stevenkesslar

What makes you think that? 😉

Has anyone else noticed how great it is when America Is Great Again? You can feel it in the air. Not a day passes when some socialist Canadian doesn't call me and say, "How do I get out of my shit hole? Can't Canada be the 51st US state?" Nope, bitch! You had your chance. That said, I'll make a small exception for the two hockey dudes from Heated Rivalry. But back to serious matters. When America Is Great, you can see the spattered legs and brain matter of dead US soldiers all over Iranian fields. God Bless America! When America Is Great, you can smell the burning flesh of Iranian school girls. It makes me want to sing the National Anthem! It is only when we let Weak Extremist Black Obama Type Americans rule that Bad Things happen. Like Evil Iranian Theocrats Hanging Gay People. (Did I mention that when America Is Great, Gays can be Treasury Secretary? Sorry, Sis!) When America Is Weak, Bad Things can happen at home, too. Like allowing Weak Extremist Obama Supporting Black House Members to win US House seats in the South. Ugh! We have to get Extremist Black Democrats out and Strong White Republicans in! And therein lies the problem. Seems like as Great As Universal Lord And King Donald Trump is, and as much as he has Made America Greater Than Ever!, we still have a small problem Robert Kagan: "Full-Scale Invasion" Only Way To Open Strait Of Hormuz And Overthrow Islamic Republic This dude is saying we have three choices. We can invade Iran and have a bloody land war, which Americans won't tolerate. Or we can nuke Iran. Kagan doesn't even mention that option. Since I guess he's too much of a pussy to advocate righteously killing millions of Iranian kids. Or we can let Iran run the Strait Of Hormuz in one form or another, and end up worse than when we started. Now I know what you are thinking. This must be some Socialist Canadian. Or some Extremist AOC Type Loser who needs to go back to the shit hole she came from. But, no. This is Robert Kagan, neocon who a few decades ago fiercely advocated for the US to invade Iraq to spread democracy. Given how well that worked, you would think he would be shouting that we need to do it again. But in Iran this time. Nope. He's saying Americans are pussies and they won't. Poor neocon! This is the kind of noble bullying he has advocated his whole life. And it turns out it just doesn't work out well, in practice. But just this time. Well, actually. It didn't really work well in Iraq, either. But who could have seen that coming? I guess that leaves option three. Give Gay Hanging Iranian Theocrats more power than before. Kagan says this makes Iran more powerful than a nuclear weapon would. Who could have seen that coming? Personally, I think these people are all pussies. We should deport all the Extremist Black House members and weak neocons who wouldn't recognize American Greatness if it slapped them in the face. Send them to Montreal or Toronto or some other Socialist shit hole. Then nuke the fuckers. After we have a Nice Big Glow we can let Alberta be our 51st state. After all, Ontario has all The Gays and Alberta has all The Oil. That's a pretty easy choice! Isn't it just awesome when America Is Great Again!

You may also be right that it will be this quasi-Independent force. Roosevelt was a Republican, mostly. But he did form the Bull Moose Party, aka the Progressive Party. And it was a springboard for a lot of progressive ideas that played out for decades to come, in reaction to out of control capitalism. I think we are stuck - both Democrats as a party and the US as a nation - for as long as we have these red states like Iowa and Montana and North Dakota that reflexively elect Republicans only these days. Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, is someone I sent money to for several cycles. In 2018, he won. In 2024, he lost. He allegedly texted someone and said the party brand was like "poison" to him in Montana. Duh! Tester slams Democrats, voices support for potential independent in Senate race I agree with Tester. We have two strong Independent candidates running this cycle who are kinda sorta Democrats, in Montana and Nebraska. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Democrats could win in those states as moderate Democrats. Such a time could exist again in the not too distant future, after Trump's mess ends. The thing I liked about people like Jon Tester and Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill (recent moderate Democrats who won and then lost in Montana, North Dakota, and Missouri) is that they mostly kept their mouths shut and played as team players, knowing that the AOC/Bernie end of the party was a drag on them. We need both to win. And that is clearer then ever. Had we had those three Senators in the US Senate in 2022 we could have had permanent child tax credits. That would have cut working class child poverty in half for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. That is better than $1 billion ballrooms if Democrats want to win power and keep it for a while. Like AMLO did in Mexico by focusing on people's pocketbooks and keeping the college-educated woke crowd at bay. Disclaimer: I am part of the college-educated woke crowd, but I recognize that I am NOT a majority. My actual woke college professor was named Paul Wellstone. And he ended a long Democratic drought in Minnesota in 1990 by being the woke college professor who rode economic populism to the US Senate. Tim Walz was an acolyte of progressive training school Wellstone Action. The formula works! Then we have money whores like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. I might be arguing against myself by saying i want moderate Democrats, but not Manchin and Sinema. They are moderates. But they are also pocket sucking money whores who suck up lobbyist money. And they were never really good team players. Even though they claimed to be. At least with Sinema it worked out well. We got rid of that pocket sucking money whore and replaced her with Ruben Gallego, who is a team player and will fight for progressive stuff. Talarcio kind of falls in that category in Texas. He is running as a Democrat. But he is branding himself as young and fresh and independent. If any of these three can win, either as a Democrat or an Independent, I think that's good news. Maybe people are getting sick of the craziness. One reason I like Gavin Newsom is he can and will tell people on the left - like me - to go fuck ourselves. He has a good enough radar for the center that he can maintain popularity while appeasing the left on some things. Maybe Kamala Harris or others can do that. But Newsom has proven it in California. So my hope is by 2028 someone like Newsom or Harris gets elected POTUS. And can also get a stable Senate majority, which in theory could include some "red state" Independents. I think Carney is proving adept at the same thing in Canada. Then again, maybe it's time for a Bull Moose Party again!

And the answer is: in 2018 and 2020, America had had enough of Trump. Kinda. Sort of. I decided a while back there basically are two Americas. We now know pretty much for a fact that up to 40 % of America will eat Trump's shit for breakfast. For many of them - like one of my nieces and one of my nephews - they are Trump voters for whom times have never been better. My niece is buying a condo in Florida. My nephew texted me to say how wonderful it is that NVDA has gone through the roof. Another nephew, who despises Trump, just become a multi-millionaire on a bet on SOXL (semiconductors) that paid off very well. So we live in a K-shaped economy. For many Trump voters, and for many upscale Democrats, times have never been better. But that's not most Americans. The rich love tax cuts and ballrooms. Who cares if we spend $1 billion on a ballroom while gas prices soar? These are all signs of the times. Trump won again in 2024 with less than 50 % of the vote. He won for two reasons: high prices, and open borders. He did do slightly better than he did in 2016, when he lost the electoral college. I do blame this on Democrats as much as Trump. Biden was old and tired. And even if he was not old and tired, I never got the feeling that he or Harris could tell working class America how they would fight for them every fucking day. Biden was no FDR, even though he wanted to be. We'll see how Kamala does in 2028, if she runs. The polls say she is leading. If Democrats want a fighter, I think it is just as likely they will pick Newsom. That is the role he is auditioning for. He was on the cutting edge of same sex marriage as Mayor of SF when I lived there. And I think he has been a competent relatively progressive Governor of one of the largest economies in the world in a time of COVID crisis. Whoever Democrats nominate, they have to be able to explain how they will fight like hell for the working class in a way Harris simply could not in 2024. Maybe the third time will be the charm for her. I'm hoping. Or maybe Mayor Pete or somebody else will emerge. Emotionally, I already feel like America is lost. When the President of the United States is brazenly threatening to end a civilization and burn millions of Iranian children to death, how can America claim to be a shining city on a hill? We are a corrupt moral cesspool right now. And the billionaires, starting with Trump and his family and friends, are building ballrooms and grabbing every fucking penny they can. They deserve it! I can't tell you when this will end. But I'm pretty sure it won't end well. The better question for me is: what Democrat can clean up this disgraceful and harmful mess when it collapses? But for now, Trump wants gold statues of himself, ballrooms, and parties!

I don't disagree that it would be better if NO billionaire ran for office. But that's really not the way it has ever worked in the US. We started out with the following criteria: 1) be White, 2) be male, 3) be rich, 4) own slaves. Not all the Founding Fathers met that description. Just 12 US Presidents owned slaves. 🤔 But you all get the point. Lucky for us, we at least get to have a Republican President and SCOTUS that wants to disempower Blacks and take their representatives away. 😱 I am tempted to vote for single Mom Katie Porter. But given the polling, I feel like it would actually be a vote for Village People Republican Guy Chad Bianco. He's polling third, behind Hilton and Steyer. Becerra is fourth, according to Real Clear Politics. Porter is #5 and in the single digits. She was in the lead early on. So she seems like a lost cause at this point.

Sorry, Sis. But on this one I beg to differ. I want Genocide POTUS and The Genocide Jew to burn in hell forever, chained to Yasser Arafat. The Genocide Jew and Arafat would make a lovely couple. Trump, Netanyahu, and Arafat are three of the worst leaders in my lifetime. All three are or were corrupt. Which is small ball. The bigger issue is that all three used mass violence to stay in power. The thing that makes Trump and The Genocide Jew different is they openly support genocide. By that standard, Arafat was only a garden variety terrorist. But the best is yet to come. Having been rebuked by the world and the Pope for threatening to nuke Iran and end a civilization in genocide, Trump says, "Fuck that shit." Now he's just being cute in how he states his depraved and evil impulses. By the standard of many organized religions, including Christianity and Judaism, Genocide POTUS and The Genocide Jew deserve to burn in hell forever. Trump’s remark fuels nuclear speculation We've all heard of some religion that talked about "an eye for an eye." Who said that? 😉 The Genocide Jew had the brilliant idea of mass murder of Iranian leaders. Now Iran's leader is saying, "Fuck that shit. We ain't giving up on nukes." Iran now has control of the Strait Of Hormuz, which they did not before the wat. How is this winning? So Trump, the victim of his own sick impulses. threatens to nuke them instead. This is not leadership. This is not even bad politics. This is evil. We now return you to your regularly scheduled $1,000,000,000 ballroom. Maybe the rich can watch millions of Iranian kids burn to death at a gala dinner! How glowing and festive!

Here's an informative article about this issue. This article and another one on AI sealed the deal. I'll vote for Steyer. More than anything else, he is a voice for left of center economic populism that can win. Becerra seems like an underwhelming government bureaucrat, if Politico is right. Steyer is very much a sign of the times we life in. You can say a scion of wealth should not be Guv. Then again, FDR was much more a scion of wealth than Steyer. Steyer made his wealth, whereas FDR inherited it. Few Democrats hate FDR or the New Deal because he was very rich. Tom Steyer vows to cut electricity bills by 25%, but experts say the details fall short I'll say something bad and something good about Steyer. The bad thing is, as the article spells out, it's almost certainly an exaggeration to say anyone could cut electrics rates by 25 %. So Steyer is practicing Trumpian politics. He's being a populist and saying he's going to focus on prices that hurt people's pocketbooks. And lower them. That's how Trump won in 2024. He ran against Bidenflation. The good thing is, as the article spells out, this is 100 % consistent with Steyer's rich man economic populism. I know more than I want about electric dereg. I spent four years of my life on it, and won hugely. "Dereg" in California and Oregon in the 1990's was all about catering to investor-owned utilities and companies like Enron, that are now known as some of the biggest corporate villains ever. Steyer is saying the opposite. He's saying these electric companies are screwing rate payers. And he wants them to cut their prices. It gets very policy wonky about wildfires. Which is a huge driver of higher rates in California. You could generalize that to "climate change" and saying similar things are happening in Florida thanks to flooding, not fires. Steyer is probably right that utilities are choosing the most expensive way to upgrade wires to prevent forest fires. Again, it gets very policy wonky. But he's putting himself on the side of people pissed about higher electric rates and saying, "Let's do something about it." It's an exaggeration to say Steyer is anti-AI. But he sounds kind of anti-AI. And I love it. I have watched lots of long form videos with experts on AI, most of whom worked in the industry. It is very scary. There is the ultimate doomsday scenario that the machines will be way smarter than us and ultimately decide humans are pests. Which, by the way, leaders of the AI industry are publicly saying could happen. But before we get to that, we have kids being told to kill themselves by AI. And at least the potential for massive white collar unemployment as workers are displaced. Did I mention massive increases in electric rates for power-hungry data centers that DO NOT create jobs. They create wealth for billionaire AI investors. And yes, it will all be wonderful. And when AI agents replace us we can all spend our free time being Michelangelo or designing space ships to Mars. What pro-AI investors are saying is such total bullshit. This is the same investment class who told us two decades ago not to worry our pretty little heads about working class factory job loss, which was just a lefty fearmongering myth. And then we lost 6 million factory jobs. And then Trump won in 2016 running against "Clinton/NAFTA". Again, this is very much a sign of the times. But Steyer stands for something. And it is something I like. I like Katie Porter more. But the polls are very clear. She's gradually going down, and Steyer is going up. It may not be fair, since Steyer is rich and can buy all the ads he wants. But this is as new to American politics as FDR and The New Deal. I want more of that. We need it. Especially after billionaire Trump, who is in it for himself and his family and friends. Rant over.

I was just thinking about how things that made sense a decade or two ago, and still do in my mind, are now wildly out of sync with Trump era bloodthirsty partisanship. Schwarzenegger championed the jungle primary. And it won on the ballot in 2010 with 53 % of the vote. Both political parties opposed it. The idea made sense if you view politics the way leaders like Arnie - who I deeply admire - did. Moderation is good. Compromise is good. Bipartisanship is good. So I think the idea was that instead of having highly partisan primaries where the most extreme elements of both parties nominate very partisan people, the jungle primary elects people who move to the middle. This all belongs in a world where we don't have partisan gerrymandering. It belongs in a world where Maine elects moderate Republicans, and North Dakota elects moderate Democrats. There was just an article in Politico about how former Massachusetts Guv Mitt Romney hosted a political fundraiser in Utah for Susan Collins. And how they are part of a dying breed of Senators of both parties who tend to want to meet in the middle. The article pointed out how most of these Senators retired or were voted out. Republican Cassidy is a doomed man, probably. So is Susan Collins, maybe. All those Indiana Republicans who pushed back against Trump on gerrymandering just lost. Times have changed. What is clearly very popular today is balls to the wall partisanship. And I'm there. I was part of the 53 % that was for "meet in the middle" primaries in 2010. And this year I was part of the much bigger majority that basically said, "Fuck that shit. Trump is an animal. And we'll fight the son of a bitch every way we can." Barely related thought. At some point I decided it may have been better for America and the world if Mitt Romney won in 2012. It would have been sad at the time. Particularly because Obama was our first African American leader. Several Black intellectuals wrote at the time that America was less racist for not only having elected Obama, but also for having re-elected him - warts and all. That said, we paid a price, as we always we do in politics when we get what we want. The GOP clearly said "fuck that shit" about Romney-style bipartisanship. No more Mr. Nice Guy. They found the most partisan asshole they could find: Donald Trump, aka King Graft. He thrives at divide and conquer. Especially if he can lie, rape, and steal. I think the better angels lost. I was most active in politics in my 20's and 30's. And despite being a liberal Democrat who worked on and won some very progressive things that no one thought we could win, it worked precisely because there were Republicans who would compromise. I miss that world.

I guess you really liked my song. Wanna hear it again? JD Vance JD Vance Every morning you greet me Sycophant Yes man brand I don't want you to lead me. Hillbilly lies told so he can rise He thinks he's so clever. JD Vance JD Vance Hope you will lead me never. Problem is if we could get rid of Trump, we'd have the hillbilly sycophant instead. I suppose if there were some barbarian country that had a policy of assassinating all the leaders of another country, that would solve the problem. And maybe kill some women and children, too. Anyone close to The Genocide Jew? Even Gay hating Iranian theocrats won't pull that kind of shit. But The Genocide Jew will.

There's a word for that: democracy. It's frustrating as hell for me. But I know plenty of people who felt the same way when Obama, or Biden, was POTUS. The difference is that, as you state, especially Trump 2.0 is Graft, Incorporated. That's why that Lincoln Project ad worked so well. The 2024 ad should have been, "Kamala is for us/them. I'm for me." The Trump-appointed SCOTUS just helped and made it a little easier for Team Trump to ignore the voters they don't care about. Meaning Black voters. I send money every month to a list of Dems who might win Senate seats. But Republicans are obviously doing everything they can to use their minority status and power to hold on to the House. Finally, it helps that Trump learned from Roy Cohn. He does what every great American POTUS should do: try to relentlessly ignore and break the law, and then lie and somehow get away with it. Speaking of legacy, how many people love the legacy of Roy Cohn? Trump will forever be the twice failed POTUS many Americans despise for being a raping lying narcissistic piece of shit, who a majority of Americans never voted for. And are disgusted with. Some legacy. Piece of shit! Piece of shir! Piece of shit! I think what Democrats can do is simply try to not fuck up and be ready to replace the steaming greedy raping pile of shit when 50.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % of Americans wake up to the fact that the failing raping piece of shit is destroying us. And the world, it appears. We need a competent clean up crew who actually cares about America and the world. Not just as something they want to own and rule. In the meantime, less than 50 % of voting Americans delivered the steaming pile of shit. Some of whom are family members I love. I'm sure people around the world feel the same way, who probably also have family members and friends in the US that are frustrated. So we are stuck with it. Unless Iran returns the kindnesses and takes out The Genocide Jew and King Graft. Although since what The Genocide Jew and King Graft excel at is killing Palestinian and Iranian girls, and then lying about it, maybe Iran will avoid the kind of kindness The Genocide Jew and King Graft have manifested. May they burn in hell forever.

The Lincoln Project always has the best ads. But the sad part about "Had Enough" is they ran great ads in 2020 and 2024. You would think the answer to "Had Enough" would have been sufficient to keep Trump out in 2024. Oh well. Inflation helped him in 2024, and now it will kill him.

I'm underwhelmed. I agree with what my Beloved Sister In Cock says about Katie Porter. I have always been a fan of hers. That said, she does have issues. And the biggest one is that, at this point, she is essentially a spoiler. If it were not a jungle primary I would probably vote for her anyway. But I'd rather vote for someone who looks like they can get into what will likely be a two man race. And that seems to be Becerra or Steyer against Hilton. Becerra has long been off my radar. Politico just made him sound incompetent. Oops! I don't really know what to make of that. It seems like, unlike our MAGA friends, Democrats are looking for a Joe Biden mainstream type who can just get the job done. And who doesn't require rolling the dice. But this seems like it requires rolling the dice. So it is probably Steyer for me. Although I don't like the billionaire thing, either. Agreed! Oregon thanks California, though. Enron did buy Portland General Electric in the late 90's. And they did try to use that as a springboard for another scammy dereg effort. I spent three years of my life building two statewide coalitions of leftie and environmental groups. And the state law we spent several years winning was one of the biggest organizing victories of my life. We stopped deregulation and created permanent state rate bases for renewables and low-income energy assistance. It was one of the nice things about Oregon when its progressive heyday was just starting. Enron (and dereg) did not go into the shitter until 2000. But by 1999 you could smell the stench. It was easy to fight Texas fat cats in Oregon. The other piece of good news is we get Gavin Newsom as a competent and popular ex-Guv who may prove to be a good and electable Presidential candidate. We'll see.

So ................. basically you are arguing that America is a backward self destructive Trumpian shit hole ????? How rude! I'd never say such a thing about Canada! 😉

So this is a morbid post. But if Dana Bash wants to talk about political violence, great. We should be talking about that, and how despicable it is. Number of Donald Trumps killed: Zero Jews killed by Hamas on Oct. 7: 1200, almost all civilians Number of Palestinians killed in Gaza War: 72,000, or about 4 % of the Gaza Palestinian population, about half of whom were women and children Number of Jews killed in World War Two: 6 million, about two thirds of Europe's Jewish population and one-third of the global Jewish population Number of Americans killed in Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor: 2500. About 400,000 Americans died in World War II, almost all military. Number of Japanese killed in US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 250,000, using high estimates. 2.5 million to 3 million Japanese died during World War Two, about 2 million of whom were military, reducing Japan's population by about 3 % by war's end. Number of Russians killed during World War II: 27 million, the vast majority of whom were civilians. Over 10 % of the population died, reducing it from 197 million to 170 million. Number of Iranians Trump threatened to kill: 93 million, 100 % of the population of a civilization he threatened to end. War is hell. It's debatable whether killing 4 % of Gaza's population is genocide. John Mearsheimer calls it ethnic cleansing. It is insulting that many Jews, and the defenders of these policies, repeat the tired lie that Israel bends over backwards to not harm innocent Palestinians. In my mind that's as true as saying Hamas tried hard not to kill Jewish civilians. What Donald Trump has threatened to do wins the prize for the worst genocidal act ever threatened. I am sure he is not the first leader to make such a threat. But he is for sure the first US President with nukes to do so. He literally threatened to do something even Hitler didn't do. What a fucking monster. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for him? Ha ha ha.

I say give him his gilded bunker and let Patriot Pete and gross old Larry Kudlow suck his cock all day. Kudlow is on Fox publicly calling for America to bomb the shit out of Iran so that it leads to mass starvation. So then they revolt against the "despicable" leaders starving them. What an immoral despicable piece of shit. Let's starve the Iranians we are trying to help so that unarmed starving people revolt against theocrats with guns while bombs are dropping on them. Brilliant! Is this piece of shit more evil than he is stupid? Or more stupid than he is evil? Put him in the fucking gilded bunker with Trump and let them think they are all beloved geniuses. Yes, they all deserve to be assassinated. Yes, The Genocide Jew and our genocidal POTUS are literally asking for that by embracing the idea of assassinating leaders and ending civilizations they don't like. Trump is saying this guy who wanted to assassinate him is "anti-Christian." How about the idea of ending a civilization? Is that maybe a bit anti-Christian? Maybe we should consult with the Pope. If American Jew Dana Bash wants to hold people accountable for murderous and genocidal rhetoric and actions, why isn't she setting her hair on fire about the Genocide Jew? Am I anti-Semitic for agreeing with the growing number of Jewish Israeli organizations saying the Genocide Jew has a policy of genocide that keeps getting him elected in a democratic country? Am I anti-American for saying Trump is a genocidal monster and complete fucking narcissistic moron who started a war most Americans did not ask for and don't want that is making America look like shit? And rising the price of gas and food? While we call for the mass starvation of people we want to help? Give him his fucking ballroom What a horrible piece of shit. My hope is that if the worst part of the American psyche is exposed all over the world for years, maybe the people who voted for this shit and now are having their noses rubbed in the shit they unleashed will learn enough not to do it again. At least not during our lifetimes.