Category: politics

Politician’s election promise actually comes true

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I know. I know! A politician’s election promise coming true. Incredible scenes.

Politicians are known for being somewhat dishonest and duplicitous at the best of times, but when there’s an election coming up, it’s easier just to take everything they say with a large shovel of salt. Especially when they are unlikely to win the election, and therefore don’t have to deliver on the fanciful promises that they made in the run up to the vote.

The recent US election was actually very close (until it wasn’t), with wild pledges and assurances being flung around by everyone concerned.

[An aside: there are numerous examples of people believing election promises (or believing that those election promises didn’t apply to them) on this subreddit. So many heartaches, so much schadenfreude.]

But how about this? One of the surely more outlandish claims from the eventual losing candidate has actually come to pass! She didn’t make an election promise for herself to deliver upon, though. She told us what the other guy was going to do. And the right-leaning press said it was nonsense:

Yeah, I mean, it does seem a bit much.

But then what we think of as reality has been horrifically skewed and rearranged over the last few months.
And yesterday, the orange shitgibbon said this:

He then went on to praise the National Guard for restoring order in LA before they’d even got there:

I love the line “For those keeping track”, because to be fair, a lot of people have understandably given up on that right now.

But then they did get there:

…fulfilling Harris’ election promise.

I know. I know! A politician’s election promise coming true. Incredible scenes.

America continues to America

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Great news this week. The group Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as “an anti-government militia organization” are out to destroy the Doppler radars used to detect and track tornadoes and other weather phenomena, all across America.

You might not think that you know what a Doppler radar looks like, but you’ll probably have seen one. They’re basically the big balls that you might find on a tower near an airport or on the top of a hill like Constantiaberg.

There it is on the left. And on the right is the mast that no-one really knows the height of.

But I digress. Often.

No-one – as far as I am aware – is going after our local ball, though. But in the US, there’s a concerted campaign by the VoP group to destroy all of these facilities to prevent them from being used as “weather weapons”.

“This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,” the email stated, using an acronym for the weather radar network. The group referred to the NEXRAD system towers as ‘weather weapons,’ and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the ‘weapons’”.

Much to the bemusement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But, of course, there’s a serious side to this:

The NEXRAD, or “next generation radar,” network has been in place since the 1990s and detects precipitation in the atmosphere. It can also help pinpoint tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, prompting timely, life-saving warnings. 

This comes just ahead of the (May and June) tornado season, and at a time when – thanks to the Orange Shitgibbon and his Loud Mouth Space Wanker – there are fewer than ever engineers and staff at the National Weather Service to repair any damage that does get done.

And then when people die because there are no tornado warnings because the Doppler radars have been destroyed by right-wing loonies, and there’s no-one left at the NWS to repair them, it’ll all be Joe Biden’s fault.

Obviously.

I want a MAGA hat*

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* Careful now!


After yesterday’s post, that title may come as a surprise to most all of you.

So let me immediately unsurprise you by saying that No. It’s not one of those MAGA hats.

It’s one of these MAGA hats:

(B)eagle-eyed readers will note the Greenland flag on the side of the cap, and yes, this was designed by Greenland activist Aannguaq Reimer-Johansen, who – with the continued bizarre sabre-rattling interest from the US in the mineral-rich, independently-run Danish territory – said:

Sisimiuni innuttaasoqatinnut innersuut: Vancep nuliata tikeraarnera qujangeqqusaarneruvoq. Qungujukkussigit qungujullusiluunniit assileqatigigussigit nunarsuarmi tamat paasitissuasi USA nuannaralugu peqataaffigerusullugulu. Innersuukkusunnarpoq soqutigineqassanngittut, akerliussutsimik takutitserujussuaqqammerpungut tamanna attallungu soqutiginaveersaarniartingit.

Damn straight, Aannguaq.

He’s basically reminding the people of Greenland to stand together as the latest provocative visit from the Second Lady, Usha Vance, and her group of officials to the territory goes ahead:

Vance’s wife’s visit is a charm offensive. If you smile at them or take a selfie with them, you are sending a message to the world that you love the USA and want to be part of it. 

And while this is all about Greenland, how many people worldwide would love a hat like this? Not just to show solidarity with the potentially threatened nation, but also because America Going Away would just be a really great thing to happen. Even more so after the last 10 weeks (and yes, that’s all it has been).

I don’t think that we in SA will be high on the list to get stock of these items. Geography alone puts us behind a lot of other places. But maybe there’s a tribute cap to be made at a local cap embroiderers.

Because I love the sentiment.

I wish I hadn’t…

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To cut a long story slightly shorter: I have been sleeping with the dog.

Not like that. Get out.

But the beagle is very bandaged up and not very mobile. From Wednesday, she’s going to be less bandaged up, but also not very mobile, but that’s another story. Anyway, she’s still trying to navigate the slings and arrows of her current situation, and quite regularly getting herself stuck. Either lying down, sitting down or standing up.

And so, at the moment, I’m spending my nights downstairs on a spare mattress and helping the beagle each time she gets stuck. It happens quite a lot each night.

It’s not been fun, I’ll be honest. My sleep is so disturbed that my smartwatch can’t even detect that it’s happened. Perhaps because it’s not really happening. And so I’ve been grabbing an hour or two’s nap during the day to try and keep myself going.

This morning, I couldn’t do that, because of reasons, and so I sat with the dog and I read the world news.

Dear lord. It’s not pretty out there, is it?

Because of the situation described above, and perhaps because of just a reasonable amount of self-preservation, I haven’t really been keeping too up to date with the situation in the USA. And of course, it’s always difficult to find objective, unbiased views when wanting(?) to learn about these things, because these days, the world is more polarised than a pair of expensive sunglasses.

But it’s easier to make judgements about the rights and wrongs, and about how I feel about what’s going on, when the actual information is coming directly from the goons themselves. In years to come, historians are going to have an absolute field day with all those primary sources.

They really just put it out there, don’t they?

The scary bits for me are twofold. OK, threefold. But the first fold is a fairly obvious one. Still, I guess that it shouldn’t be overlooked.

The fact that the (apparently, potentially) legitimately elected President of the USA is… well… like that.

250 years of democracy and it’s evolved to give us… him? What went wrong?

Obviously, a lot went wrong: there are many, many factors in how this came about, but honestly… what an absolute disaster for the entire world (minus Russia and China, obviously).

Number two – and I use that term with all of its meanings – that they are so open, so brazen, so completely shameless and unabashed about the things that they are doing and the way that they are doing them. Everyone keeps referring to that guy in Germany in the 1930s, and terrifyingly, that’s quite reasonable, but there have been plenty of other examples before and since and none of them have been pleasant, and none of them have worked out well. The thing is that many of those examples weren’t elected: they seized power via non-democratic means and then held on – and on, and on.

This twat won an election (apparently).

And that brings me on to the third fold. His supporters. It’s a cult. It’s just a well-managed cult of frighteningly stupid, easily-led people.
I don’t use the c-word lightly, but if it looks, smells and quacks like a cult… well…

It doesn’t seem to matter how outrageous the claim or the story (or the lie) that is used to justify the action: it’s lapped up like manna from heaven. There is literally not a second given to even contemplate questioning the motive or think critically about the situation.

Orange man good.
Weird – and I mean really weird – billionaire good.

That’s a cult. And it’s running one of the most powerful nations on earth. It’s unbelievable.

Ah Jesus.

I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone in making the somewhat radical statement that I really don’t think that this is going to end well. And it’s going to be f******g miserable while it gets us there, as well.

I read the news today, oh my.

I wish I hadn’t.

Gulf

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Turns out it was called the Gulf of Mexico over 100 years before the USA even existed as an entity.
(Those must have been halcyon days.)

This is from 1650. (No, not ten to five.)

Interestingly, to everyone outside the USA, it will still always be called the Gulf of Mexico.

Like no-one calls Facebook “Meta”, and everyone calls Twitter “that horrific Nazi cesspit”.