over 35,000 times and grew quite the following here at DU, with many fans and admirers calling for her opinion and take on various topics. I can recall more than one "Catherina Appreciation thread."

She wasn't just a regular poster; she was a bit of a board superstar, and she came with her very own fan contingent.

Her focus, however, seemed to be aimed for the most part at various international conflicts that she seemed to pin as overreaching acts of American imperialism. First it was Libya, then it was Syria, and finally it was Ukraine.

Either coincidentally, or very much not, Catherina's take seemed to closely mirror a lot of talking points on Russian state media. This particularly became very prominent towards the end when she weighed in on news surrounding the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine, the subsequent Russia's seizure and annexation of Crimea, and the proxy Russian separatist war in Eastern Ukraine that erupted thereafter.

With benefit of 20/20 hindsight (or is it 2022 hindsight?) we can see how much of Catherina's positions on Ukraine here at DU were simply parroting raw Russian disinformation. However, because she came with her own cheering section, a lot of people bought into the information in her posts and repeated it without questioning. And that really put a cloud over events that were happening in Ukraine and Russia during that time period and many DUers' understanding of the situation.

But what was most tragic about the Catherina situation was that even as many DUers seemed to admire her as a vocal advocate against reckless western imperialism, she was on Twitter laying attack against American Democrats and progressives, viewing them as brainless sheep and eviscerating President Obama (who was the sitting president at the time, mind you) in rather plain, unequivocal terms:

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/123757361172189185

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/147483399756587008

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/269472857858383872

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/514784639118884866/photo/1

Meanwhile, she was far, far kinder to the head of the Russian Federation during that same time period:

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/469301888014221312

https://twitter.com/Catherina_News/status/505584740762533888

Anyways, Catherina remained extremely popular with a segment in DU up through the end in 2015 before running into the buzzsaw that was the 2015-16 DU primary wars. She posted this rather obnoxious and self-indulgent GBCW post announcing her departure in November 2015:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027366316

Now, again with the benefit of hindsight, we know there was a huge amount of Russian originated disinformation that flooded social media and the internet from 2014 and on forward. We know that a lot of this permeated into DU, both as it related to issues about Ukraine-Russia in 2014-15 and about the 2016 presidential election itself (for both primaries and general). We also know that DU was taken down in a DDOS attack for two weeks following the 2016 election. I have no idea who was behind this, and if it was a domestic or a foreign attack, but perhaps the admin knows more?

But about Catherina in particular--and note that I usually don't care about the real-life alter egos of our posters. I do have to wonder what her "deal" was/is, because she did have a rather considerable persuasive hold on a lot of her fellow DUers.

Clearly, one look at her Twitter account (starting with her avatar) seems to indicate she holds Russia in very high esteem and the US in very low esteem. Is this just the case of a very enthusiastic "Tankie" (i.e. an apologist for the Soviet Union and its history)? Or are we looking at some sort of Internet Research Agency/Savushkina Street styled operation here? And is DU even important enough to merit such a targeted operation?

There were not a whole lot of details about Catherina that we knew. A few of her fellow posters claimed she lived somewhere in Latin America or abroad, and that she was supposedly a woman of color. At this point, who knows? Maybe she was. Then again, her close tracking of Russian disinformation does make me wonder.

And for whatever it's worth, the @Catherina_News twitter account mysteriously went silent around September 2014 about the same time many people (including myself) began to note of her anti-Democrat, anti-American progressive postings on Twitter.

It remained silent for 8 years...until a month ago, when the account suddenly began retweeting posts about the war in Ukraine.

May 4, 2022

The unbearable sadness of Mariupol for me.

For over the past three months, a good part of my mind and attention every day has been focused on the war in Ukraine and the impact that has conflict has had on the Ukrainian people. The fact that I am second-generation Ukrainian with family still in the country, and with a family history of my grandparents having fled the country during the worst of World War II, only serves to act as a multiplier for the emotions that I've been feeling.

Besides my concern for the safety of my family--who thankfully live in the "safer" Western Ukrainian regions--the fact that about three years ago I had a chance to tour the country and absolutely fell in every single bit of it (the culture, the people, the food) has kept me worried about the wellbeing of both Ukrainians and their cities.

And while my travels in Ukraine took me to many remarkable places and cities--Kyiv, Lviv, the Carpathian mountains--in the end it's been the fate of one particular Ukrainian city that has haunted me the very most: Mariupol.

I did not visit Mariupol when I traveled to Ukraine; in fact, I didn't even come close to visiting anywhere in Ukraine's besieged Eastern regions. And yet, over the past few years I've grown to know Mariupol on a second-hand basis, and it always seemed to fascinate and intrigue me in a way.

I first heard about Mariupol during the onset of the 2014 Russian proxy war against Ukraine using so-called separatist forces. Nearby Donetsk and Luhansk fell to the invaders, but Mariupol was somehow able to miraculously hold them off. And in doing so, the Ukrainian national spirit in Mariupol grew (bolstered in part by those fleeing the occupied regions) and there was a breath of new air in the city. This is even more notable considering that like many places in Eastern Ukraine the majority of residents speak Russian as their primary tongue as opposed to the native Ukrainian. It didn't matter: Mariupol was Ukraine, and that was that.

And though I never actually visited Mariupol in person, I had "visited" its streets via Google Maps and found it to be a charmingly eclectic mix of a town, with different elements and styles comprising the whole. You had the old school Soviet apartment block buildings--the Khrushchyovkas and the Brezhnevkas--but you also had newer, 21st Century modern architecture sprinkled throughout as well as staid churches that dated back to Tsarist days. And given its prime location on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol was a beach town, too; no doubt probably a favored vacation and recreation spot for many in the region.

And to round it out, of course, was Maripol's most indelible and unmistakable landmark: the absolutely massive Azovstal steel plant that sat in the very center of the city and dominated nearly ever wide shot picture of Mariupol. Azovstal was--by all objective measures--ugly as sin: dirty, gritty, polluting, not to mention an old Soviet relic. But even so, there was something oddly appealing about its hulking, imposing, industrial aura that gave it out; a sense of raw honesty that somehow made it welcome in the overall panache that was Mariupol.

And now Mariupol is no more.

Nearly every single structure in the city is bombed to the ground or otherwise inhabitable. Sadly, I almost knew this would be a certainty the moment the first Russian bomb touched Ukrainian soil that Putin would go after Mariupol, and go after it hard. Not only was it a strategic port city, and ever since seizing Crimea in 2014 the Kremlin has sought to cut off Ukraine from the sea, but I think there was also a punitive goal in mind as well. Because Mariupol resisted the initial wave of Russian invasion, because it dared to clothe itself in Ukrainian pride, because it contradicted the Kremlin falsehood that the Ukrainian government was somehow persecuting its Russian-speaking citizens, Mariupol would be forced to pay a price.

And it most certainly has. Over 300,000 of its 400,000 residents forced to flee their hometown. The death toll cannot be even close to being verified at the moment, but undoubtedly is certainly within the tens of thousands. Only a small pocket of resistance remains at the Azovstal plant; the outlook for their survival is not good. Those who remain in portions occupied by the Russians risk either being paraded around for propaganda purposes, or removal and deportation to areas deep within Russia.

Mass graves. A theater full of civilians--including scores of children--bombed, and hundreds left dead. Indescribable and immense pain and suffering, everywhere.

The total destruction of an entire city is nothing new to humanity; it's a practice that dates back as far as long as human civilization has existed. The ancient city of Carthage was infamously burnt to the ground by the Romans in 146 BC. Russia saw its own cities such as Leningrad and Stalingrad virtually destroyed in total during World War II. And our hands as Americans are not bloodless in this practice either, whether it be by a single bomb (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or a prolonged and furious bombing campaign (Dresden).

Even in my own lifetime, I can remember Grozny. I can remember Aleppo. I have seen the virtual destruction of cities take place before my eyes on the news.

But--perhaps because where age brings wisdom, or perhaps simply because as someone with Ukrainian roots I have additional emotional investment--Mariupol's tragic fate has hit me harder than ever before. It's more than just reading a history book. It's more than even turning on a news report on television.

It's hard.

It's really, really hard.

An entire city, an entire place--where people lived and took pride in. Gone, just like that.

But even so, Mariupol existed. And it may--at some point in the future--exist once again.

Вічна пам'ять, Маріуполь. Вечная память, Мариуполь. Eternal memory, Mariupol.







?quality=90&strip=all

April 21, 2022

BREAKING NEWS: Russian General Aleksandr Dvornikov revealed as contestant on Fox's The Masked Singer

In a twist that shocked both primetime television viewers and geopolitical military experts alike, Russian General Aleksandr Dvornikov was revealed as the latest contestant to exit the popular Fox network game show The Masked Singer.

Dvornikov's secret persona--a pink, yellow and fuscia colored robotic Koala Bear hybrid named "Buffy"--was forced to reveal itself in front of audience members after receiving the lowest amount of votes for Dvornikov's spritely rendition of the Saweetie/Doja Cat hit song "Best Friend."

Dvornikov served as the lead Russian general in its 2015-16 military campaign in Syria, where the near-total destruction of the city of Aleppo by use of cluster munitions and thermobaric bombs has been attributed to his command. More recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin tapped Dvornikov to lead military operations in Russia's attempt to seize control over Ukraine's eastern regions after a prior attempt to take Ukraine's capital Kyiv failed and lead to a hasty retreat by Russian forces.

Prior to Dvornikov's unveiling, viewers were provided several clues hinting at his identity. These clues included a pint of human blood, a piece of hot, twisted metal shrapnel and a TOS-1 Heavy Flamethrower commonly used by soldiers under Dvornikov's command.

After being revealed to the audience, Dvornikov plainly remarked through an interpreter, "The special military operation forces under our control will crush the Banderite neo-fascists and their NATO enablers to their very last man, and the vision of a reunified brotherhood under the common banner of a Greater Russian Motherland will be realized at long last. Those who attempt to resist such a goal will suffer grave, swift and unforgettable consequences. We shall bring all enemies to their knees, and the entire world will take notice and know to never again test the great Russian giant."

Dvornikov then paused for a second and then added (again through an interpreter), "I'm out, y'all! Peace!" as the audience roared in excitement.

Despite all the fanfare surrounding Dvornikov's surprise appearance on The Masked Singer, some critics questioned the move, calling it, "morally ambiguous," "an unwise decision," and "absolutely and rightfully subjecting the entire cast and crew of an American reality singing competition show to prosecution for brutal war crimes against humanity, may God have mercy on their wretched souls."

However, producers of The Masked Singer quickly brushed off such criticism.

"Yes, sure, war is hell," one producer noted, while humming bars of "Best Friend" to himself. "We get that. But war can also be fun, and musical, and we think bringing by Alex on to our show, we were able to highlight that fun side and bring a smile to some faces. And who doesn't like to smile?"

DETAILS AT ELEVEN

April 20, 2022

So, admittedly I hadn't been paying that close attention to the "Hunter Biden laptop" story...

I knew the very general basics of it, knew that it had changed hands and thus there would naturally be issues about chain of custody on it.

So I naturally just wrote the entire story off as right-wing bullshit/disinformation, even though people on right wing social media were screaming and yelling how it was a "SMOKING GUN" of...well, something. I don't know.

As it turns out, it was in fact right-wing bullshit/disinformation.

But I had no idea how extreme right-wing bullshit/disinformation it actually is.

Turns out, it is a pure dumpster fire on a train-wreck level of bullshit/disinformation that only the stupidest, most gullible idiots would possibly believe has any merit.

To wit:

So let's just get this straight.

1. Someone had access to Hunter Biden's laptop
2. Someone added new files to that laptop thinking that wouldn't be easily detected
3. Someone actually decided to title those files "Salacious Pics Package" and "Big Guy File" because they thought that would somehow make this a SMOKING GUN of criminality.

I mean...holy shit.

What sort of brain dead thought process is that?

It's as if I wanted to frame my neighbor for murder, and so I dig a hole in his back yard, put a gun in it, and then fill it up and place a sign saying "MURDER WEAPON BURIED HERE" right above it.

That's just so pathetically lazy and half-assed I would almost feel bad for the person who thought they were a genius doing it, except that there are plenty of people out there who are more than happy to buy that story, hook, line and sinker.

April 18, 2022

I'm sorry, but as a Florida public school parent, I feel as though I must share this:

This absolutely and positively was in my children's elementary school math book, believe me and trust me because naturally you just should do that on the internet:

"Johnny--who believes that race is a social construct which historically has been used by governing powers to create an artificial hierarchy in society based solely on that race--has three apples. Kenny, who believes that the idea of "color-blindness"--while perhaps well-intentioned--has been too often been co-opted as an excuse for modern-day authorities to refuse to address historical racial injustices of the past, has two apples. How many apples would Johnny and Kenny have if they put their apples together and both agree that dominant racial groups have subconsciously created their own reality when it comes to race relations and thus are stifled in making any significant moves towards racial equity, which means racial groups are given the necessary means in order to achieve a more equal society (not to be confused with racial equality, which is merely a superficial equal distribution of such means regardless of the specified needs of any one particular group)?"

I'm sorry, but this is just not cool. Not cool at all.





(Do I even need the here?)

April 14, 2022

BREAKING NEWS: Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 B cash, 852 quadrillion Rubles or 27 "Fartcoin"

Billionaire Elon Musk today officially sought to purchase social media giant Twitter today, offering payment in at least three different options.

Musk told Twitter shareholders the buyout could be made by payment of $43 billion in cash. Alternately, investors would also be given the option of payment of 852 quadrillion Russian Rubles--with strict fixed rate conditions--or by 27 "Fartcoin."

Fartcoin is a previously unknown cryptocurrency founded only last week by 8Chan user Boobsmaster69KKK, which languished at $0.0000001 per USD until Musk promoted the currency on his Twitter feed yesterday, thus causing its value to immediately skyrocket to $25,028 per USD at time of press.

Twitter shareholders were reportedly mulling all three offers, although some expressed a desire for even more buyout options, such as Chuck-E-Cheese tokens and those 20% Bed Bath and Beyond mailer coupons that are delivered nationwide to postal residents on a semi-regular basis.

Details at Eleven.

April 11, 2022

Another right-wing Deplorable bites the dust on Twitter.

Besides Donald Trump, I don't know if there was an account on all of Twitter that epitomized pure right-wing ugliness more than Juanita Broaddrick.

For those unfamiliar, Broaddrick's main claim to fame is that during the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky impeachment saga around 1998, she claimed that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her back in the 1970s. And while any woman claiming sexual assault deserves the right to have their claims heard by the public (and she most definitely did that), it soon became clear that Broaddrick's story had some serious issues concerning its credibility. Beyond the lack of any contemporaneous evidence, her story read like a bad Lifetime Movie more than a believable claim of rape. It left more questions than answers, like the fact that Broaddrick actually hosted a fundraiser for Clinton just a couple of weeks after the day she would later claim the assault took place. But most problematic was the fact that she actually executed a sworn affidavit denying that she was ever sexually assaulted by Clinton, which she has never bothered to retract in any subsequent testimony.

Broaddrick's story was ultimately so useless and full of holes, Ken Starr had no use for her during his investigation of Clinton. Ken Starr--a man so determined to bring Clinton down over the slightest foible. Think about that for a moment.

Anyways, Twitter came, and Broaddrick's feed wasn't just a screed against the Clintons, but against any and all Democrats and left leaning political figures in general.

But raw partisanship is one thing; gross hypocrisy is quite another. And that's where Broaddrick was the absolute worst.

Broaddrick--who made her bread and butter her claims that she was sexually assaulted by a powerful political figure--was very quick to jump to the defense of other powerful political figures accused of sexual misconduct...so long as they were conservative Republicans. So when Roy Moore was accused of inappropriate behavior regarding underaged teenagers, Broaddrick was quick to his defense without a second question.

And when the "Access Hollywood" tapes emerged during the 2016 campaign where Donald Trump was bragging about his desire for women to "grab them by the pussy," Broaddrick within days appeared at a pre-debate event literally sitting next to Trump and defending him vehemently. And she always supported Trump vocally, through every single accusation of sexual impropriety on his part.

But the worst would have to be her spirited support of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and her below-the-belt attacks against Kavanaugh's accuser Christine Blasey Ford. Broaddrick immediately branded Ford a liar, denied she could have even possibly been telling the truth, and even mocked Ford's physical appearance and testimony mannerisms during the Senate hearings. Mind you, Ford did what Broaddrick never could do--testify under oath that she was sexually assaulted. A genuine and credible Broaddrick might have painted Ford as a kindred spirit regardless of politics.

But Broaddrick was neither genuine nor credible. She was a hypocritical and hateful hack, and she does not deserve anyone's support or lent credibility.

She made crude comments about Michelle Obama and other figures who never caused her the slightest bit of harm. She reposted White Supremacists, spread lies about COVID and vaccines, and engaged in Q-Anon conspiracy theories (even appearing at Q-Anon conferences).

Apparently in the end, it was a homophobic remark--referring to gays as "the rainbow people" and how she was "sick and tired of having their lifestyle crammed down our throats on a daily basis"--that did her in.

Good riddance to human rubbish. Truly an awful person on all levels.

Enjoy Truth Social, you bitch.