Biden Can't Win; He Can Only Count On Trump Losing, Which Appears Likely

My friend Dorothy Reik was recently elected to the L.A. County Democratic Party Central Committee. She received more votes than anyone else who has ever run for that position. Ever! Yesterday, Reik wrote to subscribers of her influential daily update list that "Bernie was on Chris Hayes last night and Velshi this morning. He also hosts town halls on line. Where is Biden??? The sad truth is that the Democratic establishment was not worried that Bernie would lose-- their biggest fear was that he would WIN!"

The Democratic Party is operating on a theory that anyone can beat Trump because no matter how much he spends and no matter what tactics he uses, the election will be a referendum on him and a pile of dogshit will beat him. So the Democratic establishment has chosen a pile of dogshit to run-- and if the pile of dogshit becomes too untenable, they have several more piles in the wings and ready to go. Anyone but Bernie (or Elizabeth).

Even senior citizens-- the mainstay, along with the evangelicals, of the Republican coalition-- are abandoning Trump because of his horrific response to the pandemic. "For years," wrote a NY Times team pf reporters, "Republicans and Mr. Trump have relied on older Americans, the United States’ largest voting bloc, to offset Democrats’ advantage with younger voters. But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, and the Trump campaign’s internal polls show his support among voters over age 65 softening to a concerning degree, people familiar with the numbers said. A recent Morning Consult poll found that Mr. Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters." In several polls ole Status Quo Joe holds a 10-point advantage among voters who are 65 and older. Meanwhile, Señor Trumpanzee has basically moved on from anything but pretending to focus on controlling the pandemic to pushing an "agenda to restore the country to a place that will lift his campaign," no matter how many (old) people die in the process.

This week the U.S. will clock in with a million and a half infections and come close to the 100,000 deaths mark, about a quarter of whom are residents of nursing homes.

Trump is shedding supporters from elderly voters but Biden isn't exactly setting the younger electorate on fire with enthusiasm. Reporting for NBC News on the results of a focus group by Global Strategy Group on behalf of NextGen America, Sahil Kapur wrote last week that Biden is in no danger of losing young voters to Trump. "But he faces a lack of enthusiasm among Millennials and Gen Z voters with the potential to decide his fate if they stay home or vote for a third-party candidate. Many of these voters preferred Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and perceive Biden as a blank slate. They aren’t sure that he’s a change agent or that his policies match the scale of their problems. Some worry about his age and fitness. Most seem open to supporting Biden to stop Trump but need to hear more from him... But the election is six months away and if the new focus groups are any indication, Biden is still ill-defined for many young voters. 'Biden is unknown,' the Global Strategy Group study concluded. 'He became the nominee in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. Like many other voters, these ones are still getting to know Joe.'"

On Friday, Billboard reported that so far musicians who backed Bernie are sitting out the Biden campaign. Bernie's high-profile musician supporters who actively campaigned for him included Ariana Grande, Jack White, Neil Young, Cardi B, the Strokes, Halsey, Snoop Dogg, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Public Enemy, Roger Waters, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Sonic Youth, Norah Jones, Jello Biafra, Pussy Riot, the Wonder Years, Sacred Reich, Ani DiFranco, Michael Stipe, Ozomatli, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Billy Bragg, and Killer Mike. These artists and their fans aren't Democrats. As far as their politics go, they are looking for agents of change-- like Bernie-- not partisan hacks-- like Biden. Billboard reached out to nearly 20 high-profile Sanders backers in the music world asking to talk about whether they'd shift support to Biden and received quick declines or no response.

Generally speaking, artists lean progressive, and many say they can't stomach the thought of a centrist, especially one with #MeToo issues, in the Oval Office. Strange Ranger, a Philadelphia indie-rock band, released a 20-track, multi-artist compilation to raise money for Sanders' campaign in January and plan a follow-up, but will change the beneficiary to the social-justice group Groundswell Fund rather than the presumptive Democratic nominee. Drummer Nathan Tucker and singer Isaac Eiger don't plan to campaign or fundraise for Biden and will support progressive down-ballot candidates instead. "I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Biden, but I'm not inspired by Joe Biden," Eiger says. "I don't know who is."

"People are always saying to pick the lesser of two evils, or whatever, but it's pretty disappointing to have to choose evil at all," adds Linnea Siggelkow, the Canadian pop singer and Sanders supporter who goes by Ellis. "So I have my hands up at this point."

In 2016, when Hillary Clinton defeated Sanders for the presidential nomination, artists handled these conflicts in different ways. Sanders backer Miley Cyrus became an enthusiastic Clinton supporter, while Killer Mike said supporting Trump or Clinton came down to "voting for the same thing." Cardi B took the Cyrus road after Sanders dropped out this year: “I’m just gonna go with Joe Biden because I cannot see the next step of America being ran by number 45,” she said.

"It's just a no-brainer," adds Melissa Etheridge, who backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren but appeared at a virtual fundraiser for Biden in April. "We can bring on change. It'll just be a little slower with Biden, but at least it will be leadership, for heaven's sakes." Actor-singer Billy Porter is more blunt: "Biden is my candidate because there is no other candidate, period," he says. "We must play the game we're in, and the game we're in is there's a monster in the White House who needs to get out and every one of his cronies needs to get out. Period. Y'all took your toys and went home when Bernie wasn't the candidate last time and that's why we lost. Line up and fix it!"

Complicating artists' 2020 political plans, whether they support Biden or down-ballot candidates or causes, is an inability to hold large public rallies due to COVID-19 lockdowns. It's unlikely, for example, that Bruce Springsteen will draw 11th-hour supporters in Pennsylvania or Beyoncé and Jay-Z will fill stadiums in Ohio in November. How will they adapt? By moving online, of course.

..."Online efforts are extremely scalable," says Carolyn DeWitt, president of Rock the Vote, which is known for its festival voter-registration efforts but has pivoted to lower-overhead virtual organizing over the years. "Setting up a table at a concert, you are bound to get a handful of individuals to register to vote. Online, you can use influencers to reach millions."

That's not to say voter registration is pandemic-proof. When concerts shut down March 12, PLUS1, which supports nonprofits and social-justice groups and focuses in part on voter registration, lost nearly $2 million in 1.7 million of canceled ticket sales; the group quickly launched a COVID-19 relief fund that has raised $250,000 for artists, venues and other music entities. "Financially, right now, we haven't reserved any of that for our partner organizations that do voter registration," says Marika Shaw, the group's founder and CEO. "And it sucks."

But even without Sanders in the race and large rallies questionable for the rest of this year, artist-focused political groups remain confident they can boost voter education through online efforts. "There's a part of me that's skeptical, but the other half is, 'Instead of being at this show and having to text this number with a beer in your hand, you'll go to this website and fill in this form,'" adds Kyle Frenette, former manager of Sanders supporter Bon Iver, who founded a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote group called 46 for 46. "The results could be surprising. People are at home and looking for things to watch. It's not limited to that time and place."

Recently former Onion editor, Joe Garden, put together a piece for Vice: Area Man Regrets Helping Turn Joe Biden Into a Meme "If you’ve ever thought of Joe Biden as a clueless but lovable clod, a well-meaning klutz who is predictable, friendly, and ultimately electable," wrote Garden, "I am in small part responsible for that image. And I’m sorry. I worked at The Onion for 19 years as a writer and features editor. By the time I left in 2012, the publication had developed its take on Vice President Biden: 'creepy but harmless,' with the emphasis on 'harmless.' We lampooned him as an uncle you’d shake your head at but not think twice about-- the sort of guy who’d wink and say, 'Don’t let your meat loaf!' as a farewell. For many people, the image of Biden that most readily springs to mind is the one of Diamond Joe, shirtless and grinning, washing his Trans Am in the White House driveway."

Garden thought of Biden as "little more than a political necessity: the older, more conservative white guy who softened Barack Obama’s image in regions where the prospect of a black president was too radical. A deeper dive on Biden never felt necessary." He's changed his mind and wrote that he now realizes "how badly we screwed up. Instead of viciously skewering a public figure who deserved scrutiny, we let him off easy. The joke was funny, but it didn’t hit hard enough."

I’ve since changed my mind. Today, Biden is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, despite women calling him out for touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable at public events, and despite objections from the left wing of the party. He has said he has “no empathy” for the problems millennials are experiencing and claimed that Republicans will embrace bipartisanship after Trump is defeated.

...To be clear, Biden won’t wind up in the same layer of hell as Trump, and I don’t believe The Onion’s Biden is solely responsible for this early popularity of real-life Biden. We were just one small link in a chain of institutions that didn’t scrutinize Biden closely enough. I wish we had looked more at his actual career in politics-- which includes opposition to busing as a way to integrate schools and support for predatory financial institutions-- and tried to really puncture him, rather than just turning him into a clown. We helped make him more likable by inventing a version of Biden that never existed.

I still think those Onion articles are funny. The Onion’s approach to covering public figures was to establish consistent, world-building takes that rewarded the reader, and our Biden was an endlessly refillable character with good visuals, one that made us laugh. It still makes me laugh.

But I’m afraid it didn’t go deep enough. His aforementioned handsiness may not be ultimately disqualifying, but his failure to honestly understand why it would be upsetting (he’s joked about it in public) certainly should be. And his insistence that we can rectify our current political discord with some good old-fashioned bipartisan dealmaking seems hopelessly out of touch and ignores all the times Democrats reached their hands across the aisle, only to be met with open flame from the right.

Satire isn’t dead, and it shouldn’t be cast aside. It will always have a place in the social order, and that is to tell the truth by constructing a fiction, to amplify society’s negative traits to a comical extent so you can see the ugliness that’s always been there.

On that score, The Onion’s Biden stories didn’t measure up. We knew through inside sources that at the time people in the White House loved those pieces, and that should have been a red flag. As a guideline, if the people you’re satirizing aren’t mad, then you should dig deeper. I hope that my alma mater, and everyone else in comedy, follows this rule now that Diamond Joe is back.

ClimateBrad observed yesterday that the Biden campaign likes the approach The Onion took on their pile of dogshit so much, that they're using that version to try to win over the electorate! Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan wrote that "While the Trump campaign online has embraced a macho and combative approach-- 'This account punches back 10x harder,' runs the motto of one campaign Twitter account-- the Biden team has been seeking to develop a more uplifting identity online, embracing the candidate's life story and making light of his love of ice cream and aviator sunglasses. 'Trump's angles on social media are always dark, and they are always mean-spirited,' said Ben Cobley, a Biden digital organizer. He said Biden wanted to build a community around the more positive side of social media, populated by inspiring memes and cat videos. 'We want to lean into that side of the Internet because that side also plays very well.'" They might want to try to figure out why Democratic enthusiasm for their candidate is lagging so badly.

Pathology, Khashoggi, Capitalism & Climate Change

The sons and daughters of the uber-rich

by Gaius Publius

Capitalism is an economic system that encourages people to act from the most pathological individual motives and promises the best social outcome.

Noam Chomsky said that our current ideology is producing a nation, a world, of psychopaths. From an interview with Rob Kall:

R.K.: Okay, so you have written and I am going to quote you here,

“if you care about other people that’s now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people you might try to organize or to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school or afford food to eat or things like that. In the United States that’s called libertarian for some wild reason. I mean it’s actually highly authoritarian but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public.”

Now, since we last spoke I have been doing a series of articles on psychopathy, psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists and it sure sounds like you’re describing them when you describe people who don’t care.

N.C.: Well there is a huge propaganda effort that we are all aware of to try to turn people into psychopaths who don’t care about anyone but themselves. That’s not new actually. They go back a hundred and fifty years, the early days of industrialization in the United States. Working people were bitterly condemning the industrial system that was being imposed, the way it was taking away their freedom, and one of the things they condemned is what they called the new spirit of the age– ‘Gain wealth forgetting all but self,’– Exactly what you’re describing. That’s a hundred and fifty years ago and ever since then there have been enormous efforts to drive these sociopathic attitudes into people’s heads. [emphasis added]

About this, Chris Hedges adds from his personal experience:

At the age of 10 I was sent as a scholarship student to a boarding school for the uber-rich in Massachusetts. I lived among the wealthiest Americans for the next eight years. I listened to their prejudices and saw their cloying sense of entitlement. They insisted they were privileged and wealthy because they were smarter and more talented. They had a sneering disdain for those ranked below them in material and social status, even the merely rich. Most of the uber-rich lacked the capacity for empathy and compassion. They formed elite cliques that hazed, bullied and taunted any nonconformist who defied or did not fit into their self-adulatory universe.

It was impossible to build a friendship with most of the sons of the uber-rich. Friendship for them was defined by “what’s in it for me?” They were surrounded from the moment they came out of the womb by people catering to their desires and needs. They were incapable of reaching out to others in distress—whatever petty whim or problem they had at the moment dominated their universe and took precedence over the suffering of others, even those within their own families. They knew only how to take. They could not give. They were deformed and deeply unhappy people in the grip of an unquenchable narcissism.

I would take statements like that last one literally. We're ruled by people "deformed and in the grip of an unquenchable narcissism." Note: This isn't just Trump he's talking about.

Corporations As Force-Extenders for the Pathology of the Rich

Hedges' observation certainly explains why executives at the Ford Motor Company would use a cost-benefit analysis to decide how much safety to put into the Ford Pinto, a car prone to explode from a simple rear-end collision. As one law student at Wake Forest University bloodlessly put it, "Should a risk/benefit analysis be used in situations where a defect in design or manufacturing could lead to death or seriously bodily harm, such as in the Ford Pinto situation?"

That cost-benefit analysis goes like this: Which is more expensive, to settle lawsuits resulting from death claims, or to upgrade the product so fewer people are killed? Human executives at Ford weighed the options and chose to settle the death claims instead.

See what I mean? Psychopaths.

Hedges generalizes the situation this way: "It is essential to understand the pathologies of the uber-rich. They have seized total political power." He goes on to characterize rule by the super-rich as observed by such varied writers as Aristotle, Sheldon Wolin and C. Wright Mills. "Once the uber-rich take over, Aristotle writes, the only options are tyranny and revolution. They do not know how to nurture or build. They know only how to feed their bottomless greed."

Keep "tyranny or revolution" in mind; we'll come back to it.

In today's world the wealth-producing engine of the super-rich is corporate capitalism. As I wrote some years ago, big corporations loot the wealth of the world so their true owners, the CEO class, can loot their corporations and buy anything else on earth they want or need. When only the rich have money, the whole of the rest of the world is always for sale.

Now that the super-rich have bought the U.S. political system, the last piece, their last lock on power, is in place. Tyranny or rebellion: if the political system can't be recaptured in an orderly, electoral way, nothing but withdrawal of the "consent of the governed" can change course we're on.

The Ubiquity of Assassination

Which leaves us where? Not in a good place. For another example of rule by psychopaths, consider the Khashoggi murder, but from a different perspective:

Tech executives withdrew in scores from a high-profile Saudi investment summit amid the uproar over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — but top Silicon Valley companies show no signs they plan to unwind their lucrative business ties with the country.

The oil-rich kingdom, with its long history of human rights violations, is the single largest funding source for U.S. startups — and a financial pipeline for companies like Uber, Twitter and Tesla.

It's not just the Trumps of the world that live by death. Our liberal gods as well are steeped in blood (including the blood of cheered-on, murderous intent). The pathological desire to murder to gain wealth, to kill to retain power, is everywhere we look. To quote an old commercial, we're soaking in it.

The Pathology of the Climate "Debate"

Which brings us round at last to the climate catastrophe we're about to face, the single greatest world-historical issue in the world. As Dave Roberts pointed out here, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation are not the same, either morally or in their results.

Mitigation is a collective and widespread effort by a society to lessen climate damage by collectively addressing the causes. Where will the money come from? The society as a whole.

Adaptation, on the other hand, is intensely local: What one town or state will need to adapt to climate disasters will be different, and differently expensive, than what another town or state will need. Where will the money come from? That too will be local.

A program of mitigation is collective and deeply moral; also deeply effective, to the extent that good choices are made, since the force of the tsunami itself, as it were, is lessened. A program of adaptation-only, however, is a program of abandonment, a program of "each to his own and look out below." 

Needless to say, we're on the path of adaptation only, of not really acting until disaster is at the door, and have been for decades. And when the moment occurs when the waters do rise, the super-rich will only protect themselves, the poor being left to fend as best they can. "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?" said the CEO of Home Depot about anyone not like him. You can see this attitude as well in the discussions they have amongst only themselves.

Rule by psychopaths takes us to this place. So long as we're frozen to inaction on our twin disasters, climate and wealth, this is what waits for us. We're ruled by these people until we choose not to be, or events overtake us all.

Exxon On the IPCC Report

But let's not close on that somber note. Let's close instead with a humorous quote, with Exxon's response to the latest IPCC report:

ExxonMobil CEO Depressed After Realizing Earth Could End Before They Finish Extracting All The Oil

..."Just think, one day soon, we’ll all be gone and that oil will still be there in the Earth, never to be removed, [said CEO Darren Woods]. It’s a travesty.” At press time, Woods announced ExxonMobil’s plans to quadruple its oil production in an effort to extract it all from the Earth while there was still time.

Ok, that was the Onion, but they're never really wrong, are they?

GP
 

Is It Time For Campaign Organizations to Fire Their Candidates?

-by Noah

Imagine a world where a campaign organization had so much power over its candidate that they could replace that candidate at will. Think about it. So many political candidates are such empty vessels, and so devoid of any real intellect or personality, let alone moral compass, that they are really nothing more than a creation of campaign script writers. What lengths would a campaign go to in such a world where a candidate is so inept that a churlish, bullying 4th grader like Donald Trump was beating that candidate like the proverbial rented mule.

Given the general attitude of Republicans everywhere, I can be sure that Canada’s Rafael “Ted” Cruz and Florida’s Marco Rubio are extremely jealous that Herr Trumpf has garnered the endorsements Chris “Jabba the Hutt” Christie, Maine’s wacko teabagger racist governor Paul LePage, and, most importantly and tellingly, the enthusiastic endorsement of seemingly every cross-burning White Supremacy organization known to human kind. It’s the Republican dream and Trumpf is living it!

“Jeb” Bush, who fired himself, is probably now sitting at home drinking, wondering “Why not me? Didn’t I prevent thousands of African-Americans from voting for Al Gore and against my brother back in 2000? I was a racist bigot before that Trump guy even did his first comb-over! I was a racist bigot before Marco Boobio was even born! I was probably a full-blown racist a-hole before “Ted” even thought of leaving Canada! WTF! WTF!”

I’m just as sure that this lack of ability to procure the endorsements of such an A-list of creeps and worse is a primary cause in “Ted” firing his chief spokesman, Rick Tyler, last week, not long after “Jeb” dragged his sorry tail back to Florida or whatever other hellhole he calls home these days.

But, leave it to Marco Boobio, the original Dan Quayle, to be able to play the ultimate campaign victim card. In a first, Marco has been replaced, by his own campaign organization! At least that’s what The Onion is telling us, and, since fellow made up news organization, FOX “News” has reported Onion stories as fact before, who are we to think the Onion’s claim might even be true in the real world and not just something that FOX viewers might believe?

In any event, the idea that a campaign organization could be so upset with the failings of its miserable cretin of a candidate that that campaign would replace their candidate is an idea whose time has definitely come. If we’d had this wonderful concept back in 2008, Sarah Palin would have been gone five minutes after her infamous Katie Couric interview, never to be seen again. Why fire the campaign spokescretin like Cruz did, when a campaign can just fire the candidate! Genius! Here’s hoping it’s the wave of the future, if there is a future.

MIAMI—In what political observers characterized as the organization’s highest-level staff shakeup to date, the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio announced Monday it would be bringing on a new candidate for the remainder of the 2016 election.

Top members of the Rubio camp, speaking at a morning press conference at their Florida headquarters, assured reporters that the organization’s split with its former candidate was an amicable one, but noted that the team’s senior leadership had concluded a new direction was necessary to ensure the campaign’s future success.

“Everyone at Rubio ’16 is very grateful for Marco’s hard work these past 10 months, but we think someone with a fresh, new approach will give us the best shot at winning the Republican nomination and taking the White House in November,” said campaign manager Terry Sullivan, adding that while Rubio would no longer be a part of the campaign going forward, the rest of the organization would remain in place, exactly as is. “This campaign is a well-oiled machine with a terrific network of volunteers and staffers across the country, and with a little bit of new energy in a key position, we’re confident our message will appeal to all Americans.”

...Although Sullivan declined to provide additional details about the campaign’s decision to split with the candidate, unnamed sources from within the Rubio camp reported that tensions between Rubio and senior officials dissatisfied with his job performance had been building for months. Campaign insiders additionally confided that many within the organization believed from the beginning that the relatively young newcomer to national politics was never a good fit for the high-pressure environment of a top-level post in a presidential campaign.

Several sources with knowledge of the situation stated that staffers had initially considered simply relegating the candidate to a lesser role within the organization. However, advisors were reportedly convinced that a clean break was the only way forward, because Rubio—who had been entrusted with such a prominent role in the campaign due, in part, to beliefs that he could help expand the campaign’s reach to a younger and more diverse audience—had failed to make any significant inroads with millennial voters.

“It’s been obvious that something like this was in the works for a while now, but after failing to win any of the early primary states, I think the campaign realized they couldn’t put it off any longer,” said conservative columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez, adding that allegations of incompetence were also reportedly leveled by certain staff members and likely played a role in the split. “Bringing on a new candidate gives them a chance to find someone who really grasps the message that Rubio ’16 is trying to communicate to voters. Sure, it’s risky to change up at this point, but what other choice do they have?”

Added Lopez, “I’m sure right now the Rubio campaign is just wishing they’d listened to all the people who said they should’ve gone with someone more experienced from the beginning.”

CHRISTMAS IN REPUBLICAN WORLD: It’s Republican World, 2015 In Review-- Chapter Seven

- By Noah

In Republican World, not only does Santa have to be white, but there’s a whole War On Christmas itself! How do we know? FOX, Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, “Ted” Cruz, and any number of other Republican charlatans and crazies tell us so.

In the real world, the imagined “War On Christmas” is just yet another example of how Republicans play their victim cards and caress them to their chests like pictures of Ronald Reagan.

I congratulate The Onion for the following Pulitzer-worthy reporting from Republican World. Their depiction of the horrible abuse facing Christians who live in Republican World is heart-rending. Knowing FOX’s penchant for treating articles from The Onion as real, I expect that FOX & Friends will be telling this story in the glow of yule logs for years to come.

The gathered Christians listen to Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Carol Of The Bells at low volume for fear that someone on the surface might hear

Nation’s Oppressed Christians Huddle Underground To Light Single Shriveled Christmas Shrub

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION— Persecuted and driven into hiding because of their beliefs, the nation’s oppressed Christians reportedly huddled in a secret underground bunker late Wednesday night to decorate and light a single withered Christmas shrub.

At great personal risk, the Christians were said to have smuggled in a few strings of colored mini lights, tinsel, popcorn garlands, Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, and other contraband in order to trim the shrub inside the subterranean chamber, the last place in America where they were safe to celebrate Christmas.

"We have come together today to observe a Christian holiday that has been all but stamped out on the surface," said a man who wished to be identified only as "Greg," after hanging a figurine of Mickey Mouse dressed as Santa Claus from one of the shrub’s boughs. "I can’t say this humble bush is much of a Christmas tree, but it was the largest we could manage to get here, given the circumstances. Let us remember, though, that to merely celebrate Christmas-- to exchange gifts and eat our candy canes in peace-- without the government or the powerful secular elite coming in and destroying it is a blessing in itself."

"They want to bring an end to our holiest day," he added, as several others erected a 3-foot-tall light-up Grinch and plastic signpost bearing the words "Santa Stop Here" behind him. "It is up to us to keep Christmas alive."

After double-checking on the chamber’s entrance hatch to ensure it was tightly closed and locked, Greg then reportedly led the gathered Christians in hushed renditions of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" as the shrub was lit.

Those in attendance, many of whom had trekked hundreds or even thousands of miles, spoke of the great sacrifices they had made solely so that they could look upon an actual Christmas tree with their own eyes. A number of the Christians recounted how they had secretly carried a brightly painted plastic nativity scene and an inflatable 7-foot-tall snowman to the secret site, the latter item having been trafficked across three states in a truck with a false bottom. Others mentioned how they had sewed a few star- and wreath-shaped sugar cookies into the linings of their coats to avoid detection by the masses who sought to erase their holiday-- and ultimately, their entire faith-- from American life.

Reports confirmed that many who had arrived in the hidden underground sanctuary immediately broke down in tears upon being greeted with the forbidden words "Merry Christmas," a phrase none had heard spoken openly in years for fear of harsh reprisals.

"It was difficult and dangerous to get here, but it’s all worth it to actually be able to celebrate the birth of Jesus," said a 42-year-old teacher from Virginia who refused to give her name as she helped flock the shrub with a spray can of fake snow and arranged gifts of Yankee Candles and Amazon gift cards underneath its meager branches. "Unfortunately, this is the only way we can practice our beliefs now that corporations, the media, and our elected leaders have all conspired to remove every trace of Christmas from the country."

"I just want to make sure my kids know what Christmas is really about," she continued, adjusting the plush reindeer antlers atop her head and switching on her glowing Rudolph nose.

After the Christmas shrub was lit, the Christians were reportedly grateful to partake in other sacred traditions without fear of interference or abuse, such as the reading of the 2005 storybook classic The Elf On The Shelf and the viewing of grainy VHS copies of A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Santa Clause, and other beloved films that had been passed down through the generations.

Sources confirmed that as the evening drew to a close, all of their wrapping paper, Christmas cards, and fabric Santa hats were burned in trash cans to erase any evidence of the shunned celebration. The wary Christians then reportedly removed all incriminating green-and-red items from their persons and dispersed in small groups so as not to attract attention from federal authorities.

"Make sure your little ones destroy their stockings before you leave and empty their pockets of any trinkets or bells-- they mustn’t have anything on them that jingles," one man was overheard saying tearfully to a friend before embracing him and slipping off into the night. "I’ll see you again next December, God willing. Stay safe out there."

Not the Onion, I Swear

Correction: We're not eating money. We're feeding it to the wealthy in exchange for nothing at all. Time to stop? (source)

by Gaius Publius

It's not over yet — in the largest sense — but thinking like this sure moves the climate car closer to the no-return part of the cliff. The governor of Alaska wants to drill more oil to pay for ... wait for it ... the damage caused by climate change.

The BBC (h/t John Irving):

Alaska mulls extra oil drilling to cope with climate change

Expanding the search for oil is necessary to pay for the damage caused by climate change, the Governor of Alaska has told the BBC.

The state is suffering significant climate impacts from rising seas forcing the relocation of remote villages.

Governor Bill Walker says that coping with these changes is hugely expensive.

He wants to "urgently" drill in the protected lands of the Arctic National Wilderness Refuge to fund them.

Alaska has been severely hit by the dramatic drop in the price of oil over the past two years.

The state is the only one in the US that doesn't have an income or sales tax, getting 90% of its day-to-day expenditure from levies on the production of oil and gas.

But the halving in the price of crude over the past year has seen Alaska's financial health deteriorate.

The recent decision by Shell to pull out of drilling in the Chukchi sea off the state's north coast has compounded the problem.

If Shell had found oil, it would have been a major boost for the the huge Trans Alaskan Pipeline that transports oil from the northern production fields to the tanker terminal in Valdez some 1,300km to the south.

Built to carry 2 million barrels a day, it's running at about 25% of its capacity as existing oil field production declines.

While Alaska's income from the oil continues to fall, expenditure on climate related activities is likely to go up. Coastal erosion is threatening a number of native communities in remote areas such as Kivalina....

Does he know he's making no sense? Do the rugged individualist, "stand on your own two feet" voters of Alaska? Did the Onion write this piece?

Thinking like this would have stripped Easter Island of trees years ahead of schedule.

GP

"Police Pleasantly Surprised To Learn Man They Shot Was Armed" (The Onion)

Police Pleasantly Surprised To Learn Man They Shot Was Armed

NEWS IN BRIEF • Local • Crime • Police • Violence •
Issue 50•41 • Oct 14, 2014





LEXINGTON, KY—Following a pedestrian stop Monday night during which they fired their weapons on a suspicious individual, patrol officers for the Fayette County Police Department were pleasantly surprised to discover the man they shot was armed, sources confirmed. “Well, what do you know—he really was carrying a gun,” said officer Dustin Hayes, smiling upon finding a 9mm pistol on the body of the 23-year-old individual shortly after the policeman and his partner discharged their firearms a total of 19 times. “I honestly had no idea if he had a handgun, so it’s pretty great to find one right there tucked into his waistband. This makes the rest of our week a whole lot easier.” Officers said they were further relieved after discovering the man had a petty theft charge on his record, ensuring they were 100 percent off the hook.

by Ken

Is this like a stopped clock being right twice a day? Or perhaps just the law of averages at work?

(Do bear in mind that, notwithstanding the unmistakable ring of plausibility, this "story" comes from The Onion -- aka "America's Finest News Source.")

Er, just kidding, officers. Pretty much.

#

Yo, Chinese Communist Party: They were only KIDDING about Kim Jong-Un being the sexiest man alive

“[Kim Jong-Un] has that rare ability to somehow be completely adorable and completely macho at the same time.”

-- The Onion's "style and entertainment editor,"
Marissa Blake-Zweibel

"No doubt the women of Beijing are swooning. After all, if you squint really, really hard, you might see a slight resemblance [between Kim Jong-Un and] George Clooney — in that they are both sentient humans."

-- WaPo's Al Kamen, in "China takes the Onion's bait"

by Ken

This one definietely comes from our You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.

Anyone who has tried his hand at satire knows there are built-in pitfalls. The most obvious one is that so many real-world human behaviors are so outlandish as to defy exaggeration. The classic example is soap operas, but another whole category is modern-day right-wing pols. How do you satirize already-cartoon-conceived characters like John Boehner and Jim DeMint, or

Or, for that matter presidential candidates of the "stature" of Young Johnny McCranky or Willard Inc.? What was the David Letterman line about Young Johnny -- that he's like the cranky old guy who chases kids off his lawn? Once you've made that connection, how do you take seriously anything that comes out of his mouth? And as for Willard, well, what're you gonna do? Make up stories about how he traveled with the family dog caged on top of the car pooping diarrhea down the sides? (Yes, I'm talking about you, Gail Collins.) Or how the great love of his wife's life is a dancing horse?

A special version of this satirical glitch occurs when the satirist's wild exaggerations turn out to be only too believable. The folks at The Onion run into this problem a lot, and as Al Kamen reports in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column, it's happened once again on an international scale.

China takes the Onion’s bait

by Al Kamen

Looks as though sarcasm is easily lost in translation — or easily ignored. The online version of the People’s Daily, the official organ of China’s Communist Party, lauded a story from the satirical news site that named North Korean dictator Kim Jong Eun 2012’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

Not realizing — or perhaps not caring — that the Onion was being cheeky, the People’s Daily ran a 55-page photo spread to accompany the story, which it quoted thusly: “With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true.”

No doubt the women of Beijing are swooning. After all, if you squint really, really hard, you might see a slight resemblance to George Clooney — in that they are both sentient humans.

It’s not the first time a foreign news outlet has fallen for an Onion spoof. An Iranian news agency this fall reprinted an Onion story about a poll finding that rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Obama. The news site later apologized for getting duped — but insisted that Ahmadinejad could beat Obama in a popularity contest.

Over at The Onion, are they stricken with remorse and issuing desperate apologies? Not at all. Here's the original item with "UPDATE":

Kim Jong-Un Named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive For 2012 [UPDATE]

NOVEMBER 14, 2012 | ISSUE 48•46

The Onion is proud to announce that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, 29, has officially been named the newspaper’s Sexiest Man Alive for the year 2012.

With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.

“He has that rare ability to somehow be completely adorable and completely macho at the same time,” Onion Style and Entertainment editor Marissa Blake-Zweibel said. “And that’s the quality that makes him the sort of man women want, and men want to be. He’s a real hunk with real intensity who also knows how to cut loose and let his hair down.”

Added Blake-Zweibel, “Ri Sol-ju is one lucky lady, that’s for sure!”

With today’s announcement, Kim joins the ranks of The Onion’s prior “Sexiest Man Alive” winners, including:

2011: Bashar al-Assad
2010: Bernie Madoff
2009: Charles and David Koch (co-winners)
2008: Ted Kaczynski
2007: T. Herman Zweibel

The Onion’s commemorative “Sexiest Man Alive” issue will be available on newsstands everywhere this Friday and contains a full 16-page spread on Kim.

UPDATE: For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades.

[Note: I've inserted WaPo's AP link for the People's Daily story. Was it part of the joke on The Onion's part to include a bum link? -- Ed.]

#

Can you tell which clueless git comes from "The Onion," and which from Beckapalooza?

The right-wing looniness has reached the point where

it's almost impossible to tell what's satire and what's

honest-to-gosh reality. The above cartoon by the great

Pat Bagley is . . . well, kind of both at the same time.

"'I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn't want to hear,' Gentries said. 'But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of 'other' to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities.'"

-- imaginary interview subject Scott Gentries

of Salina, KS, in The Onion

by Ken

Fine catch by AlterNet's Joshua Holland. Eerie, creepy, chllling -- but fine.

In a post today, he's got a clip of "Glenn Beckapalooza attendees showing their utter cluelessness on a range of current affairs," in which "a fashionably attired gentleman says, in all seriousness, 'I learned everything I need to know about Islam on 9/11.'"

Did the Onion writer who wrote the following piece, dated Monday, catch this same fellow, or was he riffing on his own? These days satire and real life have merged so well that it's impossible to more than guess.

NEWS
Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims
AUGUST 30, 2010

Gentries made a conscious decision to stop learning anything new about the Muslim faith on May 22, 2005.

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.

Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was "perfectly happy" to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world's second-largest religion.

"I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?"

"And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero," continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. "No, I won't examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people's universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell."

"Even though I am not one of those people," he added.

When told that the proposed "Ground Zero mosque" is actually a community center two blocks north of the site that would include, in addition to a public prayer space, a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant, and athletic facilities, Gentries shook his head and said, "I know all I'm going to let myself know."

Gentries explained that it "didn't take long" to find out as much about the tenets of Islam as he needed to. He said he knew Muslims stoned their women for committing adultery, trained for terrorist attacks at fundamentalist madrassas, and believed in jihad, which Gentries described as the thing they used to justify killing infidels.

"All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts," said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country's armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. "Period."

"If you don't believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka," Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. "Or worse, a rape camp. That's right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps."

Over the past decade, Gentries said he has taken pains to avoid personal interactions or media that might have the potential to compromise his point of view. He told reporters that the closest he had come to confronting a contrary standpoint was tuning in to the first few seconds of an interview with a moderate Muslim cleric before hastily turning off the television.

"I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn't want to hear," Gentries said. "But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of 'other' to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities."

Added Gentries, "That really put things back into perspective."

The head on Joshua's AlterNet piece is: "On Mosque Madness, The Onion’s Satire Is Indistinguishable from Reality." In light of what I was just saying the other day about really talented people like Tom Tomorrow and Digby being able to find humor in utterly appalling reality, I want to stress that the Onion piece is satire.

#