Bill Maher!

 Look, I used to watch Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect way back and I didn't care for the guy then. Not that he didn't make me think, he did, but he came across as an arrogant prick. Then he got cancelled, which I think affected him far more than he let on. So, he went to HBO and started a show called Real Time on Friday nights. His monologue is trash. He so obviously imitates Johnny Carson right down to the sideways glances and audience scolding. Then he talks to a news maker one on one which can be interesting, but Bill makes it all about him. Then the panel and depending on the week, it also can be interesting. He regularly invites conservatives and liberals and then came 2016. The panel began to contain nutjobs like Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon types. These people are bomb throwers, not conservatives, thus you get nothing out of it. Then came 2020. Biden won, and Maher went all I gotta hate whatever is in power. He slammed liberals. some of it justified, but some of it was pure hey look at me, I'm a free spirit. I am so fair. You're out of touch not me. His happiest day may have been when Kamala lost. Even though he had predicted her to win, he couldn't wait for the I told you so. It's almost like never mind what I said then, what I say now is all that counts. I am never wrong, just flexible. WHO does that sound like?

Bill Maher spoke to Kid Rock on his show and Bob invited him to the White House for Dinner With Donald. Maher, ever the publicity hound, said sure. We just HAVE to talk with the other side. Bill is so fair. Then he went to dinner with 4 meatheads. Trump, UFC lunkhead Dana White, the aforementioned Kid Rock, fave of rockin meth heads everywhere and Trump himself, the ultimate lame brain. Bill posed for pictures, bragged that he wore a suit, and clinked wine glasses with the Bonehead Brain Trust.

Bill came home, kept the trip details under wraps, and then spilled the beans on his show. Trump laughed, he was cordial, he listened, he was funny and nice, and it all went well. Then Bill shrugged and said in his oh so typical smarmy way, Hey he was nice to me so therefore he must be an ok guy.

The reaction is furious. He is being slammed by not only libs, but by normal Republicans not under the spell. He got called out by a panelist for allowing himself to be used as a prop and the thin skinned Maher got personal, because, like Trump, he is never ever wrong. Maher doubled down and insisted Trump was personable, at least to me. And it continues. Maher will not back down with the Trump's a nice guy shit. He's killing himself and I've got popcorn.

Larry David hit the kill shot on Maher over the weekend. An opinion piece in the New York Times titled My Dinner With Adolf. A fictional meeting with Hitler in 1939, in which Larry met Hitler, who was personable and funny and made jokes about Goering. A real cool guy that Hitler. And then Larry left and fired off the Nazi salute he was so taken with Adolf. 

Larry David is everyman. He is self-deprecating and not afraid to make himself the bad guy, and Curb was perhaps the funniest show ever, But Maher just keeps up the arrogance and the condescending attitude and the I'm better than you persona.

Larry lives in the real world. Maher lives in a world in which he is King of Comedy. He sits on an imaginary throne and he aint gettin off.

So, Maher and Trump are the same guy. Thin skinned, never wrong, thinks he knows best and fuck you if you disagree.

The problem is Trump was elected by 77 million idiots. Maher is elected by nobody and is subject to ratings. I have a feeling those ratings are about to go the way of the Dow Jones. Crash and burn.

The Pope!

 I retired from Catholicism years ago. Probably around 1968 or so I stopped paying attention, stopped going to communion, stopped going to confession and stopped going to Mass, at least mentally. The whole thing seemed cult like with costumed humans pretending to know the answers (tho whenever I asked a question the answer was shut up). I suffered thru Catholic school for 12 years and once out I vowed to never return. I have returned for funerals and weddings but that was for the people involved. But being a "cultural Catholic" will never leave me. Living in the Midwest, Catholicism is often just an extension of conservative politics. It is foreign to me. The teachings of Jesus are ignored in order to preserve the white privilege and to whip yourself into a frenzy over somebody else's choice you don't like. The poor are there by choice, the homeless are also, racism is bad but what can I do about it, sexual abuse in the church is to be ignored and the American hierarchy must be MAGA.

But this Pope. This guy, Pope Francis, made me more of a cultural Catholic than ever before. The Pope was a positive force in the world. He didn't condemn anyone. He preached love and fairness and climate change and welcoming immigrants and just be kind. For that, we have resistance from conservative Catholics (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and online today pieces of shit like Marjorie Taylor Greene openly celebrating the demise of "evil". 

I loved the Pope. He was exactly what I always believed what a Pope should be. A decent man doing the Lord's work. Rich people don't need a Pope sticking up for them. The poor and the sick do need a voice. Pope Francis was that voice. 

Now let's just hope the Conclave doesn't screw this up and install a "Tedesco" to the seat. In this day and age of asshole, fascist leadership all over the world, a Pope should be the one fighting them. 

So long Jorge Mario Bergoglio. You were the best.

The picture is to remind us that Popes have senses of humor as do Presidents. Senses of humor that do not involve punching down as we have become.

The world is a less kind place today.

50501 Rallies!

 Did it make me feel better? Yep! Did I feel I accomplished anything? Probably not but everything starts somewhere and I will be in on the ground floor of a revolution that topples fascism. Or I'm heading for the gulag. Whatever. Living in this country, at this time, with the cruelty and the lies and the number of total assholes who crawled out of the swamp doesn't really make me feel safe any longer. Oh, not from the so-called rampant crime and all those "illegals" that are murdering white women thousands of times a day, but from suit and tie wearing Nazis working hard to Make America White Again. This administration is unlike anything I've ever seen, and I am old. I've been thru Nixon and Reagan and the  Bush boys and as bad as that seemed, this is beyond belief. A reality show host, embraced by losers who need to place to blame on their loser status by blaming anyone unlike them. Immigrants, women, gays, trans, liberals, minorities or the intelligentsia. Whatever I don't like, is keeping me down. It's sad.

Yesterday all over the nation, people of all stripes, all ages, all genders, all believing that fascism, Naziism, revenge, and lack of due process are wrong, came out to wave signs and be together to not feel so alone. Red states, blue states, cities, rural towns (special shoutout to Rushville, Nebraska, as ruby red of an area as there is in this nation had 43 brave souls line the street to express themselves) all stood together for a couple of hours or so and said no more. Will it work? Again, everything starts somewhere.

Look, I am not afraid to live in a state that has elected some of the stupidest people on Earth year after year because despite 30 some years of GOP rule, the majority of the state is unwilling to change. Vote R no matter what. They raise your property taxes to outrageous levels, raise income taxes rates on everyday people while granting virtually any business tax breaks, and ban abortion, fuck around with this idiot bathroom shit, ban transgender treatment, and vote to give everybody breathing a fucking gun but you still vote for them. Political fear is not a reaction, its cowardice.

I got in trouble in high school for advocating the end of a war in Vietnam. Take off that black armband they said. Stop rabble rousing they said. We will make your life miserable unless you fall into line and stop with this anti Nixon shit. Let me put it this way, they succeeded in making my high school experience a miserable slog of daily abuse. I hate the place to this day.

I've stepped up against Reagan, against the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, Trumps first fiasco and now, at my advanced age, against this current band of authoritarian pricks. I am too old to stop now.

So, did yesterday make me feel better? Fuck yeah it did. And if you think that this does no good, well you're just an apathetic dope, probably either a fascist yourself, rich enough to withstand economic collapse or so cynical you are beyond help, sitting in the easy chair cutting down anything you feel too beaten down to understand. Chrissakes, the rally in Omaha featured a long rambling speech by some local self-proclaimed "communist "who bathes in the limelight of pissing into the tent by hammering "white liberals" as worse than the KKK. So far off the edge, he's just another fascist.

In conclusion, I am selfish enough to enjoy feeling better and thinking it's good for MY mental health. If you don't, well continue to do nothing. And when they finally come for you, broke and mentally exhausted, there will be nobody to stand up for you.

Special shoutout yesterday to the assholes gunning their Harleys and disrupting speeches, flipping us off, and riding around without helmets (Cmon organ donors!). You clowns give the bike riding community a bad name. It was so precious to watch the little boys having fun.

Foxtrot Delta Tango my friends. Forever.

100 Days?

 I thought I'd give him 100 days to fuck everything up and then comment. But he's much better at fucking shit up than even I thought. Ugh.