Category Archives: Politics

“A Staggering Loser”

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Like lots of news organizations today, the Los Angeles Times is digging into the Former Guy’s tax returns:

“The picture that emerged showed that for all Trump’s claims to be a great businessman, his core businesses — a sprawling network of hotels, golf courses and other properties — have lost millions of dollars year after year.

‘He’s a staggering loser,’ said Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”

If he lied about his business acumen, what else might he have embellished?

Land of The Free, Home of The Gullible

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Before the Former Guy, I had a friend who thought all the (dis)United States needed was a successful businessman to straighten everything out. Not a businesswoman, a businessman who had taken risks, created jobs, and balanced budgets.

And when the Former Guy materialized, this friend was convinced our capitalist savior had arrived. And he wasn’t alone. Large swaths of the country believed the Former Guy was a successful businessman.

But his tax returns show tens of millions of dollars of business losses over several years. I’ll give the Former Guy this, he’s been incredibly consistent. All of his businesses have failed. That will probably change with the Trading Cards though.

Based on what’s been made public this week, in the last 5-7 years, the only times the Former Guy has reported any income were years when he received payouts from his dad’s estate. . . over twenty years after his death. The Former Guy is the quintessential nepo baby.

I’m not sure which is more disheartening. The number of people who can’t accept that the Former Guy is a disastrous businessman; the extra taxes hard working, law-abiding Americans have had to pay to make up for the Former Guy’s (alleged) fraud; or the Internal Revenue Service being afraid to audit him.

Tie goes to the losers.

You, Joseph Murray, Are No Winston Churchill

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I took a course called “The Speeches of Winston Churchill” in college. It was great, especially since the prof was retiring and asked us what grades we wanted. Not wanting to be too greedy, I vaguely remember writing “B+” on a small index card.

Fast forward to George Santos, the young, newly elected Republican from a mostly blue district in New York. Yesterday the New York Times did a devastating piece on him. Not devastating as in mean and vindictive, devastating as in every single thing Santos claims to be true about himself is (allegedly) made up. He’s the Anna Delvey of Congress. I just hope the Netflix special is a little tighter.

Santos’s genius attorney decided the best way out of all the lying was to double down and lie more bigly.

That quote lacks Churchill’s eloquence, humor, and specificity. Did Murray use the prototype Chat GPX to come up with it?

I wonder who or what has inspired all the lying?

Conservatives Are Way Tougher On Crime. . . LOL

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That’s what they tell themselves when they look in the mirror. But whatever “toughness” they supposedly show is always, at best, situational. When the alleged perps are the downtrodden, most definitely. When they’re radical leftists, certainly.

But when it’s powerful people whose politics align with their own, they whine about “witch hunts” and “the Deep State” whatever the hell that is.

Watch Fox News tonight to see the Right’s reaction to today’s news. Not so tough after all.

A Good Sentence

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“The protests in Iran, now in their third month, are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of its 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality.”

“The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple the Ayatollah”

Crimes Against The Written Word

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You would think inciting a violent insurrection designed to overturn a fair and free election would disqualify one from running for office again.

And if not that, then calling for a shorter, more election conspiracy-friendly Constitution.

And if not that, the Former Guy’s capitalization and quotation errors seal the deal. In fact, they are enough by themselves to lock him up and throw away the keyboards.

China Is Stirring

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Try, if you can, to imagine the most extreme covid restrictions you experienced in 2020 lasting for over 2.5 years. Until now, China’s citizens have decided life in lockdown is preferable to being caught protesting the restrictions.

Except for North Korea, every populace, Iran and China included, has their limits. The reporting and pictures coming out of China are riveting.

I especially like how they’re using sarcasm. From the New York Times:

“When a police officer told people to stop chanting for an end to lockdowns, the crowd quickly pivoted. ‘Continue lockdowns!’ they chanted, in an echo of the sarcasm that had spread online in recent days, as people shared overblown praise for the government to protest censorship. ‘I want to do Covid tests!'”

People like me, with a built-in bias for democracy, are almost always disappointed by flickers of popular protest that are routinely squelched by the state.

That history won’t stop me from rooting for the underdogs, for sarcasm, and radical political change.

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