#tRumpster fire

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[deebrisbyfish]

Soooo, I generally DON'T get political or divisive in the strip... buuuuttt... it's PRIDE and, like with last week’s strip, I am kinda burnt out with seeing the same asinine arguments online over and over. Why do I have to defend my legal right to exist with people who learned biology from "Kindergarten Cop"?

[hobohobgoblim]

[harmcityherald]

"For one thing, how do you win a debate against someone like Trump? He could wet his pants and still declare himself the winner. The press corps would help! Reporters would search for something, anything imperfect about Harris to balance out the old man pissing himself."

Sometimes its the little things you read that makes your day.

[janedrewfinally]

Heather Cox Richardson's coverage and analysis is always amazing.

[lady-raziel]

This debate is abysmal but I'm living for the fuckin stares of death Biden keeps giving Trumpster fire

Like honestly same if I was right there I would be clenching the podium so hard

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Thanks for the tag @seeingteacupsindragons!

Rare writer ask game: name three pieces of media that are not novels/short stories or movies/TV that were formative for you, and tag three people.

Oh damn, this is tricky and I love that. I don't know how much any of these are connected to my writing specifically, but they were formative to who I am and obviously that's always gonna tie into my writing somehow.

1. Ocarina of Time. It always will be one of my favourite video games, and the kind of games I like now are still often reflective of what I liked about it. Also, I said recently in another ask that Sparrabeth was my first ship, and it was definitely the first one I went all in on, but Link/Sheik was probably actually where I started (that Bolero of Fire bit, am I right?) Sheik was also probably technically my first queer fictional crush.

2. This feels cringe to admit 😅, but Adam Lambert's Glam Nation tour. I was 19 and juuuuust starting to internally acknowledge and accept myself as queer, and I would watch all the videos from the concerts and dance along in my room and sigh dreamily over Tommy Joe Ratliff's knees buckling while he got snogged within an inch of his life. It was the first time I remember being excited about being queer, because it seemed so damn cool. ("Fun" side note; writing this made me go "the heck ever happened to Tommy Joe anyway?" and apparently now he's a far-right Christian Trumpster, so that's a thing that happened. Somewhat disorienting that he was a little part of my journey away from that and then he went into it. Booooo.)

2. This song. One of my earliest memories is of my dad holding me and singing this song to me. I still can't listen to it without tearing up. And really just a lot of music I associate with being a kid in the 90s. There's so many songs that take me back to my mom hitting record on the tape deck when they came on the radio, to the way my dad whistled along to classic rock. But this one is right down at the foundation.

Tagging (as always no pressure!) @hergan416 @shreddedleopard @soapy-soartp

[jeanjauthor]

If the conservatives win, a lot of ladies & gentlethems are going to be in actual physical danger from the bullies who think it means they'll have freedom to attack us.

And if the trumpster fire loses...there may be an even worse insurrection to come.

Vote Blue

(but be prepared)

[kfedup]

Lila and I went to the Wrentham outlets to shop for a dress for her to wear to my niece’s graduation and I’m good, I don’t need to go to an outlet again for another ten years. In fact, I despise clothes shopping. But, I did find a pair of pants and a top at Banana Republic and a pair of Lucky jeans for half off, so that was a plus. So much easier to find what works when you can try it on, but so hard to find anything that works when you’re forced to try it on in a little closet with the worst lighting on the planet highlighting all the ways age and gravity and that cookie addiction is playing high and loose with your body. Shopping is terrible and I don’t understand people who enjoy it enough to purposely spend time doing it for fun. 

Also, the air quality was completely fucked from the Nova Scotia fire smoke - hazy yellow sky that made it feel like it’s 15 degrees warmer than it actually is, and the taste of burnt universe in our mouths. Weirdly a half hour south in Bridgewater, it’s fine, with a deep blue sky and the smell of freshly cut grass and the Black Locust trees in full bloom filling the air with their intense fragrance. 

After shopping I required a 20-minute power nap in which I fell to the very bottom of the lake. Now, I’m at the dining room table attempting to engage my brain enough to do some work, listening to the traffic that’s primarily made up of diesel four-door pickup trucks that race down the 35 mph residential street going at least double that, and often much faster. Many have Trump signs and giant American flags mounted to the back, unfurled behind them, snapping in the wind. Even in this blue state, so many Trumpsters. 

It’s so crazy to me that in the 70s and 80s we all (dozens of neighborhood kids) played in the street every day - riding bikes and skateboards, bouncing on our pogo sticks, jumping rope, stopping our endless street hockey game to move the net every now and again to let a neighbor pass on their way home from the grocery store or work or to crowd around the ice cream truck to buy banana and root beer popsicles and sherbet cannonballs with bubble gum balls melted and gooey in the bottom of the plastic cone. Now there’s a car every ten seconds or less at rush hour and a steady stream the rest of the day and the trunks of the once-young Maples we climbed in the front yard are too big to get our arms around. 

I’m trying to tie this up neatly, but I think I need to let that idea go and move on to the client work I keep avoiding, so enjoy this thematically-challenged post about too many things, or don’t, as @thecasaofjulesie2 would say – I’m not the boss of you. 

[soovermyself]

Im going to ponctuate a few things:

1) the woso fandom build this image that Ashlyn evil manipulating bitch, Ali saint and naive. It doesn't matter what anyone says, even if Ali came out in public and say "I was the one who cheated and manipulate Ash", they are going to find a way to make Ashlyn the villain.

I say that cause everyone completely ignores that Ali and Ashlyn first break up was cause Ali didn't want to come out of the closet and ended everything. She said that herself around 2016/2017, but everyone ignores it.

2) We have no idea of how they are in daily basis and in those 13 years of their relationship. What we know is that when they got back together, Ashlyn pretty much accepted whatever was the pace that Ali wanted.

3) This whole "hate on Ashlyn" train was started by Hope Solo's fan and followed by Naeher's fans, when USSF fired Hope. And now is pandering by Ali's brother and fandom, using the said two fandom.

4) We also don't know how it was Sophia relationship with Ali. To me, Sophia was always far more closer to Christen, Rapinoe, Tobin, Alex, Syd and Ashlyn. I kinda understand Ali cause she seems more introvert, and not much open to people outside her circle of friends and soccer world, while Sophia is an extrovert person, she said several times she likes being around people and talking and having parties, and this kind of person might annoy an introvert.

Ashlyn is a lot like Sophia in that aspect. They also have many same interests and have similar experiences too, by both living in near by cities in the same period and both being major in communication.

5) If Sophia had cheated on Grant with Ashlyn, you bet your asses we would know already. People were dying to Sophia make a mistake to spread in her face cause of her activism. The trumpsters and the blue lives matters part of CPD fandom was dying for something like this to happen, and most of Ashlyn's haters are jumping in the bandwagon with them to massacre them.

6) Sophia is a 41 year old woman who is constantly blamed for stuff she is used to deal with this kind of hate and so is Ashlyn. This might be a mistake? Yes, but at least she will do her mistake by her own head, but this might work too, like I said, we can't possibly know how they are in private and if they have chemistry. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds started in a similar way as Sophia and Ashlyn, and they are still together.

.

[tomorrowusa]

With Trump Republicans: When all else fails, try to stir up feelings of phony anti-white persecution.

Trumpsters have to become increasingly histrionic in order to fire up their declining base of fundamentalist Christians, conspiracy freaks, and flat-out white supremacists.

The rude truth is that communities of color suffer disproportionately from environmental injustice.

In any case, if Donald Trump and his sludge buddies had not spent four years rolling back safety and environmental regulations, the mess in East Palestine would have been smaller or probably nonexistent. 

[petri808]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of people who mean something special to you. Share some happiness 🌺💜

Right now, it’s been tough so the things that make me happy are more like goals.

1) I enjoy writing, but haven’t been able to do much in over a year. So, little by little, even if it’s a sentence I push myself to do something. I’m proud of myself for finishing a secret Santa story on time this year!

2) the friends I’ve made online have gotten me though a lot of the tough times, so please know I love you guys a lot! Getting back to you all helps to motivate me to get better 💜 and I’ll try to pop into Discord here and there when up to it. Oh, and I even got to meet two of you irl this August! You know who you are. That’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

3) related to above is interacting with the fandom. I had to drop out of the nalu blog cause I couldn’t keep up anymore. Giving up sucked, since I’d been doing it since fall of 2018, but it wasn’t fair to everyone else to let it flounder. Seeing it continue makes me really happy.

4) my irl bestie of 27+ years has been living with me for a couple years while their family home is rebuilt after a fire. It’s made me undeniably happy to be able to help her, and her helping me through all the shit I’ve been dealing with. I’m blessed to have such an amazing friend. I’d lost tough with most of our old friends from hs, but this has motivated me to rekindle the relationships.

5) lastly, imma be selfish and say myself cause I’m proud I didn’t give up. 20 years ago this strife might’ve led to suicide, so that means I have gotten stronger. Looks like I just have more information I can stick in a story 🙃lol. Making myself happy is a big motivator.

Even with help, surviving whatever happens to you is ultimately due to your own efforts of not giving up, so Always remember to pat yourselves on the back!

I’m right with you girl 🥹✊ @cstorm86 it’s been a hell of a ride lately, but you’re a survivor! You got this! 💪

I’ll explain why I’ve been MIA from here for so long below.

From spring 2019 to august 2021 so much crap happened with my family. My uncles cancer/death revealed an explosive skeleton in the family closet that left my grandma homeless in November 2019. Neither her surviving kids would take her for selfish reasons so she lived with me. She was doing so well!… but In September 2020 her daughter finally took her, stuck her in a room sending her health plummeting and she died by the following April 2021. The final straw was my mom dying from Covid in august 2021 because my trumpster half-siblings who didn’t believe in Covid brought it home. They’re now all dead to me. I’ve also been having a lot of medical problems on top of this so, in September 2021 I just… cracked… Three psychiatrists, two anti-depressants, one antipsychotic, and two therapists later I’ve finally found a good therapeutic fit. Psychotherapy is tough but I really like it and I think I’ve started the road to recovery. I highly recommend this form of therapy when you need to fully break free from past traumas.

[the-firebird69]

We are experiencing messing. around with our son. and it's you idiots messing with our son. He said, we're tired of it when we met. We are. What you doing is. illegal, but we are punishing you right now Your fleet is being destroyed. and you're going to fall. Yeah. Trump lost his fleets, except for his semi defense towerships. And people are taking those right now. There's a lot of people taking those towerships. And it's because of fear. And PJA is one of them. And need and he needs them right now. So he's up there with a decent size fleet. And the pseudo empire is going to move up there momentarily. And she takes it. and she got here is. one of these them to do it.. It's because he wants them to fight. Now Trump has gone off the deep end. And people are going after his people here right now. And he's gonna be busy today. I'm all over the world. They are saying. that he has no fleet and effectively doesn't. That's very few ships in there. Not hard to take down. and he is under attack. as cities are under attack. and his areas The regular cities and the finance centers. They are being dissolved. and it's going on right now. The repercussions are pretty big. of losing those sweets. And these two have not cut on and we know before they do. It's not a pretty exciting. A lot of it is psychological.. Um, they're getting nailed. in a minute. We're going to show you what we mean. Because you two have to leave and people been waiting for this. And so if we you have no right to be near our son. and it's gonna be shown. And you're gonna beat up very badly. There's some other things going on. Of course on the Molla Cafe. The Warlock with ships are fighting to try and get here in the Pseudo Empire is holding them out. Those fathers lost about eight billion ships. out of 33 billion. and the force is dwindling now. It's still pretty big. but the pseudo empire is kicking your **** They're punching holes in their ships real fast We think that they will be done attacking them. by daybreak. And that these warlock ships all will be out. and it's how it's going. The curve trying to recover right now. they're attacking ground bases. They can see them firing and they're hitting their ships. And then hit groups of ships. And there's a couple more things they're huge going on right now. Even our eyeballing, these two. telling them to leave. And then these two are not leaving. and it won't come out. And they mean for them to move out. It's been going on for two days. And yesterday they issued the third warning. We believe in these guys are ignoring it. And they're going to make some leave. and it will come up soon. . There are a couple things. and they're pretty big. There are. 5 of those caverns. Sizzling on They are going to send up a. about 7 waves today. in very intense ones. And most of you are going to get sick. And a son will be inside most of the they will start at about 11:00 AM. There's another item. We have been talked to in the bad way and oppressed by you people. And it's for your war to try and harm our people. We are going to get you out of here. and your attitude is absurd. You're losing a war and ever conceived of losing a war. And the foregners Our entry in so shall we come in. the coming in force. so far last night. You guys lost 1.3 billion. people in the bands or rings. and in pseudo empire. lost only 200,000. And yeah, things are changing. You're at about 1.7 percent for leaders for leadership. Two million people died last night. in Charlotte County from sickness. Half of them were trumpsters. And they're about 3.7 million original Morlock for the most part here. And that's changing. There's a couple more things to do.

ctd

[stefanieaugust]

Another opening another repeal...

Friends: The 115th Congress has hit the stone floor with an edict from our new VP mouth piece of the worst type the one whose strings are pulled by his unaccountable puppet-master!

 Pence on the fence? Not when it comes to this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pence-trump-will-sign-executive-orders-to-begin-repealing-obamacare-on-day-1-170144042.html

Meanwhile, back at the Tower on Mad-Ave. Trumpster is busy denigrating ratings of a new season of The Apprentice starring AHNOLD! Whad, ya expect, dude, he IS an immigrant after all! http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/01/06/trump-rips-arnold-schwarzeneggers-apprentice-ratings/96237162/

You can’t make this up friends American’s thrive on bad tv and Twitter as does our incoming ( I can’t bring myself to call him anything else ) who set another president on bad behavior with his bashing of the disabled during his campaign, giving license to the rest of to do this:

http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/227116738-story

IF YOU THINK THIS IS ACCEPTABLE FRIENDS, THEN TAKE A ROOM AT THE GITMO HOTEL AND GET READY FOR EXTREME WATER-BOARDING! This will become a standard behavior over the next four years unless WE THE PEOPLE decide to thwart it.

It’s no wonder hate crimes increased after the Trumpster’s stumping:

http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/227116738-storyAnd if USA today is reporting this type of news it means that they are leaning to the left just a wee bit to get out of the way of the gun-fire.